This is a NATO ally?

The civilized world has confirmed that Jonas Noreika was a mass genocidal Holocaust perpetrator. The world’s most authoritative body on the Holocaust, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) issued this statement on 11 April 2019: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/statements/statement-center-study-genocide-and-resistance-lithuania

Again on 7 July, 2020, IHRA issued this statement about Lithuania’s Holocaust fraud’s: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/statements/ihra-statement-rehabilitation

On 27 March, 2019, Lithuania’s own Presidential Commission affirms Noreika’s crimes here: https://www.komisija.lt/en/a-response-to-the-statement-of-the-genocide-and-resistance-research-centre-of-lithuania-of-27-march-2019-on-the-accusations-against-jonas-noreika-general-vetra/

On 28 March, 2019, the Lithuanian Jewish Community spoke here: https://www.lzb.lt/2019/03/28/kas-lietuvoje-sankcionavo-institucini-antisemitizma/

On 3 April 2019, the World Jewish Congress spoke here: https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/world-jewish-congress-dismayed-by-lithuanian-document-diminishing-extent-of-nazi-collaboration-4-3-2019

On 9 April, 2019, the American Jewish Committee spoke here:

https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-criticizes-legal-effort-in-lithuania-to-distort-holocaust

On 2 July, 2019, the European Jewish Congress spoke here: https://eurojewcong.org/news/communities-news/lithuania/lithuania-faces-challenges-celebrating-2020-as-year-of-vilna-gaon-and-litvak-history/

On January 15, 2021, Noreika’s grand-daughter, Silvia Foti made this public statement: https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-criticizes-legal-effort-in-lithuania-to-distort-holocaust

The most recent government statement about Lithuania’s Holocaust frauds was by the US and German governments on 3 May, 2023, here:

https://www.state.gov/joint-statement-on-the-dialogue-on-holocaust-issues/

There is no international doubt about Jonas Noreika’s crimes. After decades of appealing to Lithuanian officials for the most primitive of facts, only one member of Lithuania’s government finally capitulated to massive public pressure, and admitted that Noreika was a genocidal murderer. With the overwhelming amount of evidence produced decade after decade, he had no other option. His admission was not from a change of heart, but because he was backed into a corner. Capitulation after decades of lying is not worthy of accolades, rather it warrants an explanation of why they lied so deliberately, for so long. Accolades were given simply because any truth from Lithuania is such a rarity.

Despite worldwide condemnation and exposure, Deputy Chancellor of Lithuania, and Advisor to the Prime Minister, Rolandas Krisciunas, is apparently unable to come to a decision on Noreika’s guilt. Neither is Viktorijos Čmilytės-Nielsen, the Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament. Both punt the issue to their official national “historians”. These “cryptid-historians” include Vidmantas Valiušaitis who is a known historical revisionist. Even ahead of Valiušaitis’s frauds in the name of his nation, the European Jewish Community objected vociferously to his appointment: https://eurojewcong.org/news/communities-news/lithuania/alleged-holocaust-distorter-named-top-adviser-to-lithuania-genocide-museum/

The Government’s so called “historians”, also include vicious and unrepentant antisemites such as Stancikas, who are in fact not even historians. International ridicule of their frauds have not deterred Lithuania.

Lithuania’s current top official “historian” is Dr. Arunas Bubnys who campaigned as a far right wing nationalist under the banner of Holocaust perpetrators. Here is his campaign poster:

Source: https://defendinghistory.com/no-sir-this-is-no-photoshop/106735

It is painfully obvious that truth is not a component of the Lithuanian Government. Nowhere in official Lithuania is truth nurtured, recognized, spoken, or otherwise, even acknowledged. Čmilytės-Nielsen and Krisciunas are aware of the facts, they are simply lying to us. National leaders who so easily construct a false reality (much as children do with the tooth fairy) and try to ingather anyone without a sense of honor or pride, cannot be considered trustworthy national partners of USA or NATO.

