Yes according to this article in Germany's der Spiegel magazine which describes the activities of Hitler's non-German helpers.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,625824,00.html

QUOTES:

"Experts such as Dieter Pohl of the German Institute for Contemporary History estimate that more than 200,000 non-Germans -- about as many as Germans and Austrians -- "prepared, carried out and assisted in acts of murder." And often they were every bit as cold-blooded as Hitler's henchmen.

"Just for example, on June 27, 1941, a colonel in the staff of the Germany's Northern Army Group in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas passed a petrol station surrounded by a crowd of people. There were shouts of bravo and clapping, mothers raised their children to give them a better view. The officer stepped closer and later wrote down what he had seen. "On the concrete courtyard there was blonde man aged around 25, of medium height, who was taking a rest and supporting himself on a wooden club which was as thick as an arm and went up to his chest. At his feet lay 15, 20 people who were dead or dying. Water poured from a hose and washed the blood into a drain."

"The soldier continued: "Just a few paces behind this man stood around 20 men who -- guarded by several armed civilians -- awaited their gruesome execution in silent submission. Beckoned with a curt wave, the next one stepped up silently and was (…) beaten to death with the wooden club, and every blow met with enthusiastic cheers from the audience."

"When all lay dead on the ground, the blonde murderer climbed on the heap of corpses and played the accordion. His audience sang the Lithuanian anthem as if the orgy of murder had been a national ceremony."

END QUOTES

In the end does it matter? Within three generations most European nations will have ceased to exist as cultural entities. Who is going to be speaking Polish, Croatian or Russian in 2100

Dear Steven,

The subject of the Holocaust in Lithuania exemplifies
the arguments of those who insist that there is no
such thing as "objective history." In discussing
the Holocaust, as in any murder case, one camp
may call for uncompromising indictment of all
deemed guilty, while another, if not denying the guilt
of the "defendant," may argue extenuating circumstances.

The determination to write indictments in mass killings,
all too easily leads onto the stereotyping of nations.
In 1941 Jews died as the victims of the stereotypes that
cast them as Communists and Jewish survivors of the
Holocaust carried sterotypes of their oppressors with
them.

Continued stereotyping of any nation can encourage
counter stereotyping and the result is usually
a complete breakdown in communication.

So what is the point of your article about Lithuanians?

As for cultures and languages - they will survive, no matter
what the changes in the world. Because it is in human
nature to hold onto what is close and meaningful to pass on
to other generations.

Foxy,

It's not my article. It's der Spiegel's article. If you have problems with it you should write to the editors of der Spiegel.

I'm sorry if what I wrote offends you but neither cultures nor languages are immortal. Both die. Actually I think I'm being generous in giving some languages and cultures till 2100. I suspect that the minor European languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Polish and Russian will be pretty marginal by about 2075. They will bear the same relationship to the European society of 2075 that Aboriginal languages bear to the Australia of 2009.

Let me put it this way. If a Polish Rip van Winkel had gone to sleep in Warsaw in 1909 and awoken in 2009 he would find a culture that was in many ways alien to him; but it would still be recognisably Polish. He would certainly be able to understand the language.

If he then went to sleep another 100 years and re-awoke in 2109 what would he find? My suspicion is that he would not even be able to understand the language. I'm not saying there would be no Polish speakers but they would be in the minority. If I were to take a guess I would say the majority language would be Turkish but it could also be Arabic or English.

As Auguste Comte put it, Foxy, demography is destiny.

wow a quote from der spiegal[the mirror]
well lets se the reflection from the other side?

with a search on google [for some more reflection]

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=gd&q=was+the+holocaust+a+fraud&hl=en-GB&rls=MEDA,MEDA:2008-36,MEDA:en-GB

right now select which quote
ok the redcross one seems best

ok now for a catchy heading
im of course not making any point
just making sure people never are allowed to forget
what of the 25 million xtians murded by the zionist bolchovics...what[never heard of that one?..funny that
lets see
http://www.jewwatch.com/
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide-folder.htm
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide-USSRchristians.html

wonder why the natzies hated jews
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide-german-freedman.html
how about the jewish genocide of arminians?
http://www.jewishracism.com/JewishGenocide.pdf
jewish hatred of gentiles?
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide-gentilehate.html

