The Lithuanian Jewish Community is publishing a series of articles by the historian Algimantas Kasparavičius, a senior researcher at the Lithuanian History Institute.
Part 4
By their June 25, 1941, meeting, the Provisional Government resolved to “move towards the organization of police in Kaunas, and expand partisan activities in the countryside where gangs of Bolsheviks, Communists and Jews still remain.” [1] On June 26 the PG sent a request to just-arrived Wehrmacht commandant von Pohl, asking: “1) to step-up even more the cleansing operation, 2) to allow our partisan units to operate more widely.” [2] At the same meeting that day acting prime minister professor Juozas Ambrazevičius stated “the partisans of Lithuanian work in contact with the Lithuanian Activist Front and the Provisional Government,” and where military action had already subsided “the operation of the partisans becomes police functions and as sharp-shooters.” [3] These weren’t empty words. The mechanism which had been wound up began to spin. For instance, the Alytus TDA platoon noted in their operations report for the beginning of July that “according to reports from citizens 36 Communists, 9 Red Army soldiers and a larger number of Jews had been apprehended and are in detention.” [4] It’s characteristic the Lithuanian official accurately listed the number of Communists and Red Army soldiers arrested without bothering to count the Jews arrested. If anyone knows at least a little bit about the propaganda content of the calls to action issued by the LAF and has an understanding of the internal logic and semantics of the Lithuanian language, I believe that person has a clear understanding of what that signifies and why the situation was described in this manner and not a different manner in the report by the Lithuanian official.
On July 17, 1941, Alytus district administrator Antanas Audronis reported to Provisional Government interior minister colonel Jonas Šlepetis: “The are carrying out arrests and conducting searches, and fulfilling quotas for Communists, robbers and rumor-mongers. The quotas are turned over to the local German military command. By German order 82 Communists have been shot in the district. There are 389 under arrest and approximately 345 more Communists need to be arrested.” [5] If this document isn’t a typical example of Nazi collaboration, then what does collaboration even mean?
On July 16, 1941, Alytus district police chief and aviation captain Stasys Stasys Krasnickas–Krosniūnas gave a speech to his subordinates: “Jewry, as an inbred people who under the red banner as a cover want to enslave all of humanity through the means of the highest kind of sadism and turn us into animals, has been very quickly dealt with through the radical measures of the führer of the German people. We must consider that this problem has already been solved, but there still appears one or another Lithuanian, even a police officer, who attempts to solve this problem in their own way. I tell you there can not be two different opinions on this problem. There is and should be only one opinion, it must be executed 100%, and it is clearly set out in Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf.” [6]
Truly, the Provisional Government, fallen into a tragic political situation because of their political illiteracy, had some of their bubbling enthusiasm to murder their political opponents quelled by the administrations being reestablished in the countryside. But even here this happened in an unusual way. In the June 28 issue of the newspaper Ūkininko patarėjas [Farmer’s Helper] the Provisional Government in their column called “Word to the Nation” said class struggle was unnecessary in Lithuania because the Lithuanians were too small a nation to annihilate one another in mutual battle. “Let states of hundreds of millions allow themselves such a luxury and deviation, every good Lithuanian is dear to us without respect to status or viewpoint.” [7] On the other hand, there were people in Lithuania, from average farmers to teachers, doctors and priests, who, as much as they knew how and as much as the could, did try to oppose the local Lithuanian administrations and help their countrymen who were being murdered. [8]
The minutes of the June 27 meeting of the Provisional Government also speak eloquently of their view on the infamous events at the Lietūkis garage: after the information provided by public works minister Vytautas Žemkalnis-Landsbergis about the massacre which was taking place at the Lietūkis garage, the Provisional Government, according to the resolutions and minutes they themselves recorded, didn’t even attempt to stop the massacre or protest against it, and only resolved: “despite all the measures which must be taken against the Jews because of their Communist activities and harm they’re doing to the German military, partisans and individual residents are to avoid public executions of Jews.” [9] It’s rather clear this laconic sentence/resolution reflecting the “policy” of the Provisional Government only has two key conceptual phrases: “all measures” and “public executions.”
