The Lithuanian Jewish Community is publishing a series of articles by the historian Algimantas Kasparavičius, a senior researcher at the Lithuanian History Institute.

Part 1

In Lithuanian historiography and in the public socio-cultural discourse, Lithuania’s greatest tragedy is often considered the Soviet occupation of 1940, which quickly turned into annexation and the loss of statehood. While not denying the historical significance of this catastrophe for modern Lithuanian statehood, considering the wider and deeper historical view, this is not entirely fair or moral historically. The greatest 20th century tragedy really came upon Lithuania not in June of 1940, when freedom and statehood was lost, but a year later when the Holocaust began in Nazi-occupied Lithuania. The greatest 20th-century tragedy for Lithuania is the destruction of the Jewish community which had lived for half of a millennium and had created a civic Lithuanian identity. Even the loss of national statehood is not an irreversible process, as shown by the experience of many peoples. When a nation loses statehood during critical historical circumstances, after the geopolitical situation changes for the better it is possible to restore it. That’s what Lithuania did as well on March 11, 1990. But the former Lithuanian Jewish Litvak community, rich in all senses, will never be restored, unfortunately. And that can only mean one thing, that our Lithuania, which for many Lithuanians still represents, as Dr. Jonas Basanavičius said, “the home of the people,” will remain diminished, darker, emptier, weaker and more fragile. In terms of civilization. Emotionally. Culturally. Demographically. Geopolitically.

Although certainly not everyone in today’s Lithuania want to recognize this obvious fact, in the first half of the last century the political-diplomatic elite of the First Republic (1918-1940), its most prominent representatives saw their greatest ally for Lithuanian statehood in the figure of the Litvak. On the eve of the Litvaks’ greatest tragedy in Lithuania, a young signatory to the February 16 act of Lithuanian independence and one of the most prominent Lithuanian diplomats in the era between the two world wars, the ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania in Paris, Petras Klimas, who seems to have been deeply influenced by the experience of the French condominium with the Jews [1], the active role of Jews in the political life of the Third Republic [2] and their remarkable cultural contributions to France [3], perceived the Jewish role in and significance for Lithuania’s culture in this way, and formulated their relationship with the Lithuanian state similarly: “If we want to Lithuanianize Vilnius, we must first bend the Jews to the side of the Lithuanian state, not in the sense of their becoming Lithuanians, but so that they could stand up for and vote for Lithuania. The Lithuanian people can have no interest in transforming Jews into Lithuanians, for such a nationalization of the Jews always results in an abortion to anti-Semitism, as that has happened in Germany, where the Jews had become more German than the Germans. We must learn ‘out of patriotism’ to sacrifice much to the Jews so they wouldn’t be opposed the Lithuanian state or be indifferent on Vilnius. Later, when the storms of this war have passed and we will remain with Vilnius for the longer period, we will always find a modus vivendi with the Jews, without harm to the development of our nation. … There will be no danger to Lithuania if Vilnius for a time is the Jerusalem of Lithuania, but a Jerusalem which stands with Lithuania. … It is beneficial and needful for us to make the Jews in Vilnius citizens of Lithuania who will decide the Lithuanian destiny of Vilnius. … In the eyes of the world Lithuania will never lose if the majority of Vilnius residents, that is the Lithuanians and the Jews, there defend together their country on a basis of equality.” [4] So in discussing the great tragedy of the Jews of Lithuania in the mid-20th century and in examining its circumstances, the historian must cast a broad net and honestly take into account all of its aspects.

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[1] For more on French-Jewish relations under the Vichy regime, see: Rukmani Bhatia, From Israelite to Jew: Anti-Semitism in Vichy France and Its Impact on French-Jewish Identity after WWII. Wellesley College, 2012, pp. 82–86, in: http://repository.wellesley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1028&context=thesiscollection

[2] As evidences in many of Klimas’s diplomatic reports to Kaunas, the greatest example of this in his eyes was attorney and socialist Léon Blum’s ascent to the Olympus of French politics on the eve of World War II.

[3] Klimas’s public enchantment with interwar France, her political system, political culture and civil society is evidenced outside his abundant diplomatic dispatches as well, in his memoirs: P.Klimas, Lietuvos diplomatinėje tarnyboje 1919–1940 [In Lithuanian Diplomatic Service, 1919-1940], Vilnius: Mintis, 1991.; P. Klimas, Iš mano atsiminimų [From My Memories], Vilnius: Lietuvos enciklopedijų redakcija, 1990.

[4] Secret report by plenipotentiary Lithuanian ambassador to Paris Petras Klimas dated February 18, 1940, to Lithuanian foreign minister Juozas Urbšys// Lithuanian Central State Archives, folio 648, folder 1, case 31, pp. 196, 199–200.