Statement

2011

IHRA Chair’s Statement Regarding Recent Vandalism in Lithuania

The IHRA strongly condemns the vandalism of the memorial to the victims of Nazism, expressing the need to counter Holocaust denial and distortion.

As the Chair of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF, now IHRA), I join the Lithuanian Prime Minister in strongly condemning the vandalism of the memorial to the victims of Nazism at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas, Lithuania on 11 April.

This act is especially shameful due to the fact that Lithuania’s Parliament (Seimas) declared 2011 as the Year of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Such horrible acts of vandalism try to diminish both the memory of the victims and the meaning of the Holocaust for future generations, something that the ITF’s 28 member countries are committed to upholding.

Emanuelis Zingeris, Chairman of the Lithuanian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, has also issued a statement.