A loud scandal broke out in Lithuania, regarding whether the Jews themselves are guilty of the Holocaust. With this thought, the Deputy of the Sejm was made from the ruling Union of the Fatherland - Lithuanian Christian Democrats Valdas Rakuchis, who reproached the Jews in collaboration with the Nazi and Soviet regimes.
"In the performers, the Holocaust had no shortage and among the Jews themselves, especially in the structures of self-government in the ghetto, he wrote on the occasion of the recent memory of the victims of the Holocaust. - But it should also be answered about what the views of the Jews themselves are, what ideas prompted part of them to cooperate with the Soviet authorities, to occupy positions in Soviet repressive structures. Sometimes the consciousness of the cause makes it possible to understand and consequences, although it does not justify the actions. "
The saying of Rakutis caused a sharp criticism from the head of the Foreign Ministry, one-party Rakutis Gabrielus Landsbergis.
"I am angry, humanly very angry, which lack adequacy and understanding," he said. - The opinion of the Member of the Seima has nothing to do with my position, nor with the provisions that the party represented by me or the government, in which I work. Six million Jews [killed] around the world, 200 thousand only in our region, our neighbors, compatriots, brothers and sisters. Words must be engraved in the heart: we will never forget and will not allow it to repeat. "
The Ambassador of Israel in Lithuania Yossef Levi called the words of Rakutis insensitive. "How do you, even indirectly, can you blame Jewish babies and mothers killed by thousands of mass graves, in the fact that they sympathized with Stalin? - he set himself a rhetorical issue. - You do not have a shame? Jews were also sent to Siberia. I am sad and I am disappointed in such a text, especially today. It does not serve the good of our common history. "
In a wide context
After the performance of the Rakutis, who himself is a historian for education and taught at the Military Academy of Lithuania, criticized the ambassadors of Germany and the United States, the perturbator of peace of mind hurried to explain. He stated that he had no doubt about the tragedy of the Jewish people, but at the same time would like to look at events in a wider context.
"When we talk about the Holocaust, often pass on the surface that the Germans, the German people destroyed the Jews or something like that. Although, of course, it is partly true, this state was covered by the Nazi wave, he said to the BNS agency. "But when we talk about practical Holocaust, many different peoples participate in this process."
The deputy Rakuchis says that it is not an anti-Semite, but such moods are supported by the part of the Lithuanian society, despite the fact that in the years of war in Lithuania, 90% of more than 200 thousand residing Jews were destroyed.
Last year, the monument to Rabbi Elijah Ben Shlomo Zalman, who was known as Vilensky Gaon, was defiled in Vilnius, also known as Vilen Gaon - his name is the State Jewish Museum in Lithuania. "Every time such acts occur in our country, just words are missing for their characteristics," the head of the country Foreign Ministry linas Linas Linas.