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THE VOICE OF INTERNATIONAL LITHUANIA

19 March 2024
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Holocaust in Lithuania

Some time ago a reader in the USA wrote the following one-sentence ‘letter’ to the editor of VilNews:

"May Lithuania rot in hell for a 1000 years."

This ‘letter’ resulted in several posts and comments from our readers around the world. We in the editorial team have been very impressed by how informative and balanced most of the posts have been. Probably it is this kind of open, intelligent debate that is needed to build bridges across the gap that emerged in the relationship between Jews and Lithuanians during and after World War II. We thank all who participate, not least the following four: Olga Zabludoff, Donatas Januta, Didier Bertin and Yves Plasseraud:

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Yves Plasseraud:
Lithuania and the memory 
of the Shoah (Holocaust)
 


Read the post…

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Didier Bertin:
Lithuania and the memory
of Holocaust



Read the post…

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Olga Zabludoff:
Lithuania cannot appease both
world Jewry and far-right extremists  



Read the post…

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 Donatas Januta:
So-called ‘double genocide’
and other red herrings 



Read the post…

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Olga Zabludoff:
Mr. Januta twists facts and figures
to suit his arguments 



Read the post…

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Donatas Januta:
Why can’t the Lithuanians simply grieve their own tragedy, and the Jews grieve theirs?


Read the post…

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Olga Zabludoff:
I love and respect Lithuanians no less than I do my American friends, both Jews and non-Jews


Read the post…

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 Donatas Januta:
To say that there were other genocides does not diminish the Holocaust


Read the post…

Olga Zabludoff:
I dare to hope that our debate can build bridges
to a better understanding



Read the post…

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Yves Plasseraud:
The Lithuanian authorities are better
than most in the region



Read the post…

Irena Veisaite:
We have to build bridges!


Read the post…

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 Donatas Januta:
The ‘Green House’ has been
used as a red herring*



Read the post…

Olga Zabludoff:
Let me try once more to convince you.


Read the post…

Tautietis:
In the interwar period, the situation of the Jews in Lithuania was one of the best in Eastern Europe


Read the post…

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 Donatas Januta:
Embracing history between Lithuanians and Jews can’t be a one way street


Read the post…

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Didier Bertin:
No more excuses for the policies and provocations of the Lithuanian authorities!


Read the post…

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 Donatas Januta:
Litvaks: Lithuania’s warriors


Read the post…

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 Donatas Januta:
Didier Bertin forgot to blame Lithuania for global warming


Read the post…

Olga Zabludoff:
It is most powerful when Lithuanians themselves stand up and speak out


Read the post…

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 Donatas Januta:
History 101: Double standards, red herrings, and one-way streets will not lead to understanding or reconciliation


Read the post…

 

 Joseph A. Melamed:
Re: Article by Dr. Irena Veisaite


Read the post…

Olga Zabludoff:
. . . it was the “lucky Jews” who were deported [to Siberia] since they accounted for many of the survivors. . . . Jews could not return from the mass graves.


Read the post…

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 Donatas Januta:
Honest differences of opinion do not mean bad intentions or motives



Read the post…

Vytautas Sliupas:
I can no longer remain silent



Read the post…

Category : Featured black / Litvak forum / Speakers corner!

  • […] Read the posts… Category : Opinions […]

    August 15 2012
    CommentsLike
    • Linas Johansonas

      This letter was written by Birute Straupyte Jereminiene in 2000 & expresses my feelings about this issue:

      AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. [SIMON] WIESENTHAL
      (Draugas, 31 March 2000)
      ***
      Honorable Sir: As a daughter of Lithuania, "nation of Jew-shooters," I make bold to address you.
      It wounds me greatly that you speak about us with such hatred. Why don't you remember that Jews as much as Lithuanians equally sufferd the yoke of an occcupant during whose regime not only Jews but also Lithuanians were
      murdered.
      I often ask myself: Why you don't call as "Je w-shooters" the Germans who started this "machine of hell" or Poles or French? Why are we alone the Jew-shooters, when at that time Jews were being uniformly annihilated everywhere?
      During the years of German occupation, there arose people who collaborated with the Nazis. But they [collaborators] were fewer in number than those who risked their own lives and the lives of loved ones to save Jews. I knew many such people, but only one Jew-shooter. People condemned him, avoided him — he was an "alienated one."
      Honorable Sir, I want to remind you that not all Jews were "holy" [blameless]. Perhaps you don't know or have forgotten that many Jews were collaborators in 1940 during the deportation of Lithuanians to Siberia. With the arrival of the Communists, Jews were a loyal support of the Soviet Union. In the little forest of Rainiai near Telsiai, people were tortured not by [the Russian national Petr] Raslan alone; he had many assistants of Jewish ethnicity.
      Why is there a desire to silence authentic history? Presenting Lithuania to the whole world as a land of the greatest evildoers and killers is dishonest
      Among all nations one finds scoundrels — there were some among Lithuanians and Jews. What a shame, but it's true.
      In writing this letter to you, I feel I have a right to do so. During the German occupation, I grew up in a family that rescued twenty-six Jews. I experienced the horror of that era. I saw everything. I remember everything!
      Pardon me, Mr. Wiesenthal that I dare contradict you that Lithuanians are not Jew-shooters! We endured long years of two occupations, having buried hundreds of thousands of loved ones in the expanses of Siberia, in the tundras of Laptevai, and the grass plains at forest edges . . .
      We have reconciled ourselves and forgiven our murderers . . . You are unable to do so; the bonfire of hatred cannot die out in your heart. You occasionally stir up the embers. I want to ask you: Why?
      [Signed]
      Birute Straupyte Jereminiene

      May 14 2012
      CommentsLike



      

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