Post-Soviet Lithuanian history has then involved sincere but faltering attempts to deal with a thorny question: Were Lithuanians chiefly perpetrators (of Nazi crimes against Jews) or victims (of Soviet crimes against the nation)?

In an interview I asked the Lithuanian prime minister, Andrius Kubilius, this question. He said there had been “some misunderstanding” over Azubalis’s remarks and that, “It’s absolutely clear that Holocaust crimes are unique crimes, terrible crimes.” He added that it was a “very painful and shameful thing” that “some Lithuanians took part in that.”

Kubilius continued, “It’s obvious that Stalinist crimes were also very terrible and painful, although you cannot compare them,” citing Snyder’s estimate that 14 million people were killed between Berlin and Moscow in the 12 years Hitler and Stalin were in power. “A lot of them were Jews,” Kubilius said, “but also a lot of other people.”

The prime minister accused Russia of a “post-imperial syndrome” blinding it to Moscow’s crimes. Asked if Russia should pay reparations to Lithuania, he cited postwar Germany, which “understood its responsibilities.” On whether a formal Russian apology would be a good thing, he said, “Absolutely, not only for us but for Russia, too.” He called coming to terms with the past a “litmus test” for Russia.

In this historical minefield, I’d offer the following seven points. First, the Kubilius government has made sincere attempts to confront Lithuanian Holocaust involvement, passing a law last year offering more than $50 million in compensation among several other measures. Second, the efforts are inadequate: The Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius, which devotes the vast bulk of its space to Soviet crimes against a valiant Lithuanian resistance, broadly reflects a still-skewed national psyche.

Third, the Western appreciation of Soviet crimes is indeed paltry (perhaps because Stalin was a U.S. ally in defeating Nazism) and should be increased. Fourth, the Prague Declaration and other attempts to equate Nazi and Soviet crimes are misplaced: The Nazi ideology that led women and children to be shot into pits and then created Auschwitz was unique in its murderous evil.

Fifth, some Soviet crimes may meet the U.N. definition of genocide — “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such” — but “genocide” risks losing meaning and gravity through overuse. Sixth, a Russian reckoning with Soviet crimes is overdue. Seventh, bringing Baltic states into the European Union and NATO was an act of diplomatic genius that prevented the ravages of memory exacting a further blood toll.