Genealogical Writing and Memory of the Holocaust in Lithuania

ABSTRACT

Diverse works of autobiographical non-fiction on the Holocaust in Lithuania reflect a pattern of generational memory familiar to students of German historical memory, but with key differences. Cold War taboos against discussions of local participation in the Holocaust delayed the appearance of second-generation Holocaust memory until the post-Soviet 1990s, such that it coincided with the natural emergence of third-generation memory. This overlapping of generations, along with the incipient convergence of perspectives from each side of the Atlantic, has contributed to the emergence of a transnational space of historical discourse. The dynamism of this discourse appears to have reinforced the fractured “memory regime” in Lithuania, dominated by ongoing efforts to place the legacy of the anti-Soviet resistance at the core of national memory and identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Holocaust
• generations
• memory
• collaboration
• Lithuania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See online citation: https://en.delfi.lt/politics/controversial-memorial-plaque-to-noreika-removed-in-vilnius.d?id=81845801 (accessed May 9, 2021).

2 Judt, “The Past is Another Country,” 85–86.

3 This message was reinforced in subsequent statements by presidents Hollande and Macron; see theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/22/francois-hollande-wartime-roundup-jews; theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/17/france-macron-denounces-state-role-holocaust-atrocity-paris-1942 (accessed May 9, 2021).

4 For a recent survey of scholarship on collaboration in Poland, see online article by Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe (July 19, 2019) at: https://docupedia.de/zg/Rossolinski-Liebe_kollaboration_v2_de_202019.07.2019 (accessed June 28, 2021).

5 See online article (February 19, 2019) by Marta Bucholc and Maciej Komornik, at: cultures-of-history.uni-jena.de/politics/poland/the-polish-holocaust-law-revisited-the-devastating-effects-of-prejudice-mongering (accessed May 9, 2021).

6 Kazys Škirpa (1895–1979), the leader of the so-called “provisional government” that aspired to the status of a collaborationist government like that of Belgium or France, is the most prominent example.

7 See online article by Violeta Davoliūtė (August 31, 2016), at: tol.org/client/article/26264-two-speed-memory-and-ownership-of-the-past.html (accessed May 9, 2021). The most recent debates have been focused on the fate of a monument to the pro-Soviet Lithuanian writer Petras Cvirka (1909–1947). The monument, built in 1959, is found in one of the central squares of Vilnius.

8 See online article by Violeta Davoliūtė (November 17, 2017), at DOI: 10.25626/0078 (accessed June 28, 2021).

9 See online articles by Dovilas Petkus (July 23, 2018), at: delfi.lt/news/ringas/lit/dovilas-petkus-valstybingumo-simtmecio-proga-kaltinimai-saudzius-zydus.d?id=78640523; Vaidas Saldžiūnas (July 19, 2018), delfi.lt/news/daily/demaskuok/generolo-vetros-anuke-mete-baisius-kaltinimus-seneliui-ir-lietuvai-kas-slepia-tiesa.d?id=78591343 (accessed June 28, 2021).

10 Cameron, In the Shadow of the Family Tree, 1–29.

11 Bernhard and Kubik, eds., Twenty Years after Communism. In their influential typology of post-Soviet approaches to the difficult past, Bernhard and Kubik describe three ideal types of memory regimes: unified, pillarized and fractured. In a unified memory regime, there is one dominant interpretation that is not contested. In a pillarized regime, several contrasting interpretations co-exist; memory actors may debate but they accept that there can be different points of view. In Lithuania, the fractured memory regime is due to the prominence of “memory warriors” who cannot accept the discrete validity of certain other interpretations of the past.

12 See Luhmann, “Gender and the Generations of Difficult Knowledge.”

13 See Brandstädter, Folgeschäden.

14 Assmann, “Funktionsgedächtnis und Speichergedächtnis.”

15 Welzer, “Re-narrations”; Welzer, Moller, and Tschuggnall, “Opa War Kein Nazi.”

16 Desbois and Shapiro, The Holocaust by Bullets.

17 Aleksiun, “Intimate Violence”; Kopstein and Wittenberg, Intimate Violence.

18 Sułek, “Both Researcher and Second-Generation Witness.”

19 Holland, “Soviet Holocaust Retribution in Lithuania, 1944–1964”; Malinauskaitė, Mediated Memories.

20 Gershenson, The Phantom Holocaust; Stončius, “Sovietinės sistemos kinas kaip Holokausto atminties palimpsestas.”

21 Davoliūtė and Kaminskaitė-Jančorienė, “Sovietization and the Cinema in the Western Borderlands.”

22 Mončiunskas, Rūdninkų girios partizanai; Apyvala, Sakalai broleliai; Žilinskaitė, