Kaunas Garage Massacre – Lithuanian nationalists clubbing Jewish Lithuanians to death, 1941
It’s not a common occurrence to be able to have a court establish the guilt of a criminal 72 years after his death, but such an opportunity has emerged in Lithuania and will be taking place in a courtroom in Vilnius next week, more precisely on Wednesday, January 16 [2019, editor].
Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaite: Shouting on Russia but keeping silence about Jonas Noreika
The circumstances of the case are quite unusual. The charges against the alleged criminal were not brought forward by the government or its prosecutors, but rather by a private individual, who does not represent any political entity, but is pursuing the issue on behalf of his relatives, more than 100 of whom according to his calculations were murdered during the Holocaust. According to Grant Gochin, a South African-born Jew of Lithuanian origin currently residing in California, Jonas Noreika who served as the Lithuanian liaison with the Nazis in northwestern Lithuania, was an active participant in the mass murder of the Jews of that region and the theft of their property and belongings.
“Kaunas Garage Massacre” of the Jews by the local Lithuanian mob in June 1941 before German troops arrived
On the surface, this case is hardly unusual. Many thousands of Lithuanians collaborated with the forces of Nazi Germany in the annihilation of the local Jewish community, foreign Jews deported to Lithuania from Central Europe to be murdered, and Jews in Belarus, approximately 20,000 of whom were killed by one of the Lithuanian auxiliary police battalions sent there for that purpose. Although the Soviets, who occupied Lithuania after World War II, prosecuted many of these culprits, thousands escaped punishment for those crimes, both inside and outside Lithuania, in the latter case primarily by fleeing to Anglo-Saxon democracies, where only a select few were successfully prosecuted decades after their arrival.
Jonas Noreika was never held accountable for his role in the Holocaust, but his prominent postwar role in the local anti-Soviet resistance led to his capture, conviction and execution by the Soviets in 1947, with no reference to his Holocaust crimes. Once Lithuania reobtained its independence in 1990, however, he was one of the Lithuanians singled out for glorification as a national hero for his bravery and sacrifice in the struggle against the Soviet occupation. “General Vetra (Storm)” as Noreika was known in the anti-Soviet underground, had a plaque in his memory placed in the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and Art, where he worked as a lawyer and was arrested by the Soviets, had a primary school named for him in his hometown of Sukoniai, and had his name carved on the façade of the Vilnius district court building which had previously housed the Soviet KGB and Nazi Gestapo.
IN ANY “normal” country, certainly ostensibly one like Lithuania which is a member in good standing of both the European Union and NATO, Noreika’s leading role in the mass murder of the Jews of Siauliai (Shavel), Telsiai (Telz) and Plunge (Plungyan) would have automatically disqualified him from being considered as a national hero. Unfortunately, that is not the case in contemporary Lithuania, where several Holocaust perpetrators have been given recognized as outstanding patriots. When Grant Gochin learned of Noreika’s role in the Shoah in northwest Lithuania, he tried to protest to various Lithuanian institution and officials against the honors he was granted, but to no avail. The issue was referred by the Lithuanian authorities to the “Genocide and Resistance Research Center,”(GaRRC) their national institution which is responsible for dealing with historical issues during the period from the first Soviet occupation in June 1940, through the Nazi occupation, and second Soviet occupation until Lithuania obtained its independence in 1990, when the Soviet Union crumbled.
Jonas Noreika – “General Storm”
Their response in this case, was absolutely ridiculous. In a statement issued on October 11, 2018, they opined that, only those individuals tried and found guilty in their lifetimes may be considered guilty, all others are considered to be completely innocent. As Gochin wrote in one of his many op-eds on the subject, according to such logic, both Hitler and Stalin would be considered innocent as well. And this brings us to Wednesday’s court hearing, where the judges are supposed to rule on Gochin’s suit against the Genocide and Resistance Research Center. One can only hope that the judges in question will not be moved by the rampant Lithuanian patriotism which motivates the GaRRC and blinds its leadership to the accurate historical facts, and that the embarrassing honors bestowed by Holocaust perpetrator Jonas Noreika will finally be canceled.
