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“It is shocking that on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a member of the Seimas distorts Holocaust collaborators in Lithuania and shamefully seeks to accuse the Jews of being the culprits,” the ambassador told the US embassy on Twitter. .
V. Rakutis, chairman of the parliamentary commission for the fight for freedom and the historical memory of the state, spoke about the collaboration of Jews with the Nazi and Soviet regimes in a comment 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.
Gabrielius Landsbergis, chairman of the homeland union, Lithuanian Christian Democrats, said he was outraged by this comment and stressed that it did not reflect the position of the party or the government.
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