AFP: LITHUANIA PASSES JEWISH PROPERTY COMPENSATION PACKAGE
Updated 2011-06-21
VILNIUS, June 21, 2011 (AFP) - Lithuanian lawmakers on Tuesday backed a compensation package for Jewish communal property seized by Nazi Germany during World War II and then kept by the Soviet regime.
Lawmakers voted 82-7, with 16 abstentions, in favour of the creation of a fund worth 128 million litas (37 million euros, $53 million), capping a debate that has endured since the Baltic state broke from the Soviet Union in 1990.
Payments into the fund will begin in 2013 and are due to end in 2023.
"The Lithuanian Jewish community is satisfied with this law. It is not only about money but about a demonstration of goodwill," Faina Kukliansky, deputy chairwoman of the national Jewish association, told AFP.
"I have no doubt that the compensation will be used for the future of Lithuanian Jews, for heritage, youth education, culture," she added.
The government-audited fund will be administered by Lithuania's Jewish community organisations. Its focus will be financing religious, healthcare, education and cultural programmes.
"We discussed the draft law in a constructive manner with the Lithuanian Jewish community, and I believe we will implement it in the same way," Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius told journalists.
Lawmaker Ceslovas Stankevicius, of the ruling Conservatives, hailed parliament's vote in favour of "historic truth".
Pre-war Lithuania was home to 220,000 Jews, and Vilnius was a cultural hub known as the "Jerusalem of the North".
But 95 percent of the Jewish community perished during the 1941-1944 German occupation at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators.
Speaking on Lithuanian radio, Kubilius said that adopting the law showed a "deep understanding of the tragedy of the Holocaust".
Today, some 5,000 Jews live in Lithuania, a nation of three million, according to community groups.
During five decades of post-war Soviet rule, Jewish property which had been seized by the Nazis was kept by the communist state, and much remained in the authorities' hands after Lithuania's independence from Moscow.
Synagogues were returned several years ago. But there was no blanket deal for dozens of other former communal buildings such as schools.
In-kind property restitution laws enacted by Lithuania after independence could not be applied to Jewish communal buildings because the Nazi destruction of the pre-war community meant there were no legal heirs to which they could be returned.
Kubilius said he hoped the law would bolster Lithuania's position as it tries to win compensation for damage inflicted under the Soviet regime -- a period Moscow refuses to recognise as an occupation.
"This is a good example to neighbouring countries, including Russia, that still cannot solve problems with their past," he told Lithuanian radio.
Lawmakers voted 82-7, with 16 abstentions, in favour of the creation of a fund worth 128 million litas (37 million euros, $53 million), capping a debate that has endured since the Baltic state broke from the Soviet Union in 1990.
Payments into the fund will begin in 2013 and are due to end in 2023.
"The Lithuanian Jewish community is satisfied with this law. It is not only about money but about a demonstration of goodwill," Faina Kukliansky, deputy chairwoman of the national Jewish association, told AFP.
"I have no doubt that the compensation will be used for the future of Lithuanian Jews, for heritage, youth education, culture," she added.
The government-audited fund will be administered by Lithuania's Jewish community organisations. Its focus will be financing religious, healthcare, education and cultural programmes.
"We discussed the draft law in a constructive manner with the Lithuanian Jewish community, and I believe we will implement it in the same way," Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius told journalists.
Lawmaker Ceslovas Stankevicius, of the ruling Conservatives, hailed parliament's vote in favour of "historic truth".
Pre-war Lithuania was home to 220,000 Jews, and Vilnius was a cultural hub known as the "Jerusalem of the North".
But 95 percent of the Jewish community perished during the 1941-1944 German occupation at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators.
Speaking on Lithuanian radio, Kubilius said that adopting the law showed a "deep understanding of the tragedy of the Holocaust".
Today, some 5,000 Jews live in Lithuania, a nation of three million, according to community groups.
During five decades of post-war Soviet rule, Jewish property which had been seized by the Nazis was kept by the communist state, and much remained in the authorities' hands after Lithuania's independence from Moscow.
Synagogues were returned several years ago. But there was no blanket deal for dozens of other former communal buildings such as schools.
In-kind property restitution laws enacted by Lithuania after independence could not be applied to Jewish communal buildings because the Nazi destruction of the pre-war community meant there were no legal heirs to which they could be returned.
Kubilius said he hoped the law would bolster Lithuania's position as it tries to win compensation for damage inflicted under the Soviet regime -- a period Moscow refuses to recognise as an occupation.
"This is a good example to neighbouring countries, including Russia, that still cannot solve problems with their past," he told Lithuanian radio.
