On Sept. 23, as with every year since the re-establishment of independence, the Lithuanian national flag was hoisted with a black ribbon on every house in the country. Sept. 23 is the official day for the commemoration of Holocaust victims in Lithuania. The Vilnius ghetto was completely liquidated on that day in 1943. Some 250,000, or 95 percent of all Jews in Lithuania, died in the Holocaust.
"The Litvaks - Lithuania's Jews - did a lot for progress of the Lithuanian state. Ninety-five percent of the community was destroyed during the Holocaust. The Nazi terror, prolonged with Soviet brainwashing, devastated Lithuania's Jewish culture, created over many centuries. But little by little, Jewish culture is returning," Lithuanian Parliamentary Chairman Arturas Paulauskas said.
Alfonsas Eidintas, a former Lithuanian ambassador to the United States and a history professor, spoke about the Litvaks in the first half of 20th century and emphasized participation of Lithuanian collaborators in the Holocaust.
After the invasion of Lithuania in 1940, the Soviets incorporated many local Jews into their repressive structures, which gave "the impression it was a Jewish regime." He emphasized that this was absolutely wrong, because the Soviets deported proportionately more Jews to Siberia than Lithuanians.
Hitler crossed the German-Soviet border on June 22, 1941. On the same day, the Lithuanian underground resistance launched an uprising, which was centered in Kaunas. This insurrection was a reaction to the shock experienced during the Soviet deportations that had largely taken place earlier that month.
The insurgents announced the re-establishment of the Lithuanian state and an interim government. Its aims conflicted with German interests, and the government was dissolved on Aug. 5, 1941.
The Germans sent special commando groups to kill Jews in Kaunas on June 22. Tragically, many participants in the Lithuanian uprising cooperated with the Germans in the killings.
There were from 2,000 to 3,000 Lithuanians in police battalions that were killing Jews, according to an international commission for the evaluation of Nazi and Soviet crimes in Lithuania. This commission consists of American, German, Israeli, Lithuanian and Russian historians.
"Some 130,000 Jews were slaughtered in the summer and fall of 1941. More than half were killed by local collaborators," Eidintas said.
He added that the murderers cut off the beards of rabbis, raped women, and stole Jewish property.
However, during the course of the war Lithuanians risked their lives to save about 3,000 Jews.
"Lithuania's Jewish community, the state of Israel and solid Jewish organizations in Europe and America have never accused the Lithuanian nation of genocide. We reject any thesis about collective guilt," Simonas Alperavicius, chairman of Lithuania's Jewish community, has said.
Avraham Benjamin, Israeli ambassador to the Baltic states, also spoke at the ceremony.
"The slaughter started as soon as the Nazis entered Lithuania and the other countries ceded by the Soviets under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. One of the most remarkable Jewish communities in the world ceased to exist.
"The Jewish people have a long history, and consequently a long memory. The tragedy that befell our people at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators in Lithuania cannot and will not be forgotten," Benjamin said.
But because of the scale of the Holocaust in Lithuania, "it's not surprising that Israelis have a Lithuanian complex," he added.
In a series of events held throughout Lithuania to mark the 60th anniversary of the Holocaust, President Valdas Adamkus gave Life Saving Crosses to 51 people on Sept. 20. Adamkus said that the risk people took six decades ago to save the lives of Jews has today become one of the key spiritual props.
"On this prop we build Lithuania, and the relations between Lithuanians and Jews. Lithuania and the rest of the world have a hope for the future," he said.
Christian Democrat MP Kazys Bobelis also took an award, which he will take back to his friends in America. They could not make it to the ceremony.
Bobelis' father was the military head of Kaunas for a short period in June 1941 as the Lithuanian uprising forced the Soviet army to leave the city. "We can't blame the entire nation for genocide," he said. "Those killers were freaks, but not the whole nation."
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