or how about the 100,000 radiated children[to fix ringworm]
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide-ringworm-children.html

or maybe the palistein genocide
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide-palestinian.html

or if were talking about hisry how about the jews killing xtians[641.ad]
http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-genocide-jerusalemchristians641ad.html

mate all racists have murderors
funny[sadly there is allways an excuse to murder
shortly the world will hear about a premptive attack on iran

getting in early are we?
i suspect your post might be the pre-[e]-ration stage..for the planned unleashing of the next holow-cost,..by attacking iran[from the nice new bases in iraq]..planned for early june,reportedly..to bring on the jewish messiah[...lol again]

anyhow we can only hope [eh?]
people sadly have a short memory[thus keep doing the same stuff [expecting a different result...lol

you do know god made goys TOO ...right

that being gods people means;..respecting god by loving neighbour?
he/who serves death ..cannot claim to be supporting the life GIVER
thus clearly is serving the life taker...

mate all land belongs to god
the messiah said...by their deeds will we know them..[sadly he never said who them would be]... all im saying has war ever brought peace?

Dear Steven,

It wasn't the German magazine that posted this
horrific account on your thread. It was you
and you still haven't answered
my question - what was your point?

What does it have to do with changing
cultures, languages, et cetera?

Dear Foxy,
Forgive me. I can’t work out what you mean, above.
Too verbose and entirely no handle on history.

let's fly ‘on instruments’ towards the thread.

Clearly history attests that anti-semitism and any other sort of hate against religion, race, etc. (The UNHCR covers it reasonably well) has always been perpetrated for perceived gain.

Those perceiving such gain, whether wealth, land or resources, were usually able to convince and exploit some 'set' or 'sub-set’ towards political activism that should, at the time, have been recognised for what it was – either desperation or sheer exploitation and adventurism.
History attests that there has always been finance available for such adventurism.

Now, if this topic is about the holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany then the historical record proves beyond doubt that it was infinitely more than some Pan-European distemper.

It is a moot point whether the exercise was to rob an entire international community of their assets or whether that was simply a pretext in order to focus hatred against the victims.
For some reason – probably innate skills – good networking - the fact of the Diaspora – the Jewish people were well enough positioned/dispersed to raise their valid claims before the, then, emerging United Nations.

While the focus of historical accounts surrounds apparent Nazi (I can’t call it German) detriment caused several, racial, religious, political groups under their hegemony they had some fair support (Both overt and covert) from most of the rest of the world.
For instance - Most don’t realize that until he was assassinated well into the war, that H.Himmler’s 2IC, Heydrich, was head of INTERPOL.

Now since I only have about 100 words left I must ask if there’s part of this you don’t understand?

Basically, I’m saying the Jewish people copped it through history and again from every angle during WW11.

What happened was completely unjustified, caused agony and death for millions – such agony and death that continues in other scenarios across this planet, up ‘til this day.

Dear Non Farmer,

There is no dispute about the enormity of Hitler's Holocaust.
But it is equally important to be aware of the accomplishments of
the Soviet secret police, which brought death to at least
fourtimes as many Russians, Poles, Jews, Latvians, Lithuanians,
Estonians, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Gypsies and
Romanians as Hitler did in his eleven years as a leader of the
'1,000-year Reich.

The NKVD (later KGB) and the Gestapo used informers, collaborators
and assistants from among the very people they set out to enslave
or destroy. Some assisted voluntarily, while others collaborated
because of fear or weakness.

There were also, of course, numerous courageous men and women who
refused to participate in the subjugation and destruction of the
targeted groups and individuals. There were Jews who interceded
with their lives to save persecuted Christians, there were
Christians who died in their attempt to save Jews. They died, some
along with their entire families, or accepted their fates in
concentration camps rather than betray their fellow men.

Some are known, but most perished and are known only to God.
These heroes embody human nobility in its highest form and
stand as beacons in the otherwise bleak history of World War II.

Among those, who, out of greed or cowardice, chose to
collaborate with the evil minions of the NKVD and the Gestapo
were Christians and Jews, Germans and Russians, members of all
nations caught in the merciless war. No faith, no nationality,
no race was free of cowards or collaborators. No group was
spared from killers and traitors in their midst.

Some of the villains perished, some were captured and punished,
for the most part shortly after the conclusion of the war.

