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Lithuanian chutzpah
By Baruch Shuv
Tags: Lithuania

Earlier this month it was announced that historian Dr. Yitzhak Arad, former chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, might be interrogated about his past as a partisan if he visited Lithuania.

Arad, who served in the Palmach (the elite strike force of the Haganah, the pre-state underground Jewish militia) and reached the rank of brigadier general as the Israel Defense Forces' chief education officer, was invited to Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, to participate in the deliberations of the committee investigating Nazi and Soviet crimes in Lithuania. But ahead of his visit, the Lithuanian newspaper Republika accused him of wrongdoing during World War II. In addition, right-wing extremists called on the Lithuanian attorney general to open an investigation.

This is not the first time this newspaper has expressed anti-Semitic and fascist ideas. It is also no secret that Republika has come out in favor of Nazi collaborators serving in the Gestapo, who murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews and are still wandering around free. Now Lithuania's judicial objectivity will be put to the test.
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To add some historical background: The Lithuanians, descendants of Baltic tribes, converted to Christianity in the 14th century. Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the Lithuanian Church expanded its influence and conquered vast areas of land, reaching as far as the Black Sea. It was during this period that Lithuania joined Poland and became one of the largest countries in Europe. Poland-Lithuania was conquered toward the end of the 18th century and carved up between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Lithuania was annexed by the Czarist Russian regime.

The 20th century's revolutions and wars brought Lithuania periods of occupation and independence. All in all, Lithuania was under Russian occupation (both Czarist and Soviet) for 186 years, and under German occupation for about 7 years.

Jews first settled in Lithuania about 600 years ago. Before the Nazi invasion, the country's Jewish population numbered 220,000, while after the Holocaust only about 10,000 Jews remained. Most of Lithuania's Jews were murdered by Germans and Lithuanians. Today Lithuanian Jewry is scattered throughout the world.

By the end of World War II, fascist-Nazi tendencies had become widespread among Lithuanians. In the late 1930s a group of Lithuanian Nazis organized in Berlin, headed by Colonel Kazys Skirpa, calling itself the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF). From 1940 onward, organized underground groups were operating in Soviet-occupied Lithuania, too. When the Germans invaded Lithuania in 1941, LAF units were the first to cross the border. Together with the local underground, they began to murder Lithuania's Jewish citizens. The massacres spread to every town and village, accompanied by arson and pillaging. Neighbors became enemies, and Jews were murdered in the streets and in their homes, including women, children and elderly.

All these crimes were perpetrated by the inflamed masses and under the leadership of the local Fascists and LAF units, even before the murderous German Einsatzgruppen arrived. Only later were thousands of Lithuanians recruited to the ranks of organized SS units and turned into Einsatzgruppen henchmen. The Lithuanians, who hated the Russians and the Communists and were disappointed by Nazi Germany, took out their frustrations on the defenseless Jews.

Lithuania's Jews were the first to be murdered and the first to rebel. The call for self-defense and revolt against the Germans began in the Vilna Ghetto, on January 1, 1942. Twenty days later the underground United Partisan Organization was formed. When it became clear to them that they could not overcome the Germans with their limited forces and without any outside assistance, Jewish youths began escaping to the forests, the swamps and the lakes in and around the country. The forest was the only place where the Jews could fight and take revenge on the Germans. Youngsters who had seen their parents, relatives and friends murdered had only one desire: to fight back and avenge, and if they had to die - to die fighting.

Over 1,000 men and women left the ghettos, camps, towns and villages in Lithuania and hid in the forests. They formed fighting units and fought shoulder to shoulder with their Russian, Belarusian, Polish and even Lithuanian comrades.

The local population, mostly ethnic Poles or Belarusians, were usually friendly, providing the partisans with food, basic necessities and sometimes even weapons. In most cases there was mutual respect between the farmers and the partisans. But this was not always the case: The few villages that were populated by Lithuanians (in areas that had been under Polish control before the war) were usually hostile to the partisans, and were organized to "defend themselves" by the Fascist regime.

These villages did not fight the Germans, but rather the partisans. In certain cases, the villagers set up guard posts at the village entrance, armed themselves and lay ambushes. They struck hard at the partisans and had to be fought just like the Germans. When the war ended it was the Lithuanian fascist groups who fled to the forests, both out of fear of the Russians and as a continuation of their war against the Russians, in response to the official order that Lithuanian collaborators be rooted out.

Today, 65 years after these events, it is an impudent perversion of history and a disgrace to the Lithuanian people to accuse the Jewish partisans of murdering Lithuanians. The Lithuanian people has so far refused to try and convict their murderous countrymen, who participated in the extermination of the Jews who had lived among them for 600 years.

The State of Israel, the Justice Ministry and the Foreign Ministry must respond to anti-Semitism and to this form of Holocaust denial. The peoples of the world should also raise their voices.

