Photo: by K. Čachovskis, courtesy Delfi.lt
Lithuanian Jews have contributed to the creation and success of the Lithuanian state from its very foundation.
This is an indisputable fact. As we sometimes like to say with pride (without thinking too much about what responsibilities history places upon us), the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was for its time a conspicuously liberal state which sheltered and safeguarded many tribal and ethnic groups as its own citizens.
One doesn’t have to look far back in the past to find the contribution made by Lithuanian Jews. Called upon and supported by their community leaders to do so, young Litvaks stood shoulder to shoulder with our grandfathers and great-grandfathers in the battle for Lithuanian independence from 1918 to 1920. As Donatas Januta reminds us in the Lithuanian-American newspaper Draugas, the volunteer battalion established and provisioned by Jews was one of the first armed units of the Lithuanian military. Many of its members were decorated for their bravery and sacrifice with medals, including the Order of the Cross of Vytis.
Lithuania’s Jews didn’t just support Lithuanian independence and consolidation through financing, weapons and their lives, they also supported it politically. Simanas Rozenbaumas, a Jew, successfully represented Lithuania in the Paris peace conference at Versailles and in negotiations with the Soviet Union, and Jews took part in the first Constituent Parliament as well. Jews also strongly supported the return of the Vilnius territory to Lithuania.
Just as in Lithuania at large, so among Jews there were all sorts: liberals and conservatives, nationalists and communists. Unlike in the battle for independence when the Lithuanian Jewish Community officially called upon its members to join the armed struggle for Lithuanian independence, accusations Jews collaborated as a group with the Soviets are no more true than they are for every other ethnic group in Lithuania including Lithuanians. On the contrary, Jews suffered just as much or more from the Communist occupation as others did.
What did Lithuanian Jews receive in return for their contributions and sacrifices?
They got a country which, at the conclusion of the battles for independence and at the stage the state was still being founded, began to discriminate against them and marginalize them from public posts. The Jewish Affairs Ministry was shut down in 1924. Appeals by Lithuanian Jews deported by the Czar for repatriation were rejected. Gradually the path to government jobs was closed to Jews.
They got anti-Jewish sentiments, for example, the influential Lithuanian organization Verslas in the interwar period called for a boycott of Jews, equating Jews with Bolsheviks and praising anti-Jewish policies in other European countries (and so was born that slogan which is incompatible with our historical principles, “Lithuania for Lithuanians!”). The official Lithuania media broadcast Verslas’s anti-Jewish propaganda. This influential organization drove the Lithuanian Government to adopt a policy decreasing opportunities for Jews to study and conduct business in Lithuania.
And finally, they got a country which was unable to defend them from invaders. The Soviets deported more Jews to Siberia as a percentage and in larger scope than Lithuanians (about 1 percent of members of the Lithuanian Jewish community were deported, whereas about 0.5 percent of ethnic Lithuanians were, according to the Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazis and Soviets). Kowtowing to the Nazis, the founders of the Provisional Government of Lithuania announced Jews were personae non gratae and turned them over to the Nazis and their collaborators, Lithuanians affected by Lithuanian anti-Jewish propaganda. In this manner over a few years more than 95% of Lithuanian Jews were murdered, i.e., calculating as a percentage, more than even in Germany. An ironic saying was born: it was more dangerous to be Jewish in Lithuania during World War II than to be Jewish in Germany.
And today, after the restoration of an independent Lithuania professing modern European values, Jews encounter a state whose institutions only reluctantly recognizes their lost citizenship and that of their offspring, and, as if that weren’t enough, also justifies the actions of its Nazi collaborators, and builds monuments to them.
Against this background, knowing these facts, one cannot wrap one’s head around how this position that Litvaks who emigrated in the interwar period shouldn’t be granted in principle Lithuanian citizenship can even be maintained. Knowing the problem of anti-Semitism in the interwar period, the serious contribution made by Litvaks to our statehood and the tragic fate which awaited Jews who stayed in Lithuania, Kęstutis Girnius writes:
“Neither in the interwar period, nor now, one does not need to withdraw from Lithuania to save one’s life or live under a system which respects human rights.”
This is not something just one or another commentator has written. This is the official policy of our state. Interior minister Saulius Skvernelis (the Lithuanian Migration Department is subordinate to him) says it this way:
“To say that the security of citizens of our Republic of Jewish ethnicity living in the Republic of Lithuania was threatened at that time is untenable.”
In the interwar period as anti-Semitic sentiments, discrimination and attacks intensified in Lithuania and across Europe, it’s no wonder many Jews searched for a safe way out. Or are we trying to say now with our citizenship policy that Jews should have stayed? Or at least waited until they were being herded onto carts and taken to the forest?
That is the message we have been broadcasting to the world since last year. We Lithuanians look like oafs yet again in a long series of such incidents. And we are pushing away those who could help us. We have numerous examples of the descendants of Litvaks who after restoring their Lithuanian citizenship invest significant amounts in Lithuania. So why are tripping ourselves up here? Why are we afraid of ten thousand to twenty thousand potential citizens who, despite everything, are still interested in the country of their parents, harbor sentiments for it and perhaps want to build something here? Is there really such great interest by the world in our country?
Since November of 2015 the Migration Department has rejected almost every request for restoration of Lithuanian citizenship by people who left Lithuanian between 1920 and 1939 and their descendants. Over the last half year not one application by Jewish people for restoration of citizenship has been satisfied.
These decisions are justified as based on the lack of any anti-Semitic policies in Lithuania between 1918 and 1940. It is justified, Girnius writes and Skvernelis says, because there was no basis for Jews to have felt any political, religious or ethnic persecution which would force them to leave. The Migration Department (and the Interior Ministry) hold the position the reasons Litvaks left Lithuania are insufficient to be considered an exceptional case allowing the granting of Lithuanian citizenship without the renunciation of other citizenships held. I, for example, was granted citizenship without having to give up my U.S. citizenship because my grandparents left during the occupation. At least my grandparents had somewhere to flee. Their lives weren’t in danger in Germany. Where were Jews who hadn’t left Lithuania before the war supposed to flee?
Explaining why he thinks we shouldn’t allow the descendants of Litvaks to hold so-called dual citizenship, Girnius says he doubts whether their ties with Lithuania are sufficiently close. He proposes telling them to live here for a little first, to show their loyalty (as if that were proof!). But for some reason that is demanded of others, including me and Girnius. In order for Lithuanian citizenship to be restored to him and me, we didn’t have to prove we speak Lithuanian, or promise we would live here. In the eyes of the Lithuanian state, restoration of our citizenship was a matter of principle. Historical justice. Why is a different standard applied to Litvaks?
At the same time there is talk of how important the contribution made by Litvaks to the life of the Lithuanian state was, how tragic that they’re gone now, and how much we’d like to get their descendants interested in Lithuania so they might again contribute their investments, ideas, networks of friends and work to the country.
How would you feel, young reader, in their place?
Full piece in Lithuanian available here.
