The Holocaust theme in the memoirs and biographies of the hierarchs of the Catholic Church of Lithuania

ENQuite a few Lithuanian priests, bishops, and monasteries individually rescued and hid Jews during the period of 1941 to 1944. Although from the very outbreak of the war the hierarchs of the Catholic Church of Lithuania sympathized with the Jews and were horrified by their persecution and murder, they did not take any public or secret measures to denounce Nazi policy or the actions of the officials of the local administration. They obeyed the orders, not to become involved. It should be noted that the bishops appealed in a letter to the representatives of the occupational authorities on the situation of the Jews: in August 1941, they demanded that Jews who had received baptism before the beginning of the war should not be imprisoned in ghettoes (including those Jews who received fake baptism certificates, and whose number was very low in Lithuania). After the war, the bishops living in Lithuania or abroad did not return to the history of the Holocaust. They did not explain their positions and did not provide any data about the events in 1941, except Bishop Brizgys who kept the “defensive line” when he - remaining silent on some things, embellishing others - tried to dispel the implication of his collaboration with the Nazis and turned it into merely co-operating from “necessity”. His book takes a unique place in historiography: until now, most historians have treated it as the most reliable testimony of the events in the life of the Church during the war. However, it is a story of a well-informed yet highly involved individual - it is his version of events. It is quite likely that the silence of other bishops is as eloquent as the voice of Bishop Brizgys.