Jewish resistance in provincial Lithuania in 1941

Abstract

ABSTRACTPrior to Operation Barbarossa there were 220,000 Jews living in Lithuania, of which approximately 120,000 in small towns and villages. These provincial Jews were totally annihilated within the first five months of the German occupation. Extermination camps were not yet in existence, and the Jews were not even imprisoned in ghettos during the initial period. It could have been expected that the harsh German and Lithuanian violence against the Jews would be met with an active response. However, the article reveals very limited resistance, whether active or passive, by any of the Jews. In order to explain the phenomenon of so few acts of resistance, the article proposes to analyse these acts along the timeline of the stages of the extermination process, which were aimed to prepare the Jews for their deaths. Examining those acts in light of the circumstances and the physical and mental condition of the Jews in each of those stages separately, enables a better assessment of the acts of resistance that did take place during each stage, as well as a more convincing interpretation of the reasons for the limited extent of Jewish resistance in the Lithuanian province.