{"id":61983,"date":"2018-06-05T17:05:54","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T15:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=61983"},"modified":"2018-06-05T07:14:30","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T05:14:30","slug":"14-05-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=61983","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts of Lithuania\u2019s past brought back by a child\u2019s toy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Ghosts of Lithuania\u2019s past brought back by a child\u2019s toy*<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

JOANNA PLUCINSKA<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

An amendment to consumer law sparks a firestorm over Russian propaganda and the Holocaust.<\/strong>
\nThe \u201cPolite People\u201d toy made by a Moscow firm references the supposedly \u201cpolite\u201d Russian soldiers who annexed Crimea in 2014 | iStock<\/span><\/p>\n

VILNIUS \u2014 Lithuania is embroiled in a spat over freedom of speech, Russian propaganda and the Holocaust \u2014 all because of a children\u2019s toy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Russian-language toy \u2014 called \u201cPolite People\u201d and made by a Moscow firm \u2014 lets youngsters paint or assemble military figurines (and, for reasons that aren\u2019t clear, a cat) and stage their own occupation. Its innocuous sounding name is a reference to the supposedly \u201cpolite\u201d Russian soldiers who annexed Crimea in 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

People across Lithuania are none too pleased with the toy and the Lithuanian government said its presence in shops is an act of aggression.<\/span><\/p>\n

The government\u2019s response has been to push for changes to consumer laws that would ban retail goods that \u201cdistort Lithuanian history.\u201d A parliamentary plenary debate on the planned changes is expected in mid-June but there\u2019s already an impassioned discussion underway about how Lithuania deals with its own history: both the post-war Soviet occupation that ended with independence in 1991 and the role of Lithuanians in the Holocaust during German occupation in World War II.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It\u2019s censorship, what else is it? It violates \u2026 the constitution of Lithuania\u201d \u2014 R\u016bta Vanagait\u0117, author of \u201cOur People\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

That has put the government in Vilnius at odds not just with the toy\u2019s Russian manufacturer Zvezda (which didn\u2019t respond to requests for information about how many copies were sold in Lithuania, or why it was marketed there in the first place), but also with historians and the country\u2019s Jewish community.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRussia has been using \u2018soft power\u2019 for a long time to target people\u2019s minds, and in this case toys are the means of shaping people\u2019s point of view,\u201d said Rasa Juknevi\u010dien\u0117, a Lithuanian MP and member of the committee of national security and defense, who supports the idea of using legislation to tackle such issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

The big concern among Lithuania\u2019s Jewish community is that the amended law would target books viewed as unfavorable to the country\u2019s national narrative.<\/span>
\nIn 1939, the city had about 80,000 Jewish residents (there were about 208,000 Jews in the whole country), according to historian and proclaimed Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff. By the end of the war, there were just 8,000 Jews left in all of Lithuania. That clashes with the narrative that Lithuanian involvement in the Holocaust was limited to a handful of \u201cdegenerates.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an argument echoed across Central and Eastern Europe, with Poland also trying to use legislation to block any narrative that puts blame on Poles.<\/span>
\nLithuanian writer R\u016bta Vanagait\u0117 presents \u201cOur People\u201d \u2014 the book she co-authored with Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff (right) | Petras Malukas\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

And it adds to the fear that Russia is manipulating information to make it appear as if Lithuanians were complicit in the Holocaust. \u201cIf you accuse somebody of [perpetrating] the Holocaust, you immediately accuse them of being fascist,\u201d said Tomas Ceponis, an analyst at Lithuania\u2019s Ministry of Defense.<\/span><\/p>\n

