“And now there would be six thousand people ready to kill. Holocaust in Lithuania
On January 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day is celebrated around the world. On this day in 1945, the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz death camp. Decades later, discussions about the Holocaust remain relevant – in the context of repentance and historical memory.
In many countries, the topic of the Holocaust remains an open wound. One example of this is Lithuania. During World War II, over 90 percent of the Jews living here were exterminated in Lithuania—more than two hundred thousand people. Places of massacres can be found in various parts of the country. These tragic statistics have been in the public domain for many years. A loud discussion about the lesser-known facts of the Holocaust in Lithuania has unfolded in the country in recent years after the publication of a book by publicist Ruta Vanagaitė. In the book “Our Own,” Ruta Vanagaitė talks about the participation of Lithuanian citizens in the extermination of Jews. Shortly before this broadcast, Ruta Vanagaite presented the book in Washington. After the presentation, she talked with the author and presenter of the program “Present Time. Results” about the history of writing the book and public discussions on the topic of historical memory in Lithuania.
Ruta Vanagaite: «<Книга>was published in Lithuanian, and I thought that no one would read it, because my friends said that they didn’t want anything negative, and in general it was a long time ago, and in general the Jews got what they deserved, and the younger generation said the same , that it was a long time ago, and there are much more terrible things that they are now watching on YouTube, and I realized that maybe some Lithuanian patriots would read the book and attack me a little, and that’s all. There are only two thousand copies, and they will lie somewhere on a shelf between other history books.
But in the end it turned out... It turned out to be a huge scandal, and the book was sold out in 48 hours - all two thousand copies, and the publishing house published another 17 thousand.
Part of the book is a trip to the sites of mass executions and conversations with people who were witnesses, but the main part of the book is my work in the archives, in a special archive in Lithuania, where thousands of files of people who participated in the execution of Jews and who were later arrested are kept. after the war and very thorough interrogations of these people. And interrogations of various witnesses. Therefore, I do not agree with the opinion of some of our official historians that if people admitted that they participated in the Holocaust, in the murder of Jews, they did it under torture. Because any episode that is described in these cases is also confirmed by the testimony of many witnesses. Let's say there is the case of my grandfather, who did not kill, but participated in the Nazi commission and compiled lists of Soviet activists who probably turned out to be Jews, and then they were killed at the beginning of the war. And they interrogate not only him, and he denies everything, of course, but they also interrogate all his neighbors. And about 10-15 people are witnesses who talk about it. I don't believe the witnesses were tortured.
It is very important that this is not my father, but my grandfather. I didn’t know my grandfather and I didn’t know my aunt’s husband, who was the chief of police. A generation later, and if you didn't know these people, you'll find it more curious than painful. It's part of your family, part of your history, but it's not in your heart.
I spoke with many people who are grandchildren and children of Nazis in Germany. They could not talk about their father. It's too close.
Therefore, I think that the generation of people, not even mine, but the next one - they can generally talk about it freely, because it was the truth, but it is a truth that does not hurt you so much.
I think the sense of justice and the sense that the whole country should look at its history was more important than the honor of my grandfather or my uncle. Because if I hadn’t told about my relatives, what right do I have to even talk about it and say to other Lithuanians: look what was happening in your family!
The publisher said why are you writing this book? Do you know what the geopolitical situation is? And I say that Putin is waiting for me to write a book about the Holocaust, and then he will occupy Lithuania? If we do not tell ourselves the truth, then it is precisely these half-truths and untruths that will serve Putin’s propaganda. But if we talk and figure out for ourselves who killed, why, how it happened, how can this serve him? In general, this is an internal matter of Lithuania. When the Russian media wanted to interview me and use me for their propaganda purposes, I refused. To this day, I do not cooperate with any Russian official media, I do not give them interviews, nothing. This is an internal matter of Lithuania.”
Vanagaite's book initially became a bestseller in Lithuania, but was later pulled from bookstore shelves after a scandal in which the Lithuanian judiciary considered launching a pre-trial investigation into Vanagaite's statements about partisan leader Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas. She questioned the official version of his life and death, noting that Vanagas may not have been tortured by the KGB and is not a national hero. Ruta Vanagaitė later apologized for her hasty statements, and the Vilnius court in early January ruled that there was no need to launch a pre-trial investigation.
In the wake of the scandal, the European Jewish Congress condemned the attacks on Vanagaite and condemned the decision not to publish or distribute her books. The American PEN Center also expressed deep concern about this fact.
The Lithuanian PEN Center, in turn, wrote an open letter in which it called for separating the issue of the publication of a book about the Holocaust and the reaction to it from Vanagaite’s statements about Adolf Vanagas and judgments in society on this topic.
The Lithuanian Embassy in Washington, in comments to Voice of America, also stated that Vanagaite’s comments that Vanagaite could have taken part in the Holocaust caused widespread discussion in society, as a result of which the private publisher decided to withdraw all of Ruta Vanagaite’s books from circulation. The embassy noted that the Lithuanian Jewish Community has distanced itself from allegations that Vanagas may have been involved in Holocaust crimes.
