BNS (Baltic News Service) today published in full a statement issued by the Public Relations Department of the Parliament, and signed by member of parliament Professor Arimantas Dumčius. The statement contains an updated schedule of events in honor of the repatriation to Lithuania of the remains of Juozas Ambrazevičius, the “prime minister” of the 1941 Nazi puppet government in Kaunas. Background here, here, here; see also Aderet, Donskis, Zuroff and Krystyna Anna Steiger’s petition).
An earlier BNS report confirmed that the Lithuanian government is financing the transatlantic reburial and four days of events honoring the Nazi collaborator. Today’s press release from the parliament’s official Public Relations Department further underscores the deep government investment in glorification of the country’s 1941 Nazi collaborators.
But one of the scheduled events, a conference on Saturday 20 May, earlier slated for Vytautas Magnus University, is moved on this version to “venue to be announced” after a major scandal that included a letter from the rector of VMU to the nation’s parliament (the Seimas). Still, two VMU professors are among the speakers honoring Ambrazevičius.
Today’s parliamentary press release confirms that the reburial mass for the Nazi collaborator will be conducted by the archbishop metropolitan, Sigitas Tamkevičius, who recently published effusive praise for him in Bernardinai.lt, offering up a deeply revised biography, one that does not mention the onset of the Holocaust during the provisional government’s reign.
The documents signed by Ambrazevičius in his capacity as “prime minister” of the 1941 “provisional government” include the 27 June 1941 statement calling for all means against the Jews but asking that executions not be public; the 30 June 1941 order for a concentration camp for Jews to be set up; and the 7 July 1941 order for all the Jews of Kaunas to be forcibly relocated into a ghetto within four weeks (English here; extract here).
Extract of the Provisional Government order of 7 July 1941 including the signature of J. Ambrazevičius and the sentence “By German order a ghetto for Jews will be established in Vilijampolė, to which all the Jews of the city of Kaunas must be moved within four weeks.”
The following is a full translation of the BNS report containing the text submitted by MP Dumčius. The original Lithuanian text appears on the BNS site (as htm here).
Parliament Public Relations Department May 16, 2012, rsv@lrs.lt
Press Report May 16, 2012
Report by Member of Parilament Professor Arimantas Dumčius: Juozas Brazaitis-Ambrazevičius Will Be Reburied in Lithuania
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