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Grant Arthur Gochin

We need to have the difficult conversations… later

In Lithuania, later never comes. It is never intended to come. This is a slick ploy only for the gullible.

After regaining independence, Chairman of the State, Vytautus Landsbergis, created a Commission to “rehabilitate” Lithuanians, no matter what their deeds. There was barely any facade of hiding the pervasive effort to scrub the record of Holocaust perpetrators. Landsbergis, himself the son of a Holocaust perpetrator father, and a rescuer mother, vigorously denied the process was a sham. AJC Executive Director, David Harris addressed the clear agenda with Landsbergis. Harris accepted Landsbergis’s dishonest representation that it was just a question of “definitions” and “procedures”.

Rabbi Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was not as easily deceived and justly withheld judgement, pointing out that they already identified 11 Holocaust perpetrators forgiven by the Lithuanians for their murders of Jews.

The following year, The Baltimore Sun published an article exposing the rampant transformation of Holocaust perpetrators into innocents, and then funding their comfortable retirement with State pensions. This was a precursor to today’s Palestinian program of “Slay and Pay” where murderers become martyrs and heroes, and receive lifetime government pensions for their service to the state.

In the modern state, Nazi talking points were resurrected identifying Jews as Communists, and thus validating their murder. These talking points are still in current use as reflected in this November 26, 2021 conversation with the Official Twitter Account of the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Lithuania to the International Organizations in Vienna.

A cursory review of articles from the New York Times reveals how much our own Jewish organizations have been deceived by successive Lithuanian governments, and how gullible they remain.

The case of Jonas Noreika has rocked the Lithuanian world. Noreika was a mass murderer, a rabid nationalist and a pathological hater of Jews. This New York Times article of June 5, 1943 shows that he was neither anti-Nazi, nor anti-Communist, he was just a Lithuanian nationalist. Exactly what he represented himself to be. His nationalism became a threat to Nazi power which thus led to his confinement. In gratitude for having murdered so many Jews, Himmler ordered that he be held as an honored prisoner in Stutthof Concentration Camp where he lived almost as a King reigning above Jews awaiting their murder.

Noreika was well fed and allowed to rape Jewish Concentration Camp prisoners at his will. Many of his co-honored prisoners were also murderers of Jews. The Lithuanian Government has fraudulently transformed him (and many others) into a rescuer of Jews and made him a national hero. The government of Lithuania appropriated the suffering of the Jews, projected it onto a murderer of Jews, and used it to declare him a national hero of the state. This documentary will shortly tell Noreika’s story.

Noreika’s case is minor in comparison to others Lithuania has declared innocent, and heroes of the nation. Noreika only murdered about 14,500 Jews. Other of Lithuania’s heroes were responsible for many more Jewish murders.

The Lithuanian government repeatedly promised to investigate the murderers of Jews. These were empty promises. Harris (AJC) stated “There is more work to be done to insure that the exoneration process does not become a sieve through which those guilty of Nazi crimes fall through”. And that is exactly what happened. While USA was investigating Holocaust perpetrators, Lithuania did everything within their ability to resist. Rabbi Hier, Rabbi Cooper and Dr Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center were vociferous in their criticism of the Lithuanian Government while others remain silent in the face of this travesty.

President Bush and his administration identified the Lithuanian deceptions and called them out. The Bush administration advised Lithuania they would have a “terrible credibility problem” if they were not truthful. Elie Wiesel told Landsbergis that “your government’s decision to rehabilitate war criminals” had left him with “a sense of disappointment and deception and outrage”. Of course, Lithuania protested these charges and denied culpability. They promised corrective action. It has never come. Landsbergis has since revealed himself as a naked revisionist and antisemite.

Newspapers reported that charges of antisemitism were unfounded, and declared that Landsbergis’s father, a Holocaust perpetrator, was in fact also a rescuer. They promised investigations. Only the willfully gullible fell for their charade.

In 1994 Prime Minister of Lithuania Slezevicius admitted to the nation that Lithuanians had murdered Jews. Dr. Efraim Zuroff of SWC pointed out the distortions in the Prime Minister’s speech. It was simply a farce for western consumption. Lithuania again promised to punish murderers of Jews. In fact, Lithuania has never punished a single Holocaust perpetrator. Not a single one. Two hundred and twenty thousand Jewish murder victims and they did not punish one single murderer. Instead, they call them their national heroes.