It is worth noting that six months after the publication of Vanagaitė’s book, in the small Lithuanian town of Molėtai, where two thousand Jews were shot on one day in 1941, a Holocaust commemoration march took place, one of the inspirations of which was the Lithuanian playwright Marius Ivaškevičius.
Marius Ivaskevicius : «<Продолжать эти дискуссии>definitely necessary. Before this, it was thought like this: this is an injury, this is a wound, it’s better not to stick your finger in there, let it heal on its own, but it doesn’t heal. By pushing it away from ourselves, we leave it to our children to deal with it. Some generation must take this blow upon itself once. It's difficult at first - just like Rue's book, which caused a lot of shock at first. For many people, the atrocities of our compatriots were a great discovery, and it was necessary to somehow begin to live anew with this knowledge, that is, to rethink ourselves, our nation. But you definitely have to go through this. Only then is it possible to experience purification.
I just returned from the premiere in Moscow of a film about this march, made by Israeli filmmakers, and, of course, it was very difficult for me to watch it. I saw this film in Lithuania, but it’s one thing when you watch it at home, when these showdowns are in your home, in your yard. When it goes somewhere abroad, to see this story about yourself, about your people, about your town - it’s actually very difficult, it’s difficult to hear all these details of the murder. But the audience later told me after the film: “You know, don’t be afraid that this may seem like some kind of Putin propaganda denigrating Lithuania. You understand, when we watch this film (and the audience was mostly Jews), we think about our repentance, which we have not done yet, about our Gulags...” Therefore, it seems to me that this is just cleansing. On our bloody land, the territory of which is more than one-sixth of the world, this, alas, is necessary, because we did not have the opportunity to talk about it for all 50 years of Soviet times, that is, it all came out at once: deportation, the Gulag, the Holocaust, and everyone has to live with this for 25 years. First there were things that were easier, where we were victims. It's easier to accept, it's easier to understand. But the fact that you are an executioner, this is more difficult, it takes more time. We need to get to this point.
The Lithuanian government has repeatedly strongly condemned Lithuanian citizens who collaborated with the Nazi regime and participated in the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of nearly two hundred thousand Lithuanian citizens of Jewish origin. Our government believes that active efforts to teach the history of the Holocaust must never cease. Anti-Semitism in any form should have no place anywhere: neither in Lithuania nor anywhere else in the world. Today there are 115 tolerance education centers in Lithuania, located in schools, regional museums and educational centers. Since independence, approximately 400 scientific, literary and educational publications about Jewish history and the Jews of Lithuania have been published. The government is also making great efforts to restore historical justice - as an act of goodwill, the restitution of Jewish communal property was successfully carried out in Lithuania. Lithuanian public organizations are even more actively involved in discussing topics related to the Holocaust and in numerous events to preserve the memory of Holocaust victims. Initiatives such as the #We Remember campaign, which is actively promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the Marches of the Living, organized by the Lithuanian Jewish Community (Litvaks) and the families of Holocaust survivors, are increasingly receiving support from society as a whole.”
The Holocaust in Lithuania was the systematic persecution and extermination of the Jewish population by German Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators during the occupation of Lithuania by Germany (1941-1945).
The genocide of Jews was carried out on the basis of the official doctrine of the Third Reich of the “final solution to the Jewish question.” At the first stage, arrests and massacres were carried out. Since the autumn of 1941, a small number of survivors were isolated in several ghettos; at the end of the occupation, the remaining ones were almost completely exterminated. As a result of this policy, up to 95-96% of the Jews living in Lithuania before the start of the war were exterminated.
The assistance of the local population to the Nazis played a significant role in the genocide. The Holocaust was hushed up in Soviet Lithuania, as well as throughout the USSR. Since the restoration of Lithuania's independence, the topic of the Holocaust in general and the assessment of the activities of collaborators in particular has been the subject of scientific research and provokes discussions in society and among scientists
Since the 18th century, Vilna has been the spiritual center of Ashkenazi Jews. Lithuania was one of the largest centers of Jewish theology, philosophy and education. Vilna was called the “Lithuanian Jerusalem”, which emphasized the importance of the influence of the Vilnius community on Jewry throughout the world. According to the 1923 census, 153,743 Jews lived in Lithuania (excluding the Klaipeda region) - 7.6% of the total population. The growth of Lithuanian nationalism and restrictions on the rights of national minorities led to a number of anti-Semitic protests in the 1930s and legal restrictions on the rights of Jews. Before the outbreak of World War II, about 160 thousand Jews lived in independent Lithuania, and about 60 thousand lived in Vilna and its environs, which are part of Poland.
On March 23, 1939, the Klaipeda region was transferred to Germany at its ultimatum. From there, 6 thousand Jews fled to Lithuania due to persecution. After the outbreak of World War II and the division of Poland between the USSR and Nazi Germany, the Vilnius region, formerly part of Poland, was transferred by the Soviet Union to Lithuania. As a result, the Jewish population of Lithuania grew to 210-250 thousand people (about 10% of the population). After the transfer of Vilna to Lithuania, a Jewish pogrom took place in the city.