Lithuania: The plaque devoted to Jonas Noreika
Originally published on 2019-01-14
About the author: Efraim Zuroff is the chief Nazi-hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the director of the Center’s Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs. His latest book, with Ruta Vanagaite, is Musiskiai; Kelione su Priesu (Our People; Journey With an Enemy) deals with the complicity of Lithuanians in Holocaust crimes and has already been published in Lithuanian, Polish, Hebrew and Russian, and will appear in Swedish in 2019.
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EuroLithuania: Vilnius, Gediminas Ave (main avenue in the city), March 11, 2011 (Independence Day celebration)
IntroductionSome have tried to debunk the view that the West implicitly or explicitly promised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand east after German reunification and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact). These claims are misleading and obfuscate the historical record of at least a clear understanding, if not promise that there should be no NATO expansion eastward in any way, shape or form. At the very least the West made a implied commitment not to expand NATO east. It is more precise to say, however, that the West gave an explicit verbal, that is, unwritten guarantee not to ...
Chrystia Freeland, appointed last week to be the new Canadian Foreign Minister, claims that her maternal family were the Ukrainian victims of Russian persecution, who fled their home in 1939, after Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin agreed on a non-aggression pact and the division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union. She claims her mother was born in a camp for refugees before finding safe haven in Alberta, Canada. Freeland is lying.The records now being opened by the Polish government in Warsaw reveal that Freeland’s maternal grandfather Michael (Mikhailo) Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator from the beginning to the ...
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Ante Pavelic - a leader of the Independent State of Croatia with the Roman Catholic clergy Scattered over almost two centuries across the globe – in Germany, the US, Canada, Argentina and Australia – most members of the Croatian diaspora are still closely linked to their homeland.The Croatian state responds in kind; it pledges to take “special care” of Croats living abroad, a pledge outlined in the country’s 1990 constitution. Subsequently, Croatia has set up the Central State Office for Croats Abroad, as well as a government body, the Council for Croats Abroad.More controversially, some in the diaspora maintain close ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSaveSave
On Saturday, May 14, in Stockholm’s Globe Arena an event called the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest final will take place.According to the Eurovision Official Rules 2016 posted on eurovision.tv:1.2) Criteria of eligibility1.2.1) Songs“The lyrics and/or performance of the songs shall not bring the Shows, the ESC as such or the EBU into disrepute. No lyrics, speeches, gestures of a political or similar nature shall be permitted during the ESC. No swearing or other unacceptable language shall be allowed in the lyrics or in the performances of the songs. No messages promoting any organization, institution, political cause or other, company, brand, ...
There is less talk about the rump-Ukraine in the news these days, especially in the western corporate media, and there is a good reason for that: that short-lived Urkonazi “Banderastan” is falling apart. This is hardly surprising since the entire concept was never viable in the first place. Let’s remember how it all began.It is crucial to remember that there was no spontaneous revolution or insurrection in the Ukraine, the Euromaidan had nothing to do with Europe and everything to do with the USA. Oh sure, the Ukrainian people were told that it was about “joining the EU”, but that ...
(JTA) — A Lithuanian judge postponed a precedent-setting trial in which a U.S. citizen is demanding that a state museum end its glorification of a deceased Nazi collaborator.Jonas Noreika - "General Storm"The case is thought to be the first in which civil servants intend to publicly defend in court the actions and good name of an alleged collaborator. Lawyers representing the museum said they needed more time to review materials relevant to the case, which involves the late Jonas Noreika. The postponement was announced Tuesday in Vilnius.The state-funded museum, known as the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the ...
Last movie by famous French movie maker Paul Moreira on Canal+ (France) broadcasted 01/02/2016.Some French citizens are now shocked after discovering the truth about the Odessa massacre and the Euromaidan bloody coup in 2013/2014.Interview to Paul Moreira:http://www.humanite.fr/derriere-les-masques-de-la-revolution-ukrainienne-597568Preview screening on January, 20th 2016 at FIPA Biarritz 29th edition, selected out of competition in Reportages and Investigation – Panorama of Creation category.Without them, there would have been no Ukrainian revolution.In February 2014, paramilitary groups fought against the police in the streets of Kyev and ousted President Yanukovych. They settled a new government.According to the western media, they were the revolution heroes. They ...