Others escaped retribution, dying, as did Stalin and Hitler -
the evil architects themselves - without having been brought
to justice.

cont'd ...

cont'd ...

While half of the criminals, the Nazis, have been pursued all over
the world for their crimes, the other half, the communist
criminals, were allowed to go free.

They were, in effect, given tacit permission to continue the
operation of their concentration camps, to expand their draconian
systems to include psychiatric wards, thereby raising torture,
suppression, and murder to a sicence. The fact that the process
persisted was vividly disclosed to the free world by the
Russian author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his book, "The Gulag
Archipelago."

Non-Farmer - no one has a monopoly on suffering.

Foxy,

You will find no argument from me when you assert that communists got a free pass for their atrocities. Of the three great monsters of the 20th Century two, Mao and Stalin, were communists. Each of them ON HIS OWN was arguably responsible for as many, if not more, deaths than Hitler.

Add in other communist monsters such as Pol Pot and I have no hesitation in calling communism the most murderous ideology of the 20th Century.

One of the reasons I so DESPISE the left is their willingness to ignore, for example, the Gulag, the liquidation of the kulaks, the "cultural revolution" or the Kaytan massacre. Even today they deify Castro's executioner, Che Guevara. Every time I see someone wearing a Che T-shirt I want to throw up.

To me there is no difference between a Che T-shirt and a Hitler T-shirt.

But the sins of communism do not justify the sins of the Nazis and their sympathisers. I quoted one item in the Spiegel article because it demonstrated how willing some people were to assist their Nazi occupiers in killing Jews. The Nazis did not invent Jew hatred and, regrettably, it did not die with them.

What does it have to do with changing languages and cultures?

I find a certain irony in the situation. Cultures that nurtured a hatred for Jews are themselves about to become extinct

i find stevenlmeyer's..quote/a worry...<<...I find a certain irony in the situation.Cultures that nurtured a hatred for Jews..are themselves about to become extinct...>>..?...so i dig up more info

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090520/wl_nm/us_lebanon_un

Israel says Hezbollah continues to increase its weapons stockpiles south of the Litani River..where the 13,000-strong UNIFIL peacekeeping mission is charged with keeping out armed fighters and illicit weapons....red/flag?..faulse/flag?

http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/israel-wants-prison-for-those-recognizing-the-palestinian-holocaust-as-jewish-groups-remain-silent/
In laying bare the sickness of soul infecting and guiding the very existence of the Jewish/state,..one of Israel’s largest political parties has introduced a bill in the Knesset..outlawing freedom of speech...when it comes to commemorating the other Holocaust..about which no one seems to know anything,..meaning what was done to the Palestinians 60+ years ago/by the Jews in an event known as..“al Nakbah”....

http://uruknet.com/?p=m54409&hd=&size=1&l=e
By controlling the message,the Zionist propagandists are able to pull off an astounding slight of hand on reality:..the oppressed becomes the oppressor,..the culprit becomes the victim,..illegal colonization is cultural liberation,..aggressive expansion is righteous reclamation,..genocide is self-defense,..apartheid is security,..and ethnic cleansing is peace.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8059021.stm
A UN inquiry into possible war crimes in Gaza will go ahead even if Israel does not co-operate,..says Richard Goldstone,who leads the inquiry team...but will israel cooperate?

Mr Goldstone said..he was.."disappointed"..Israel had given no positive response..lol

http://chimpplanet.blogspot.com/2009/05/were-george-bushs-invasions-in-middlke.html
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath claimed that Bush had said he had been"driven with a mission from God"..when he sent U.S. troops into Iraq and Afghanistan....and jdl
http://original.antiwar.com/scheuer/2009/05/19/obama-steers-toward-endless-war-with-islam/
76-us Senators Press Obama on"Risk"..for Israel
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gYaDFEzo2OQggN0_RxnjXdjc4GrQ

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1086628.html
Israel will be forced to take on Iran's contentious nuclear program alone once U.S.President Barack Obama's overture for dialogue with Tehran fails,..an Israeli official said on Tuesday.
http://www.conferenceofpresidents.org/pressrelease.asp?ArtCat=1&ArtId=151
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/GeneHealy/Dick-Cheney-is-becoming-Obamas-enabler-45349127.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13675
New York Times Falsifies Obama-Netanyahu Meeting

The decision-makers at the New York Times are acting again as if their readers had no other means of checking the facts they report...They are saying the thing that is not,..without remembering that the record which refutes them has become easily and quickly available...A great newspaper is dying...And on the subject of Israel

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1086819.html
Most of Jerusalem's non-Jewish children below poverty line

ok nothing yet...[but will keep watching..

