Adviser to the Prime Minister has condemned an anti-Semitic provocation in Kaunas, when, during a city festival “Hanza Kaunas 2010” a pig’s head representing a Jew was left at the entrance of a synagogue. “Anti-Semitic provocations like this are a relic from the Soviet past, with a smack of Nazism”, said adviser to the Prime Minister Virgis Valentinavičius.
According to the adviser, anti-Semitism was and is foreign to Lithuania; the tradition of national anti-Semitism had originated in the tsarist Russia and was pursued by the Soviet Union. According to Valentinavičius, anti-Semitism enforced by foreign invaders has conflicted with a strong tradition of tolerance and harmonious concord among different religions and nations, which had been thriving in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the Middle Ages.
“Anti-Semitism is always deplorable; however, its manifestations are particularly displeasing in Lithuania, for they are ruining efforts to foster a tradition of tolerance, once so strong. Moreover, anti-Semitic actions are an insolent disrespect for the long common history of the Lithuanians and the Jews, which saw much of good, but there was also the Holocaust tragedy”, said the adviser.
According to Valentinavičius, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius welcomes the police investigation into the anti-Semitic provocation in Kaunas, which has been launched on 21 August, and hopes it will be successful, with the perpetrators found and punished. The adviser has expressed his hope that intolerance to anti-Semitism will be demonstrated more consistently not only by the government and the law enforcement institutions, but also by the leading public opinion makers as well as the general public.
