Lithuania Keeps Its False Acquittal and Tries a Jew

Lithuania’s Genocide Centre will not correct its claim that America acquitted a man whose cabinet approved a camp for Jews. On October 26, Artur Fridman is expected back in a Vilnius court over a Facebook post that prosecutors call a false fabrication.

On October 26, Artur Fridman is expected back in the Vilnius City District Court in Case No. 02-2-00512-24. He is charged under Article 313 §2 of the Criminal Code with spreading “false fabrications” about the partisan commander Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, and under Article 170² §1 over the same post. Fridman is innocent: the law presumes it, and no court has found otherwise.

I have published the full investigation as “Lithuania Shields Its Falsehoods and Tries Fridman.” Its documentary register identifies 37 exhibits, with public links where available. This is the short version.

The state’s statement

On June 30, 1941, the Provisional Government cabinet of Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, with his signature on the record, approved the establishment of a Jewish concentration camp. Lithuania’s Genocide and Resistance Research Centre (LGGRTC) published those minutes. It also told the public, in letters of February and July 2018, that Brazaitis “buvo visiškai išteisintas,” was completely acquitted, by the United States.

He was not. The 1974 INS letter records an inquiry that found no substantive evidence and was deactivated, subject to reactivation. Brazaitis was never questioned, and no judgment acquitting him has been identified. On May 12, 2026, Lithuania’s own Foreign Ministry wrote to Congressman Brad Sherman that an administrative discontinuation is not a judicial exoneration.

On October 13, the Centre declined to examine my request to correct its letters (55R-1016). On October 23 it wrote that its wording is essentially consistent with a historical assessment that he was innocent (55R-1106). Prosecutors declined to investigate the Centre’s texts, calling them conclusions of historians, “ne teisininkų,” not lawyers.

The citizen’s statement

Fridman wrote that Ramanauskas-Vanagas “collaborated with the KGB.” The indictment charges that statement as a false fabrication. Yet the Genocide Centre letter it cites, 13R-645, records that Soviet security recruited him in 1944 and again in January 1945, that he named relatives and acquaintances, and that reports of February 1945 are attributed to him. It concludes that he agreed under pressure but did not carry out the cooperation. Whether Fridman’s word “collaborated” is false is for the court to decide, and the prosecution must prove it.

The leaf the Centre cites for the 1945 recruitment is restricted. The Special Archives told me it may not be copied. According to LRT, the court intended to question a Centre historian, Rytas Narvydas.

The Centre’s false acquittal claim is treated as historians’ opinion. Fridman’s sentence about a national hero is charged as a crime. A standard of truth that applies to one side only is not a standard of truth.

The pattern

I have seen this standard before:

• The Centre told me in writing that my research possibly violated the Criminal Code’s defamation article. It never referred the matter to anyone (55R-1096).
• 2010–2011. Lithuanian authorities sought information about Holocaust survivor Joseph Melamed, and sought his questioning in Israel, over his lists of perpetrators. In parallel, the Government had the Genocide Centre examine his 4,233-name list; according to a 2013 Delfi report, the Centre found that 1,070 of those named possibly contributed to the genocide of the Jews. Despite years of promises, Lithuania never answered Melamed himself: the figures reached the public through a news report, and the name-by-name file has never been released. This month the Prosecutor General refused me his 1999 file, and the police refused the 2010–2011 records.
• 2006–2008. Prosecutors investigated Yitzhak Arad, former chairman of Yad Vashem, closing the case for insufficient evidence. Arad wrote that the Genocide Centre was among those working to rewrite the history of the war.

On November 17 and 18, Lithuania’s Administrative Disputes Commission hears my complaints against the Centre’s refusal and the Foreign Ministry’s refusal to transmit my evidence to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The Commission does not decide historical truth. It decides whether public bodies handled a citizen’s requests lawfully.

In my view, the Article 313 §2 charge should be dismissed if the prosecution cannot prove the statement false and the defense has been denied effective access to the evidence needed to challenge it. At a minimum, the court should order the documents produced. The Centre’s claims are treated as opinion when they are shown to be wrong. They should not become proof against a Jewish defendant until their sources have been tested.