Forward

Forward

The destruction of the Jewish population in Lithuania in World War Two was brutal and bloody. The Lithuanian nation, turned, as one, on its Jewish neighbors and wiped them off the face of the earth. Jewish men, women, children, the elderly and even breast-fed babies were murdered in the sanctification of God and the people, by bloodthirsty Lithuanian thugs. They were massacred in their thousands in every location possible throughout the blood soaked land of Lithuania.

They died in cities, provincial towns, and villages. They were murdered in their homes, back yards, local streets, and markets. They bled to death in synagogues and yeshivot, on riverbanks, and lakesides. They were massacred in their thousands in forests, groves, garages, workshops, jails, labor and death camps, military barracks and city forts. Some were buried in unmarked graves while others were murdered and buried in mass graves throughout the Lithuania. May their memories be blessed.

Lithuanians murdered most of the Lithuanian Jews. During the Nazi era 94% of the 220,000 Jews remaining in Lithuania at the time of conquest were murdered. Most of these Lithuanian Jews were murdered by the Lithuanians and not by the Germans. Initially the Germans allowed the Lithuanians to murder as they pleased. After they had murdered thousands of Jews on city streets, in public buildings, and in the victim’s homes in a “spontaneous” and brutal manner, to the Germans’ satisfaction, they stopped these murders in order to organize the killings in a more "efficient" way.

The Germans planned, the Lithuanians executed. The Germans, in cooperation with the Lithuanians, planned and organized the subsequent murders, while the Lithuanians, and only the Lithuanians, carried out most of them. Tens of thousands of Jews, mainly in the Lithuanian provinces, were murdered without any presence of Germans.

The Lithuanians murdered not only Lithuanian Jews, In addition to the Lithuanian Jews, the Lithuanians murdered tens of thousands of Jews who were brought to Lithuania for slaughter from Central and Western Europe and Russia, and more than 150,000 Russian, Byelorussian, and Ukrainian Jews. In addition to these, the Lithuanians took part in murdering Jews in extermination camps in Poland, especially Maidanek. Lithuanians also took part in putting down the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto. In light of these facts, emphasis in the description of the Nazi era is put on Lithuanian operations to murder Jews in general, and Lithuanian Jews in particular.

According to our calculations, the Lithuanians murdered with their own hands between 400,000 and 450,000 Jews in Lithuania, Russia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, and Poland. Tens of thousands of Jews were brought to Lithuania from Central Europe and Russia and murdered there.

Four “special” units, the Second Battalion (afterwards the Twelfth), the Hamman Motorized Commando, the Ypatingas Burys, and the Seventh Battalion of Semaska, murdered more than 250,000 Jews. Many tens of thousands of Jews were murdered by the Vilna Battalions of Zemaitis-Vytautas and Misiunas and the first Battalion, before and after the division, and the rest should be credited to the “Partisans”, the “Activists”, and the other battalions. The German invasion into Lithuania that also gave the sign to Lithuanians “to revenge themselves on the Jews” realized, in effect, the Lithuanian tendency over many generations “to get rid of” the Jews which they had learned to hate, initially resulting from the unruly incitement by powers mainly from the Catholic Church, the source of this evil, and political powers connected to it, and finally, after the rise of the Nazis to power, Fascist powers mainly of Lithuanian officers and clergy.

Adv. Joseph A. Melamed

5Top of Page