The head of the Lithuanian Genocide Center has issued a statement regarding Kazys Skirpa. The statement is attached, in the original Lithuania, and an English translation.
An excerpt from my book: Malice, Murder & Manipulation about kazys Skirpa follows:
The founder of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) was Colonel Skirpa, and the interim prime minister of the provisional government was Brazaitis.
An excerpt from the platform of the LAF and the provisional government of Lithuania, June 23, 1941–August 5, 1941, reads:
Lithuanian brothers and sisters!
The final hour of reckoning with the Jews has arrived. Lithuania must be liberated not only from the enslavement of the Asiatic Bolsheviks, but also from the prolonged yoke of Jewry. In the name of the entire Lithuanian nation, the Lithuanian Activist Front most ceremoniously declares:
1. The ancient right of sanctuary extended to the Jews by Vytautas the Great is canceled completely and finally.
2. Every Jew of Lithuania without exception is officially warned to quit the land of Lithuania immediately and without any delay.
3. Jews are eliminated from Lithuania completely and forever.
And with this, approximately 96.4 percent of Jews on the territory of Lithuania were murdered, the highest murder rate of any country in Europe. It was safer to be a Jew in Nazi Germany than it was to be a Jew in Lithuania.
By the beginning of 1942, 80 percent of the Jewish population of Lithuania had already been murdered, oftentimes without any German presence. There was vigorous and widespread participation of the Lithuanian population in the murder of Jews and the plunder of their possessions, the plundering taking place even before the butchering had finished. Einsatzkommando 2 of the German security police reported the murder of 114,856 Lithuanian Jews as early as December 1, 1942. This was accomplished with only 139 personnel, of whom 44 were secretaries and drivers. Ninety-five murderers had sufficient assistance from local Lithuanians to murder 114,856 Jews in just a few months.
In minute No. 5, from June 27,1941 of the LAF, it is recorded that “Minister Zemkalnis reported on the unusually brutal massacres committed against Jews in Kaunas, at the Lietukis garage:
It is resolved that, despite all the measures to be taken against the Jews for their Communist activities and harm caused to the German army, the partisans and individual citizens should avoid public executions of Jews.”
No. 6 of the June 30, 1941 (on the establishment of the Lithuanian police battalion) minutes reads, in part:
2. To approve the establishment of the Jewish concentration camp, instructing its guidance and creation to Vice-Minister of Communal Utilities Mr. Svilpa in cooperation with Mr. Colonel Bobelis.
The concentration camp was established at Kaunas’s Seventh Fort. Using the provisional government’s money, the Lithuanian battalion there started the regulated destruction of Jews. Until the concentration camp closed on September 10, 1941, Lithuanian battalion servicemen murdered about five thousand Jews of Kaunas.
On August 1, 1941—four days prior to the termination of its activities—the provisional government received approval for Lithuania’s “Regulation on Jews.” It is the Lithuanian version of the “final solution of the Jewish question.”
The LAF announced from the Kaunas radio center about the establishment of the provisional government, which said:
Brothers Lithuanians! Take your weapons and help the German army in the cause of national liberation. With confidence and grateful joy meet the marching German troops and provide them with all possible assistance. Long live the friendly relations with the great Germany and its leader Adolf Hitler!
Long live free and independent Lithuania!
The interim prime minister of Lithuania, Brazaitis, who signed the orders to create the first Jewish ghettos, and who suggested that Jews not be murdered “so publicly,” was re-buried in Lithuania in May 2012 with full state honors. This re-burial was funded by the office of the Lithuanian prime minister.
The Lithuanian Activist Front stoked the murderous flames and was a willing and zealous partner of the Nazis. During the LAF’s 43 days of existence, the provisional government issued numerous anti-Semitic laws that began the initial stages of the “final solution” of Lithuanian Jewry.
In 1995, Skirpa was re-buried in Lithuania. The memorial speeches were given by the then prime minister of Lithuania, Adolfas Slezevicius, and Defense Minister Linas Linkevicius (who became minister of foreign affairs in 2012). The Lithuanian national anthem, as well as the military salute, followed.
After WWII, Germany and Austria “de-Nazi-fied.” After re-independence, Lithuania turned her Jew murderers into national heroes.
On September 12, 2000, the Lithuanian Seimas voted for the legitimacy of the 1941 provisional government of Lithuania.
Not a single Lithuanian Holocaust perpetrator has been punished in Lithuania since it became independent.
The founder of the LAF, Colonel Kazys Skirpa, has been honored with streets named for him—K. Skirpa Street (gatve), in Kaunas. There is also a K. Skirpos aleja (alley), in Vilnius.