When one goes to Vilnius, the Lithuania capital, they are sure to be drawn to one the city`s premier attractions in the “The Genocide Museum.” The museum, which was once the headquarters for Nazi S.S and then taken over by the K.G.B, was a place which was run by members of society who deny the holocaust every happened. One idea that Bleich describes as a reason for holocaust denial was international pressure. In 2011, the museum added one room that payed homage the genocide of the Jews due to international criticism, where 20,000 Lithuanian Jews were killed during Stalinist purges and Siberian Camps. One scholar, David Katz, who is a Jewish scholar of Yiddish and a historian within Lithuanian ancestry called this museum “a 21st century-version of holocaust denial.” He believes that by preaching a soviet genocide and not the holocaust is a way to deter holocaust thoughts, while heightening the soviet`s wrongdoings instead of Germany. Lithuanian is the world`s only country who defines the former Soviet Union as a form of genocide, which is one of the museums many themes.

Though many don’t associate Lithuania with the holocaust, that is a false pre conceived notion. According to Efraun Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center`s chief Nazi Hunter, explained that the museum had 20,000 Lithuanians who participated in the holocaust but only THREE if them were convicted.  Places like Hungary, Poland and the Ukraine have found ways to drive a gap between themselves and holocaust. The mantra of “If everyone`s guilty, no one`s guilty”, is a phrase that is used to lessen the deviance of one country by adding in all the other countries that played a major role.

In 2018, Lithuanian parliament voted on a bill that banned the selling of material that “distorts historical facts” about the nation (JTA,2018). This bill came as a response to the publication of a book about the Holocuast, “Our people”, which was published in 2016. This book broke Lithuanian taboos about Nazi collaboration and the murder of Jews during World War II. Bliech explains a similar case through the Danish Cartoons, as many European States have restrictive laws on books, but do not penalize racism/hatred.

 

 

Part B:

 

Lithuania and Russia have a had long history dating back to 1795, as the Soviet Union and today Russia have been intertwined for decades. One way that these countries were so intertwined was that the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania. During World War II, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, while taking over the Vilnius Region, which was occupied by Poland at the time. Lithuania fought back, but with Russian troops in the region, their military bolstered a stronghold within this region. The Soviet Union held power in this region for 45 years, while killing hundreds of thousands of people, including the entire intellectual elite, through murder, torture or deportation to Siberia. Due to the harsh occupation, this left a deep psychological and economical gap within the Lithuanian nation, as they were left in despair following Soviet rule.

One issue that Lithuania has with Russia is that they fear that Russian propaganda could lead to invasion. Russia has delivered campaigns informing Europe that Lithuania`s capital, Vilnius does not belong to Lithuania because during the two world war`s it was occupied by Poland (Harrison and Boffey, 2017).  Reports from Russia claim that Putin gifted the capital to Lithuania after the war, a statement that is deemed problematic towards Lithuanian governmental integrity.Lithuania has made committed efforts to shut down hostile propaganda from Russia through suspending television stations and educating their citizens on what propaganda is and what it looks like.

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/world/europe/lithuania-genocide-museum-jews.html

 

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/07/lithuania-and-nazis-the-country-wants-to-forget-its-collaborationist-past-by-accusing-jewish-partisans-of-war-crimes.html

http://www.truelithuania.com/topics/history-and-politics-of-lithuania/history-of-lithuania

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/lithuanian-bill-would-ban-books-critical-of-the-country/

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/03/lithuania-fears-russian-propaganda-is-prelude-to-eventual-invasion