September 23rd is Holocaust Memorial Day in Lithuania. Though the Jewish population of Lithuania at the outset of the Holocaust was not especially large compared to that of some other European nations, it stands out particularly starkly for all of Lithuania -- of the approximately 208,000 to 210,000 Jewish Lithuanians at the time, an estimated 190,000 to 195,000 were murdered before the end of WWII, with most of these deaths taking place between June and December, 1941. In a sick twist of well aimed propaganda, the invading Nazi Germans were able to co-opt much of the local Lithuanian political apparatus by blaming the Soviet regimes recent annexation of Lithuania a year earlier on the local Jewish community. Outside of the Jewish community, of course, awareness of the decimation of Russian Jews by the self-same Soviet regime was not all that high, so this blatant lie was palatable to ignorant masses who were all too ready to blame somebody (anybody) for their own considerable woes. The result, of course, was the largest loss of life ever in so short a span of time in the history of Lithuania. While there is a day set aside as a memorial of these events, there is nevertheless still debate in Lithuania about recognition of obvious and ugly Lithuanian collaboration.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 11:21:39 +0000