In order to deceive attendees of the July 2023 NATO Summit in Lithuania, officials removed the most visible Noreika monument for “cleaning”. There is nothing coincidental about the timing of this “cleaning”, it is simply to add another layer of deceit. As the Summit will take place only in the capital city of Vilnius, Lithuania is not “cleaning” any of Noreika’s monuments elsewhere.

Prominent among other Noreika glorifications is the building in Šiauliai where he worked as the head of the Šiauliai district. The inscription on this monument reads:

Commemorative plaque on the building in Šiauliai where Noreika worked as the head of the Šiauliai district.
Source; Personal photo

“In this building

from 1941 to 1943

a famous political activist

worked. The organizer of resistance

to the occupational

regimes, captain in the

Lithuanian military,

head of the Šiauliai

district

Jonas Noreika

General Storm

Shot on February 26, 1946 [sic, 1947].”

This building was the base of operations for the head of Šiauliai district, Jonas Noreika, in the Lithuanian administration where he was supposedly subordinate to the Nazi regime. Here, Noreika implemented his plans to “eliminate” Jews. Under Nazi occupation this building was the headquarters of the district head, as well as the kommissar of the Šiauliai military district.

Here is a photograph from the collection of the Aušra Museum in Šiauliai.

Ostland kommissar Hinrich Lohse’s meeting in Šiauliai in September of 1942
Colorized
Source: https://www.jonasnoreika.com/bylos/Noreika-Lohse.jpeg

This photograph shows Ostland kommissar Hinrich Lohse’s meeting in Šiauliai in September, 1942. The meeting was held outside this building where the plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika now hangs, and where the stench of dishonesty still permeates the environment. There is little doubt that Noreika took part in this meeting, as did his direct boss, Šiauliai military district kommissar Hans Gewecke.

Unlike Lithuanian Defense Minister Anusauskas’s unsubstantiated fiction that Noreika was rescuing Jews, there is no indication that Noreika did any such thing. (And I have the dead relatives to prove it).

The period during which Noreika worked for the Nazis as head of the Šiauliai district is well documented. Noreika assumed the post of district head from Ignas Urbaitis on August 5, 1941. The document transferring the position to him is in Lithuania’s own archives. (Lithuanian Central State Archives code LCVA R1099a1b1l107).

Here are just a few examples of orders and reports Noreika issued in connection with the Holocaust in the Šiauliai district:

August 5, 1941: the Jewish community of Lygumai exterminated, including between 70 to 80 men, and about 100 women and children.

August 6: Noreika issues his first order on Jewish property (Lithuanian Central State Archive code LCVA R1099a1b2l122).

August 8: Jewish community of Žeimelis exterminated, 160 people.

August 9: Noreika orders the removal of the Jews of Tryškiai to Gruzdžiai (Lithuanian Central State Archive code LCVA R1099a1b2l137). It should be noted here that the current Lithuanian criminal code defines deportations of people a crime of genocide, and that denial or trivialization of this fact is subject to criminal prosecution. (Note – I applied to the Lithuanian Public Prosecutor three times to criminally charge members of the Government under this statute – all were denied).

August 10: Šiauliai military district kommissar Hans Gewecke arrives in Šiauliai.

August 15: Jewish community of Pakruojis exterminated.

August 22: Jewish community of Vaiguva exterminated.

On August 22, Šiauliai district head Jonas Noreika ordered rural district aldermen and city and town burgermeisters to move all Jews in the Šiauliai district to Žagarė (Lithuanian Central State Archive code LCVA R1099a1b1l156). Documents show the office of head of Šiauliai district under Noreika, coordinated the removal of Jews to Žagarė. There are also surviving documents which are reports from the towns of Žagarė and Joniškis and the rural district of Žeimelis on how this order was carried out at those locations.

The mass murder of the Jews of the towns of Gruzdžiai and Joniškis was committed in late August. The majority of these populations were simply mowed down with indifference, in place, by Noreika and his cadre of self-important, bloated ego – rapists, thieves and murderers.

On October 2, the Jews from the Šiauliai district confined in the Žagarė ghetto were “eliminated”.