In 1995, Lithuanian President Brazauskas appeared in front of the Knesset and offered an apology for Lithuanian crimes. Upon his return to Lithuania he festooned multiple Holocaust perpetrators with national honors. These included Noreika, who was first exposed as a mass murderer of Jews in 1984. Lithuanians scrubbed Noreika’s record clean, and in 1997 honored him with their highest national honors. This was even after the Bush Administration focused on Lithuania’s credibility problems. They simply do not refer to it in public and wait for the world to forget.

In over thirty years of independence, Lithuania continues to position itself as “we need to have the difficult conversations”. Yet, these conversations have never taken place. The perpetrators are now almost all dead and cannot be punished, the Lithuanian strategy was successful. Lithuania ensured the perpetrators escape from justice, just as today they protect Holocaust revisionists from prosecution.

Websites such as “True Lithuania” continue to publish Nazi talking points as truth. This website has a relationship with the government of Lithuania. The actual facts are not reported. Lithuania has multiple entities to report on similar items. When questioned, Lithuanian diplomats choose which entity and which facts to present, setting aside anything inconvenient. This is Soviet style deception. Only the most sophisticated and educated are able to discern the duplicity.

Lithuanian Ambassadors position themselves in front of Jewish audiences claiming love for Jews and Israel, while hiding truth, selectively reporting propaganda and issuing distorted messages. When challenged, they reposition with “the difficult conversations need to be held”, or, “history should be left to the historians”. But their official historians are fraudsters, and the difficult conversations have never, and will never be held.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Israeli American Civic Action Network have been very vocal in identifying Lithuania’s holocaust deceptions. It is regrettable that so many Jews and so many Jewish organizations remain gullible and do not understand the “True Lithuania”. Fortunately, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a grouping of forty two international governments identified Lithuania as a Holocaust distortion state, thus removing any possible confusion from the issue.

Jews have consistently come to the aid of Lithuania. It was with Jewish help that they gained independence in 1918. Jews assisted them in regaining independence in 1990. Jews assisted them in joining the EU and NATO. Jews were a resource to Lithuania for 700 years, and despite having murdered the goose that laid the golden egg, Lithuania believes there is more gold yet to mine from gullible Jews.

Lithuania is currently a country in free-fall. Almost a third of their population has emigrated, mainly the youth. They survive on aid from USA & EU. Their parachute to escape is to dig their hands into Jewish pockets for tourism and investment. Dead Jew tourism is a huge income earner for the state. Monuments for murdered Jews are placed on tourist trails for Jewish consumption, while monuments for the murderers are off the beaten path.

Lithuanians tell us Jews how much they love us; that they regret the slaughter that Nazis and Soviets perpetrated. They even admit that some Lithuanians were involved. Their charm offensive is relentless. To increase their allure, they festoon Jews with medals (although much smaller medals than they award to their murderers of Jews) and spread their love.

Do not ask a Lithuanian government official when they will have their “difficult conversation”. It will never happen. For thirty years, we Jews have allowed them to deceive us. We have only enabled their revisionism, never holding them to account. It is our own fault for welcoming Holocaust distorters into our own fold. SHAME ON US!

About the Author
Grant Arthur Gochin currently serves as the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Togo. He is the Emeritus Special Envoy for Diaspora Affairs for the African Union, which represents the fifty-five African nations, and Emeritus Dean of the Los Angeles Consular Corps, the second largest Consular Corps in the world. Gochin is actively involved in Jewish affairs, focusing on historical justice. He has spent the past thirty years documenting and restoring signs of Jewish life in Lithuania. He has served as the Chair of the Maceva Project in Lithuania, which mapped / inventoried / documented / restored over fifty abandoned and neglected Jewish cemeteries. Gochin is the author of “Malice, Murder and Manipulation”, published in 2013. His book documents his family history of oppression in Lithuania. He is presently working on a project to expose the current Holocaust revisionism within the Lithuanian government. He is Chief of the Village of Babade in Togo, an honor granted for his philanthropic work. Professionally, Gochin is a Certified Financial Planner and practices as a Wealth Advisor in California, where he lives with his family. Personal site: https://www.grantgochin.com/
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