I don’t know if it would have been possible to send a clearer political signal to the culturally and geopolitically confused people of Lithuania under the conditions of the brutal total war then underway. As if that weren’t enough, that same day after they received permission from the Nazis the Provisional Government “with great joy” also established the infamous TDA battalion. [10]
On June 30 at the initiative of Kaunas military commandant colonel Jurgis Bobelis the Provisional Government approved financing of “the Lithuanian battalion,” allocating it 7,492 rubles per day and giving their blessing to the building of a Jewish concentration camp [11] with all the ensuing political and ethical consequences to that. In their minutes the Provisional Government formulated very precisely their political will on that question: “To approve the establishment of a Jewish concentration camp and to assign the task of its establishment to Mr. Švipa, deputy minister of public works, in cooperation with Mr. colonel Bobelis.” [12]
Not less important nor historically less significant was the afternoon sitting of the Provisional Government that same day, where they considered the Government’s “Declaration on Economic and Social Affairs.” [13] In this case attention should be paid to both the content of the draft Declaration and discussion of it within the Government. The content of the draft is interesting in at least two regards: a) it indirectly affirms Lithuania “liberated herself” from annexation by the USSR in June of 1941 not so much because of the anti-Soviet uprising June 23-27, but through the German military. The declaration begins with the rather high-sounding statement that economic order of the “the liberated Lithuanian people” [14] will be based on private property. Note that it says clearly, “of the liberated Lithuanian people,” not “of the Lithuanian people who liberated themselves;” b) the third point in the declaration emphasizes the economic policy discrimination, perhaps even racism, which the Provisional Government intended to carry out. It states “Property nationalized from Jews and Russians remains the indisputable property of the Lithuanian state.” [15]
It was these kinds of political values and no others, forming the basis of the policy paradigm of the Provisional Government, which, in the last days of June of 1941, gave rise to discussions inside the Provisional Government on the content of the Declaration on Economic and Social Affairs. From the minutes of the sitting it’s clear that although the Provisional Government “approved in principle” the declaration, [16] they were still thinking about how to improve it. Finance minister Jonas Matulionis suggested opening the declaration not with a vague and notional phrase about the liberating mission of the Wehrmacht in Lithuania, but instead to place at the beginning a specific “statement underlining the role of the German military as Lithuania is freeing herself from the Bolshevik yoke.” [17] As much as can be known from the laconic text of the Government’s minutes, the majority did not dispute this version of historical facts, but felt the need to ask the opinion of the German military administration. With that in mind they decided to probe “the permissibility of issuing such a declaration” through national defense minister general Stasys Raštikis. [18]
July of 1941 was also work-filled for the Provisional Government. In the first sitting in the month of July they solved the problem of financing the Lithuanian Activist Front by allocating 20,000 for its needs, and setting the amounts of salaries for their own work: the prime minister or acting prime minister was to be paid 1,800 rubles per month with an addition of 1,000 rubles for “various unseen needs not subject to reporting,” ministers were to get 1,500, deputy ministers 1,300 rubles per month. They decided to calculate salaries starting from June 23, 1941. [19]
As the Nazi-Soviet front quickly moved eastward and the Nazi occupational regime in Lithuania consolidated power, and as Jewish persecution and violent terror against Jews grew, [20] on July 3, 4, 15, 17, 19 and 29 the Provisional Government adopted reams of resolutions discriminatory to Jews and Poles, closed down the state theaters in Kaunas and Vilnius [21] and nationalized the moveable assets, real estate and means of production of Jews. [22] It’s significant that in July of 1941 in adopting laws discriminating against other ethnicities and especially Jews, the Provisional Government had in effect almost assigned themselves the role of God in Nazi occupied and administered Lithuania. For instance, the “Law on the Denationalization of the Fleet of the Lithuanian Merchant Marine and Inland Waters” adopted by the Government on July 29 contains the high-sounding declaration: “Who is considered a Jew or another person who operates against the interests of the Lithuanian people is determined by the Cabinet of Ministers.” [23] No more, no less. Similar formulae were confirmed in other legal acts adopted by the Provisional Government. [24]
The content of the minutes of the July 7, 1941, sitting of the Provisional Government also speaks volumes. On the one hand, it shows that through the mediation of Kaunas military commander Bobelis the Provisional Government was in rather heated negotiations with the Nazi military administration over the establishment of Lithuanian police in Kaunas. The Germans wanted it to be exclusively a practically unarmed adjunct subservient to them even if they were dressed in the old Lithuanian police uniform, except for the German inscription Hilfsordnungspolizei Kowno on a green armband on the sleeve, [25] while the Government sought for it to be an armed force, not just with “rubber batons” and cold weapons (blades on belts), but also pistols, and wanted the Slavic-sounding inscription Kowno on the green armband replaced with the Lithuanian name of the provisional capital, Kaunas. [26] On the other hand, at the same sitting Nazi general Walter Stahlecker informed the Provisional Government through Kaunas commander Bobelis “mass liquidation of the Jews will no longer be carried out. Under German directive a ghetto is now established in Vilijampolė [the Kaunas suburb better known as Slobodka] whither all Jews from the city of Kaunas must be removed within 4 weeks.” [27] This information from the German general might have caused the Provisional Government some ambivalence. They might have interpreted it It seems as an overture by the Nazi military administration to take charge of “the Jewish problem” into their hands exclusively.
