BNS: LITHUANIA'S GENOCIDE MUSEUM OPENS HOLOCAUST EXHIBITION
Updated 2011-10-20
VILNIUS, Oct 20, BNS – An exhibition dedicated to the Nazi occupation and Holocaust in Lithuania will open at the Genocide Museum in Vilnius on Thursday. Lithuania's Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius will attend the opening ceremony.
Lithuania has repeatedly come under criticism for failing to pay due attention to the memory of Jewish genocide victims at the Genocide Museum, which mainly tells about crimes committed by the Soviet regime. Equaling the Soviet crimes to genocide has drawn controversial reactions.
There have even been proposals in Lithuania to rename the museum, however, the administration believes the Holocaust exhibition would solve the problem.
Eugenijus Peikstenis, director of the Genocide Museum, the exposition is in one of the cells where entries made by prisoners who were behind bars during the Nazi rule were discovered.
"Research in one of the cell revealed entries made in 1942-1944 during the Nazi rule. We decided to make an exposition in the cell that would tell about Lithuania's 1941-1944 occupation," Peikstenis told BNS.
In his words, the exhibition will present Lithuania's Nazi occupation, providing data about the Vilnius ghetto, the Paneriai massacre and the Lithuanians who risked their lives to save Jews.
More than 90 percent of Lithuania's pre-war Jewish community of about 200,000 was annihilated by the Nazis and their local collaborators during World War II.
Lithuania's parliament has announced 2011 as the Holocaust Memorial Year.
Lithuania has repeatedly come under criticism for failing to pay due attention to the memory of Jewish genocide victims at the Genocide Museum, which mainly tells about crimes committed by the Soviet regime. Equaling the Soviet crimes to genocide has drawn controversial reactions.
There have even been proposals in Lithuania to rename the museum, however, the administration believes the Holocaust exhibition would solve the problem.
Eugenijus Peikstenis, director of the Genocide Museum, the exposition is in one of the cells where entries made by prisoners who were behind bars during the Nazi rule were discovered.
"Research in one of the cell revealed entries made in 1942-1944 during the Nazi rule. We decided to make an exposition in the cell that would tell about Lithuania's 1941-1944 occupation," Peikstenis told BNS.
In his words, the exhibition will present Lithuania's Nazi occupation, providing data about the Vilnius ghetto, the Paneriai massacre and the Lithuanians who risked their lives to save Jews.
More than 90 percent of Lithuania's pre-war Jewish community of about 200,000 was annihilated by the Nazis and their local collaborators during World War II.
Lithuania's parliament has announced 2011 as the Holocaust Memorial Year.
