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In a comment posted on the German embassy’s Facebook account on Wednesday evening, the ambassador also emphasized that Germany’s historic responsibility for the Nazi-led Holocaust remains and will continue into the future.
“It is very shocking that this distortion of common understanding comes from the democratic European Parliament on Holocaust Remembrance Day.” It is completely unacceptable to claim, even with hints, that the victims are to blame for something of their own persecution and murder during the occupation. Nazi German, “said the ambassador.
Mr. Sonn recalled that the Jewish term “Shoah” had a very precise meaning: the mass murder of people not because of what they thought, said or did, but because of who they were, that is, genocide.
“Germany’s historical responsibility for the Holocaust remains, and will continue to be, in the future, including the fight against attempts to pass the blame on to the victims,” he stressed.
The ambassador says he is grateful to Chancellor Gabriel Landsberg for a “quick statement” that makes it clear that the government and his party “will in no way tolerate such shocking distortions in history.”
“On behalf of Germany, today I want to convey my solidarity and mourning to the Lithuanian Jewish community and Litvaks around the world,” he said.
V. Rakutis, chairman of the parliamentary commission for the fight for freedom and the historical memory of the state, spoke about Nazi collaborators and Jewish collaboration with the Nazi and Soviet regimes in a text published on Wednesday.
“But what about those helpers? Who are the people who adopt terrible ideas? Is it the leaders of the Lithuanian nation, like the first volunteer Kazys Škirpa or General Vėtra? Or maybe Antanas Smetona? Despite the great uproar of the past few years, there was no way to prove they organized the Holocaust. No, it is quite different people, often uneducated, who tend to feel important after receiving a rifle in their hands, sometimes severely affected since 1941. Soviet repression, sometimes blindly following orders. They look like stripes. Let’s get to know them, let’s understand why they did it. After all, there was no shortage of Holocaust perpetrators among the Jews themselves, especially in the ghetto’s self-government structures. We need to name these people out loud and try to prevent people like them from happening again. But also to answer the question of what were the opinions of the Jews themselves, what ideas led some Jews to cooperate with the Soviet authorities, to occupy important positions in the repressive Soviet structures. Sometimes understanding causes allows understanding consequences, although it does not justify actions, ”wrote V. Rakutis.
He told BNS that he wanted the text to reveal a broader picture of the Holocaust, that it was not just Germans who were involved in the process, and that he wanted it to happen again. He claimed to have no anti-Semitic provisions.
“I really didn’t want to cause any problems. I don’t really have any anti-Semitic attitude as I get all kinds of such letters right now. I respect this nation very much, ”said a member of the Seimas.
After the German occupation of Lithuania during World War II, the Nazis and local collaborators killed more than 90 percent. of more than 200 thousand. Lithuanian Jews.
Israel has awarded more than 900 Lithuanians the title of righteous nation of the world for saving Jews by risking their lives.
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