Gimzauskas, who was deputy head of the Vilnius Security Police during the German occupation, is the only defendant ever found guilty by a Lithuanian court of committing genocide against Jews. His former boss, Aleksandras Lileikis, also accused of genocide, died last autumn.
The court found that Gimzauskas suffered incurable mental disorders and was incapable of understanding or controlling his behavior. The court gave him over to the custody of his relatives, recommending the district psychiatrist observe him carefully.
The court concluded that there was enough evidence that Gimzauskas had taken part in anti-Nazi activities and that he was responsible for genocide.
Gimzauskas' official activities were not only directed against communists and partisans but also against Jews. Acting as Lileikis' deputy, Gimzauskas on one occasion signed orders to hand five Jews over to the Nazis.
Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, Efraim Zuroff, issued a statement on the same day. "The conviction today of the Nazi accomplice Kazys Gimzauskas, who actively assisted in the persecution and murder of the Lithuanian Jews during the Holocaust but is currently too ill to be incarcerated, whilst a positive step, clearly underscores Lithuania's reluctance to prosecute Lithuanian Nazi war criminals who could actually be punished for their crimes."
Prosecutor Rimvydas Valentukevicius claimed that Gimzauskas signed a document sentencing five Jews to death. However, the court concluded that there was not enough evidence to prove that two of the five were actually killed.
United States delighted
In an interview with the daily newspaper Lietuvos Rytas, the director of the Nazi-hunting office of special investigations at the U.S. Justice Department, Eli Rosenbaum, described the trial as "a delayed but historic event."
"Your government won this case, and it is an important victory achieved through years of work on both sides of the Atlantic."
The U.S. official took the opportunity to thank Lithuanian prosecutor Rimvydas Valentukevicius and his predecessor Kazys Pednycia for their contribution to the investigation of the Gimzauskas case.
Rosenbaum also commended outgoing Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States Stasys Sakalauskas, who "improved relations between the U.S. and Lithuanian governments, which had deteriorated in the wake of the Nazi trials."
The U.S. government has been pressing Lithuanian authorities to put suspected Nazi collaborators residing in Lithuania on trial for more than a decade.
The matter has been high on the agenda of direct and personal conversations between Lithuanian leaders and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, former Attorney General Janet Reno, consecutive U.S. ambassadors in Vilnius and Jewish organizations.
This made enough of an impression on the Lithuanian Parliament for it to adopt special laws, unique in Europe, allowing seriously ill genocide suspects to be put on trial.
It was established during the trial that both Gimzauskas and Lileikis were security officers during Lithuania's prewar independence period. Gimzauskas was jailed and tortured by the Soviets in 1940-1941. He was freed by Lithuanian partisans after the anti-Soviet revolt on June 22, 1941.
When in better health, Lileikis and Gimzauskas each stated that they were asked by the anti-Nazi underground to join the pro-Nazi security police. Witnesses stated that the two in actual fact saved various people wanted by the Germans for underground activities or their Jewish origin from the Gestapo.
Media defensive
The Lithuanian media have actively commented on the Gimzauskas case. Lithuanian-American millionaire businessman Juozas Kazickas is the richest Lithuanian in the world. He was instrumental in bringing the U.S. oil company Williams International to Lithuania.
Kazickas was in the anti-Nazi resistance. He told Lithuania's state-owned television LTV that it was Lileikis' office that warned him about the Gestapo's plans to arrest him. Thanks to this warning Kazickas managed to hide from the Germans.
The current affairs magazine Veidas wrote that during the German occupation cooperation between the local Lithuanian administration and the pro-independence, anti-Nazi underground was not uncommon, and that it is difficult to make black-and-white judgments about alleged Nazi collaborators.
It has been argued by some Lithuanian historians that officials in the security police did not directly participate in the murder of Jews. In Gimzauskas' case, however, the court concluded that the force's function of interrogating Jews and handing them over to the German security forces was tantamount to participation.
In 1995, while giving an account of his actions to the Lithuanian general prosecutor's office, Gimzauskas said that in assisting his chief Aleksandras Lileikis he had to sign instructions concerning Jews.
Gimzauskas was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in the 1990s for concealing his past and returned to Lithuania.
The case against Gimzauskas was brought on November 19, 1997. It took several years for it to go to trial, but the case couldn't be heard because of concerns about the defendant's health, which prevented him from attending any of the hearings.
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