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Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of the Lithuanian Jews and Polish Jews living on the Lithuanian territories. Over 200,000 out of the 210,000 - 250,000 Jews (about 95% of the Lithuanian Jewry) who were resident on what was Lithuanian territory as of October 1939 perished before the end of the Second World War; most in the the short period of June-December 1941. The Holocaust is considered by some to have begun in Lithuania.

One of the crucial factors in the Lithuanian aspect of the Holocaust was that while the Nazi German administration allowed and supported the extermination of the Jews, most of the physical organization, preparation and exectutions of the murders was carried out by local Lithuanian auxiliaries of the Nazi occupation regime.

Background

Prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (the Soviet Union had annexed Lithuanian in 1940), some people in Lithuania believed Germany would grant the country independence and in order to appease the Germans expressed significant anti-Soviet and anti-semitic sentiments. Nazi Germany which has seized the Lithuanian territories in the first day of the offensive used this situation to its advantage and indeed in the first days permitted a Lithuanian government to be established (see Lithuanian 1941 independence and Lithuanian Activist Front). However, when the territory was fully occupied, that government was disbanded and banned (around August and September 1941), and some of its supporters ended their days in concentration camps.

The desctruction of Lithuanian Jewry

The German killing squads, the Einsatzgruppen, followed the advance of the German army units and immediately begun organizing the murder of Jews. Most Lithuanian Jews perished in the first months of the occupation, before the end of 1941. Before the German invasion, the Jewish population was estimated at 210,000-250,000. About 80,000 Jews were killed by October; about 175,000 by the end of the year. This massive scale of killings meant that Holocaust is considered by some scholars to have begun in Lithuania. Majority of Jews in Lithuania did not wait in ghettos nor were they sent to the Nazi concentration camps which by then were just in the preliminary stages of operation; they were shots in pits near their places of residence with the most infamous mass murders taking place in the Ninth Fort near Kaunas and the Ponary Forest near Vilna. By 1942 about 45,000 Jews survived in Lithuanian ghettos and camps.

The significant support for the "de-Jewification" of Lithuania coming from the Lithuanian populace has contributed to the quick destruction of Lithuanian Jewry.

Participation of local populace

One of the crucial factors in the Lithuanian aspect of the Holocaust was that while the Nazi German administration allowed and supported the extermination of the Jews, most of the physical organization, preparation and exectutions of the murders was carried out by local Lithuanian auxiliaries of the Nazi occupation regime. Groups of partisans, civil units of nationalist-rightist anti-Soviet affiliation, initiated contact with the Germans as soon as they entered the Lithuanian territories. The intense involvement if the local population, in large numbers, became a defining factor of the Holocaust in Lithuania.

An unit of Lithuanian insurgents headed by Algirdas Klimaitis and encouraged by Germans (from Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst) started anti-Jewish pogroms in Kaunas (Kovno) on the night of June 25-June 26, 1941 (the Kaunas pogrom); 1500-5000 Jews perished over the next few days in Kaunas and nearby settlements in what became the first pogrom in Nazi-occupied Lithuania.

On June 24 1941 the Lithuanian Security Police (Lietuvos saugumo policija), subordinate to Nazi Germany's Security Police and Nazi Germany's Criminal Police, was created. It would be involved in various actions against the Jews and other enemies of the Nazi regime. At least some of the civil German commanders thought that the zeal of the Lithuanian police battalions surpassed their own by far. The most notorious Lithuanian unit participating in the Holocaust was the Lithuanian Sonderkommando Squad (Ypatingasis būrys) from the Vilnius (Vilna, Wilno) area which killed tens of thousands Jews, Poles and others in Paneriai (the Ponary massacre) and other places. Another Lithuanian organization involved in the Holocaust was the Lithuanian Labor Guard.

Combination of several factors serves as an explanations for the massive scale of Lithuanians involvement. Those factors included: national traditions and values, religion (Orthodox Catholic, in this case), severe economic problems and tragically opposed political orientations (Lithuanian Jews supported the Soviet regime in Lithuania during 1940-1941).

It should be noted that not all of the Lithuanian populace supported the killings. Out of Lithuanian population of several millions, a few tens of thousands took active part in the killings while at least one thousand risked their lives sheltering the Jews (Israel has recognized 513 Lithuanians as “Righteous Among the Nations” for risking their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust).

Remembrance in modern Lithuania

Since Lithuania regained independence in 1990, Lithuanian government has on a number of occasions stated a commitment to commemorating the Holocaust, combating anti-Semitism, and bringing Nazi-era war criminals to justice. NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia have declared that "Lithuania has made slow but significant progress in the prosecution of suspected Lithuanian collaborators in the Nazi genocide". There have however been criticism that Lithuania is too slow to deal with that issue; in 2001 Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Director of the Wiesenthal Center, criticized the Lithuanian government on its unwillingness to persecute Lithuanians involved in the Holocaust. In 2002 the Simon Wiesenthal Centerdeclared its dissatisfaction with the Lithuanian government’s efforts and launched a controversial "Operation Last Chance" offering monetary rewards for evidence that leads to the prosecution of war criminals; this campaign has encountered much resistance in Lithuania and the other Baltic countries. In February 2008 Chairman of Yad Vashem has alarmingly stated that "destructive historical revisionism seems to be taking place in Lithuania".

