Monday, November 10, 2008

How Kristallnacht Is Remembered In Lithuania: Prosecute Surviving Jewish Partisans For War Crimes.

This year is the 70th Anniversary of Kristallnacht:
On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi storm troopers throughout Germany and Austria ransacked Jewish homes, marauded through the streets, broke windows of Jewish-owned stores and looted merchandise, set fire to synagogues, randomly attacked Jewish men, women and children and arrested thousands of men. When the violence ended, at least 96 Jews were dead, 1,300 synagogues and 7,500 businesses destroyed and countless Jewish cemeteries and schools vandalized. A total of 30,000 Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. The broken glass strewn through the streets from the mayhem caused the pogrom to be called "Crystal Night" or Kristallnacht.
Read the whole thing.

The headline of the above article is "When good men did nothing"--which is apropos, since there is still work to be done.

The Wiesenthal Center has sent out the following email:
ON THE 70th ANNIVERSARY OF KRISTALLNACHT: LITHUANIA SEEKS TO PROSECUTE WORLD WAR II JEWISH PARTISANS WHO FOUGHT AGAINST THE NAZIS

JOIN THE CENTER’S CAMPAIGN TODAY

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany’s pogrom that signaled the beginning of the end of European Jewry. Two hundred synagogues were burned, Jewish businesses throughout Germany and Austria were looted, which eventually led to the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to concentration camps.

Now, 70 years later, the Holocaust is being distorted and trivialized in places around the world including Lithuania where a shocking 96.4% of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens were murdered by the Nazis and local collaborators.

To this day, not a single Lithuanian has ever been punished in independent Lithuania for Holocaust crimes and every effort has been made to prevent such criminals from facing prosecution.

Instead - as unbelievable as it may sound - Lithuanian prosecutors, urged on by an anti-Semitic press, have sought to indict for “war crimes,” heroic World War II-era Jewish partisans for their anti-Nazi resistance! Chief among them, Dr. Yitzhak Arad, the former chairman of Yad Vashem and a renowned Holocaust scholar. In 2008, authorities are targeting 3 women, fellow Jewish anti-Nazi partisans Dr. Rochel Margolis, Professor Sara Ginaite, and Fania Brantsovsky...

This must not continue.
The Wiesenthal Center is suggesting the following:
Join the Wiesenthal Center’s campaign to Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus demanding that:
•the campaign against Jewish anti-Nazi partisans be immediately stopped and that a public apology is made to those already made to suffer

•the full scope of Lithuanians’ participation in the murder of Jews in the country and elsewhere during the Holocaust be acknowledged and taught to younger generations

•the Lithuanian government implement the prison sentence against convicted Nazi war criminal Algimantas Dailide
Please join this campaign and help fight against anti-Semitism and the distortion and trivialization of the Nazi Holocaust today.

For more on Kristallnacht, download the Center's publication, "Kristallnacht+70"
Apparently there is no end to people who try to twist the Holocaust.

Technorati Tag: and .

3 comments:

Jack Steiner said...

That is terrible.

Lady-Light said...

This is unbelievable. Apparently, civilization has not advanced at all since the Sho'ah.
I have to ask, why are people that way? I do not understand...

Daled Amos said...

I doubt think anyone has the answer.
I don't even know if there is an answer.