World

Lithuania drops Yad Vashem case

A prosecution against the former chairman of Israel's Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem has been dropped by Lithuanian authorities.

October 3, 2008 13:54
1 min read

A prosecution against the former chairman of Israel's Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem has been dropped by Lithuanian authorities.

The JC reported in June that historian Yitzchak Arad was being investigated for his activities as part of a pro-Soviet partisan resistance group during the Holocaust.

Earlier this month, Lithuanian authorities began looking into several Jewish former partisans, with a possible view to prosecuting them for alleged war crimes. Dr Arad said at the time that he was "upset and disappointed" by the proceedings.

This week, the case was dropped with no further action being taken.

Efraim Zuroff, Israel director of the Simon Weisenthal Centre, said that although he was relieved that Dr Arad's case had been closed, there was a "more serious problem of Lithuanian Shoah distortion and blame deflection".