Lithuania’s Blind Eye to Nazi Past, redux

Forty-two world governments have just identified Lithuania as a Holocaust distortion state. To understand the depths of Lithuanian antisemitism, one only needs to refer back to a 23-year-old article titled Lithuania’s Blind Eye to Nazi Past. The article describes how tenaciously and vigorously Lithuania fought against placing any Lithuanian Jew-murderers on trial. They succeeded. Lithuania did not punish a single murderer. Instead, they declared them their national heroes.

Twenty-three years ago, Lithuania’s presidential foreign policy advisor, Nevis Germanas, said, “The less we talk about it, the easier it’s going to be to find a way out.” Their “way out” is to lie. Lying has been standard, accepted and applied Lithuanian policy since. Only the Lithuanian façade has been polished

Discussing Lithuanian murders of Jews was virtually criminalized. Soviet style blunderbuss intimidation has been visited upon those who have tried to veer towards the truth. Truth is one thing the Lithuanian government cannot and will not allow.

Lithuanian Ambassador Norkus in London assures Jews that the “difficult subjects must be addressed”. This is a lie. This 23-year-old article shows that discussion has never taken place, is not taking place now, and is never intended to take place. This article conveys the contemptible, execrable extent of the deception towards Jews to placate them until the next delaying tactic.

Jews have often been unofficial pawns in the Lithuanian game of denial and distortion. After so many years of false promises, Jews that continue to be duped by Lithuanian representations can only be deemed foolish and naïve.

Of the 3 million people living in Lithuania in 1942, only about 50,000 fled west with the retreating Nazis. That means that roughly 98% of Lithuanians were not even slightly terrified by the prospect of Soviets resuming occupation. Lithuanians have always accepted the yoke around their neck, as long as it was not Jewish.

Why would fewer than 2% of Lithuanians have fled? Those who fled were, in all likelihood, fearful of justice being meted out by the Soviets, and figured they would be better off taking their chances in naive Western countries. They assumed that the trusting nature of Americans or Canadians would simply accept their fairy tales that they were anti-Communist fighters, and would not be able to confirm their crimes. They were correct. Lithuanians called this immigrant group containing a huge number of Holocaust criminals, their “Greatest Generation”. The Department of Justice noted in one South Philadelphia Lithuanian neighborhood, up to 10 members of a single murder battalion all lived within several blocks of each other. They taught their children that they had all rescued Jews (whether or not the Jews deserved to be rescued) and Lithuanians deserved generational accolades. They testified for each other, and colluded in presenting a solid story which was a lie.

This 23-year-old article and the subsequent collusion of the Lithuanian Government, Prime Minster, President, Parliament, Courts and Public Prosecutor in covering up the crimes, reflect the continuous position of Lithuania. The murderers performed Lithuania a national service by ethnically cleansing their country of minorities. They were not punished because Lithuania did not consider their acts criminal. They were made heroes of the state because they performed a national service, and they are still protected by the state because the state continues to value their aktions and they knew that almost nobody would care because they were “just Jews”. They rewrote their history into a creative fiction. There is simply no other conclusion. These are not mistakes or omissions. This is consistent, long term, pervasive, deliberate, intentional fraud.

Lileikis, (mentioned in the article) confirmed “All of us were collaborators–the whole nation”. That was not so. 915 Lithuanians or 0.04% of the Lithuanian population were found to have rescued Jews which leaves 99.96% of Lithuanians either perpetrators, bystanders or have insufficient proof of their unsubstantiated claims. Within this 99.96% of Lithuanians, were those responsible for the slaughter of 96.4% of Lithuanian Jews.

The Lithuanian government liberally festoons their citizens with medals and awards recognizing their heroic rescue of Jews. Among those honorees are Holocaust perpetrators such as Jonas Noreika, who murdered about 14,500 Jews. Official Lithuanian history is a fraud, and must be peremptorily dismissed.

Holocaust fraud and distortion is official state policy. It is institutionalized. In Lileikis’s own words, the current and previous governments were and are collaborators in this cover-up.

Lithuania has little relevance in the modern world. Individual Jews can be forgiven for remaining ignorant of Lithuanian ideology. Only Simon Wiesenthal Center and Israeli American Civic Action Network have vigorously opposed Lithuanian antisemitism. Others have mostly been bystanders. The consistency and duration of Lithuanian disinformation requires that any state endorsed historical findings must be rejected as false, unless verified by foreign historians.

The callous inversion of truth and constant misrepresentations are confirmation that Lithuanian displays of remorse are simply their strategy of image rehabilitation. Why do we Jews allow that? Are we that naïve? Do we lack that much self-respect that we accord them credibility in the public sphere when they have none?

Lithuania is a hopeless case. They have shown us exactly what they remain. There can be no trust for at least another generation. There is no purpose in Jews engaging with Lithuania. My personal purpose in my efforts is to do exactly what this article did – create a permanent record of the facts and to educate Jews on what Lithuania remains.

I beg every reader to read the 1998 Los Angeles Times article and be very, very angry.