Interpreting documents of occupied Lithuania
ENThe vast majority of the Jews who were killed in Lithuania – somewhere around 99 percent – were killed after the country was occupied by Germany, as a result of policies established by the occupying power. This is clear from the fact that not all of the Jews who were killed in Lithuania were Lithuanian. Thousands of German and French Jews were killed as well. Not all Lithuanian Jews were killed in Lithuania. Many died in Latvia and elsewhere. Many Lithuanians first learned about the Holocaust from the memoirs of a Lithuanian priest who described the arrival at Stutthof of Jews from Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania. Not all Lithuanian Jews were killed by Lithuanians. Some were killed by German soldiers, who occasionally wore Lithuanian uniforms to mask German involvement. One massacre was carried out by the Jewish ghetto police. A notorious Lithuanian police battalion committed many of its crimes in the Byelorussian S. S. R. – present-day Belarus. Several other battalions operated mostly outside of Lithuania. Thus, the Holocaust was not an operation in individual countries, but in conquered space, carried out by the conqueror, but using local resources to some extent. According to German historian Wolfram Wette, on June 17, 1941 – that is, a few days before the invasion of the Soviet Union – Reinhard Heydrich informed SS officers being sent to Lithuania that all Jews in Lithuania were to be exterminated. The index to his book makes clear that in the first weeks, when Jews were being moved into ghettoes, the occupational authorities had more contact with Jewish leaders than Lithuanian ones. Some Lithuanians who are targeted by Holocaust activists are not even mentioned. [p. 87].
- Lietuvos gyventojų trėmimai 1940-1941, 1944-1953 metais sovietinės okupacijos valdžios dokumentuose: dokumentų rinkinys. Vilnius : Lietuvos istorijos institutas, 1995. 625 p.
- Lietuvos žydų kelias: nuo XIV amžiaus iki XXI a. pradžios. Vilnius : Alma littera, 2007. 535, [1] p.
