“Therefore, artificially, say, the methodology of Western historiography is not immediately passed on to us in this way.”
But Pinchas Goldschmit, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said it was a “direct affront to hundreds of thousands of Lithuanian Jews whose murders were aided and abetted by Lithuanian political and military leaders, as well as local Lithuanian populations.”
He said: “The Lithuanian Government must face up to its history, not seek to ignore or deny it.
“The facts are clear: under Nazi occupation, the Provisional Lithuanian Government, Lithuanian paramilitary battalions and local Lithuanian populations were complicit in the slaughter of more than 90 per cent of approximatively 220,000 Jews living in Lithuania.”
Efraim Zuroff, from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said the proposals were an “outrage”.
He told JTA it was the “final stage of a long attempt to whitewash massive complicity by Lithuanians” and added he hoped “common sense will prevail and the legislation is dropped.”
Wartime responsibility became a contentious issue in nearby Poland in 2018, when the country’s parliament agreed a law creating an imprisonable offence of describing Nazi death camps as “Polish”.
An outcry from Israel and Jewish groups led to the law being amended.