In the meeting of July 11 the cabinet after listening to finance minister Matulionis just returned from Vilnius speak about how Vilnius Poles under the political influence of Wladyslaw Sikorski’s government-in-exile in London “was supporting the Russian Bolsheviks, as the Jews do,” and acting prime minister Ambrazevičius’s intelligence Vilnius public cafeteria waitresses, Polish women, weren’t serving Lithuanians and weren’t allowing them to eat, [28] adopted a resolution to “fortify” Vilnius and the Vilnius Committee from Kaunas, and to check on the situation in Vilnius at least two times per week. [29]
In the July 28 sitting the Provisional Government began deliberations on what are perhaps the best known and most infamous regulations in Lithuania, the “Regulations on the Status of the Jews,” in order to finally “solve the Jewish problem uniformly throughout Lithuania.” [30] Discussion and consideration in the Government didn’t take long. By August 1, 1941, the tragic document had been adopted. Its preamble states: “The Cabinet of Ministers, taking into consideration that Jews for whole centuries have exploited the Lithuanian people economically, ruined it morally and most recently covering themselves in the mantle of Bolshevism have engaged broadly in war against Lithuanian independence and the Lithuanian nation, and seeking to put a stop to the harmful activities of the Jews and to protect the Lithuanian people from their harmful influence, do hereby adopt these regulations…” [31]
The adoption of the Regulations on the Status of the Jews became a kind of swan song for the “policies” carried out by the Provisional Government. Just four days later the Nazis implemented such conditions for the Provisional Government to operate that the latter declared “its operation is halted against its will” [32]–they formally ended their work. Although the Provisional Government disappeared from the Lithuanian political landscape relatively quickly in the summer of 1941, the ethno-political signals they had sent and their political posture in the face of tragedy and the political and administrative resolutions they adopted traveled on. The process continued and spread autonomously. And the devilish machinery bore its fruit.
In total during World War II 195,000-196,000 Jewish citizens of the Republic of Lithuania, i.e., about 95% of all Jews resident in Lithuania, were murdered. In 2012 Dr. A. Bubnys in his study “The Holocaust in the Lithuanian Countryside in 1941” [33] showed that during 1941 alone, that is, during the first half-year of the Nazi occupation, during which the Provisional Government of Lithuania operated for just less than six weeks, 101,996 Lithuanians citizens of Jewish origin were exterminated in the Lithuanian countryside (not counting the larger cities of Vilnius, Kaunas, Šiauliai and Panevėžys). [34] Practically all of what president Smetona called the Jewish Province of Lithuanian Proper had been exterminated. People who lived here and loved and built Lithuania for centuries.
[1] Minutes no. 2 of the meeting of the meeting of the cabinet of ministers of the Provisional Government of Lithuania for 5:10 to 5:20 P.M. on June 25, 1941, in: Lietuvos Laikinoji Vyriausybė. Posėdžių protokolai [Provisional Government of Lithuania: Minutes of Meetings], edited by Dr. Arvydas Anušauskas, Vilnius: Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras, 2001, p. 11.
[2] Minutes no. 3 of the meeting of the cabinet of ministers of the Provisional Government of Lithuania for 3:00 P.M. on June 26, 1941, in: Ibid., p. 13.
[3] Minutes no. 4 of the meeting of the cabinet of ministers of the Provisional Government of Lithuania on June 26, 1941, in: Ibid., p. 15.
[4] Arūnas Bubnys, Holokaustas Lietuvos provincijoje 1941 metais [Holocaust in the Lithuanian Countryside in 1941], Vilnius, 2012, p. 11, electronic manuscript version. From the personal archive of the author of this piece, who was one of the reviewers of the work at the Lithuanian History Institute in 2012. It is typical that this historiographically significant work of comprehensive breadth has not been published as a separate book in Lithuania even at the present time, i.e., the end of 2016.