Lithuania became part of the USSR in the summer of 1940. After this, enterprises, including Jewish ones, were nationalized, 6-7 thousand Jews were deported to Siberia in June 1941 as part of the mass deportation of the population of the republic, and Jewish organizations were closed. At the same time, many Jews took places in the newly formed Soviet state apparatus and took part in Stalin’s repressions. The extent of Jewish participation in the Sovietization of Lithuania is a matter of debate among historians.
By the time of the German attack on the USSR, between 225 and 265 thousand Jews lived in Lithuania, including 13-15 thousand refugees from Poland, 6 thousand refugees from Klaipeda and 10-12 thousand Jews in the areas transferred from Belarus to Lithuania in the fall of 1940. The annexation of Lithuania to the USSR postponed the Holocaust in Lithuania for one year, but worsened the fate of Lithuanian Jews and increased the hostility of Lithuanians, who blamed the Jews for the Sovietization of the country
German troops entered Lithuania on June 22, 1941 and captured its entire territory in just a week. Of those Jews who went east following the retreating Red Army, some were forced to return because they were turned away by sentries on the old Soviet border, and many were killed by Lithuanian nationalists or died during the bombing. In fact, about 15 thousand Lithuanian Jews managed to evacuate. Some of them subsequently fought as part of the 16th Infantry (Lithuanian) Division.
Lithuanians welcomed the Germans as liberators from the Soviet regime, counting on the restoration of independence. In many cities of Lithuania, on the very first day of the war, organized armed actions began by the underground Lithuanian Front of Activists (LFA) during the Soviet period, which seized control of strategically important objects and entire cities, attacked retreating units of the Red Army and killed Soviet activists. On June 23, the power of the Provisional Government of Lithuania, headed by Juozas Ambrazyavichus, was proclaimed in Kaunas. In Vilnius, an independent Civil Committee of Vilnius County and City (lit. Vilniaus miesto ir srities piliečių komitetas) was formed, headed by Vilnius University law professor Stasis Zhakevicius (lit.). The Civil Committee included Jewish scientist-psychologist Vladimir Lazerson (lit.), later killed by the Nazis.
The Germans did not recognize the Provisional Government and by July 28 formed their own administration within the framework of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. Theodor Adrian von Renteln was appointed Commissioner General of Lithuania. The territory of the General District of Lithuania (German: Generalbezirk Litauen) was divided into 4 districts (German: Gebiet) with centers in Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevezys and Siauliai. On August 5, 1941, the Provisional Government of Lithuania was dissolved by the German occupation authorities, and the laws issued by this government were annulled. On September 3, the occupation authorities dissolved the Civil Committee of the Vilnius County. LFA supporters loyal to the German authorities became part of the occupation police and local administrations; the Lithuanian administration of the General District of Lithuania was headed by former Lieutenant General of the Lithuanian Army Petras Kubiljunas.
In the period from June to December 1941, punitive functions in the territory of the General District of Lithuania were carried out by Einsatzgruppen A and B. On the basis of Einsatzgruppe A, the security police and SD bodies were formed in December 1941. Karl Jäger was appointed head, and in 1943 Jäger was replaced by SS Oberführer Wilhelm Fuchs. The Security Police and SD Directorate was located in Kaunas. The Lithuanian Security Directorate (Lithuanian Security Police - LSP or "Saugumas") was subordinate to the German police, some units of which were directly headed by SD officers. The Security Police was headed by Colonel Vytautas Reivitis. As historian Arūnas Bubnis writes, the LSP was directly involved in the Nazi genocide of the Jews and was an “integral part” of the repressive mechanism
Unlike other countries occupied by the German Nazis, where the genocide of Jews was carried out gradually (starting with the restriction of civil rights, then robbery, concentration of Jews in ghettos and moving them to death camps), mass executions of Jews in Lithuania began from the very first days.
The killing of Jews began in the early days of the war, starting with the anti-Soviet uprising, the retreat of the Red Army and the arrival of the German army. Anti-Jewish violence in the country began even before the arrival of the Germans. The killings began in border communities and were carried out by the German security police with the assistance of local residents and auxiliary police forces. In particular, the Jews of Palanga and Kretinga were exterminated in the first days of the war. The first recorded massacre took place on June 24 in Gargzdai, killing 201 Jews.
On June 25, the commander of Einsatzgruppe A, SS Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker, arrived in Kaunas. He encouraged nationalist leaders to begin a pogrom against the Jews. From June 25 to 29, Lithuanian nationalists led by Algirdas Klimaitis staged a massacre of Jews in Kaunas, during which about 4,000 people died. On July 4 and 6, thousands of Jews were killed in the ninth fort of the Kaunas fortress. Mass executions began near Vilnius in Ponary. On October 29, another major massacre occurred in Kaunas - 9,200 Jews were shot at the ninth fort, including 2,007 men, 2,920 women and 4,273 children.
