To what extent were Lithuanian locals responsible for the Lithuanian Holocaust?
Lithuania, the southernmost of Europe’s Baltic states, had its own distinct and highly developed Jewish culture, including a special dialect of the Yiddish language. Lithuanian Jewry played a profound role in many Jewish ideologies, including the Jewish workers' movement. Before World War 2 the Jewish population of Lithonia was some 160,000, about 7 percent of the total population (Abramovich and Zilberg, 2011). However, at the beginning of the war refugees fled into Lithuania from Poland resulting in a Jewish population of approximately 250,000 in 1941. Though, more than 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population was massacred over the three-year occupation of the National …show more content…
The Jaeger Report, written by Karl Jaeger the SS commander of a Nazi Einsatzgruppe (killing unit) that operated around Vilnius, Lithuania. This document is a matter-of-fact account of those killed each day under his command. The Kuniuchowsky collection of testimonies of Holocaust survivors from the provincial towns and villages of Lithuania, collected by Leyb Kuniuchowsky in 1940; who recorded the names of all the Lithuanians who had participated in the murders. However, these documents were only published as late as 2012. The inexcusable delay in bringing these testimonies to the knowledge of the public was not without serious consequences, most notably in Lithuania, where the government has systematically tried to minimize the unusually extensive participation of local Nazi collaborators in the annihilation of the country’s Jews. More than 96 percent of Lithuanian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, with almost all the murders carried out locally per these …show more content…
In this regard, in the Kuniuchowsky collection one of the themes that emerge is the extent to which it was primarily Lithuanian volunteers who carried out the murders. In every single provincial Jewish community, local collaborators were the majority, doing the killing. Thus, in places like Lazdijai, Telsiai, Eisiskes, Joniskis, Dubingiai, Babtai, Varena and Vandziogala, there were no Nazi forces present, and in Onuskis, Vilkaviskis and Virbalis, the only Germans at the murder sites were photographing the
Lithuania, the southernmost of Europe’s Baltic states, had its own distinct and highly developed Jewish culture, including a special dialect of the Yiddish language. Lithuanian Jewry played a profound role in many Jewish ideologies, including the Jewish workers' movement. Before World War 2 the Jewish population of Lithonia was some 160,000, about 7 percent of the total population (Abramovich and Zilberg, 2011). However, at the beginning of the war refugees fled into Lithuania from Poland resulting in a Jewish population of approximately 250,000 in 1941. Though, more than 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population was massacred over the three-year occupation of the National …show more content…
The Jaeger Report, written by Karl Jaeger the SS commander of a Nazi Einsatzgruppe (killing unit) that operated around Vilnius, Lithuania. This document is a matter-of-fact account of those killed each day under his command. The Kuniuchowsky collection of testimonies of Holocaust survivors from the provincial towns and villages of Lithuania, collected by Leyb Kuniuchowsky in 1940; who recorded the names of all the Lithuanians who had participated in the murders. However, these documents were only published as late as 2012. The inexcusable delay in bringing these testimonies to the knowledge of the public was not without serious consequences, most notably in Lithuania, where the government has systematically tried to minimize the unusually extensive participation of local Nazi collaborators in the annihilation of the country’s Jews. More than 96 percent of Lithuanian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, with almost all the murders carried out locally per these …show more content…
In this regard, in the Kuniuchowsky collection one of the themes that emerge is the extent to which it was primarily Lithuanian volunteers who carried out the murders. In every single provincial Jewish community, local collaborators were the majority, doing the killing. Thus, in places like Lazdijai, Telsiai, Eisiskes, Joniskis, Dubingiai, Babtai, Varena and Vandziogala, there were no Nazi forces present, and in Onuskis, Vilkaviskis and Virbalis, the only Germans at the murder sites were photographing the