IN ANTAKALNIS CEMETERY, A MEMORIAL IS UNVEILED TO THE WEHRMACHT SERGEANT WHO SAVED JEWS IN THE VILNA GHETTO
On 22 September in Vilnius, the memory of Anton Schmid, the Righteous among the Nations, was honoured in Antakalnis cemetery.
„The Austrian who served in the army of the Nazi Germany dared to disobey insane orders and was himself condemned to death for saving hundreds of doomed Jews,” Lithuanian Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė said at the ceremony.
From 1941 to 1942, Austrian citizen and German Wehrmacht Sergeant Anton Schmid saved hundreds of Jews in the Vilnius Ghetto. For this reason he was sentenced and shot. A memorial to Anton Schmid was unveiled in Antakalnis cemetery.
“Such people, who did not betray the ideals of humanism even in the face of brutal repression, are our real heroes. They save our world from the destructive forces of evil and from the moral erosion of the humankind,” the Vice-Minister said.
In 1938, when Nazis ruled Germany, the Government of independent Lithuania several times officially protested against the discriminatory legislation against the Jews and against the Crystal Night pogrom. In the same year, Lithuania accepted Jewish refugees from Austria, who found refuge here from the Nazi persecution. When Nazis occupied Poland, Lithuanian consular officials helped more than 12 thousand Polish Jews enter Lithuania.
“Differently from many countries of that time, Lithuania did not inter the Jewish refugees. With the documents that were issued by the Government of Lithuania and visas issued by Japanese Consul to Lithuania Chiune Sugihara, hundreds of Jewish refugees managed to escape from the Nazi war machine,” said A.Skaisgirytė Liauškienė.