The killings in the border zone were carried out by the Einsatzkommando "Tilsit", which consisted of employees of the Gestapo and SD of Tilsit, as well as the security police of Memel (Klaipeda). By the end of August 1941, this group had killed 5,502 people on the Lithuanian-German border, most of whom were Jews. On June 28, 1941, by order of the commandant of Kaunas, Lieutenant Colonel Jurgis Bobelis (lit.), the 1st Lithuanian battalion, also known as Tautiniu Darbo Apsauga (English) (TDA), was created, consisting of 400 people. They massacred Jews in Fort VII of the Kaunas Fortress. The killings in the Lithuanian province were organized mainly by Einsatzkommando 3 of Einsatzgruppe A. The mobile command (English) under the leadership of Obersturmführer Joachim Hamann served about a dozen Germans and at least 5 times more Lithuanians, led by Lieutenant Bronius Norkus. They were assisted locally by police officers who were subject to the corresponding secret directive from Colonel Reivitis. During large protests (in particular in Marijampole and Rokiškis), local residents were involved in the executions. In the Vilnius area and primarily in Ponary, massacres were carried out by “Ipatingas Buris” - an analogue of the German Sonderkommando, consisting of Lithuanian volunteers, subordinate to Einsatzkommando 9, and then to the SD and the Security Police. On July 23, 1941, the special detachment was headed by Juozas Šidlauskas, the number ranged from 200 people at first to 50 later.
From August to December, between 130 and 140 thousand Jews were killed on Lithuanian territory. The commander of Einsatzkommando 3, Karl Jäger, wrote a detailed report on the massacre on December 1, 1941. According to the report, the unit, in close cooperation with Lithuanian volunteers, exterminated 136,421 Jews (46,403 men, 55,556 women and 34,464 children), as well as 1,064 communists, 653 mentally ill and 134 other victims
By decision of the Provisional Government of Lithuania on June 29, Jewish ghettos were created in large populated areas. The Germans appointed the leadership of the ghetto - the so-called Judenrat (Jewish councils). On August 13, the occupiers established the Jewish police, which was responsible for maintaining law and order in the ghetto.
From July 8, the military administration ordered Jews to wear special insignia in the form of a white square with a yellow circle, and from July 15, a white armband with a yellow Star of David and the letter “J” (German: Jude). Jews were deprived of the right to walk on sidewalks and visit public places, Jewish property was confiscated, and Jews were subject to forced labor. If in the summer they killed mainly Jews in the provinces, then from September to November - in the ghettos of large cities.
By November 1941, the remnants of the Jewish communities (about 40-43 thousand people) were concentrated in the ghettos of four cities - Vilnius, Kaunas, Siauliai and Švencionys, where they were forced to work for the German war industry. Living conditions in the ghetto were unbearable due to severe overcrowding, lack of food and the spread of disease. There were 28 workshops in the Vilnius ghetto, and 40 in the Kaunas ghetto. The power of the ghetto leadership was quite significant. For example, the Jewish court of the Siauliai ghetto sentenced three Jewish profiteers to “corporal punishment and imprisonment,” and handed over the fourth to the security police. In June 1942, a court in the Vilnius ghetto sentenced to death by hanging six Jews who were found guilty of murdering other prisoners.
In total, by the end of January 1942, as a result of mass executions, death from cold and hunger in Lithuania, 185,000 Jews died (80% of the victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania). By this time, there were about 20,000 Jews in the ghetto of Vilnius, 17,000 in Kaunas, 5,000 in Siauliai, and about 500 in Švenčionis. The Vilnius ghetto was one of the few where the occupiers allowed “cultural life” - there was a theater, library, and school there. There was also a school in the Siauliai ghetto. At the same time, “actions” (Aktionen) were periodically carried out, during which the Nazis exterminated prisoners, but the scale of the killings was much smaller than in the summer and autumn of 1941. On May 27, 1942, a population census was conducted in the General District of Lithuania; Jews were not included in this census at all. During the period of relative “calm”, dozens of different services and organizations operated in the ghetto, including party ones
On April 4-5, 1943, all 4,000 people were killed in Ponary, prisoners of the Švencionys ghetto and a number of small ghettos in the vicinity of Vilnius. On June 21, Heinrich Himmler issued an order to liquidate all ghettos and transfer the remaining Jews to concentration camps. At the end of the summer, control of the ghetto was transferred from civilian authorities to the SS.
From August 6 to September 23, 1943, the deportation of prisoners from the Vilnius ghetto took place. About 15 thousand Jews were deported to labor camps in Estonia and Latvia. 5,000 Jews were sent to death camps located in Poland. About 2-3 thousand of these prisoners were subsequently released. The Vilnius ghetto was liquidated, leaving about 3,000 Jews in the city in three small camps.
On June 23, 1943, the Kaunas and Siauliai ghettos were converted into concentration camps, which existed until the arrival of the Red Army in July 1944.
