German President honours Holocaust victims in Lithuania

German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has honoured Holocaust victims on Friday at the site of a mass grave near the Lithuanian Capital.
About 120,000 people, including 70,000 Jews, are believed to have been killed by Nazi forces and local collaborators in the forested hills of Paneriai during World War II.
Paneriai should be a “place of shame for the Germans, but also an eternal reminder,’’ said Steinmeier, who visited the memorial with his wife, Elke Buedenbender.
He was greeted by representatives of the Jewish community.
“We greatly appreciate the respect that Paneriai elicits, as it is ultimately a symbol for all the Lithuanian Jews who were killed,’’ Faina Kukliansky, chairperson of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, said in comments carried by the Baltic News Service.
Most of the victims at Paneriai came from Vilnius, some 15 kilometres away.
Vilnius, as Steinmeier emphasised, had once been regarded as a European Jerusalem because of its large Jewish population and cultural heritage.