Valiušaitis’s article “Melo voratinklyje – antinacistinė ir antisovietinė rezistencija” [“In the Web of Lies: The Anti-Nazi and Anti-Soviet Resistance”] examines the art of Soviet disinformation. A truly necessary topic. But again, “including” captain Jonas Noreika, and again arguing as if there are no documents demonstrating Noreika’s Nazi collaboration, his violation of his oath as a military officer and his close cooperation with the murderers of Jews.

Unfortunately such proof exists, whether Valiušaitis likes it or not. So, in denying the established facts, trampling upon the principles of morality and ethics and human values, he seeks to push the worship of a tainted hero onto democratic society. Whether this is intentional or not, he is demanding the justification of fascist and Nazi ideology. But glorification and justification of these ideologies is forbidden by Lithuanian law.

A half-lie isn’t the truth. Using one historian as a source is not an indication of objectivity. Besides the Soviet sources, there are a plethora of others, just as there are many works by historians unaffected by Soviet disinformation. The rejection of the International Criminal Court’s definition of genocide doesn’t vindicate the crime. Proponents of Nazi ideology cannot claim to be anti-Nazis. During World War II, the “anti-Nazi underground” of the fascist Lithuanian nationalist parties, the LAF and LNP, was so unremarkable in Lithuania that they failed to rescue even a single Jew and failed to kill even a single Nazi. And attempting to whiten the mantle of an officer by presenting, for example, Pope Pius XII’s “silent” policy of rescuing Jews, does a disservice to the Pope. Not only did Noreika fail to rescue a single Lithuanian Jew, but he was responsible for one and a half years for the looting of the property of the Jews murdered and shook hands daily with the murderers of the Jews.

Here, based on Valiušaitis’s way of thinking, I propose playing a sad rhetorical game, “Changing Places.” So, to get to the point: if captain Noreika had been a Soviet collaborator, responsible for a half year for property seized from imprisoned Lithuanians (or more accurately, murdered and mass murdered Lithuanians) and for the distribution of that property, would that sort of collaboration be justified? Would this officer’s daily communication with agents who had just murdered thousands of Lithuanians be justified? Would the author agree to call an organization the anti-Soviet underground if its officers followed Communist ideology and hadn’t fired a single shot against the Communist occupier?

After all, not a single document has been found indicating or proving someone ever ordered this officer to infiltrate the Nazi ranks. Just as there was no order for him to infiltrate the ranks of the Soviet army, where he served as a officer in 1940. Of course some soldiers and officers really did resist their incorporation into the Soviet military and paid for it with their freedom or their lives. Does the author still believe the oath of a Lithuanian officer was not broken? An officer, of course, always has a choice, the freedom to decide given by God. Just as we today are presented the choice to decide based on the actual actions of the person in question whether he is worthy of public honor and should serve as an example to the younger generation.

And to conclude this unhappy game: what (as a former Soviet citizen) does the author think about the Lithuanian-American historian who in 1968 travelled freely across the territory of the Warsaw Pact, across Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria? And after reaching Poland he freely travels to Lithuania? Especially since, in the Soviet jargon, the son of a “bourgeois nationalist” had returned to the Soviet realm… Incidentally, he had just been in Czechoslovakia, unhindered, during the bloody suppression of the Prague Spring. Yes, I am talking about the historian Augustinas Izdelis who, it seems, is Valiušaitis’s only source whitewashing this tainted officer.

Now to the six questions which Valiušaitis raises and then answers himself. I would like to provide my answers.

Was Jonas Noreika (in 1946 when NKVD interrogators confirmed he had taken part in the uprising of June, 1941, and was head of the Šiauliai district) accused of aiding and collaborating with the Nazis? The author says he was not. According to him such accusations were “the common practice” in political cases at that time. I say: from 1944 to 1953 there were various “common practices” in the courts. For instance, the Soviet tribunals called those who murdered Jews “murderers of Soviet citizens.” And if the murderers were not partisans, they were sentenced from 5 to 25 years… for collaborating with the Nazi occupiers. They tortured and shot partisans. Noreika was not a partisan. And he himself didn’t shoot Jews, there is no evidence of that. But this is interesting: the author who in his earlier articles and in this one passionately argues the unreliability of the Soviet courts suddenly decided to rely upon them. Why?

Is it a normal thing to accuse a Lithuanian officer of “breaking his oath” 70 years after his death? The answer is: yes. He broke the oath of a soldier, and more than once. We are, after all, talking about a role-model for our soldiers and officers today. There must be no ambivalent understanding of oaths.

Did the authority of the head of Šiauliai district include issues connected with the existential fate of the Jewish community? The answer is no. It really did not include them. But Noreika, unlike I. Urbaitis who refused to accept this immoral post, worked as Šiauliai district head for an entire year and a half. In this capacity he aided the Nazis in solving the existential issues of the Jews by seizing and selling the property of murdered and still-living Jews. Knowing that those still alive would be exterminated. PS: Even adolescents living near the mass murder sites knew the mass murder of the Jews was being carried out.

Did Noreika personally take over property stolen from Jews? The answer is yes. Didn’t he live on a street? He lived in the home of murdered Jews. Documents he signed personally order care be taken of “luxury furniture and materials” and so on.

Did the head of Šiauliai district have legal and administrative means by which he could affect the fate of the Jews? The answer is yes. He could have refused to do this work. But, as a documented anti-Semite and a member of the underground subscribing to the fascist ideology, he decided to continue carrying out this macabre work. He served for year and a half. During this period almost all of the Jews of Lithuania were exterminated. In the district under Noreika’s control that was thousands of Jews. It’s interesting: who among Lithuanian historians turned the LAF and LNP fascists into anti-Nazis?

Were the police and security subordinate to the head of Šiauliai district? The answer is no, but payment of salaries to them was in Noreika’s jurisdiction. And he was also the commander of the LAF in Telšiai district. This organization published a brutally anti-Semitic newspaper called Žemaičių Žemė [Land of the Žemaitijans]. Noreika’s ideational and factual colleague was the murderer of the Jews of Plungė and Plungė Lithuanian commandant Povilas Alimas and his unit. On July 12 and 13, 1941, they murdered 1,800 men, women and children. The Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania and historian A. Rukšėnas confirm this fact. Arguments that “Lithuanians didn’t organize the mass murder of the Jews,” that “the Nazis are guilty” and so on are intended as self-justification and even exoneration. And it’s clear even to a sheep that the Jews wouldn’t have been murdered if not for the Nazis, just as Lithuanians and Jews wouldn’t have been deported to Siberia if not for the Soviets. But some did the killing and someone did the deporting, someone betrayed Lithuania to the Soviets and someone collaborated with them and with the Nazis.

The belletristic “arguments” of the defenders of the Noreika myth are so disgusting that those who make use of them will have to wash themselves for a long time after this demagog tango with their conscience.

Full text in Lithuanian here.