[care to expound on your quote steven?

Societies are dynamic – and may either evolve or devolve, clash or interact, in multitudes of imaginative or horrifying ways.
All that is a ‘known’.

Some may have read a little about it, some a lot, but relatively few in Australia have experienced militant extremism during the last few decades.
Certainly those once traumatized by political/ethnic/religious violence who have found a new home in Australia tend, like most soldiers who have been at the ‘sharp end’, not to discuss their negative experiences.
So, like armchair generals, we sit at some distance and pontificate about matters of which most know little.

Yet Australia is at the edge of great change – there has been enough in the way of worldwide pogrom activity to guarantee that the migrant intake contains a fairly high proportion of traumatized individuals.
A positive view would be that now in Australia these people have a new place to forget the past and thrive under the sun.
A negative – that we should watch ‘em like hawks lest they begin displaying their bad habits here.

Why not follow the negative?
Aren’t we doing exactly that with the most disadvantaged of the Original Australians?

The staffer of a certain ex-politician once described the previous Federal Parliament to me as a “punitive regime”.
I’d suggest otherwise – just hopelessly bound by jurisdictional conflicts between states and federal constitutions – the moves from the states subsuming Common Law to Statute Law - and us all lacking any semblance of a Charter of Rights.
If we are to avoid the situation whereby pogroms may happen in Australia then we need to face these issues.
If Statute Law supplants Common Law then we Need a ‘full-house’ Charter of Rights, such legally binding in all jurisdictions.
That is the only way we’ll avoid a fate similar to that of the Weimar republic.

Tommy Jefferson said “the price of democracy is eternal vigilance”.
The corollary being ‘apathy will get you nowhere fast’.

Dear Steven,

Your last post to me requires a response.

You said, "I quoted one item in the Spiegel article
because it demonstrated how willing some people were
to assist their Nazi occupiers in killing Jews..."

That to me sounds very much like the virulent
anti-Lithuanian sentiments, mostly from leftists and
certain Jews that one hears, "They're all Nazis!"
"They're a bunch of nationalists!" and "They were all
collaborators with the Nazis!" It sounds like you're
assigning collective guilt. Which is just racism - like
muttering some platitude that, "All Arabs are terrorists."

I believe most leftist anti-Lithuanian feelings are rooted in
a desire to cover up communist atrocities. By continually
harping on Nazi crimes of the same era, they hope to
distract attention from, the brutal Russian
communist occupation of countries like Lithuania, the
Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Armenia.

You then added... that you thought it ironic that -
"cultures that nurtured a hatred for Jews are themselves
about to become extinct..."

You mean historically - countries that
were guilty of the eviction of Jews from their
lands like - Spain during the Inquisition, Russia
under the Tsars, and Germany under the Nazis, to
quote just a few. Yet today these countries, their
languages, and cultures are even stronger - and show
no signs of becoming extinct.

Or are you referring to Lithuania?
Lithuania did not nurture a
hatred for Jews. On the contrary - Jews had a long and
glorious history in Lithuania, before the Holocaust:
A Jewish publication - Encyclopedia Judaica gives us
very valuable information about the situation of Jews in
Lithuania. "Jews trace their origins in Lithuania back
to the days of Grand Duke Gediminas, who founded the
first Lithuanian state in the 14th century. By the late
15th century, there were already thriving communities.
In time, Vilnius the capital of Lithuania became known as
the "Jerusalem of Lithuania," a greater center of Jewish
religious learning."

Finally - Lithuanian Jewry gave us Jasha Heifetz, one of
the greatest violinists of all time.

As for becoming extinct - Lithuania is celebrating
its 1,000 years Celebration!

Are you of Lithuanian extraction, Foxy?

Perhaps bearing the weight of a somewhat Buddhist view I tend to stay away from personal statements.
I tend to take people upon their merits while lightly balancing their foibles against what I can discover of their innate decency.

