Other responses to the 26 October comment from Mr. Januta

FROM: Alexander (26 October)
Well said. I just wish those who write about Lithuanian-Jewish relations and blame all Lithuanians for the killing of Jews, would get their true facts before writing.

FROM: fdfdg (26 October)·
An outrageous pack of lies.
The Jews in Lithuania were murdered by ethnic Lithuanian volunteers. Lithuanians are still trying to hide this fact after 60 years, from themselves, their children and now they are attempting to impose this false history on the world at large. Dov Levin isn't positing double genocide, there is no equals sign there. "Double genocide" is not the name the Lithuanians give to their own policy of Holocaust obfuscation, but it's an accurate name. The number of Lithuanian perpetrators is in the tens of thousands, and those are just the active shooters. If you want to get into passive support for genocide, it's much higher. There was no specifically Lithuanian Waffen SS, because the Lithuanians created their own pro-Nazi formations before the Nazis got around to it, TDA, LAF etc etc. and these forces were involved in the Holocaust in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere, besides their native Lithuania. The author is obviously fooling himself into thinking it's possible some Lithuanians were fooled into it at German direction, but the LAF was a Lithuanian organization, not a German one, and their underground cells of ethnic Lithuanians inside Lithuania (LAF was pretending to be the government in exile in Berlin) got the orders from HQ: prepare to slaughter your Jewish neighbors as soon as Soviet-German hostilities break out. Didier Bertin's point concerning the supposed Soviet genocide of Lithuanians was not that some Lithuanians survived, it was that not only did the vast majority survive, their population actually increased during the supposed genocide. This is an outrageous pack of lies by another Lithuanian Holocaust obfuscator.

FROM: Richard Vitkauskas (26 October)·
Excellent article Donatas. Many thanks

Mr. Januta’s response

FROM: Donatas Januta (27 October)·
Dina Porat, a respected Israeli historian estimated that the total number of Lithuanians, involved directly and indirectly, in the German organized killing of Jews was up to 15,000, i.e., about 0.5% of the population
For those who may want a little perspective on fdfdg’s preceding comment. He states that my article is “an outrageus pack of lies”, and specifically he then says: “The number of Lithuanian perpetrators is in the tens of thousands, and those are just the active shooters.” Dina Porat, a respected Israeli historian estimated that the total number of Lithuanians, involved directly and indirectly, in the German organized killing of Jews was up to 15,000, i.e., about 0.5% of the population. And Arunas Bubnys, another historian, has estimated that those directly involved, i.e., what fdfdg refers to as “the active shooters”, was somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000. But according to Mr. or Ms. fdfdg, both of these historians are just liars. Judge for yourselves the rest of fdfdg’s remarks.

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tautietis

The fdfdg's (why is that person wants to hide his/her name???) statement is a bit inflammatory, I find.

This statement – although technically correct – might be misinterpreted to be an accusation to present day – post-Soviet Lithuanians. Like cutting into a raw nerve. It also might provoke a defensive reaction – which will not bring us to the resolution that the both parties desire. Or it might cause a puzzlement . Like a New York Jew coming to present-day Lithuania and telling his/her guide that the only reason he came here is because he wanted "to look the murderers in the eye". One can only just shake the head – and of course recognize and try to correct the wrongs of the past. But the comments like this do not really help – they tend to put some people off.

This is not too far from the following statement: "KGB/NKVD in 1940 in Lithuania was run by Jews, many of them local" or "Majority of Communist party leadership were Jews". Should we go there? All of us know that Jews as a nation/ethnicity/religious group were not much involved in the two most heinous regimes of the 20th century. And of course the Jews would really be upset at these implications. Kaniukai tragedy is an example of this – nobody even is considering coming out and shedding some light on what they did – or if this is even true. Should some of these people be considered as 'heroes' because they bravely fought the Nazis – ignoring everything else that they did? Bemedalled WWII veteran in Russia perhaps for sure would think so. But – is this what we should think at this point? Are they really heroes? Are all the "ethnic Lithuanian volunteers" the evil guys without an exception – without consideration for their individual circumstances? And of course if one was not a Red partisan – but just a partisan – he/she is not good, because they were against the Soviets – and by extension against Jews who were in the Red partisan troops, no? Is one a hero and the other a villain – just by association?

Although technically correct, the statement in the first paragraph to a typical Lithuanian implies something that one did not have anything to do with. The Nazi collaborators were hunted down by the Soviets after Lithuania was occupied – both in Soviet Union and the West. The West perhaps was a safer place because these people had a legal process that they could go through; not so in Soviet Union – where they were pretty much executed – Stalin style.

So IMHO things are a bit more nuanced than that – would you not agree? It is individuals that we need to look at. Be it a Lithuanian or Russian or German or Jew. Or?

October 29 2011

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