Project in Lithuania to mark Holocaust victims' graves completed

Lithuania has completed a year-long project to mark the sites of mass graves bearing the remains of Holocaust victims in a country which lost 90 percent of its Jewish population, officials said on Thursday. In a speech at the Paneriai Holocaust memoria Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas said "Yesterday the project funded by the people of Great Britain was officially concluded. The 180 Holocaust sites were marked by black granite steles". Some 90 percent of the country's 220,000 strong pre-war Jewish community perished in World War II, and the first memorial in the project was laid in October 2003 in Naujaneriai near Vilnius, where 1,700 Jews died. Brazauskas called on local authorities to continue the project initiated by Lord Janner, vice-president of World Jewish Congress, which has cost some EUR 289,600, donated by Britain. The prime minister spoke at a meeting commemorating the 61st anniversary of the destruction of the Vilnius ghetto, which is the country's official day for remembering the Holocaust.