Notes

a Three major ghettos in Lithuania were estabilished: Vilna ghetto (with the population of about 20,000), Kaunas Ghetto (with 17,500) and the Shavli Ghetto (with 5,000); there was also a number of smaller ghettos and labor camps.

See also

• Collaboration during World War II
• Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force (1944)

References

1. ^ Michael MacQueen, The Context of Mass Destruction: Agents and Prerequisites of the Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 12, Number 1, pp. 27-48, 1998,
2. ^ NCSJ Country Report: Lithuania. Last accessed on 13 March 2007
3. ^ Dina Porat, “The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects”, in David Cesarani, The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415152321, Google Print, p. 161
4. ^ Dina Porat, “The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects”, in David Cesarani, The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415152321, Google Print, p. 159
5. ^ Dina Porat, “The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects”, in David Cesarani, The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415152321, Google Print, p. 162
6. ^ Dina Porat, “The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects”, in David Cesarani, The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415152321, Google Print, p. 166
7. ^ Template:Pl icon Śledztwo w sprawie masowych zabójstw Polaków w latach 1941 - 1944 w Ponarach koło Wilna dokonanych przez funkcjonariuszy policji niemieckiej i kolaboracyjnej policji litewskiej (Investigation of mass murders of Poles in the years 1941–1944 in Ponary near Wilno by functionaries of German police and Lithuanian collaborating police). Institute of National Remembrance documents from 2003 on the ongoing investigation]. Last accessed on 10 February 2007.
8. ^ Template:Pl icon Czesław Michalski, Ponary - Golgota Wileńszczyzny (Ponary — the Golgoth of Wilno Region). Konspekt nº 5, Winter 2000–2001, a publication of the Academy of Pedagogy in Kraków. Last accessed on 10 February 2007.
9. ^ Dina Porat, “The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects”, in David Cesarani, The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415152321, Google Print, p. 165
10. Zvi Gitelman (ed.), Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR, ISBN: 0253333598. Indiana University Press, 1998, p. 97.
11. Template:Lt icon Arūnas Bubnys. Lithuanian Security Police and the Holocaust (1941–1944)
12. ^ Template:Lt icon Arūnas Bubnys (2004). Vokiečių ir lietuvių saugumo policija (1941–1944) (German and Lithuanian security police: 1941-1944). Vilnius: Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras. Retrieved 2006-06-09. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
13. Can Lithuania face its Holocaust past? - Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Director of the Wiesenthal Center, Jerusalem, excerpts from lecture at the conference on "Litvaks in the World," August 28, 2001.
14. Yad Vashem protests Lithuanian investigation of Holocaust survivor, Associated Press, 02.28.08

External links

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Lithuania and the Jews: The Holocaust Chapter, Symposium Presentations, 2005, Washington DC, includes:

• Foreward by Paul A. Shapiro and Carl J. Rheins
• Lithuanian Collaboration in the “Final Solution”: Motivations and Case Studies by Michael MacQueen
• Key Aspects of German Anti-Jewish Policy by Jürgen Matthäus
• Jewish Cultural Life in the Vilna Ghetto by David G. Roskies

• Katy Miller-Korpi, The Holocaust in the Baltics
• Alfred E. Senn, REFLECTIONS ON THE HOLOCAUST IN LITHUANIA: A NEW BOOK BY ALFONSAS EIDINTAS, Lituanus, Volume 47, No. 4 - Winter 2001
• Saulius Sužiedėlis, The burden of 1941], Lituanus, Volume 47, No. 4 - Winter 2001
• Memorial to Murdered Jews of Lithuania (w/ photos of the memorial)

Further reading

• Arūnas Bubnys, The Holocaust in Lithuania between 1941 and 1944, Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, 2005, ISSN 9986-757-66-5 abstract
• Alfonsas Eidintas, Jews, Lithuanians and the Holocaust, Versus Aureus, 2003, ISBN 995596
• Alfonsas Eidintas, A “Jew-Communist” Stereotype in Lithuania, 1940-1941, Lithuanian Political Science Yearbook (01/2000), pp. 1-36,
• Harry Gordon, The Shadow of Death: The Holocaust in Lithuania, University Press of Kentucky, 2000, ISBN 0813190088
• Konrad Kwiet, Rehearsing for Murder: The Beginning of the Final Solution in Lithuania in June 1941, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 12, Number 1, pp. 3-26, 1998,
• Rose Lerer-Cohen, Saul Issroff, The Holocaust in Lithuania 1941-1945: A Book of Remembrance, Gefen Booksm, 2002, ISBN 965229280X
• Dov Levin, Lithuanian Attitudes toward the Jewish Minority in the Aftermath of the Holocaust: The Lithuanian Press, 1991–1992, # Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 7, Number 2, pp. 247-262, 1993,
• Dov Levin, The Litvaks: A Short History of the Jews in Lithuania, Berghahn Books, 2000, ISBN 9653080849
• Josifas Levinsonas, Joseph Levinson, The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, 2006, ISBN 5415019022
• Alvydas Nikžentaitis, Stefan Schreiner, Darius Staliūnas, The Vanished World of Lithuanian Jews, Rodopi, 2004, ISBN 9042008504
• Alfred Erich Senn, Lithuania 1940: Revolution from Above, Rodopi, 2007, ISBN 9042022256

• Antisemitism
• History of Lithuania
• Jewish Lithuanian history
• The Holocaust