Opinions

Karenkay Ketcheson
Olson-Sharp

The above illustration is from a German web site with a lot of interesting information about Klaipeda (Memel) of those days!

In the early 1200s, the Teutonic Knights (‘Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem’) started building a castle in the Pilsāts Land of the Curonians and named it Memelburg; later the name was shortened to Memel.
From 1252-1923 and from 1939–1945, the town and city was officially named Memel. Due to political changes between 1923 and 1939, both names were in official use; since 1945 the Lithuanian name of Klaipėda is used. 

The names Memelburg and Memel are found in most written sources from the 13th century onwards, while Klaipėda is found in Lithuania-related sources since the 15th century. The first time the city was mentioned as Caloypede in the letter of Vytautas in 1413, for the second time in the negotiation documents of 1420 as Klawppeda, and for the third time in the Treaty of Melno of 1422 as Cleupeda. According to Samogitian folk etymology, the name Klaipėda refers to the boggy terrain of the town (klaidyti=obstruct and pėda=foot). Most likely the name is of Curonian origin and means “even ground”: „klais/ klait“ (flat, open, free) und “ped“ (sole of the foot, ground).

Read more at: http://www.bork-on-line.de/Memel/index.htm 

Interview with Vytis Jurkonis in today’s Baltic Times:
Relations between Poland and Lithuania have become over-politicized

Vytis Jurkonis

What do you think about the policy of Poland towards Lithuania? MEP Vytautas Landsbergis told the magazine IQ that Poland has “a psychological defect from some heritage.”

My opinion is that the relations between Poland and Lithuania became over-politicized. Both sides have run into a situation where none of them can step out and decline their ‘principled position.’

Psychological defects are present both in Poland and in Lithuania and it shows first of all that we are not indifferent to ourselves and to our history. Nonetheless, I feel that some politicians cannot accept the fact that the concept of a nation is changing – we see the process when the voluntary and civic aspect of the identity is starting to prevail over the cultural one. One can resist that, can try to minimize the effects, but you cannot just deny the process. All in all those psychological or mentality issues, which certainly exist, are being manipulated and exaggerated by some politicians. This is the cheapest way to mobilize their electorate.

Read more...

Dear Editor:

Thank you for the excellent acknowledgment and presentation you have given our video "Vilna" and our CD, "The Eternal Question" (Di Alte Kashe).

One sees that this site is a labor of love.  The care, attention to detail, accuracy and thoroughness is evident throughout.

zol z@@n mit m@zl

Wolf Krakowski
Fraidy Katz
Kame'a Media:  www.kamea.com
Northampton, Massachusetts, USA

Our VilNews Associate Editor, Vin Karnila, has edited the four articles we have presented on the topic “Lithuania and the Soviet Union 1939-1940” from the personal memoirs of Juozas Urbšys. Here is his response to Mr. Mazeika’s commentary:

Easy to say that they should have organized formal Military resistance – and get slaughtered

Vin Karnila

I would like to thank you Mr. Mazeika for sharing your thoughts with us and making us aware of what I’m sure is a very interesting book written by Arnas Liekis.

You bring up a topic that has been discussed many times throughout the years following 1940. The members of the Lithuanian delegation that were involved in the negotiations with Russia have always claimed that they knew that Russia at any time they chose could have invaded Lithuania. They also felt that if Russia did in fact invade, whether there was organized military resistance or not, this would result in catastrophic consequences for Lithuania and its people. Throughout the negotiations they said that what they were trying to achieve was the best possible outcome for Lithuania. In the end what they achieved was the best possible outcome that Russia would allow.

The topic of the courageous people of Finland and their organized military resistance to Russia’s invasion of their homeland in relation to the fact that Russia’s invasion of Lithuania in 1940 occurred without a shot being fired has also been discussed many times. The question remains how much did Lithuania know or did not know about Finland’s armed resistance to Russia in what is known as the “Winter War”?

To read more, go to our
SECTION 10 – HISTORICAL LITHUANIA
 

"Their wounds of war run so deep, one can still see the scars of the sickle."
- Susan Lucas Kazenas

White picket fences
Copyright 1991 by Susan M. Lucas (Now Susan Lucas Kazenas)



They came into my land
by the hundreds,
by the thousands.
They led their communist offenses
through my white picket fences
and hung their red iron curtains in my window.
They raped my pride
and murdered my children.
Those who escaped were not raped
but could not come home again.
Those left inside had nowhere to hide.
And I laid still in a cold, dead silence
while hot, burning tears
flooded my land.
It didn't go into the history books
of the many lives that they took.
It was a blood no one knew was shed;
because by the sickle it was led.
My beauty within is not seen without.
Do I have nothing to give the world?
My people are loyal,
but you see, I have no oil.
Nor do I have food on my plate
because the greedy bear sits and guards my gate.
Now I am his property when I was always MY OWN.
I belong to NO ONE
but the people who till my land
with their own bare hands,
And to my God to whom those hands are raised.
I have not forgotten my
White Picket Fences
torn down by your offenses.
I rebel against this prison called Fate.
I am the Baltic States.