In Šiauliai, Noreika used tens of thousands of Prisoners of War as slave labor in agriculture and other fields of work. POW’s who could not or did not follow orders, or could not or did not work hard enough, were sent back to the camp in Šiauliai where 26,000 of them “died” from hunger and disease, and bullets.

In considering Noreika as one of their greatest national heroes, Lithuania elevates slavery and murder into virtues of current national heroism. These are hardly virtues upheld by NATO, EU or the US.

Noreika’s “work” included punitive measures against locals. Noreika had the power to send any offending individual to a labor camp for up to six months (whereas Jews received instantaneous rape, torture and murder).

One example of these punitive measures was Neverauskas – a track-changer at the Jonaitiškis railroad station. Noreika sent him to a labor camp in 1942 for disrespecting the police. Nazis were unhappy with Noreika’s actions, and with the police at that railroad station. Nazis thought it could cause an accident at that railroad, and so demanded the release of Neverauskas (Lithuanian Central State Archive code LCVA  f.R-1099,a1,b15,l. 52-62). Official documents also illustrate Noreika’s great enthusiasm for levying punitive measures on Lithuanian residents. He even drafted a project for setting up yet another slave labor camp in the small town of Skaisgirys in the Šiauliai district, but the regime rejected this idea (Lithuanian Central State Archive code LCVA fR1099 a1 b2 l464 -468). Noreika was also involved in deporting Lithuanians as slave labor to Nazi Germany. Noreika’s involvement in Nazi oppression was profound and direct.

Commemorations of Noreika and many other perpetrators of genocide throughout Lithuania are a statement of their national values. The Lithuanian government, courts and institutions have worked too hard and too long for it to be judged as anything else.

By lying about Lithuania’s National hero Noreika, Speaker Viktorijos Čmilytės-Nielsen and Deputy Chancellor Krisciunas have proudly identified themselves as participants in the national cover-up.

Speaker Viktorijos Čmilytės-Nielsen has resisted education about Noreika. The CEO of the Israeli American Civic Action Network contacted the Speaker to participate in this discussion – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CYDYxrgwPU

Speaker Viktorijos Čmilytės-Nielsen rudely ignored his invitation. I have personally emailed her many times about these issues, she declines to respond. Clearly, she is part of the problem. If Speaker Viktorijos Čmilytės-Nielsen is waiting for her national “historians” to tell the truth, she might as well wait for her nemesis Vladmir Putin to adopt human rights and democratic impulses.

NATO should question itself – are these Lithuanian values permitted from member states? Shouldn’t Lithuania be evicted from membership?

Here is a simple test NATO leaders can use in Lithuania. Ask the Lithuanian representative – “Was Jonas Noreika a Holocaust perpetrator”. If they answer anything other than “yes”, that means they are disseminating false information to their own NATO allies, and they are untrustworthy.

Does a country who values their Holocaust perpetrators above NATO protection deserve membership? By allowing Lithuania’s continued membership, NATO reflects that truth is still the first and most devastating casualty of war.

For NATO to proceed with their Summit in July, they should require four pre-conditions of Lithuania in order to separate themselves from this Nazi ideology:

1. The government of Lithuania needs to revoke national honors for Noreika and remove all remaining monuments for him. There are a multitude of Holocaust perpetrators honored as Lithuanian national heroes. All of these national honors must be revoked.
2. The President of Lithuania must go on national television and confess the truth, and dismantle the national cover up.
3. Lithuania must create a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to tell the whole truth of who committed the murders, and how the Genocide Center, Government and Courts continues to cover up their crimes.
4. Corrupt Judges who ruled on instruction rather than fact, need to be exposed for their judicial misconduct and removed from their positions. There must be accountability for those who committed these national frauds. NATO cannot have a member state whose judiciary lacks legitimacy.

It is an embarrassment for international organizations to have Lithuania as a member. Either Lithuania must denazify and reform, or stand on their own as a pariah state.

This article was co-authored by Grant Gochin and Evaldas Balčiūnas.