Antisemitismus in den baltischen Staaten in der Zwischenkriegszeit am Beispiel Litauens

ENIf, against the background of the Holocaust, one takes a look at the development of Lithuania between the wars, the Situation of the Jewish population there appears to have been relatively stable: The Lithuanian Jews lived under an authoritarian regime, which, however, did not pursue an openly anti-Semitic policy. Below the State level, though, there was a streng rise of anti-Semitism in parts of the society in the 1930s, when national - Lithuanian claims and goals got into conflict with the Jewish minority. Structurally, this competition took place in the economic and social spheres, but in crucial Segments of the Lithuanian society (students, economy, administration, army) it partly turned into anti-Semitic convictions, whereby parts of the first generation that had grown up and socialized in an independent Lithuanian State had a much stronger affinity to anti-Semitism than the old political and social elites. Despite all anti-Semitic moods, prejudice against the Jews, most of whom did not speak Lithuanian, a strongly nationalistic younger generation and some intellectuals who saw the future State as an organic ethnic (völkisch) unity - little will be traced that can be called a precondition for the Holocaust. Accordingly, it is appropriate both to modify the traditional concept of a non-anti- Semitic society between 1918/19 and 1940, and to make clear that the anti-Semitic tendencies described here do not fully account for what happened after June 1941.