LITHUANIA WOOS ISRAEL….BUT PLEASE NO HISTORY
"Even then, however, don't ask what happened to Lithuania’s Jews in the Nazi horror. The way it is couched sometimes, it is as if all the Jews spontaneously and simultaneously walked off in 1941." --------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.haaretz.com/lithuania-woos-israel-in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust-1.318668
Lithuania woos Israel, in the shadow of the Holocaust Official Lithuania is a combination of determined, post-Soviet nation-building, reminiscent of a fledgling state of Israel, and European manners and mannerisms. But it is impossible to pretend the genocide of the Jews never happened here. By Sara Miller The warning came in a phone call from a senior correspondent at Haaretz. It concerned my leaving for Lithuania the next day, invited by a Vilnius government keen for sympathetic press exposure in the Jewish state. "Don't forget," my colleague said, "the Lithuanians, like the Estonians, are trying to whitewash their role in the Holocaust. Just remember that while you are there. They will try to persuade you otherwise, but that's the truth." The summer trip was sponsored by the Lithuanian embassy in Tel Aviv, launching a new front in its "Project Charm Israel." Three journalists from three leading Israeli news outlets were invited on a five-day trip to Vilnius. The message was unashamedly clear: Go, experience and enjoy, and come back and promote Lithuania. But the reality, the dichotomy in the way Lithuania regards Israel and the nations' tragic, shared Jewish heritage, meant that no junket, no matter how well-meaning, could prove that straightforward. At times in Lithuania, the old caveat "don't mention the war" appears to be something of a nationwide policy. The terms, it seems, are these: If the Lithuanians mention the Holocaust, then you can. Even then, however, don't ask what happened to Lithuania’s Jews in the Nazi horror. The way it is couched sometimes, it is as if all the Jews spontaneously and simultaneously walked off in 1941. This is clearly not the case. Official Lithuania is a curious combination of determined, post-Soviet nation-building, reminiscent of a fledgling state of Israel, and European manners and mannerisms. Vilnius has a Duloc-esque feel to it, with Baroque architecture, clean streets and smiling faces. And this is a not an ingathering of nations. This is a country with close to zero immigration or ethnic minorities. For all these efforts, it is impossible to pretend the Holocaust never happened here, or ignore the Jewish history of Vilnius, the hometown of the Vilna Gaon. And to the credit of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, the first day in the city included a tour of the old Jewish quarter, and a day later a visit to Paneriai, the clearing in the woods a few kilometers outside Vilnius where over three years 100,000 people, more than 70,000 of them Jews, were shot dead and their bodies burned. It is impossible to describe how it feels to stand at this site: A tranquil, leafy location where the silent voices of the dead drown out the rustling of the trees and the singing of birds. Call it unresolved and misplaced guilt, call it whitewashing (as my colleague suggested), but there is currently a government approved plan afoot to equate the Nazi genocide with the horrors of the Soviet occupation, which only ended with the fall of the Communist empire. Spearheading the plan is Lithuania’s self-styled senior Jewish politician, Emanuelis Zingeris. Zingeris is the chairman of a Lithuanian body called "the International Commission for the Assessment of Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania," and there are many among Lithuania’s remaining few thousand Jews who apparently view him and his actions with hostility. At the heart of the row is the commission-backed Prague Declaration of June 2008, which seeks to draw a parallel between the Holocaust and the Soviet occupation in Eastern and Central Europe. The document - signed by dozens of leading politicians from across the former Soviet occupied states, including Zingeris, former Czech president Vaclav Havel, two senior Czech parliamentarians and an Estonian MEP - states "that millions of victims of Communism and their families are entitled to enjoy justice, sympathy, understanding and recognition for their sufferings in the same way as the victims of Nazism have been morally and politically recognized." The support by Zingeris – the founder of the impressive Jewish museum in Vilnius - for the declaration has split the Lithuanian Jewish community. "The most problematic right now is the Prague Declaration," Dovid Katz, the creator of a web site on the Holocaust in the Baltic states and the founder the Vilnius Yiddish Institute at Vilnius University, told the Jerusalem Post recently. "Emanuel Zingeris is hated in the Vilnius Jewish community. He is the man who is 'fixing' the Holocaust for the Lithuanians in exchange for political gain. He is betraying the memory of the 200,000 Lithuanian Jews killed during World War II." Lithuanian Ambassador to Israel Darius Degutis reacts angrily to claims that his country is attempting to absolve itself of any culpability for actions during the Holocaust, or neglecting this chapter in its history. "It is absolutely wrong and an unacceptable 'propaganda' attempt by a small group of people to interpret the mutual efforts of the Lithuanian and Israeli Governments to expand bilateral cooperation as some kind of conspiracy against the [Lithuanian] Jewish Community or the tragedy of the Shoah," he recently told Haaretz. "We jointly put all our most sincere efforts to boost our relations, contacts between businesses, culture, youth, etc. The point is - we should, without ever forgetting our past (and I have no problem to admit how shameful I am that some Lithuanians took part in the atrocities), to concentrate on the positive agenda of building our future." Degutis also maintains that his government is making enormous efforts to educate young Lithuanians about the Holocaust, and strengthen the Jewish community in the country. "No other Lithuanian government had ever done so much for the Jewish community - prepared the bill for property compensation, which is now in Parliament, resolved a very important but also costly for us issue of Shnipishkes cemetery in the center of Vilnius, set up a task force for restoration of the Jewish quarter in Vilnius, launched a Litvak Forum... strengthened Holocaust education. " I know personally how sincerely dedicated [the] prime minister is and it frustrates to see that some people unfortunately continue to be absorbed by the only goal - blindly criticizing anything Lithuania does." Degutis seems to be correct in his assessment; there certainly has been a spate of activity recently in recognition of the horrors of the Holocaust. Several weeks ago the country held a ceremony in Vilnius to commemorate "Day of Lithuanian Jews Genocide," and earlier this month the Lithuanian president honored 50 people who saved Jews during the Holocaust. http://www.haaretz.com/lithuania-woos-israel-in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust-1.318668
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