COMMENTARY: Judges in Lithuania Lack Wisdom in Ruling Swastikas Not a Nazi Symbol in WWII

A court in Lithuania ruled on May 19, 2010 that a swastika is part of that country's historic legacy, and not a Nazi symbol.

Excuse me, unintelligent judges in Lithuania, but was the swastika not a Nazi symbol when Nazi Germany, under Adolph Hitler, started World War II by invading Poland in 1939? Moreover, was the swastika not the symbol of Nazi Germany when the Germans were responsible for the murder of some six million innocent Jews from 1939 through 1945?

Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi hunter, is correct in calling the Lithuanian court decision "outrageous." He is also correct in saying that Lithuanian judges are "again" showing their bias in favor of Holocaust perpetrators rather than the victims.

The fact is that in the past, Lithuania has done nothing with respect to the display of swastikas on May Day and in front of the presidential palace in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Such inaction tends to illustrate that Lithuanians have no empathy for the six million Jews who were killed by the Nazis during World War II.

Lithuanians, in general, need to show more compassion toward the victims of the Holocaust, and Lithuanian judges, in particular, need to remove their "blinders" and observe situations in a clear and objective perspective.

Hopefully, higher courts in Lithuania will overturn this contemptible swastika court ruling -- and the sooner the better.