(28 Feb 1995) English/Nat
The President of Lithuania arrived in Israel today (Tuesday) for a first state visit and said he was ashamed that some of his countrymen had participated in the persecution and murder of Jews during the Second World War.
President Algirdas Brazauskas pledged he would prosecute war criminals.
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Israel, was the site of both an official visit and a demonstration today as Holocaust survivors and activists waited to greet the President of Lithuania, Algirdas Brazauskas, on a first ever official visit by a Lithuanian president.
When Brazauskas arrived at the memorial, he was met by dozens of survivors.
Brazauskas walked up to one demonstrator who had been shouting at him, hugged the man and kissed him on both cheeks.
Brazauskas' visit is surrounded by controversy as Lithuanian government officials try to quell anxiety from Jewish activists claiming that the Lithuanian government has rehabilitated thousands of ex-Nazi war criminals.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We came here to protest first of all the thousands of Lithuanians, the thousands of murderers who murdered the Jewish community in Lithuania. Instead of bringing them to justice, they rehabilitated actually all these murderers. The murderers are free men, I was just now in Lithuania and I saw part of them. They are free people."
SUPER CAPTION: Demonstrator outside museum
Figures released by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre claim that approximately five thousand Lithuanians were involved in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust and convicted by the Soviets. The centre says they were among those rehabilitated by the Lithuanian government in the last few years.
Between 35-thousand and 50-thousand people have been absolved of criminality over the past four years. Approximately 200-thousand Lithuanian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
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