A century-old renowned Vilnius synagogue was vandalised following last week’s controversial decision in Lithuania to grant a state-funded funeral to the country’s notorious 1941 pro-Nazi leader.
Unknown attackers daubed the Choral Temple, the only remaining active synagogue in a city which boasted more than one hundred pre-Holocaust, in green paint on Friday.
Milan Chersonski, editor of Lithuanian Jerusalem, the Jewish community’s publication, described the incident as being a direct consequence of the “unofficial supplementary program” to rebury former Provisional Government head Juozas Ambrazevicius-Brazaitis in Lithuania’s second largest city of Kaunas:
“If great eminences like the former heads of state Vytaytas Landsberis and Valdas Adamkus are parties to the honouring of a Holocaust collaborator, then hooligans in town feel able to make their own contribution too with a can of paint thrown at the synagogue. In their own way, they have all thrown paint in the faces of the small surviving Jewish community in the country”, he said.
Whilst the Lithuanian state claim Brazaitis’ government tried to restore national sovereignty, Jewish groups insist he was a Nazi collaborator who refused to halt anti-Semitic pogroms and contributing to the climate with a wave of anti-Semitic legislation.
The Lithuanian Jewish community expressed “deep hurt” at the decision to hold a state burial, in the face of community protects, which it said amounted to “disrespect for Jewish citizens killed here and Holocaust survivors”.
Lithuanian MP and Chairman of the International Commission to Evaluate the Crimes of the Nazi-Soviet Occupations of Lithuania, Emanuelis Zingeris, said that the Lithuanian Provisional Government (PG, led by Brazaitis) "did not publicly disassociate itself from the murder of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens."
Lithuania was home to 220,000 Jews before WWII, but 95% perished during the war at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators. Today, approximately 5,000 Jews are thought to live in the country.