NEWS HEADLINES: Lithuania (May 20, 2009)--The campaign of defamation against the heroic Jewish resistance fighters who escaped the final liquidations of the Vilna ghetto in Lithuania to fight against the Hitlerites, has resumed in the mainstream media. While Lithuanian prosecutors, diplomats and justice ministry officials continue to assure the foreign diplomatic community and press that these Holocaust surviviors were only ever wanted as witnesses, there is not the slightest attempt to counter the mainstream media's ongoing assertions that they are wanted as suspect war criminals, that they are fugitives, and worse. Yesterday, the editor-in-chief and director of Baltic News Service, a former editor-in-chief of TVNET, and former head of the television news department at Lithuanian public television, A. Racas published his latest news article. Here is the English translation.

On a more positive note, a new book Sounds of Silence: Traces of Jewish Life in Lithuania was launched last week at Vilnius Old Town Hall in a spirit of Lithuanian-Jewish friendship based on openness and mutual respect. A report appears on the Yiddish institute's website.

These documents are posted here to promote awareness of the issues and as an expression of support from THE BART FAMILY for the Jewish resistance fighters, and the Lithuanian Jewish community.