[5] Letter from Alytus district administrator A. Audronys of July 17, 1941, to the interior minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania, in: Lithuanian Central State Archive [hereinafter LCSA), f. R-1436, ap. 1, b. 29, l. 69.
[6] Masinės žudynės Lietuvoje [Mass Murder in Lithuania], volume 2, p. 63. Cf.: A. Bubnys, Holokaustas Lietuvos provincijoje 1941 metais, p. 12.
[7] Rimantas Zizas, Sovietiniai partizanai Lietuvoje 1941–1944 metais [Soviet Partisans in Lithuania, 1941-1944], Vilnius: LII leidykla [publishing house of the Lithuanian History Institute], 2014, p. 45–46.
[8] Typical in this case is the behavior of Varėna vicar Jonas Gylys, who in September of 1941, after the closure of the Provisional Government, attempted to protest the Holocaust policy. On the eve of the mass murder the vicar made a request to Varėna First Police Department chief Juozas Kvaraciejus asking to be allowed to visit the Jews held in the synagogue. Although the police chief forbade it, Gylys went into the synagogue of his own volition anyway where he attempted to comfort and calm the victims. Guards threw him out of the synagogue. After the mass murder of the Jews during a church ceremony (on September 14, 1941) speaking from the pulpit, Gylys strongly condemned the murders of innocent people: “Uniformed Lithuanians beat the innocent people, pushed the elderly and pregnant women and moreover water the woods of Varėna with the blood of the innocent. They suffered as Christ did from the Judases. Moreover, even before their blood had dried, they were already stealing their property.” [8] Kvaraciejus turned Gylys in to his superior, the chief of the Alytus district police department, for his behavior.Gylys was removed from Varėna in 1942.
[9] Minutes no. 5 of the meeting of the cabinet of ministers of the Provisional Government of Lithuania on June 27, 1941, in: Lietuvos Laikinoji Vyriausybė. Posėdžių protokolai, Vilnius: Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras, 2001, p. 17.
[10] Ibid., p. 18.
[11] Minutes no. 6 of the morning of June 30 of the Provisional Government of Lithuania on June 30, 1941, in: Ibid., p. 19–20.
[12] Ibid., p. 20.
[13] Minutes no. 7 of the afternoon of June 30, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 21–22.
[14] Appendix 1 to the Minutes no. 7 of the afternoon of June 30, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 23
[15] Ibid.
[16] Minutes no. 7 of the afternoon of June 30, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 21.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Minutes no. 8 of the afternoon of July 2, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 26–27.
[20] Arūnas, Bubnys, Holokaustas Lietuvos provincijoje 1941 metais …, p. 12.
[21] Minutes no. 9 of July 3, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 33–35.
[22] Minutes no. 10 of July 4, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 36–37.; Minutes no. 18 of July 15, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 80.; Appendix 1 to the Law on the Denationalization of Land in minutes no. 20 of July 17, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 90.; Minutes no. 22 of July 19, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 95–96.; Appendix 2 of the Law on the Denationalization of City Buildings and Plots of Land in minutes no. 22 of July 19, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 99.; Appendix 3 to the Law on the Denationalization of Mercantile and Public Feeding Enterprises in Minutes no. 22 of July 19, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 101.
[23] Appendix 2 to the Law on the Denationalization of the Fleet of the Lithuanian Merchant Marine and Inland Waters in minutes no. 27 of July 29, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 132.
[24] Appendix to cabinet of ministers resolution in minutes no. 32 of August 2, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 144.
[25] Minutes no. 12 of July 7, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 50.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid., p. 51.
[28] Minutes no. 16 of July 11, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 69.
[29] Ibid., pp. 69–70.
[30] Minutes no. 26 of July 28, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 123.
[31] Regulation on the Status of the Jews: appendix 1 to minutes no. 31 of July 1, 1941, of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in: Ibid., p. 135.
[32] Arvydas Anušauskas, Introduction to “Lietuvos Laikinoji Vyriausybė. Posėdžių protokolai,” Dr. Arvydas Anušauskas, editor, Vilnius: Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimų centras, 2001, p. 7.
[33] Arūnas. Bubnys, Holokaustas Lietuvos provincijoje 1941 metais…, pp. 307–309.
[34] Ibid., pp. 308–309.