Lithuanians Scrap Event for Quisling Leader
The Lithuanian University in Kaunas on Tuesday decided to cancel a commemorative conference planned for the “prime minister” of Lithuania’s 1941 Nazi puppet government.
In a controversial move, causing anguish among Holocaust survivors, Lithuania’s Jewish community and the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, the remains of Juozas Brazaitis Ambrazevicius, who died almost 40 years ago in the United States, will be reinterred from Connecticut to the Church of the Resurrection in Kaunas. En route, he will be honored in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in a ceremony slated for Thursday.
A memorial conference in the Vytautas Magnus University of Kaunas was originally scheduled for Saturday.
Following a Haaretz report, the university’s rector and his deputy had decided to call off the event, explaining they wish to “save the honor” of the institution. In a letter addressed to Lithuanian parliament, Rector Prof. Zigmas Lydeka and Vice Rector Prof. Aukse Balcytiene wrote that political and memorial events should take place in the parliament, and not on university grounds.
For more, go to Haaretz.com
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