I cannot accept strident statements from individuals declaiming that this group sub-set or faction was innocent of blame – guilty of mayhem – or just enjoyed stirring the pot because they were there.
The world is no longer black and white but has become a wash of grey interspersed with momentary flashes of colour.

We all need to remain alert for those flashes of colour.
We can all look inwards and discover our own faults – so why not accept that and act upon that self-knowledge?

Which leads me back to addressing my belief about this thread -
Was the hate a Pan-European event?

It was no single event –
It is constant; a continuum caused by the human condition and the refusal of the majority to accept their responsibility to others.

The hate continues and is caused by some basal immaturity within each of us – difficult to control but manageable if we exercise our will.

Whether we are nothing more than ‘lemmings’ – or whether we simply ’inhabit the corrosive littoral zone of habit’ – or whether we are just too plain stupid to get past our primate ancestry doesn’t matter overmuch.

But anyway – it all continues as expressed above.
Our little lives are so stratified that we tend to believe the first things we read – about in the same way we’d bond with the first team that would rescue us from a situation of danger.
That is the way of the world and most cannot escape that – probably because most are too poorly equipped even to begin the first stages of reason.

Go and look in your mirror. You might discover some truth about yourself there.

Foxy,

Again I am sorry if I am hurting your feelings but facts are facts.

POPULATION DECLINE

Lithuania may have celebrated its 1,000th anniversary but, if current demographic trends continue, it will not be around to celebrate its 1,100th. The birth rate is well below replacement level. The total population is shrinking because of an excess of deaths over births. As the population continues to age the gap between deaths and births will widen.

In addition there is significant net immigration. This exacerbates the population decline.

Of course a beautiful and fertile country like Lithuania will not remain empty. Eventually people from other countries will move in. In effect people from high birth rate countries, perhaps from North Africa, the Middle-East, or India, will colonise the territory that is currently called Lithuania.

This sort of thing has happened before and it will happen again. Countries and cultures are not immortal.

JEW HATRED

I grew up in South Africa. I would never deny that racism was an important element of the culture of White South Africa. That does not mean that every White South African was a racist. But racism was one of the defining characteristics of the culture as a whole.

I also grew up among Jews who traced their origins to Lithuania. I heard many eye-witness accounts of how contempt for Jews was part of the warp and weft of pre-World War 2 Lithuanian culture.

When I visited Yad Vashem I learned that the majority of Lithuanian Jews were murdered by Lithuanians; not by Germans.

I am not accusing you of being a Jew Hater Foxy. And I hope you would not accuse me of being a racist. But the facts about pre-World War 2 Lithuanian culture are no more in doubt than the facts about Apartheid era White culture in South Africa.

First a correction.

Lithuania suffers net e-migration not im-migration.

This brings me to a comment about Australian and European culture.

Living cultures are not static. They are a constantly evolving LANDSCAPE. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Australia. Most of us dwell mainly in one part of the landscape; but we tend to move freely into adjacent valleys. Sometimes we vacation on distant hills of the Australian cultural landscape.

This broad ever changing cultural landscape is one of the factors that makes Australia such a vibrant society.

We talk about mutli-culturalism but that does not really describe Australia. Almost every individual Australian is multi-cultural in the sense of being a member of more than one culture.

The cultures of the European nations seems to me to be more brittle; less able to change and renew themselves. Perhaps in Europe individual national cultures will be subsumed into a larger pan-European culture. As is the case in Australia, much of the renewal and dynamism of any pan-European culture will be driven by folk who trace their ancestry to distant lands.

Perhaps we shall eventually see the emergence of a pan-Mediterranean culture that encompasses Europe, North Africa and the Middle-East.

What form this culture will take, assuming it emerges, I cannot say. Hopefully it will be less xenophobic than the European cultures of the recent past. And hopefully organised religion will play a lesser role

Dear Steven,

Lithuanians for 2,000 have been constantly attcked,
invaded, occupied by neighbouring tribes, distant
invaders, and in the last few centuries - neighbouring
nations. The weaker Lithuanian tribes have been
absorbed into neighbouring countries or as in the case
of the Letts through the early Germanic invasions have
become a separate entity. The remaining five tribes
who were the strongest, nationalistic, and stubborn
have survived to this day. And it is in the nature
of these tribes never to give up no matter what the
odds. But they absorb people from neighbouring countries
who are prepared to adapt to their conditions.

