The issue stems from a document signed by low-ranking representatives
of Lithuanian and German foreign ministries, stating that Germany
would give 2 million deutschemarks ($ 980,000) to a house for the
elderly in Veisejai and to Vilnius Sapiegos hospital.
"After this payment, the government of the German Federal Republic
states that appeals of citizens of Lithuanian Republic about seeking
damages for persecutions of the National Socialists are settled,"
reads the fourth paragraph of the document.
"It is mockery of all Lithuanian citizens who suffered or were killed
during the war. Lithuania refused compensations from Germany for 2
million deutschemarks," Zingeris said. It means that the life of each
Lithuanian citizen killed during Nazi occupation is estimated to be
worth eight deutschemarks, he emphasized.
"It is a scandal. The state, not asking its citizens, made such a
decision. It is an event without precedent," said Dalia Kuodyte,
director general of the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of
Lithuania.
Zingeris pointed out that the Lithuanian Parliament is discussing
demands to Russia for compensation for Soviet occupation. He
expressed the hope that some clerk did not sign some foolish document
with Russia similar to that signed with Germany.
Zingeris also said Germany is now ready to pay 10,000 deutschemarks
to every person the Nazis sent to forced labor in Germany. Nazis
forcibly sent some 50,000 Lithuanians to Germany and some 2,000 to
Austria for slave labor there.
These modern slaves from Lithuania were people of all ethnic
backgrounds including a significant number of Jews, said Zingeris.
The Lithuanian Ministry of Social Welfare and Labor is registering
persons who were forced to work in Nazi Germany. Already 300 persons
residing in Lithuania, have registered.
However, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, during the rule of the
Democratic Labor Party (1992-1996), allowed Russia to represent
Lithuania in the deals with Germany about compensations to
Lithuanians persecuted by Nazis, said Julija Sliaziene, a journalist
for TV Lietuvos Televizija .
"Lithuania wasn't represented at the international level in solving
issues of compensation from occupation regimes," Zingeris said,
adding that because of it, Lithuania has had perfect relations with
Germany and Russia. However, Lithuania should end the conformist
policy, he said.
"There has to come a time when Lithuania will have the courage to say
what happened to hundreds of thousands of its citizens during World
War II," Zingeris said.
The Foreign Ministry said it will investigate the case and made the
suggestion that the official in the Lithuanian Embassy in Germany
acted on his own initiative, not by order from Vilnius.
Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said compensations for Soviet and
Nazi occupations should be calculated and both Germany and Russia
should remunerate Lithuania.
"We have all the possibilities to make the same steps as other
countries," Kubilius said, pointing to current compensation demands
of other Central European countries that were occupied by Nazi
Germany.
Kubilius spoke about it after visiting an international commission of
historians from Lithuania, the United States, Israel, Germany and
Russia working in Vilnius. The commission, created by initiative of
President Valdas Adamkus, investigates Soviet and Nazi occupations in
Lithuania.
Kubilius said that Soviet occupations' damages are already calculated
at almost $400 billion, according to the Genocide and Resistance
Center. Kubilius expressed the hope that the commission would help
estimate the damage from German occupation, which would act as the
basis for compensation demands for victims of the Nazis.
Zingeris said that Lithuanian claims to Germany might be also
billions of dollars, and Berlin should pay not only for slave labor
practices, but also for the ruining of Lithuania's economy.
Compensation problems were discussed during a meeting of Parliament
Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis with German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder on June 7. Landsbergis told Schroeder about his brother
Gabrielius Landsbergis-Zemkalnis, a member of anti-Nazi resistance
fighting for Lithuania's independence. The Gestapo caught and sent
him to jail in Germany.
"My brother was in a Nazi prison. After the war he stayed in the West
and got some compensation from Germany. However, victims of Nazi
terror on this side of the Iron Curtain did not receive
compensations," Landsbergis said after meeting with Schroeder.
He said Germany should pay directly through the fund in Lithuania,
not via Moscow.
During World War II, Nazis occupied the already-occupied nation but
not a [legal] part of the Soviet Union," Landsbergis said.
He urged Schroeder to create a joint Lithuanian-German fund for
handling the compensations. Germany already created similar bilateral
funds with Poland and the Czech Republic.
On June 9, the Lithuanian Parliament unanimously adopted a
resolution on German compensations to Lithuanian people who "suffered
in German prisons, labor camps and other places of imprisonment or
forced labor."
According to the Parliament's document, "the submission of
applications and the paying of compensations is a matter of
Lithuanian-German relations and should not be entrusted to a third
party."
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