Photo: Samuel Gochin, in Lithuanian military uniform of 5th Grand Duke Kestutis Doughboys Infantry. Source: Gochin Family Archive

by Grant Gochin

Dear Zayde,

Growing up in South Africa, you implored me to remember. Zachor. I was to remember who we Jews are, and where we came from. You showed me the photos and told me stories. You taught me only love. You asked me to visit our family cemetery in the “old country” and to recite Kaddish for our family. Zayde, I have.

So then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I travelled to the “old country,” specifically, Lithuania. Once there, my first destination was your shtetl. There was nothing Jewish remaining. They destroyed everything. Deliberately. I erected a new gravestone where I could say Kaddish.

The cemeteries were in utter disarray and in shambles. It was glaringly apparent to me that the overgrowth was intentional. No one wanted to remember that Jews had lived in Lithuania.

Together with others, I began to document and restore dozens of Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania. Zachor Zayde, we preserved memory.
I searched for survivors. I found Sarah, our only cousin who survived the Shoah. Sarah’s descendants and I have formed strong family bonds. We remember. We are a family again. Everybody else was murdered. Lithuanians did it. Not Nazis.

My research led me to other survivors who could have easily been our Jewish relatives. I helped them Zayde, to the best of my ability. We worked tirelessly to support and love them. That is what you would have expected from me; I delivered.

I began to research your life. You did not tell me of the brutality and cruelty Lithuanians perpetrated against you, your mother, your father and your siblings. You sheltered me because you worried I was too young to comprehend. Indeed, even as an adult, it is almost impossible to comprehend the cruelty and viciousness Lithuanians perpetrated against our family. They did so viciously, opportunistically and joyously.

Zayde, you embodied the dignity of Litvaks. I wanted the Lithuanians to know your name. Simply for them to know you had existed, and to record your name in a modern document. I applied for Lithuanian citizenship. I did not need their citizenship, because I am American now. I just wanted to preserve your memory. Lithuania denied you existed. They lied. They slandered you. When I applied , they used every tool they could create to deny citizenship to any Jew.

Zayde, you were pure love and dignity, I would not allow such monstrous people to obliterate and sully your name. I declared moral war on the Lithuanian Government and fought them in their own courts. I exposed their modern virulent antisemitism. I won. I am now a citizen of Lithuania; many of your grandchildren are also. We have used Lithuania’s slanders against you to crack open their stealth wall of hate. Now, through and because of you, many thousands of Jews have reclaimed their Lithuanian citizenship. Because of the principles you instilled in me to fight for truth; stand for respect and defend the vulnerable. Zachor.

Reciting Kaddish as you asked me to, I discovered the identity of the murderer of our own family. His name was Jonas Noreika. Lithuania considers him their national hero! Initially, I could not believe that such an evil ideology was still possible. I did what you asked of me, Zayde, I stood up for truth. I approached the Lithuanian Government to explain to them that they had made “a mistake.” In my own mind, it was not possible that a monster who murdered thousands of his own co-citizens simply because they were Jews, could be elevated to their modern day national hero. But I made a horrific discovery. The Lithuanian Government has fraudulently rewritten their national history and has zero tolerance for truth. I tried everything I was able to show them the facts. They treated me just as they had treated you, and all of our relatives; with contempt and brutality.

Zayde, you had no ability to stand up to Lithuanians during your lifetime, so, I did it for you. I did it for all their victims, for all Jews. I demanded the Lithuanian Government tell the truth. I fought them with every fiber of my being. Lithuania almost won. They declared their murderers as their heroes and contemptuously told us few surviving Jews that Lithuania was a rescuer nation. Zayde, they spat in your face. They had only contempt for the 220,000 Jews their national heroes had murdered.

No Holocaust organization would help me. They were bystanders. No Jewish institution helped me. Almost nobody would help me fight for truth. I realized that if I did not stand up for you, and for all 220,000 murder victims, Lithuania would successfully declare themselves the victim of their own murders, and the memory of every Lithuanian Jewish murder victim would be murdered again. It was the murder of truth and the murder of memory. How could I accept this and still face you? I could not.

Your life lessons left me no choice but to fight. I sued them in every court in their country, I sued them in the European Court of Human Rights and at the United Nations. I faced down their death threats; their threats of criminal and constitutional charges, their slanders and their attacks. It was them or you. I had no choice. You were love, they are hate. I could not have lived with myself had I allowed them to repeat their vile conduct.

I fought them for 15 years. I spent hundreds of thousands of hours fighting them. You gave me no option. Allowing them to win would have been a betrayal of you and every Jewish victim.

I led a decade-long international media campaign against the Lithuanian government to expose the truth. I spent years researching, bringing truths to light, and preserving memory. I sat on boards where we preserved documents and authentic history. I dedicated my life to remembering, documenting and preserving. Respect for you dominated my world and motivated all of my actions.

Good Lithuanians helped. Noreika’s own granddaughter, Silvia Foti, stepped forward to tell the truth about her grandfather. Michael Kretzmer made an extraordinary documentary to expose the truth. And under the withering glare of international media, Lithuania finally crumbled.

Lithuania has admitted only some of Noreika’s crimes. They remain the most intense Holocaust revisionists in the world. They continue to lie about their many murderer heroes whose crimes I have exposed. Lithuania’s national history is a fraud, but we have finally penetrated the wall of their deceptions. And the world now knows. I have restored the truth.

Zayde, I have honored your legacy. You may now rest in peace. I love you.

Originally published in the South African Jewish Report under the title: “I exposed Lithuanian duplicity for you, Zayde.”

Also available here.