Lithuania Told Congress It Fixed the Lie

On May 12, 2026, Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a letter to Congressman Brad Sherman, relying, in its own words, on “information supplied by” Lithuania’s Genocide and Resistance Research Centre (LGGRTC). The Ministry reported that the Centre “has acknowledged” that its 2018 “complete exoneration” formulation concerning Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis was “legally imprecise,” that it “has expressed regret,” and that “this formulation has since been corrected.” That last assertion did not identify the two official letters sent to me as corrected or reissued. They were not. On July 15, 2026, LGGRTC page 2969 still credited the U.S. Department of Justice with Brazaitis’s rehabilitation; page 3058 was edited only on August 26, more than three months after the letter to Congress. The Ministry’s letter distinguished the legal terminology from the Centre’s underlying historical conclusion. The legal terminology was exactly what I asked the Centre to correct.

On October 13, 2026, the same Centre wrote to me about the same formulation, in the same two 2018 letters it had addressed to me. It said there were no new data. It said my objection was my “personal opinion.” It declined even to examine my request to correct the letters. It did not mention the letter it had helped send to Congress five months earlier. The Centre acknowledges receiving my July 17 request that day, yet did not register it until September 21, 66 days later.

One institution, one formulation, two answers. One for Washington. One for the Jew who asked.

The Centre wrote its method down

The Brazaitis “exoneration” was never a slip of the pen. In letter No. 14R-82 of October 11, 2018, copied to the Seimas Ombudsperson, the Centre set out its rule in Lithuanian:

“įtarimus, kaltinimus ar tyrimus, kurie atmesti ar nutraukti neįrodžius asmens kaltumo, vadina asmens išteisinimu.” In English: the Centre calls suspicions, accusations or investigations rejected or terminated without proof of the person’s guilt that person’s “acquittal.” The May 12 letter to Congress stated the opposite: “the administrative discontinuation of an investigation does not constitute a formal judicial exoneration under U.S. legal standards.”

An investigation closed without proof of guilt is not a court’s acquittal. Yet the Centre invoked the presumption of innocence and a Criminal Procedure Code provision concerning judicial acquittals to justify its terminology. In the same letter, the Centre declared that it “does not carry out a legal assessment of persons’ activity.” Its stated naming rule nonetheless assigns a legal disposition to foreign proceedings.

The American record behind the Brazaitis claim says something else. The INS commissioner’s letter, enclosed with the Foreign Ministry’s own reply to Congress, records that Brazaitis was never questioned, that his name was removed from an active list, that the investigation was “deactivated,” and that it would be “reactivated” if meaningful information emerged. The Centre even misnamed the recipient of the 1975 congressional cover letter it relies on. It calls him “Algimantas Gečys.” The letter is addressed to Stanley A. Gecys. I have written before that death is not exoneration. Neither is deactivation.

The rule at work

In letter No. 55R-21 of February 26, 2018, the Centre disclosed that when it wrote its determination on Kazys Škirpa, it “took into account secondary circumstances which it did not mention.” The undisclosed circumstance was that Brazaitis, head of the 1941 Provisional Government, “was completely acquitted” in the United States. An American acquittal that never happened was used, without telling readers, as favorable evidence in a second state historical finding.

The rule did not stop at Lithuanians. In its December 2019 memorandum defending Jonas Noreika, discussed again in letter No. 55R-951 of October 2, 2026, the Centre wrote that a Lübeck court “rejected the charges concerning the Holocaust” against Gebietskommissar Hans Gewecke and Ewald Bub. Yet its own account also recorded a sentence against Gewecke for ordering the hanging of B. Mazoveckis, a Jewish ghetto prisoner who had secretly brought food into the Šiauliai ghetto. The published Lübeck judgment is dated January 27, 1970, not 1969 as the Centre wrote.

A Jew was hanged for bringing food to starving Jews. The man who ordered it was convicted. The Centre wrote that down, and in the same breath told its readers the Holocaust charges had been rejected.

