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)
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become a serious danger not only to his own nation, but to many others as well. His actions and statements in recent years should seriously worry his neighbors and the entire world.The last tyrant ignored by the international community was the genocidal butcher Adolf Hitler, who unleashed World War II, invading scores of countries and killing millions of people. Regrettably, Western leaders have tried to appease Erdogan, thereby creating a monster.Strangely, some nations in the Islamic world have treated him respect, while many Western countries consider Turkey as one of their key allies. To ...
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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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I. Comment by Jared Israel
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“Humanitarian Imperialism”: US, NATO Lie to Justify Genocide and Destruction in Yugoslavia
The USA Bombing List: The Democracy World Tour
Chrystia Freeland’s Family Record for Nazi War Profiteering, and Murder of the Cracow Jews
The ‘Post-Truth’ Mainstream Media
Independence and Self-Determination: Weapons for Empire Building or National Liberation?
Ukraine: Zbig’s Grand Chessboard – How the West was Checkmated
Kiev Regime – A Western Frankenstein Creation
The Pope Оpenly Еmbraced Kosovo Secession in 1993
Bearing the Burden
The Future of Syria is in Your Hands
A Short History of Czechoslovakia
The Story of Charlottesville was Written in Blood in Ukraine
Albanian Highlanders and Kosovo
On Veterans’ Day, Remember the Lies That Filled Military Cemeteries
Real or Rigged “International Conference on Fascism and Antisemitism” in Vilnius on 9 November?
Croatia’s Disrespect for Jasenovac Victims Has a Long Tradition
Albert Einstein on Israel
Serbia: Parliamentary Elections for the NATO/EU’s Membership
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