A Lithuanian lawmaker who suggested that Jews share the blame for the Holocaust resigned as chair of the parliament’s historical memory commission, JTA reported on Sunday.
Valdas Rakutis faced criticism over his comments which were made during a speech in parliament on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, including a rare rebuke from the US ambassador.
Rakutis cited his desire to “reduce tensions between home and abroad” when he announced his resignation on Saturday. He also said he had not meant to place blame on Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide.
“There was no shortage of Holocaust perpetrators among the Jews themselves, especially in the ghetto self-government structures,” Rakutis had said in the speech. “We need to name these people out loud and try not to have people like them again.”
Efraim Zuroff, the Eastern Europe director at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which also protested Valdas’ remarks, said he was not convinced that Rakutis’ decision to step down from the committee’s leadership reflected regret.
In 2019, following years of protests, the city council of Vilnius in Lithuania voted to rename a street honoring a Nazi collaborator accused of inspiring Holocaust-era murders.
Earlier that year, Lithuania moved to blacklist Holocaust denier David Irving to prevent him from entering the country.
Before World War II, Lithuania's vibrant Jewish community numbered around 200,000 people. Over 90 percent of them perished between 1941-1944 during the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis and their local collaborators.