Some of the Jews of the Kaunas ghetto were deported to Estonia. On March 27-28, 1944, an action took place in the Kaunas concentration camp and its branches, during which about two thousand children, elderly Jews and disabled people were killed. Events took place in a similar way in the Siauliai ghetto: in September 1943, its prisoners were deported to various concentration camps; on November 5, 1943, about 800 children, old people and disabled people were killed.
10-12 thousand Jews from these two ghettos were transported to concentration camps in Germany before the advance of the Red Army in June 1944. On January 27, 1945, the Red Army liberated Klaipeda, and on May 2, the remnants of the surviving Jews of Kaunas and Siauliai were liberated by American troops from the Dachau concentration camp
A scandal erupted in Lithuania around Ruta Vanagaite's book "Ours" about the genocide of Jews during World War II
One of the “heroes” of the pogrom in the Kaunas garage “Lietukis”. Photo: Wikipedia
“Young, illiterate Lithuanians in a sober state killed Jews so diligently that they were brought to Lithuania for extermination from other countries. Schoolchildren also voluntarily participated in the murders, and the Church indifferently watched the Holocaust - the murderers were even absolved of their sins. For the sake of the purity of the race and Jewish teeth in About 200,000 Jews were exterminated in Lithuania, Ruta Vanagaitė came to this conclusion,” writes Delfi.
![](https://i2.wp.com/isrageo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/litvapogrom2.jpg)
It is noted that in the most important part of the book, “Journey with the Enemy,” the author, together with the famous Nazi hunter Ephraim Zuroff, travels to the places where Jews were killed and communicates with surviving eyewitnesses of those events.
“The priest Richardas Doweika told me that doors would be closed in my face. From the very beginning I faced a negative reaction - my relatives said that I was betraying my relatives and that I was Pavlik Morozov. Several friends turned their backs on me - they said that Jews were paying me, and I betray my Motherland,” Vanagaite said in an interview.
“Zuroff cried at every place. I had to wait while he read the prayer. And then I thought - there are thousands of bones underground, these places are not marked in any way. Then I could not calmly look at the Lithuanian graves. It seemed that too much importance was attached to everything , everything is so theatrical. I read the exhumation protocols - many children with intact skulls - which means they were buried alive. In the book there is testimony from one military man - the father lay face down in the hole, covering the child. The military man was asked who was shot first - the father or the child? He answered: “Are we animals, or what, should we shoot a child in front of the father?” Of course, the father. The child doesn’t understand anything,” said the author of the book.
She also commented on the thesis that the Germans forced the Lithuanians to kill Jews.
“In Lithuania they say that they forced them to kill, they gave them something to drink. Military officer Liaonas Stonkus said that if they saw that someone’s nerves could not stand it, the officers did not force them to shoot, they were afraid that they would turn weapons against them. And they didn’t drink, they gave it to them afterwards, in the evening, or very little - they were afraid that the commanders would not be shot. We can say that the Jews were killed by young, illiterate and sober Lithuanians," Vanagaitė noted.
Blogger Sergei Medvedev on his Facebook called Vanagaite the Lithuanian Svetlana Alexievich.
“And how many other skeletons are there in Eastern Europe in closets and underground - just remember the Polish “Spikelets” (a film about the mass murder of Polish Jews in Jedwabne in 1941 - ed) - and no one, no one wants to stir up the past,” he noted .
“Oh, how interesting - and not even about the Lithuanian Holocaust (all over Eastern Europe, Jews were killed with great eagerness, and few can compare with Romania), but about how they react to this in modern Lithuania,” the Russian wrote on the social network journalist Ilya Krasilshchik.
“Oh, very powerful,” journalist Oleg Kashin commented on the interview.
Victims of the "garage massacre" in Kaunas on June 25-27, 1941. Photo: Wikipedia
FROM THE EDITOR
Rossiyskaya Gazeta quotes the opinion of historian Alexander Dyukov:
— When talking about the Holocaust, Lithuanian researchers are afraid of entering into confrontation with the society in which they live. An active position in the investigation of Holocaust crimes in Lithuania, as a rule, is taken by Jewish organizations that are based outside of Lithuania and are not associated with Lithuanian society. An investigation into the Holocaust in Lithuania will never happen for the simple reason that the crimes were committed by those who are now positioned as national heroes of Lithuania. Thus, the first concentration camp for Jews on the territory of the USSR was created not by the Nazis, but by the provisional government of Lithuania on June 30, 1941. Responsibility for this lies with the acting head of the cabinet, Juozas Ambrazevicius, who was ceremoniously reburied in Lithuania in 2012. The minister of municipal services in this interim government, Vytautas Landsbergis-Žamkalnis, also bears his share of responsibility for the decision to organize a concentration camp for Jews. By the way, he is the father of an influential Lithuanian politician in the 90s, former speaker of the Lithuanian Sejm Vytautas Landsbergis. The front of Lithuanian activists, now glorified in Lithuania, played a special role in provoking the Holocaust. The ideology of this organization was imbued with anti-Semitism. And it was conveyed to ordinary frontline participants. Naturally, this led to the fact that after the German attack on the Soviet Union, reprisals against Jews immediately began. Sometimes they took place even before German units entered populated areas. The Israeli Association of Lithuanian Immigrants has prepared a list of several thousand Lithuanians who were accused of involvement in the Holocaust. These lists were transferred to the Prosecutor General of Lithuania, but no investigation was carried out. And the Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s Office began an investigation against the person who compiled this list, lawyer Joseph Melamed. The case of Alexander Velekis is indicative. During the Nazi occupation, he was the chief of police in Vilnius and was involved in the extermination of Poles and Jews. The US government stripped him of his citizenship and deported him to Lithuania. However, although the Lithuanian authorities opened a case against Velekis, they did not investigate it until he died.