It will be interesting to see what the future brings.

On the Jewish issue Steven, as I wrote in my earlier post -
one camp may call for uncompromising indictment of all
deemed guilty, while another, if not denying the guilt,
may argue extenuating circumstances, ranging from
temporary insanity through provocation.

A historian can establish that an act took place on a
certain day, but this, by historical standards
constitutes only chronology, or, as East Europeans call it,
"factologija," (factology). The moment the historian begins
to look critically at motivation, circumstances, context,
or any other such considerations, it becomes unacceptable for
one or another of the parties involved.

Survivors and victims' relatives are usually more intersted in
condemnation and punishment than in explanation.

Explanations seem tantamount to sympathizing and excusing.
And as I said before - the determination to write indictments
in mass killings, leads all too easily onto the questionable
practice of stereotyping nations.

I can understand Jews and other people wanting the world
to remember what the Nazis and their collaborators did.
But I fail to see why one tragedy gets ignored while
another is constantly harped on. Just look at the mass media.
You're guaranteed to see lots of special about Hitler and
the Nazis, but rarely can you watch anything critical of
communism's evils.

Why?

Was Hitler more evil than Stalin? Or was Stalin more
evil than Hitler?

cont'd

Steven, on a more positive side:

There is a new International Commission for
Research on Nazi and Soviet Genocide.

Vilnius University has established the
Vilnius Yiddish Institute, "the first Yiddish
center of higher learning to be established in
post-Holocaust Eastern Europe.

At the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas,
the "Sugihara Center" sponsors research and
cultural activities. The young filmmaker Saulius
Berzinis has released a new documentary Sunset in
Lithuania based on many hours of interviews with
eye witnesses and survivors. Educators and journalists
are getting involved in projects raising awareness
and fostering tolerance. For young people, preparations
are underway for a nationwide program of Holocaust
education in schools.

At the University of Vilnius the Center for Stateless
Cultures has been established under the direction of
Dovid Katz. Professor Katz is involved in collecting
and analyzing remnants of Yiddish language and culture
in Lithuania and Belarus and teaching Yiddish and Judaic
studies at the University of Vilnius.

I can't list everything here due to the word limit -
but all these are welcome trends indicative of a spirit
on all sides to come together and establish a mutually
productive dialog.

Foxy asks:

"Was Hitler more evil than Stalin? Or was Stalin more evil than Hitler?"

I could not even begin to answer that question. What measure would you use?

I think I'd give Stalin the edge but it's subjective.

To my mind Mao trumps them both by a short margin.

Foxy writes:

"You're guaranteed to see lots of special about Hitler and the Nazis, but rarely can you watch anything critical of communism's evils."

I agree.

But what's the point in directing your criticism at me?

I suggest you ask the loathsome Lefties who infest academe and the media why they focus on Hitler and National Socialism while minimising the atrocities of Stalin, Mao and Communism.

For that matter ask anyone you see wearing a T-short bearing the likeness of Castro's executioner, Che.

We're on the same side on this one Foxy.

Dear Steven,

I was not directing my criticism at you - at least
it wasn't intentional. I was merely expressing a
general frustration. Is all. Because there's
so many attacks from Jews on Lithuanians and your
Spiegel article was just the final straw.

You said that you were only stating facts - however
how would you feel if I stated facts to you about
Jewish atrocities in Lithuania in just as descriptive
a manner as the Spiegel article that you presented on
this Forum. Would that clear anything up? Would it
heal all the old wounds?

We have to admit that atrocities took place - to recognise
a historic burden is not the same as accepting collective
guilt. No honest person would argue that Lithuanians are
a nation of criminals, or that all Jews were communists
and members of the NKVD (later KGB) in Lithuania. Or that
today's Lithuanians/and or Jews are responsible for what
happened during those tragic years. Anymore than contemporary
Americans are responsible for slavery.

But the legacies of such crimes, the historical burdens
remain. Attempts to evade, deny, minimize or misrepresent
historical offenses are unsuccessful in the long term.

The most awful and relevant aspect of this sad history is
that - "Some Lithuanians and Jews assisted in the murder and
deportation of other Lithuanians and Jews."

To acknowledge this is to accept the burden of that tragic
history.