One book that could be targeted by any changes to the law is \u201cOur People\u201d by R\u016bta Vanagait\u0117, which looks at the role of some Lithuanians \u2014 and not just Nazis \u2014 in the targeting and killing of members of the country\u2019s Jewish community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vanagait\u0117\u2019s book, published in Lithuania in January 2016 \u2014 months before the board game caught the attention of concerned shoppers \u2014 argues that Lithuanian citizens, including members of her own family, aided the Nazis in the murder of around 200,000 Lithuanian Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe reaction was very stormy,\u201d she said of the book, co-written with Zuroff. \u201cPoliticians were very much against it because they said the book was inspired by Kremlin propaganda.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lithuania\u2019s first post-Soviet head of state, Vytautas Landsbergis, even wrote an op-ed saying Vanagait\u0117 should go to a forest, find a tree and pray for her sins after she said a Lithuanian war hero could have been a KGB collaborator.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a direct invitation for me to hang myself,\u201d Vanagait\u0117 said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cPolite People\u201d toy as it is sold online | Zvezda<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

To the author, the planned consumer law change feels like a personal attack on her work and on Lithuania\u2019s complicated history with the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s censorship, what else is it?\u201d said Vanagait\u0117. \u201cIt violates \u2026 the constitution of Lithuania.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trivializing the Holocaust<\/strong><\/p>\n

The government insists there\u2019s nothing to worry about.<\/span><\/p>\n

The legislation originated in the office of Lithuania\u2019s new Economy Minister Virginijus Sinkevi\u010dius, a 27-year-old with a \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d hat in his office.<\/span><\/p>\n

The minister said the amended law was proposed days before he took office late last year, which didn\u2019t give him enough time to scrutinize it. The aim was to provide the legislative tools to remove items like the board game from shops, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Time is running out before debate on the consumer bill
\n\u2014 which will also touch on sensitive issues such as the
\nsexualization of goods sold to minors \u2014 gets going.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not discussing questions like the Holocaust,\u201d said Sinkevi\u010dius, adding that freedom of speech would not be harmed in any way. He said he had listened to Jewish concerns and would delete any part of the legislation that might harm their interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe value our friendship with the community,\u201d said the minister.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, a historian and spokesperson for the country\u2019s Genocide and Resistance Research Center, Monika Kareniauskait\u0117, described the planned legislation as \u201cpotentially dangerous\u201d and the man behind it as \u201cunprofessional.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Members of the remnants of Lithuania\u2019s Jewish community, now numbering around 3,500 people, agree.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is another one of these laws against true history,\u201d said Dovid Katz, an American historian and specialist in Yiddish poetry based in Lithuania<\/span><\/p>\n

Armed men believed to be Russian military stand outside a Ukrainian military base, March 2014 | Dan Kitwood\/Getty Images<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In his sprawling apartment filled with poetry and literature, Katz said there is a reluctance on the part of the Lithuanian government to openly discuss the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fear of Russian aggression is being used as a justification for \u201cfar-right rewriting of history to trivialize the Holocaust,\u201d he said, adding that the consumer law could set a dangerous precedent in Lithuania, following in the footsteps of Poland\u2019s Holocaust law, and \u201cwon\u2019t help [deal] with Russian propaganda.\u201d<\/span>
\nrecommended: Leon Rozenbaum<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Back at the economy ministry, Sinkevi\u010dius said it is up to the Ministry of Defense and parliament\u2019s committee of national security and defense to rewrite the rules in a clearer way, to more explicitly target games like \u201cPolite People\u201d and steer clear of any potential censorship.<\/span><\/p>\n

In parliament, however, lawmakers said they believe it is up to the economy ministry to provide clarity on the law.<\/span><\/p>\n

Time is running out before debate on the consumer bill \u2014 which will also touch on sensitive issues such as the sexualization of goods sold to minors \u2014 gets going.<\/span><\/p>\n

Critics say the vague wording of the legislation is not accidental, and harks back to Soviet times when laws could be applied in whatever fashion the authorities liked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can take the country out of the Soviet Union, you cannot take the Soviet Union out of the country,\u201d said Vanagait\u0117.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n
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Ghosts of Lithuania\u2019s past brought back by a child\u2019s toy* JOANNA PLUCINSKA An amendment to consumer law sparks a firestorm over Russian propaganda and the Holocaust. The \u201cPolite People\u201d toy made by a Moscow firm references the supposedly \u201cpolite\u201d Russian soldiers who annexed Crimea in 2014 | iStock VILNIUS \u2014 Lithuania is embroiled in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61983"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62008,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61983\/revisions\/62008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}