Since Germany occupied Lithuania very quickly, few people managed to escape to the east - the Soviet government barely had time to take the government of the LSSR to Moscow. This had a fatal impact on the Jews - they tried to move to the east, but for the most part they were returned by the Lithuanian rebels or returned on their own, since the Wehrmacht overtook them on the Moscow road, and on the other hand, at the internal border between Lithuania and the USSR, Soviet troops and the NKVD stopped the fugitives, considering them deserters and alarmists, and the mere sight of Lithuanian documents aroused suspicions of espionage. From the first days of the Nazi occupation, Jews felt the hatred of part of the local population. The fact is that in June
In 1940, communist Jewish youth greeted the arrival of the Red Army with flowers and Russian songs - for them this meant salvation, because instead of the Soviet troops, the Wehrmacht could come. When the Soviet government began to form a new administration, Jews, especially young people who willingly began to speak Russian, received positions in government bodies, in enterprises and institutions, in trade unions - Jews became visible at pro-Soviet demonstrations, in the administration, political leadership, and it was unusual. Without receiving much support from the Lithuanians, the Soviet regime recruited Jews to help. Quite a few Jews appeared in the state apparatus, the NKVD, and the police. This especially strengthened anti-Semitic sentiments; many Lithuanians felt that all Jews had betrayed independent Lithuania and its ideals. The sudden increase in anti-Semitism worried Moscow proteges: on June 27, 1940, the Prime Minister of the pro-Soviet People's Government V. Kreve-Mickevičius complained to L. Beria's deputy V. Merkulov that the residents were dissatisfied with the behavior of the Jews who had betrayed Lithuanian statehood.
Although Jews were not guilty of either occupation or Sovietization, their visibility allowed them to be identified with Soviet power, and the call to “fight Judeo-Bolshevism” launched by Nazi propaganda among the masses was intertwined with strong anti-Soviet sentiments among Lithuanians. In the first week of the Nazi occupation, many residents, including Jews, were persecuted as communists and Soviet activists. Several thousand people were killed during the so-called “clean-up operations” carried out by the operational units of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD (German). Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD). Unlike their tactics in Western Europe, the Nazis began the mass extermination of Jews without a transition period. Special groups of the SD (Tilsit department of the Gestapo) on June 24, 1941 shot only Jews (men) on a 25-kilometer section of the Lithuanian-German border: 201 Jews were killed in Gargzdai, the next day in Kretinga - 214 Jews, on June 27 in Palanga – 111. Jews were killed in other places.
The Einsatzgruppen organized the terror in such a way that it seemed that the first pogroms and “cleansing” actions were carried out by local residents. Helpers were found among the Lithuanians who suffered from Soviet terror, burning with a thirst for revenge or trying to wash away the sins of the Soviet period - at the direction of the SD, they took part
in the brutal pogroms on June 26 in the Kaunas suburb of Vilijampole and on June 27 in the garage of the Kaunas cooperative “Lietukis”, although the reports of the Einsatzgruppen commanders say that organizing the pogroms was not easy. The armed partisans did not inspire confidence in the Germans, so on June 28, the rebel detachments were disbanded, and the National Labor Protection Battalion was formed from volunteers at the Kaunas Military Commandant’s Office. One of its companies was transformed into the Sonderkommando, which on July 4 and 6, under the command of the Nazis, took part in the mass extermination of 3 thousand Jews (singled out from among other prisoners suspected of collaborating with the Soviet authorities, solely on the basis of nationality). in the VII fort of the Kaunas fortress. In the difficult situation of 1939–1941, when Lithuanian society was gripped by a deep moral and psychological crisis (three ultimatums and occupations, the loss of independence without resistance led to the loss of not only state but also human values by some people), certain - A large part of society developed an image of the Jew as an irreconcilable enemy and a false understanding of patriotism. According to one executioner,
“It was scary to shoot, but I thought it was necessary for the independence of Lithuania,” especially since the occupiers ordered and encouraged killings.
