A city in Lithuanian has drawn outrage from the local Jewish community over its plan to build a bicycle track in an area site where thousands of Jews were buried during the Holocaust.
The construction of the track in Šiauliai had started and was brought to the attention of Jewish officials after it emerged some of it would pass through the grounds where many Jews were murdered by the Nazis and Lithuanian soldiers, who dumped their bodies in the forest land.
The head of the local Jewish community, Sania Krabalis, said that human remains were buried along a large chuck of the planned route.
As a result, Deputy Mayor Simona Potalan held an emergency meeting with the relevant authorities – the heads of the historical site conservation department and the the construction division – later announcing the track would be rerouted and an updated plan will be unveiled within a month.
In addition, they also decided to renovate the small sign at the memorial constructed in the area and mark the boundaries of the burial site in order to prevent similar problems from occurring in the future.