The author is director of the Organization of Partisans, Underground Fighters and Ghetto Rebels.
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  1.   I don`t see the word communism here 10:41  |  Rowan Berkeley 18/09/07
  2.   Thank you Baruch Shuv 11:03  |  Esther 18/09/07
  3.   Why is anybody surprised 11:56  |  sweis Melbourne 18/09/07
  4.   the same old history 11:57  |  aitor 18/09/07
  5.   "Es brent,kinderlach es brent"they sang as they fled to forrests. 12:00  |  PETER S.M. 18/09/07
  6.   Lithuanian suicide rates 12:21  |  Albert Fischer 18/09/07
  7.   What a Scumbag Country 12:37  |  Ronnie Wolman 18/09/07
  8.   bravo,baruch 12:41  |  nelly 18/09/07
  9.   No Jew should visit the rogue country of Lithuania. 12:49  |  Mr. Ami Goldman 18/09/07
  10.   Rowan Berkley,Lord Haw-Haw was anticommunist too,why was he hange 12:54  |  Absolute Sweden 18/09/07
  11.   possibility 12:55  |  realism 18/09/07
  12.   Nice to hear voices... 12:57  |  Leandro 18/09/07
  13.   aitor #4 13:00  |  Tuemi 18/09/07
  14.   Very good article. Time to bring Lithuanian Nazis to justice 13:04  |  Briton 18/09/07
  15.   Excellent article, Baruch Shuv, congrats. 13:34  |  Fortuna Benmayor 18/09/07
  16.   a marvellous and informative piece 13:43  |  zebulun 18/09/07
  17.   Perhaps it`s Israel that should take resposibilty 13:54  |  Jens 18/09/07
  18.   Ex terrorist 13:56  |  Tony Price 18/09/07
  19.   #9 Absolute Sweden 14:17  |  Rowan Berkeley 18/09/07
  20.   Not a very good article. 14:23  |  Goldstein 18/09/07
  21.   This is liberal agenda 14:24  |  Gene 18/09/07
  22.   REALISM.Another possibility `"often" 14:36  |  PETER S.M. 18/09/07
  23.   Lithuanians started the final solution 14:50  |  Spinozo 18/09/07
  24.   Similarity between nazi and leftists ideologies 15:13  |  Gene 18/09/07
  25.   Lithuania 15:17  |  Naim S. Mahlab 18/09/07
  26.   Decent people despise lithuania 15:30  |  Ben 18/09/07
  27.   Thanks 15:31  |  Sidney 18/09/07
  28.   peter sm 22 15:33  |  realism 18/09/07
  29.   Little Jens from Cph,take responsibility for thousands of German 15:39  |  Absolute Sweden 18/09/07
  30.   #7, Ronnie Wolman & grandmother`s update. Hopeless... 15:45  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  31.   #2, Esther. Thank you for your drivel too. 15:52  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  32.   History of Killing 15:54  |  NYC 18/09/07
  33.   Reply to Naim S. Mahlab in Canada (Post No. 25) 15:57  |  Johnny Weintraub 18/09/07
  34.   #3 sweis Melbourne. Not surprised only he who knows what he wants 16:02  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  35.   Ronnie Wolman (Post No. 7) 16:06  |  Johnny Weintraub 18/09/07
  36.   REALISM So what is the relationship between your post& Lithuania 16:10  |  PETER S.M. 18/09/07
  37.   Is author totally delirious? 16:29  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  38.   realism." settle old scores. That could be the case here; " 16:33  |  PETER S .M. 18/09/07
  39.   LUBAVITCH MIZVA TANKS INVADE LITHUANIA,PUT AN END TO EVIL KINGDOM 16:34  |  VOICE of MOSHIACH))) 18/09/07
  40.   Baruch Shuv - how about Wikipedia before writing the first line? 16:39  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  41.   Opening tell-tale chapter. Maybe it`s time for historians? 16:56  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  42.   #6, Albert Fisher. Are you sure you didn`t mix the forum? 17:03  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  43.   #39, VOICE of MOSHIACH))). Personally. 17:16  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  44.   Zmogus, who are you kidding? 17:20  |  Sidney 18/09/07
  45.   Lithuanians very antisemitic 17:38  |  Semsem 18/09/07
  46.   Unbelievable chutzpah 18:01  |  Tosefta 18/09/07
  47.   Author on "Lithuanian extreme right": Tabloid news par excellence 18:03  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  48.   The origins of holocaust 18:06  |  Gene 18/09/07
  49.   Waht a messy subject 18:25  |  Another Canadian 18/09/07
  50.   So was he a terrorist? 18:36  |  Man 18/09/07
  51.   If 18:39  |  Shana 18/09/07
  52.   #44, Sidney.Compare this to 2007, anti-Lithuanian blanket slander 18:40  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  53.   jens #17 18:40  |  larry from maine 18/09/07
  54.   Churchill`s wisdom for Slowman 18:42  |  Baruch Shuv 18/09/07
  55.   baltic states and poland 18:46  |  max bernstein 18/09/07
  56.   #47, Gene. Holocaust-correctedness. 18:57  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  57.   Ben - re Decent People 19:12  |  Joe 18/09/07
  58.   #45Semsem.You`re invited to sum-up statistically this forum first 19:21  |  zmogus 18/09/07
  59.   peter sm 36 19:26  |  realism 18/09/07
  60.   Time to forgive 19:27  |  Shlomo 18/09/07
  61.   tosefta 46 19:33  |  realism 18/09/07
  62.   Peter S.M. Thank you 19:51  |  Michael Korn 18/09/07
  63.   #52, Zmogus, not a very good defense 19:59  |  Sidney 18/09/07
  64.   What about the Latvians and their annual SS reunions? 20:11  |  Logic 18/09/07
  65.   To another Canadian 20:18  |  Gene 18/09/07
  66.   Aitor`s story 20:39  |  Isaac 18/09/07
  67.   oportunity for reconciliation 20:46  |  roberto 18/09/07
  68.   To zmogus 20:48  |  Gene 18/09/07
  69.   some comments to Zmogus 21:05  |  roberto 18/09/07
  70.   Shlomo#60 didn`t your ancestors come from 21:12  |  abd 18/09/07