According to the right-wing Lithuanian website “Dešinioji Mintis,” you have until May 18th to register for free transportation, courtesy of the Chancellery of the Parliament in Vilnius, to the events in Kaunas scheduled for May 19th and 20th to honor the memory of the head of Nazi puppet “provisional government” (“PG”) of 1941. Specifically, you can attend the memorial conference on the 19th, and/or the re-interment ceremony on the 20th. There is specific reference to the offer being for the good of young people who are not “apathetic.” Contact information at the Lithuanian parliament (Seimas) is also provided.

Is this really how the nation’s parliament wants to educate the country’s youth?

The PG oversaw the initiation of the slaughter of the country’s Jewish population. Initial violence in dozens of locations was unleashed by the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) in the days before the arrival of German forces (or the consolidation of their authority), and it was indeed the LAF that set up the PG (reading list available here; Holocaust map here).

Then the PG, under its “prime minister” Juozas Ambrazevičius (later Brazaitis) issued a number of directives that live on in infamy, including those of 27 June 1941 calling for “all means” against the Jews while opposing “public executions”; 30 June 1941 mandating the setting up of a concentration camp for Jews; 7 July 1941 ordering that all the Jews of Kaunas be forced into a ghetto within four weeks.

The Lithuanian government’s financed project to rebury and revere the memory of Ambrazevičius (30,000 litas or c. 8,700 euros were allocated in a document signed by the prime minister and culture minister in March 2012) has led to international outrage and a sense of anguish and incredulity among Lithuania’s small Jewish community.

The “Dešinioji Mintis” post (as htm here), dated 7 May 2012, reads as follows in translation:

The Rightist Thought Center is contributing to the invitation to take part in the reburial rites and conference/commemoration “The Academic, Education, Resistance and Political Activity of Juozas Brazaitis” for Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, the head of the Provision Government of 1941 and a member of the anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi resistance. Understanding the importance of the history and authority of this person in life, we are calling especially upon representatives of the younger generation who are not apathetic to Lithuania to take part.

We inform you that there *exists the possibility* for those attending the events on May 19 and 20 in Kaunas *to arrive by transportation from the Chancellery of the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania.* Those who wish to take part in the conference/commemoration (May 19) or the reburial ceremonies (May 20) are invited to register by telephone, (8 5) 239 6152 or (8 5) 239 6152, or by email to neringa.mockute@lrs.lt by May 18, 2012.