Tikros ir primestos kaltės : žydai ir lietuviai pirmuoju sovietmečiu 1940--1941

Abstract

With reference to literature, archival materials (firstly, the reports on events and citizens' attitude by the state security police, district officers, and the NKVD), also the documents of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), periodical press, and other sources, the article analyzes: 1) the status of Lithuanian Jews during the first Soviet period, and their role in the system of the Soviet regime; 2) the Lithuanian-Jewish relations in 1940-1941, and 3) the reasons for the origin of the "Jewish guilt" myth. It comes to the conclusion that during the first Soviet period (1940-1941) the Lithuanians and Jews' relationships became very tense. Anti-Semitism reached a new level which was threatening the Jews. Alongside with the earlier image of a Jewish person as a Christian enemy, an exploiter of a Lithuanian, and a scrounger, a new one appeared: that of a communist, a traitor of Lithuania, and an active collaborator with the invaders. The LAF, uniting activists from all Lithuanian political forces, recalled the right for Jews to live in Lithuania and insistently suggested leaving the country for Russia. The anti-Jewish proclamations and other documents by the LAF center in Berlin would reach Lithuanian and made a big impact on the Lithuanian nation. However, there is no evidence that LAF did invite the Lithuanians to murder the Jews as it is often stated in the historiography. Accusations of the Jews made by the Lithuanians had no real warrant. Actual material shows that the Jews did have any particular role in the structures of the Soviet authorities as well as the repressive institutions (in the spring of the year 1941 employees of the Jewish origin accounted for 10,6% of the NKGB staff, 5,3% of the highest rank officers, and 8,4% of the NKVD executives). More over, the Jews suffered from the Soviet regime maybe even more than the Lithuanians did: the number of the Jewish high schools was reduced by half, the Hebrew language was not tolerated, Saturday was made an ordinary working day. The biggest damage was the nationalization of the property. In a year about 500 Jews were arrested, and about 2,600 suffered from repressive measures. The number of Jews deported together with Lithuanians in June of 1941 accounted for 13,5%, while they made only 7% of all the citizens of Lithuania. The extremely strong hostility towards the Jews was determined by a number of reasons, the most important of which were these two: 1) different geopolitical orientation of the nations (the Lithuanians hoped that Germany would protect them from the Soviet terror, and the Jews saw the USSR as a lesser evil); 2) at the end of 30s and the beginning of 40s, the Lithuanian nation was possessed by a deep moral crisis which required a scape goat, and the Jews were made one.