In a letter to the editor of today’s edition of the mainstream daily Vakaro žinios (Evening News),  three organizations, including the mainstream Sąjūdis, write to complain that the state has not done enough in 2011 to commemorate the 1941 fascist collaborators (including the Lithuanian Activist Front or LAF ‘white-armbanders’), who unleashed the Lithuanian Holocaust, killing Jewish neighbors in dozens of locations before the Germans ever arrived. Many were then recruited for the Germans’ organized killing squads. The organizations signing the letter clearly regard them as national heroes and ‘insurgents’.

The letter to the editor is available online (English translation here).

The most shocking sentence is a critique of members of today’s Jewish community who may view the Nazi collaborators as — Nazi collaborators:

“So separately we would bring the attention of thoughtful members of the Jewish community to the fact that the NKVD “furazhki” who are now replaced by yarmulkes [in other words: the KGB guys have now replaced their classic NKVD/KGB hats with yarmulkes] might also have their own, special agenda. An agenda that does not in any way serve social harmony and justice.”

A partial enumeration of state sponsored projects in Lithuania in 2011 to honor the local fascists of 1941 is provided on DefendingHistory.com here. See also background materials on the LAF’s leaflets preceding the arrival of German forces (which include clear intentions for the fate of Jewish citizens of Lithuania), and further material on the issue of glorification of local Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators. An in-progress reading list on the Lithuanian Holocaust is available here.