"If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible…”Harry S. Truman, 33rd POTUS, 1941Since the end of the Second World War, the bourgeois historiography has tried to distort various incidents in order to vilify Socialism and the USSR. One of these incidents- which has been a “banner” of imperialism’s apologists and other anticommunists- is the so-called “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact“* which was signed in 1939. In it’s unscientific, unhistorical effort to equate Communism with Nazism, the bourgeois propaganda presents ...
In early 1944, Mirjana Babunovic-Dimitrijevic, a 22-year-old middle-class woman living in Sarajevo, was arrested by the Ustasa police. After she was arrested along with her mother and aunt, they were all deported to the Jasenovac concentration camp, for refusing to convert to Catholicism. All three women died there in late 1944.These women were among more than 80,000 victims who perished at Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945. While we don’t know precisely how they died nor what happened during their short lives in the camp, two things are certain.First, their deaths were the direct result of deliberate political decisions. Second, they ...
A photo documentation of the destruction of (Serbian) Christianity in Kosovo from June 1999 up today.The Western colony of Kosovo is the main stronghold of radical Albanian jihad Islam at the Balkans, transformed into the first independent Balkan ISIL state protected by the Western gangsters of the USA, the NATO and the EU.Presented photo evidence is just an iceberg of the real destruction of Euro-Christianity in Kosovo by the barbaric Muslim Albanians who are also fighting in the Middle East as the jihad soldiers of ISIL - a creation of the US administration.Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
Congratulations to the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, once known also as Kovno (in Yiddish Kóvne) on its selection as Europe’s “Capital of European Culture” in 2022, sharing the title with Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg.The city’s leaders now have a splendid opportunity to take the moral high road in dealing with a number of ghosts from the present and the past. To start with the present, will the city’s officials now act rapidly to avoid a public perception disaster by moving this year’s neo-Nazi parade away from the city center during the February 16th Independence Day celebrations? Previous years’ marches have on occasion glorified actual Kaunas Holocaust collaborators, causing deep pain to Survivors ...
Paris vs. DonbassOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
Historical research into the Nazi era rarely throws up many surprises any more. German historian Stefan Ihrig, however, is an exception to this rule. By studying long-published sources, he has uncovered the fascination that Ataturk's modern Turkey held for the German far right, which has been seriously underestimated until now and which set an example for Hitler and the National Socialists.From a right-wing viewpoint, what Ataturk had achieved was an unattainable goal for Weimar-era Germany. Using force of arms, he had managed to reverse the Treaty of Sevres, which had been forced on his country by the Entente in 1920, ...
In June and July 1941, detachments of German Einsatzgruppen, together with Lithuanian auxiliaries, began murdering the Jews of Lithuania. Groups of partisans, civil units of nationalist-rightist anti-Soviet affiliation, initiated contact with the Germans as soon as they entered the Lithuanian territories. A rogue unit of insurgents headed by Algirdas Klimaitis and encouraged by Germans from the Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst, started anti-Jewish pogroms in Kaunas (Polish: Kovno) on the night of 25–27 June 1941. Over a thousand Jews perished over the next few days in what was the first pogrom in Nazi-occupied Lithuania. The most infamous incident occurred in what was ...
For decades former Nazis and German war criminals served at the highest echelons of NATO. Most of them were highly decorated Nazis, who later served in top positions in the Western German army, and were later promoted to serve as Commander and Chief of all NATO forces in Europe. This was not a unique event, but a very common phenomenon in post WW2 western Europe and especially in Western Germany. Nazi war criminals and people who supported and helped Hitler to carry out the holocaust and other war crimes, genocides and crimes against Humanity were almost never put on trial ...
Unless We Learn Our History, We’re Doomed to Repeat ItPreface: I am a patriotic American who loves my country. I was born here, and lived here my entire life.So why do I frequently point out America’s warts? Because – as the Founding Fathers and Supreme Court judges have explained – we can only make America better if we honestly examine her shortcomings. After all:“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”Only when Americans can honestly look at our weaknesses can we become stronger. If we fail to do so, history will repeat …While Americans rightly condemn the Nazis as monstrous people, ...
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