ADVISER OF THE PRIME MINISTER: "ANTI-SEMITISM IS ALWAYS REPULSIVE"
Adviser to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania condemned the anti-Semitic provocation when during a city holiday „Hanza Kaunas 2010“ a severed pig‘s head, made to resemble a Jew, was thrown by the synagogue in Kaunas on August 21. „Such anti-Semitic provocations are the soviet system remnants with a Nazistic smell,” said Virgis Valentinavicius, adviser to the Prime Minister.
According to the adviser: anti-Semitism was and is foreign to Lithuania. The tradition of state anti-Semitism was born in Tsarist Russia and was continued on by the Soviet Union. The anti-Semitism that was imposed on Lithuania by foreign occupiers interfered with a strong (since the medieval ages) tradition of tolerance and harmonious coexistence of different religions and nations in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, said Valentinavicius.„Anti-Semitism is always repulsive; however its manifestations in Lithuania are especially unpleasant, because they directly fail the efforts to foster a once strong tradition of tolerance. Also anti-Semitic actions are a brazen disrespect to the long Lithuanian and Jewish history, which has many nice things, but also has the tragedy of the Holocaust,” said the adviser.
Andrius Kubilius, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania, welcomed the police investigation of the anti-Semitic provocation in Kaunas on August 21, and hopes that it will be successful: that the perpetrators of this provocation will be found and punished, said Valentinavicius. The advisor expressed hope that not only the government and law enforcement will demonstrate the intolerance to anti-Semitism but also the public opinion formation leaders and the public itself.
