News

Israeli MP applauds Lithuania's progress in Jewish property issues
VILNIUS, Jun 07, BNS - The head of delegation of the Israeli parliament
visiting Vilnius, Zeev Bielski, says he is happy with the progress achieved
in Lithuania in the settlement of restitution of property of the country's
Jews.

"I'm very happy that we make progress. This is something to tens of years
ago and was very painful for a long time, but I'm very happy that the
government is going ahead with this and, of course, it will be done in
cooperation with the Jewish community here," Bielski, the head of the
Israeli parliamentary group for relations with Lithuania, told Vilnius
journalists on Monday.

Lithuania's government has drafted a bill on compensation of part of the
value of the alienated property, however, the parliament is still to open
discussions into the document.

Asked whether he did not think that the settlement was partly being held
back by absence of a joint stance of Lithuanian Jews on property
restitution, Bielski replied: "I am not going into details. As a member of
an Israel parliament it is really important to me and we make progress and
we bring it to an end and look forward for further relationship."

"We didn't discuss amounts, principle and justice is what's important. As
long as government is going towards we are very happy," he explained.

The government proposed paying 128 million litas (EUR 37.1 mln) in the
period ranging from 2012 to 2023 for communal property of religious
organizations that was confiscated during the Nazi and Soviet regimes

Registered in late July of 2009, a bill on compensation of Jewish
communal property provides for a compensation 113 million litas in cash,
also returning two buildings in kind, namely a Jewish museum and a
historical Jewish library.

Some 3 million litas of the compensation, that to Jewish nationals
aggrieved during the Soviet and Nazi occupation, will be paid out sooner
than the aforementioned time frame.

Jewish organizations in Lithuania had different takes on the government's
proposals. Speaking before reporters in the government on Tuesday, Deputy
Chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Faina Kukliansky said she is
happy to see the government's active approach to the issue, while head of
the Jewish Religious Community of Lithuania's second city Kaunas, Moisa
Barakas, said the legislative proposal was "disgraceful."

The projected compensation amounts to some 30 percent of the value of
Jewish communal property, "which was nationalized and otherwise expropriated
by the Nazi and the Soviet totalitarian regimes," reads the explanatory
letter to the bill.

Adoption of the bill doesn't amount to Lithuania assuming legal or
political responsibility for damage incurred from the occupations by foreign
powers, the Justice Ministry has emphasized.

Authors of the draft said the law would demonstrate Lithuania's good will
to restore historic justice, improve the relations between Lithuanian and
Jewish nations, as well as state respect to human rights and commitments
before the global Jewish community and international organizations.
Furthermore, handover of relevant real estate would provide Lithuania with
politically stronger positions in its talks with Russia on compensation of
damages caused by the totalitarian regime.