The value of a Jewish life

The death of Mikhail Gorbachev gives us a unique opportunity to apply a valuation measure of how much the life of a Jew is assessed by some antisemites.

In Lithuania, 220,000 Jews were murdered for being Jewish. These murders were mostly carried out by their Lithuanian neighbors and national Lithuanian leadership. Lithuania considers Gorbachev an enemy for having presided over the Soviet Union while 13 Lithuanians were lost, but they consider many of those that murdered Jews as their current day Lithuanian heroes.

Gorbachev

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission reported on Gorbachev’s life this way:

The antisemitic, Holocaust revisionist, Lithuanian Minister of Defense reported it so:

Prior to becoming Minister of Defense for Lithuania, Anusauskas was the Lithuanian nation’s official ”historian“.

Lithuanians accuse Gorbachev of causing the death of 13 Lithuanians in 1990. At best, these deaths were tangential for Gorbachev and unknown to him at the time.

Lithuanian heroes

Lithuania‘s national hero, Jonas Noreika directly caused the murder of approximately 14,500 Lithuanians – Jews. We therefore have a measure to assess the value to current day Lithuania, of Jewish Lithuanian lives versus non-Jewish Lithuanian lives – 13 non-Jewish Lithuanians against 14,500 Jewish Lithuanians.

Gorbachev was the National Russian leader. Lithuania holds him directly responsible for any acts under his command. The Lithuanian Government states that unless someone was tried and convicted during their lifetime, they MUST be considered “completely innocent“ (they intended this standard to ONLY apply to Lithuanians that murdered Jews). Therefore, the only appropriate point of comparison is to examine Lithuania‘s own leaders and compare their own actions to Gorbachev.

The Unknown War[1]: Anti-Soviet Armed Resistance in Lithuania and Its Legacies by Arūnas Streikus, represents another attempt by the Republic of Lithuania to mandate and popularize narratives of Lithuanian historical “memory policy”.

The actual biographies of the leaders of the partisan war expose the lie of Lithuania’s propaganda efforts. Three decades of state-financed propaganda by Lithuania has not succeeded in ironing out the ambiguities in a whole series of biographies of partisan leaders. Lithuanian politicians have even declared two partisan leaders “de facto presidents” of Lithuania, and Vyacheslav Titov, a politician from Klaipėda, Lithuania, has been tried and convicted of casting aspersions on the actions of Adolfas Ramanauskas “Vanagas.”

Lithuanian declarations of imaginary history do not change the facts. Evidence collected by Soviet structures has been declared null and void in Lithuania, and citing Soviet charges has become a reason for being accused of a crime.

Criminal cases compiled by Soviets against Lithuanian partisan leaders contain a large number of documents authored by the partisans themselves. These are publicly-accessible documents. (Registration required.) The criminal cases against Jonas Noreika, Jonas Žemaitis and Adolfas Ramanauskas can even be accessed via the internet. The case against Ramanauskas contains an extraordinary number of documents by the partisans themselves, accessible here.

The pathways these documents took to end up in the hands of the Soviets can be interpreted in different ways, but no one disputes their authenticity. The service records of the two partisan commanders now declared “de facto Presidents” are especially interesting. The documents are entitled “Record on the Execution of Duties to the Homeland by a Partisan Volunteer Soldier.” They contain short biographies. The biographies of both commander-presidents contain a common feature: service in units which collaborated with Nazis in carrying out the Holocaust. No self-respecting western democracy would portray such people with such “blemished” reputations as heroes. After all, the most basic task of leaders and government is to protect the life of their citizens. Even those Lithuanians leaders that did not physically murder, failed to protect Jewish citizens, and enabled their compatriots to murder Jews. i.e. Lithuanian leadership were annihilationist racists, if not directly murderers and thieves.

Žemaitis

Žemaitis, in his service record[2] says he joined the reconstituted Lithuanian military on June 29, 1941, under the command of general staff colonel Dabulevičius. These were police battalions established in Vilnius. Žemaitis served in these only until July 26. A very short period, not even four full weeks. The mass murder of the Jews of Vilnius had already begun on July 4 and 5, 1941. On these two days, 147 Jews were murdered. Over the course of Žemaitis’s service in these units, around 400 people were murdered.[3]

There is no information about Žemaitis’s participation in these mass murder operations,  (just as Gorbachev, Hitler and Stalin never personally pulled a trigger). It is known that Lithuanians participated. But it wasn’t just murder. The Jews who were murdered and those who were sent to the Lukiškės prison prior to being murdered had to be arrested and guarded. Under Soviet interrogation, Žemaitis claimed he served at the general headquarters of the Vilnius battalions just then being established and didn’t have any specific duties. Captain Žemaitis certainly didn’t work as a janitor or security guard at the general headquarters during the period when the soldiers under the command of that headquarters were arresting and shootings Jews. It would have been impossible for him not to be aware of what was happening in his environment. (The Lithuanian Government is very clear that context does not matter when the victim is a Jew).

The Soviet interrogators in this case simply noted the fact of his service to the Nazis instead of trying to illuminate fine details. Most likely there were time constraints. Even without this episode, Žemaitis’s case-file was huge. It is interesting that Žemaitis presents this period of service to the Nazis as a stage in the anti-Soviet struggle. In no way does he differentiate his service under the Nazis from his later anti-Soviet armed struggle. Thus, this document puts the lie to all revisionist concepts by modern-day Lithuanian historians (such as Anusauskas) alleging the so-called uprising and post-war anti-Soviet activities was in no way related to the Holocaust.

Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas

The service record of Adolfas Ramanauskas[4] similarly claims that from June 22, 1941, until August of the same year, he served as platoon commander in the city of Druskininkai in the Varėna district. Under questioning by the Soviets, he said he actually only held that post for two weeks, and had exaggerated his term of service there – in order to gain greater authority among the partisans. This is the same version of events modern Lithuanian historians hold true. (Lithuanians are undisturbed by the questionable moral nature of a partisan leader who lied to his own people.) That is convenient, since there survives a report by the chief of police of Druskininkai in which he details the shooting of 28 people and imprisoning the Jews in a make-shift ghetto using men from the guard unit (where Ramanauskas held that post). Ramanauskas certainly did know about those events and did give testimony to that effect. There are other surviving documents which also show he was very much in Druskininkai in August. By claiming he had only served in the guard unit for two weeks, the partisan leader steered away from questions about his activities in the mass murder operations. The question of Ramanauskas’s personal involvement in the Holocaust remains unanswered. Again, this is most likely because the 15-volume case against him was sufficient in itself, and there were other episodes of much greater concern to Soviet officials. There is, though, a claim published in 1967 by a literary correspondent to the KGB, that Ramanauskas took part in 28 mass-shootings of Soviet citizens. The criminal case against him doesn’t mention this.

The Jews of Druskininkai were imprisoned in a ghetto on July 16, 1941. Later, when the Nazis drove armed Lithuanians out of Druskininkai, the Jews were removed to Grodno and they were murdered along with the other prisoners from the Grodno Ghetto. The Holocaust in Druskininkai has never been fully investigated. After Adolfas Ramanauskas was declared President of Lithuania, hopes that Lithuanian institutions would investigate the Holocaust in Druskininkai have evaporated. These institutions are engaged instead in manufacturing tales of Lithuania’s heroic partisans for the domestic and world market.

Opportunity to tell the truth to the West

Does this mean there is no opportunity to tell the truth to the West on the post-war anti-Soviet resistance? That’s difficult to forecast, but presenting the biographies of the partisan leaders as the main feature probably means no. We only have to recall the survey of partisan leaders’ biographies by E. Kripienė. The absolute majority were at one time or another Nazi collaborators. They were part of the pro-Nazi uprising, served in the police or police battalions or other military structures, in the Nazi-collaborationist Lithuanian Administration, or belonged to the Lithuanian Freedom Army, which sent its members to Abwehr sabotage schools.

For an unknown reason, Lithuanian historians claim the Lithuanian Freedom Army was part of some “anti-Nazi resistance.” The few partisan leaders who escaped this collaboration with the Nazis were either too young, or their biographies simply don’t include that information. The “Unknown War” grabs all the Lithuanian propaganda attention.

Estimate the value of Jewish life

Using this information, we can now estimate the value of Jewish life for current day Lithuania.

In the case of Gorbachev, 13 Lithuanians died while he was the Soviet leader. The Lithuanian standard that he had to be “tried and convicted during his lifetime, or must be considered “completely innocent“, is voided. This standard only applies when Lithuanians murder Jews. The Government of Lithuania was so fundamentalist in applying this standard, that they threatened me with criminal and constitutional charges for identifying one of their national heroes as a Holocaust perpetrator. Somehow, this fervor does not penetrate beyond their own frauds.

Žemaitis and Ramanauskas were Lithuanian leaders that presided over thousands of Jewish murders. For Lithuanians, murder of Jews MAY NOT be considered, murder of Lithuanians MUST be considered. The standards they apply to others are entirely different to those they apply to themselves.

The Lithuanian Defense Minister and pseudo-historian Anusauskas affirms that Gorbachev WAS a criminal. Given his vast and impeccable objective and non-ideological historical expertise (according to the Lithuanian Government, NOT according to any independent impartial historian) he was also able to determine that Jonas Noreika was NOT a criminal. Anusauskas proves that in consideration of the murder of Jews, Jewish life means zero, and facts can be rewritten at his will. Anusauskas compellingly proves his antisemitism. Repeatedly. As a spokesperson for the Lithuanian nation, he drags Lithuania into the sewer alongside him.

Comparing the 14,500 estimated murders of Jews at the direct instructions of Jonas Noreika, to the 13 under the governance of Gorbachev, Lithuania shows that Jewish life is not to be considered, no matter the magnitude. To them, Jews just have no human value. We are simply a source of tourism, and a target for investment into Lithuania.

On September 23, Lithuanian officials may appear at commemorations of their National Memorial Day for the Genocide Victims of Lithuanian Jews. Their appearances are insincere performative art, and virtue signaling only. Their blatant actions tell us what they really mean.

Holocaust Triumphalism

Lithuania is a nation of Holocaust triumphalism and of Jewish dehumanization. Their successful rewriting of history shows any human rights perpetrator how to get away with murder.

The above was coauthored by Evaldas Balčiūnas.

[1] ISBN 9781003254881, published May 31, 2022

[2] (Lithuanian Special Archive routing code F. K-1 ap. 58 b. 44618-3 T.12, pages 84-88)

[3] https://www.lzb.lt/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/PANERIU-DIENORASTIS_1-101.pdf

[4] Lithuanian Special Archive routing code F. K-1 ap. 58 b. 44618-3 T. 1 0 l.111-113