ABSTRACT
It is a tender issue for Lithuania, as well as for other young democracies of Central Europe striving to join the community of the free and democratic states of the world. For this purpose, the President of Lithuania has founded “The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania”. The Commission members are famous historians and public people of Lithuania, United States, Israel, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom. When the sovereignty of Lithuania was restored in 1990, the Lithuanian people were able to talk freely about the occupation by both the Nazis and the Soviets, on the crimes against humanity committed during the occupation period so as to initiate an exhaustive investigation of the Nazi and Soviet occupation during Second World War and the post-war years. Lithuanian society was frozen in the grip of the Soviet Empire, restricting its normal development.
