Date: Wed Oct 4, 2000 7:57pm
Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Lithuania Moves to Return Torah Scrolls to Jews
Lithuania Moves to Return Torah Scrolls to Jews
http://partners.nytimes.com/2000/10/04/world/04LITH.html
October 4, 2000
By REUTERS
VILNIUS, Lithuania, Oct. 3 The Parliament voted today to return
hundreds of Torah scrolls to Jewish communities around the world,
ending years of debate over the texts.
The decision was made as a forum gathered here to measure assets
lost throughout Central and Eastern Europe in the Holocaust. About
370 texts, mostly fragments, were recovered in Lithuania after the
Holocaust and were hidden away for decades of Soviet rule.
After Lithuania regained independence in 1991 with the collapse of
the Soviet Union, the scrolls were placed on the National Registry
of Cultural Heritage, making it almost impossible to remove them
legally.
A debate simmered for years over ownership and restitution.
"This decision is a gesture of good will by Lithuania seeking to
develop good political and cultural cooperation with the world
Jewish community," Zibartas Jackunas, chairman of the Cultural
Committee of Parliament, told reporters.
The Torahs are among the last remnants of a community of 220,000
Jews that flourished before World War II. Vilnius, capital of a
region that was once part of Poland, was called by some the
Jerusalem of the North.
The scrolls also illustrate the legal difficulties that arise in
trying to return cultural property looted in the Holocaust, a
problem that is the subject of a conference here that started today
and ends on Thursday. A similar meeting was held in London in 1997
on the gold looted by the Nazis, and a conference in Washington in
1998 covered other lost assets.
The forum here will discuss items like patents and religious
objects, including an estimated 600,000 art works stolen from Jews.
The list of foreign participants includes the deputy treasury
secretary from the United States, Stuart E. Eizenstat, who
addresses the forum on Wednesday, and Walter Schwimmer, secretary
general of the Council of Europe. The conference expects delegates
from more than 40 nations.
Lithuania continues to struggle to come to grips with the
Holocaust and collaboration with Hitler. Nazi hunters like the
Simon Wiesenthal Center have criticized Lithuania for what they see
as delays in the trials of alleged collaborators.
Last week, Aleksandras Lileikis, 93, who was suspected of handing
over more than 70 Jews to Nazi executioners, died before his
suspended trial could decide on the charges. The trial of his
wartime deputy, Kazys Gimzauskas, who some doctors say is mentally
and physically unfit for the rigors of his court case, has been
delayed.
Critics say Lithuania should be reminded of that despite its
efforts to promote the Holocaust debate.
"With all due respect," the head of the Jerusalem office of the
Wiesenthal Center, Efraim Zuroff, said, "the most pressing question
related to the Holocaust in Lithuania today is the prosecution of
those Lithuanians who actively participated in the persecution
and/or murder of Jews during World War II."
The New York Times on the Web
http://www.nytimes.com
|
