A Lithuanian court in Klaipeda approved the public display of swastikas on the grounds that they are ‘Lithuania’s historical heritage rather than symbols of Nazi Germany’. An ‘expert’ transported from Vilnius was easily able to persuade the court, which did not bother to ask a contrasting view of the Holocaust Survivor community, or the Jewish Community of Lithuania, in a European country with the highest proportion of Holocaust genocide on the continent. This sad distinction resulted from massive local collaboration and actual participation.

Media coverage: BNS report on the court’s 19 May decision here. Delfi report.   JTA report on the court’s decision and Dr. Efraim Zuroff’s reaction. Photo by J. Markevicius on Delfi.

UPDATES

UN Human Rights Committee (Geneva) comments in July 2012

Continuation of the debate through the summer of 2012

“Lithuanian swastikas” at the March 11th 2013  independence day parade on the main boulevard of Vilnius, the capital

So much for the parliament’s 2008 ban on ‘Nazi and Soviet symbols’ which only caused pain to aged veterans of the anti-Nazi war effort, and which was ultimately part of the machinations in support of the Double Genocide movement in the European Parliament, in cooperation with the movement’s local power structures.  See also Swastikas and Swasticals.

The United States embassy in Vilnius has maintained a studied public silence.