Shoah commemorated in Vilnius

Young and old inhabitants of Vilnius have taken part in a special ceremony commemorating victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania.

Volunteers took turns to read names from a vast list that records ever single inhabitant of the former Vilnius Ghetto, an enclosure that was liquidated 68 years ago this month.

Participants read both the names and professions of those on the list, in an action that took approximately 15 hours.

Prior to the war, about 220,000 Jews lived in Lithuania, about 95 percent of whom perished during the conflict.

Historians cite complicity of some Lithuanians in the policies of the occupying Nazi regime. National debate about such issues was stifled during the Cold War era.

Earlier this summer, the Lithuanian government voted on approving a $53 million compensation package to families that lost property as a result of the war and the subsequent Soviet era.

A programme of restoring Jewish monuments has also been set in motion.