(I wrote this in 1990 as Lithuania fought for its independence against the former USSR. This poem was hung on the wall by the TV tower in Vilnius after Bloody Sunday. I hope you enjoy it and welcome your comments.)

Susan Lucas Kazenas

by Susan Lucas Kazenas

VilNews will from time to time publish poetry that we receive from our readers. Please send us yours!

I am a country
  torn by war.
My wounds are not healed;
  my people still feel
  and hear and taste
  their own warm blood,
  cold guns, and black boots
  ravaging through their soul...
Exploding through their mind,
  tearing through their heart:
  Their home is torn apart.
They find no answers,
  only iron doors.
I shed bitter tears
  from sweeter days
As I remember a cool morning haze
  Sweep over my valleys
  in a dance of praise.
And now I ask for freedom
  and the world looks the other way.
I cry for what is right.
  I abhor what is not
and the echo fills but a few ears
and the rest comes back to me
  touching but a few old weeping trees
  and a quiet haunting sea.
The Baltic beckons to me to come
 but the gates are guarded
 by Soldiers and Guns.
 
Susan Lucas Kazenas, Copyright 1991 (Written as Lithuania fought for independence from the former USSR)

I can no longer remain silent

Vytautas Sliupas

I was reading and watching with interest the dialog in VilNews between Donatas Januta and Olga Zabludoff and several others. However, when David Katz unjustly attacked Ambassador Vygaudas Usackas (whose father and grandparents suffered exile in Siberia) and accused Lithuanians of “not doing enough” (!) to help Lithuania’s Jews during the Nazi occupation, I cannot remain silent. To those who are interested, I suggest reading publication by Dinand Library, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, section entitled “Oral & Written Testimonies: Lithuania and the Holocaust”, Article link here.

Vytautas Sliupas
Northern California

Donatas Januta: Reply to Olga Zabludoff re Holocaust in Lithuania
Honest differences of opinion do not mean bad intentions or motives

Donatas Januta

Dear Olga,

I have sincerely and honestly tried to respond to you. But you keep changing the rules on me, and you attribute to me intentions and motives which I have not stated and do not have.

We seem to agree on the important basic points. Yes, the Jewish Holocaust was and is the most terrible tragedy that has occurred in Europe. And if I could do anything to undo it, I would. Yes, I do not dispute Israeli historian Dina Porat’s conclusion that half of one percent (0.5%) of Lithuanians were involved directly or indirectly in the German organized killing of Jews. But beyond that, we, including yourself, get into the specifics of individual events – the where, why, and how – and there we do not seem to be able to find common ground.

Read more...

Olga Zabludoff: Reply to Donatas Januta re Holocaust in Lithuania
. . . 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.

Olga Zabludoff

Dear Donatas,

I send New Year greetings to you and your family.

In response to your article of 20th December, 2011, I regret to tell you that your lengthy sermon on serfdom was irrelevant to our discussion. Let me remind you that from its onset this debate has been rooted in modern Lithuanian history. It has been labeled a discussion on “Holocaust in Lithuania” and has frequently traveled into the arena of current Lithuanian-Jewish issues and attempts at reconciliation.

Read more…

Dear Editor,

The recent article by Dr. Irena Veisaite agreeing with the antisemitic establishment's evaluation of the life's work of Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel office and a leading historian of the Lithuanian Holocaust, has been a cause of great dismay to us, the world's last active organization of Lithuanian Holocaust survivors and their descendants.

Read more…

Now also available in Lithuanian:
The 2011 bestselling novel ‘Between shades of gray’

The period of the mass deportations to Siberia of Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians is a very sad part in the history of the Baltics. It is virtually impossible to find a family in Lithuania that was not effected in some way by these crimes against humanity and brutality inflicted by Soviet Russia. What is almost equally as sad is the fact that to this day very few people in the world are aware that these atrocities took place. 

There are people though that do not want these events to become lost in history. Why? To answer that question you would need to ask each and every person what their reason is. Is it to make the world aware of the courage of these people that suffered? Is it done in the hope that the world’s knowledge of these atrocities will help to prevent acts like this from happening again? Is it done with that the hope that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes will someday be brought to justice and forced to atone for their actions?

Again you would need to ask each and every person “spreading the word” what their reasons are. And dear readers maybe this is a good question to ask yourselves – Why should “the word be spread”? 

We would like to introduce you to one of these people that is not allowing this sad part in Lithuanian and World history fade away. We are honored that this author is sharing with us her insight based on years of work. 

Born and raised in Michigan, Ruta Sepetys is the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee. The nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia disappeared from maps in 1941 and did not reappear until 1990. As this is a story seldom told, Ruta wanted to give a voice to the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their lives during Stalin's cleansing of the Baltic region. 

Ruta lives with her family in Tennessee. “Between Shades of Gray” is her first novel.

You can visit Ruta Sepetys at 
www.rutasepetys.com

You can also visit 
Ruta Sepetys' Facebook Page