A Lithuanian lawmaker who had suggested that Jews share the blame for the Holocaust resigned as chair of the parliament’s historical memory commission.
Valdas Rakutis faced criticism over his comments, made during a speech in parliament on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, including a rare rebuke from the US ambassador.
Rakutis cited his desire to “reduce tensions between home and abroad” when he announced his resignation on Saturday. He also said he had not meant to place blame on Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide.
“There was no shortage of Holocaust perpetrators among the Jews themselves, especially in the ghetto self-government structures,” Rakutis had said in the speech. “We need to name these people out loud and try not to have people like them again.”
Efraim Zuroff, the Eastern Europe director at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which also protested Valdas’ remarks, said he was not convinced that Rakutis’ decision to step down from the committee’s leadership reflected regret.
if(window.location.pathname.indexOf(“656089”) != -1){console.log(“hedva connatix”);document.getElementsByClassName(“divConnatix”)[0].style.display =”none”;}
Rakutis’ speech, Zuroff said, “contained all the elements that are official policy in Lithuania,” whose official historians have faced allegations of whitewashing and excusing local complicity in the Holocaust. “But the fact that it was done on International Holocaust Remembrance day, in parliament, and that there was an international uproar about it made it impossible to keep Rakutis as chair of the committee.”
Related posts:
VIDEO: Putin on the Holocaust
Facebook COO: Decision to ban Holocaust denial was absolutely correct
Egypt’s top female sailor falsely blamed for blocking the Suez Canal
Burger King Employees Smash Restaurant’s Windows to Prevent Explosion
The devastating Maoist chapter in the life of a prominent Holocaust historian
Germany funds vaccination drive for Holocaust survivors