Lithuania is working to have a monument to Nazi and Soviet crimes built in Brussels, President Gitanas Nausėda says.
Such a moment would raise awareness about twentieth-century totalitarian regimes among people in Western Europe, he added.
“We are working on a monument in Brussels to commemorate the crimes of Hitlerism, fascism, the red plague, the victims of communism, and we are well on our way,” Nausėda told reporters in Macikai on Thursday.
“I very much hope we won’t have wavering, doubting politicians in Europe who will say that there was only one kind of crime. [...] We have to be very principled and we have to present it to the people of Western Europe, so that they know better not only what Hitler did, but also what Stalin did,” he said.
The Lithuanian president made the remarks as he attended a commemoration in the village of Macikai, Šilutė District, to mark the end of World War Two in Europe.
Citizens from more than 20 countries were imprisoned in the camps, operated by the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes in Macikai for 15 years, using the same buildings and infrastructure.
From 1941 to 1944, during the Nazi occupation, the Stalag Luft VI POW camp operated at the site. It held American, British, Belgian, Canadian, Polish, French, Australian and Soviet prisoners.
Between 1944 and 1946, the Soviets imprisoned Germans, Romanians, Hungarians, Austrians, Dutch, Poles, Czechs, Danes, Belgians, Yugoslavs, Portuguese and Greeks there.
In 1945, the Soviet occupation authorities turned the former POW camp into the Gulag Šilutė (Macikai) camp. Until 1955, it held Lithuanian citizens, including clergy, cultural and educational figures, partisan supporters, farmers who failed to meet quotas, escapees from exile, and women with their children born in the camp.
Many victims died from mistreatment or were executed, and mass graves are still being discovered in various locations in Šilutė District. Available data suggest that around 6,000 people of various nationalities died in the Macikai camps.
Between 1939 and 1955, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union operated a network of camps across Lithuania. During the Nazi period, 12 POW camps were established. From 1944 to 1955, the Soviet Union ran 36 camps in the country, holding not only prisoners of war but also civilians.
May 8 marks the end of World War Two in Europe, commemorating Germany’s signing of the unconditional surrender in 1945.
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