The Lübeck judgment of January 27, 1970 did not convict Bub. It found the charge of co-perpetration of murder (Mord) unproved. Its reasoning nevertheless recorded knowing, intentional and unlawful assistance in an act classified as Totschlag; the proceeding was discontinued because prosecution was time-barred. Those distinct conclusions do not amount to a complete acquittal. In 55R-951 the Centre acknowledged that its “completely acquitted” formulation was probably legally inaccurate, while maintaining the substance of its historical position. I set out the source record in Funhouse Mirrors.

For Hermann Schleef, the Centre told me in 2020 that an Oldenburg court had “exonerated” him. The Oldenburg Regional Court’s April 27, 1970 order placed him outside prosecution for the factual reason of insufficient evidence, without a trial or a judicial finding of innocence. Lower Saxony’s state archive confirmed that copies of the Schleef file were sent to Lithuania’s embassy in 2021.

The same names

Letter 55R-21 lists Arūnas Bubnys and Dalius Stancikas at its foot as contact persons. Letter 14R-82 names Stancikas. Letter 55R-951 is signed by Bubnys, now acting Director General, and again lists Stancikas as a contact. Bubnys also signed the October 13 refusal. The people listed on the “acquittal” letters decide whether those letters will be corrected.

Who will review Lithuania’s Holocaust exhibitions

Lithuania’s January 2026 plan against antisemitism makes LGGRTC the principal implementer of measure 3.27: from 2027 to 2029 it is to review the Holocaust exhibitions of municipal museums and recommend changes. As I documented in 157 Measures, No Credibility, LGGRTC itself proposed that the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History lead the work. The government nevertheless retained LGGRTC as lead, stating that it had greater competence.

The institution that calls a terminated investigation an acquittal is to judge how Lithuania’s museums tell the Holocaust.

What I filed on October 13

I give the Centre’s statements no weight as evidence; they are its assertions. Every claim below rests on its own letters, the American and German court and archival records, and the Lithuanian government’s correspondence.

• A complaint to Lithuania’s Administrative Disputes Commission asking it to annul the October 13 refusal, order a reasoned decision on correcting both 2018 letters, require that the decision be made by an official who had no part in writing them, and compel production of the records of how my request was handled.
• A new correction request to the Centre asking it to withdraw both letters, withdraw the 14R-82 rule itself, correct the Eilberg addressee, and state which formulation it told the Foreign Ministry it had corrected, and when.
• A supplement to my pending complaint before the Seimas Ombudspersons, which the October 13 letter itself confirms: the Centre admits it “did not examine” my July correction request and registered it only 66 days after receiving it.
• A request for parliamentary oversight to the Seimas Commission on Freedom Struggles and Historical Memory and the Education and Science Committee, including an independent source audit before measure 3.27 begins.
• A notice to Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys, copied to Congressman Sherman’s office, asking which correction the Centre reported, whether Congress will be told about the October 13 refusal, and whether the Centre’s “exonerations” were sent to Lithuanian missions abroad.
• A letter to Congressman Sherman asking him to refer the record to the United States delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and to the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism.
• A note to Germany’s Ambassador in Vilnius asking Germany to clarify that its courts’ decisions on Gewecke, Bub and Schleef were not acquittals, and to help obtain the complete records, including a 1964 partial-discontinuance order I have not yet seen.
• A referral concerning LGGRTC to IHRA, the EU-funded PRISMA consortium in which the Centre is a partner, and the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, which received a nomination of Bubnys for its prize.

The standard

IHRA’s Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion names “intentional efforts to excuse or minimize the impact of the Holocaust or its principal elements, including collaborators and allies of Nazi Germany.” Its 2020 Statement on Rehabilitation, adopted under Germany’s presidency, condemns “all attempts to rehabilitate the reputations of persons who were complicit.”

Measure the record against that. A written rule converting closed files into innocence. Its use for the head of the 1941 Provisional Government, for an undisclosed purpose in a second state finding, and for the German officials who ran the Šiauliai ghetto. Notice, again and again, since 2018. An admission to the United States Congress. A refusal to the person who asked.

Lithuania can keep the version it gave Washington or the version it gave me. It cannot keep both.