After the first actions of the Einsatzgruppen SD in early August 1941, 95% of Lithuanian Jews were still alive. However, in July 1941, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler personally toured the entire occupied western part of the USSR, informing the Einsatzgruppen (Kaunas Group A and Vilnius Group B) that not only Jewish men, but also women and children should be killed. A whole mechanism was created for mass extermination - on August 16, the director of the Lithuanian police department, Vytautas Reivitis, issued secret document No. 3 with an order to detain all Jews and concentrate them in designated places. All Jews were herded into temporary ghettos and isolation camps. Over the next few months, the Nazis carried out horrific executions of Jewish communities in the Lithuanian province. Executions were usually carried out several kilometers from the ghettos and camps, in nearby forests, fields or gravel pits. Jews were shot and thrown into dug pits in entire communities. Groups of the Lithuanian self-defense police (the so-called national labor protection battalions in Zarasai, Kupiskis, Jonava and other places), policemen from the auxiliary
noah police, as well as police officers from police stations who had already sworn allegiance to A. Hitler. Most of the executions were carried out by two special Sonderkommandos formed from Lithuanians - a special SD detachment in Vilnius (in Paneriai) and the “flying detachment” of Joachim Hamann, who went to the province several times a week for executions (his basis and formed the 3rd company of the Kaunas National Labor Protection Battalion). Each Sonderkommando had at least 50–100 members. In some actions, only Lithuanian auxiliary police and voluntary police assistants participated, among whom there were also criminal elements aimed at plundering Jewish property - houses, agricultural equipment, jewelry, bed linen, clothing. In the campaign to exterminate Lithuanian Jews, the Nazis also used units of the Russian Liberation Army of General Andrei Vlasov, Ukrainian and Latvian police battalions.
So, day after day in the summer and autumn of 1941 there was a real massacre in which the majority - about 150 thousand - of Lithuanian Jews were killed. About 50 thousand Jews were temporarily left in Vilnius, Kaunas, Siauliai and smaller ghettos - to be used as cheap labor. However, even in large ghettos, Jews were exterminated during so-called actions. At the end of the war, in 1943, the Nazis liquidated the city ghettos, dug up and burned the bodies of those killed. 11 thousand Lithuanian Jews were taken to concentration camps in Estonia and Latvia, about 3.5 thousand to concentration camps in Poland, about
8 thousand - to Stutthof, Dachau, Auschwitz. During the Holocaust, about 90% of the approximately 208 thousand Lithuanian Jews (including the Vilnius region) died. About 8 thousand were saved or survived, about 8–9 thousand more remained alive because they managed to escape deep into the USSR. In addition, about 6–8 thousand Jews brought here from Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia or France were shot in the IX Fort of the Kaunas Fortress. Some Lithuanian self-defense police battalions were used in actions against the civilian population in Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine.
Resistance groups emerged in the ghetto, and some Jews fled to the forests, took up arms and joined Soviet partisan detachments, despite manifestations of anti-Semitic sentiments among the partisans. Many Lithuanian Jews fought in the 16th Lithuanian Rifle Division, formed in the USSR.
In the autumn of 1941, the centers of Lithuanian cities and towns were deserted, institutions or new owners settled in Jewish houses, and the Nazis plundered Jewish cultural property. The extermination of Jews caused enormous anger in society, Nazi collaborators could not count on a good name, curses and reproaches rained down on them in churches, people contemptuously called them “executioners of the Jews.” Another part of Lithuanian society, risking their lives (there were also those shot for harboring Jews), tried to help the Jews and saved them. Many Jews were saved by Catholic clergy, nuns, and ordinary peasants. For saving Jews, 830 Lithuanians received the title “Righteous Among the Nations,” although in reality there were many more, and this list is constantly growing.
The Nazi policy of racial genocide deprived Lithuania of one of the most vibrant ethnic communities that had lived here for hundreds of years – the Jews. The extermination of innocent people just because of their nationality is the bloodiest page in the Lithuanian history of the twentieth century, the loss of many talented people, a great loss and tragedy for the Jewish nation and all of Lithuania.
On March 2, at the Lithuanian Embassy in Minsk, as part of the Intellectual Club of Svetlana Alexievich, a meeting was held with the Lithuanian journalist and writer Ruta Vanagaite, the author of the acclaimed book “Ours” (“Mūsiškiai”). The publication was published in 2016. The original circulation of 2 thousand copies had to be increased to 19 thousand.
Ruta Vanagaite
The book is about the participation of Lithuanians in the Holocaust. In Lithuania in 1941-1944, about 200 thousand Jews were killed and buried in 270 places. “Any Lithuanian, if desired, can get to the place of death of Jews in half an hour,”- noted Ruta Vanagaite.
She explained that she took on this difficult topic because she wanted to understand what was happening in Lithuania with "normal people who started killing normal people."
“For 75 years now, a father and son have been lying in a grave at the site of mass executions, exhumation protocols show that the father is hugging his son, they were killed together. One of the killers says: why should we, animals, kill a son in front of his father? First we killed the father, but the child understands little,”- Ruta Vanagaite also wrote about this in her book.
