by Violeta Davoliūtė

Seventy-five years after the deportations from Lithuania on June 14, 1941, it’s important to remember they were multiethnic, and that deportees included Lithuanian Jews. Jewish families also appeared on the lists of “socially unreliable elements” and “class enemies” and, with children and infants, were stuffed into the same livestock cars. Most men were immediately separated from their families and sent to camps, while mothers and children were forced to endure a long and torturous journey to Russia’s northern wastes. Many died of hunger and suffering. This chapter in the history of the Jews of Lithuania is still little known by the public today. Yes, there is a study or two, statistics, lists, but, unfortunately, the perception still dominates that Lithuania’s Jews suffered only in the Holocaust, and the myth that all Jews supported the Soviet regime lives on, while society believes the deportations of 1941 are an exclusively ethnically Lithuanian historical experience. If you ask a high school student or even a professional working in higher education to name even one Lithuanian Jew deported by the Soviets, chances are many could not.

Put another way, the experience of the deportations of 1941 has not only been lithuanianized, but catholicized (memory of the deportations is commemorated in Lithuania with crosses, Catholic religious iconography and at Catholic Mass), although the deportation was multiethnic and panreligious.

Furthermore, the inspiring aspects of shared life and mutual aid between Lithuanians and Jews in Soviet exile have been down-played. Lithuanians and Jews in exile were a common community of shared experiences. Many of those exiled in 1941 were highly educated, much travelled and held liberal views. The regional factor was also important in exile: people from Lazdijai, Utena and Anykščiai felt it was important they were all Žemiečiai [people from Žemaitija, the historical Samogitia]. Close relations are also evidenced by the fact many Lithuanians and Jews intermarried in exile. This all clearly goes to show that the multifaceted experience of the deportations of 1941 has not been fully explored, although it is a highly important component for educational and commemorative policy.

Violeta Davoliūtė is a cultural historian who defended her dissertation about historical representations in Europe of the Holocaust and the Soviet gulags at the University of Toronto in Canada. She has done research and academic work in Canada, Lithuania and the USA. Her academic interests include historical trauma and memory in Europe, politics of identity and cultural elites in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras and forced relocations and their effect on culture and society. She currently works at Vilnius University and the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute. She has been a visiting scholar at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University since 2015.