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Why Naujaneriai in Lithuania Is Important

(Jerusalem Post) Dr. Efraim Zuroff - In Lithuania there are 227 documented Holocaust mass murder sites. Some 70,000 Jews were murdered in Ponar on the outskirts of Vilna, Lithuania's capital. The 1,767 Jewish men, women and children killed in Naujaneriai by Lithuanian Nazi collaborators on Sep. 24, 1941, are a minor statistic in a litany of Holocaust horror. This year, Naujaneriai was chosen as the site for the annual alternative Holocaust memorial ceremony held by an initiative called "Cia guli Musiskiai" (Here lie our people) initiated by popular Lithuanian author Ruta Vanagaite. (Full disclosure, we wrote a book together last year on Lithuanian complicity in Holocaust crimes.) At the official state ceremony at Ponar, there is no mention of the extensive role played by all strata of Lithuanian society in all stages of the mass murder. 96.4% of the Jews living in Lithuania under the Nazi occupation were annihilated. The writer is director of the Israel Office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
2017-10-06 00:00:00
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