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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.<ref name="Bubnys">{{lt icon}} {{cite book | author =Arūnas Bubnys | coauthors = | title =Vokiečių ir lietuvių saugumo policija (1941–1944) (German and Lithuanian security police: 1941-1944)| year =2004 | publisher =Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras | location =Vilnius | url =http://www.genocid.lt/Leidyba/1/arunas1.htm | accessdate =2006-06-09 }}</ref> At least some of the civil German commanders thought that the zeal of the Lithuanian police battalions surpassed their own by far.<ref name="Porat165">Dina Porat, ''“The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects”'', in David Cesarani, ''The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation'', Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415152321, [http://books.google.com/books?id=3N9Xxc8wdu0C&pg=PA165&vq=zeal+of+the+Lithuanian+police+battalions&dq=%22The+Holocaust+in+Lithuania:+Some+Unique+Aspects%22&source=gbs_search_s&sig=HS8YJtJk4eCMePTLX_zFRuGVLRc Google Print, p. 165]</ref> The most notorious Lithuanian unit participating in the Holocaust was the [[Ypatingasis būrys|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.<ref name="Bubnys"/><ref name="IPN-Ponary"> {{pl icon}} [http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal.php?serwis=pl&dzial=194&id=3327 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.</ref><ref name="WSP-Ponary">{{pl icon}} Czesław Michalski, [http://www.wsp.krakow.pl/konspekt/konspekt5/ponary.html 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.</ref> Another Lithuanian organization involved in the Holocaust was the [[Lithuanian Labor Guard]].<ref name="Porat162"/>
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.<ref name="Bubnys">{{lt icon}} {{cite book | author =Arūnas Bubnys | coauthors = | title =Vokiečių ir lietuvių saugumo policija (1941–1944) (German and Lithuanian security police: 1941-1944)| year =2004 | publisher =Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras | location =Vilnius | url =http://www.genocid.lt/Leidyba/1/arunas1.htm | accessdate =2006-06-09 }}</ref> At least some of the civil German commanders thought that the zeal of the Lithuanian police battalions surpassed their own by far.<ref name="Porat165">Dina Porat, ''“The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects”'', in David Cesarani, ''The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation'', Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415152321, [http://books.google.com/books?id=3N9Xxc8wdu0C&pg=PA165&vq=zeal+of+the+Lithuanian+police+battalions&dq=%22The+Holocaust+in+Lithuania:+Some+Unique+Aspects%22&source=gbs_search_s&sig=HS8YJtJk4eCMePTLX_zFRuGVLRc Google Print, p. 165]</ref> The most notorious Lithuanian unit participating in the Holocaust was the [[Ypatingasis būrys|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.<ref name="Bubnys"/><ref name="IPN-Ponary"> {{pl icon}} [http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal.php?serwis=pl&dzial=194&id=3327 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.</ref><ref name="WSP-Ponary">{{pl icon}} Czesław Michalski, [http://www.wsp.krakow.pl/konspekt/konspekt5/ponary.html 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.</ref> Another Lithuanian organization involved in the Holocaust was the [[Lithuanian Labor Guard]].<ref name="Porat162"/>

Combination of several factors serves as an explanations for the massive scale of Lithuanians involvement.<ref name="Porat166">Dina Porat, ''“The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects”'', in David Cesarani, ''The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation'', Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415152321, [http://books.google.com/books?id=3N9Xxc8wdu0C&pg=PA166&vq=explanations+for+the+Lithuanians&dq=%22The+Holocaust+in+Lithuania:+Some+Unique+Aspects%22&source=gbs_search_s&sig=vu8Kzi5UrSssdsjjgMI95QB1Evs Google Print, p. 166]</ref> 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).<ref name="Porat166"/>


==Notes==
==Notes==

Revision as of 19:48, 13 March 2008

File:Nazi Lithuanian poster.JPG
1941 Nazi propaganda antisemitic poster in Lithuanian language equating Stalinism and Jews

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 - 220,000 Jews 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.[1][2] The Holocaust is considered by some to have begun in Lithuania.[3]

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.[2][4]

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. 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.[3] Most Lithuanian Jews perished in the first months of the occupation, before the end of 1941.[2][1] Before the German invasion, the Jewish population was estimated at 210,000[2]-250,000[1]. About 80,000 Jews were killed by October;[1] about 175,000 by the end of the year.[1] This massive scale of killings meant that Holocaust is considered by some scholars to have begun in Lithuania.[3] Majority of Jews in Lithuania did not wait in ghettos[a] 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.[3][5][6]

The significant support for the "de-Jewification" of Lithuania coming from the Lithuanian populace has contributed to the quick destruction of Lithuanian Jewry.[7]

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.[2][4] Groups of partisans, civil units of nationalist-rightist anti-Soviet affiliation, initiated contact with the Germans as soon as they entered the Lithuanian territories.[4] The intense involvement if the local population, in large numbers, became a defining factor of the Holocaust in Lithuania.[4][2]

An unit of Lithuanian insurgents headed by Algirdas Klimaitis and instigated 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[3]-5000[8] Jews perished over the next few days in Kaunas and nearby settlements in what became the first pogrom in Nazi-occupied Lithuania.[9]

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.[10] At least some of the civil German commanders thought that the zeal of the Lithuanian police battalions surpassed their own by far.[7] 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.[10][5][6] Another Lithuanian organization involved in the Holocaust was the Lithuanian Labor Guard.[4]

Combination of several factors serves as an explanations for the massive scale of Lithuanians involvement.[11] 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).[11]

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.[1]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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
  2. ^ a b c d e f 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, [1]
  3. ^ a b c d e 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
  4. ^ a b c d e 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
  5. ^ a b 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.
  6. ^ a b 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.
  7. ^ a b 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
  8. ^ Zvi Gitelman (ed.), Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR, ISBN: 0253333598. Indiana University Press, 1998, p. 97.
  9. ^ Template:Lt icon Arūnas Bubnys. Lithuanian Security Police and the Holocaust (1941–1944)
  10. ^ a b 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)
  11. ^ a b 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

External links

  • 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

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, [2]
  • 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, [3]
  • 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, [4]
  • 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
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