Svetlana Alexievich noted that it is no coincidence that the event is taking place on the anniversary of the Pit - on March 2, 1942, in Minsk, on modern Melnikaite Street, the Nazis shot about five thousand prisoners of the Minsk ghetto.
Svetlana Alexievich
“In general, the tragedy of the Holocaust has passed by our literature, past our art, past our social thought, only some honest enthusiasts are doing something. I am one of those people who believe that we must be frank with ourselves and must honestly try to understand - who are we? No need to say that they don’t give it to us, no. I think that we don’t do much for completely different reasons - we are simply not ready for this independent honest thought. Even now, on the eve of the meeting, I received several calls - why the Jews again? How can? This speaks of the aggressiveness that replaces thoughts and honesty for us,”- the Nobel laureate spoke out.
Alexievich called Ruta Vanagaite’s book "amazing" and noticed that she was shocked by the courage of the writer - she talked about how her relatives, neighbors, her people killed Jews, how Lithuanians were even invited to do this “work” in Belarus.
“We are not talking about the fact that maybe one nation is good and the other is bad, but about how to be a person in hell. And the life that we lived and live is a barbaric life, it bears very little resemblance to real life, because all the time we have to fight to remain human,”- said Svetlana Alexievich.
Ruta Vanagaitė noted with regret that official Lithuania does not really like to talk about this topic.
“We still have a narrative in Lithuania that the Nazis killed Jews, and Lithuanians had nothing to do with it. It took Germany 50 years to admit its guilt - the guilt of ordinary Germans, ordinary people; Lithuania will need another 20-30 years for this process,”- suggests the author of the book.
She says that Lithuanian historians write the truth, but they themselves say that they are not read, “these works are written by professionals for professionals”. When Ruta Vanagaitė was about to start working on the book and announced the topic to the publishing house - the Holocaust, they waved their hands at her - but not this!
The idea for writing the book came while researching the biography of the writer’s relatives.
“My grandfather suffered from the Soviet regime, he was arrested, exiled and he died there. I read his file in the KGB archives and learned that in 1941 he became a member of the Nazi commission that compiled lists of Soviet activists. These Soviet activists were, of course, Jews, and they were shot. Another relative of mine was a high commander in Panevezys - a commandant, a police chief, the Russians came, and he fled to America. He sent us jeans, and I didn’t know why he lived in America under a different name, I only heard that it was something because of the Jews. Our narrative is that Lithuanians are victims, and all their lives they were oppressed by someone - the Soviets, the Poles, the Germans, and we are brave people, we threw off this oppression and became heroes. And when we found out that our people, normal people, participated in the murder of normal people - no, it’s simply impossible,”- Ruta Vanagaite said.
In his book, Vanagaite talks about how at the beginning of the war the Lithuanian government restored all structures, 20 thousand people worked for the Germans, “the government created patriots, and this entire pyramid was subordinated to murder”.
“My grandfather was part of this, my other relative was part of this, 200 thousand Jews died, and all of Lithuania went for this property - after all, there were beds, towels - everything was left. My grandmother died and I have an antique bed, but where is it from? Did she buy it? Or maybe this is from 1941? Where do these things come from? Lithuanians were peasants. And therefore, any Lithuanian can ask himself - where do I get antique things from at home? Where does the gold for Lithuanian crowns come from? One of the killers worked as a dental technician for ten years after the war - where did he get the gold?”- the writer asks questions.
She talked about vocational school students, 16-year-old boys who went to guard and escort Jews, and then kill them, about a group of postmen who also “worked” in a similar way. So in three months, 150 thousand Jews were killed, not only Lithuanian, but also those who were brought to Kaunas from Austria, the Czech Republic, and France.
Czech Jews were deceived by saying that they were being taken to South America and needed to be vaccinated. They walked into the pit with their sleeves rolled up. Lithuanian brigades were also sent “to help” to Belarus. The murderers recalled that the Jews walked obediently, calmly, bodies in the pit burned from explosive bullets, and other Jews lay on these burning bodies.
“My relative died in Miami, in a beautiful house, I was there with my aunt, a beautiful woman, she is a doctor, so gentle and small. But when it came to Jews, she began to shake - she hated Jews so much. Anti-Semitism was very strong. And it all came from the government, from propaganda. And now I have lost relatives and friends after the book came out. When you talk about the Holocaust, many people start jumping up and shouting at me that I’m betraying my homeland, what good the Jews did to me, how much they paid me,”- says Ruta Vanagaite.
She does not think that everything is in order with historical memory in Lithuania now. For example, in Kaunas, the place where thousands of Jews were killed was bought by a businessman, and now there is an “Oasis of Relaxation.”
“During the war, approximately 18 thousand people took part in the killings, 6 thousand were directly killed. Do you think that six thousand would not be found in Lithuania today? Usually, the teams that shot Jews included people who were illiterate or had only two classes of education, ignorant people. Books like this are needed so that you know what people are capable of, normal people who sit in front of the TV, drink beer, pick their noses and say that the Jews are to blame for everything,”- says Ruta Vanagaite.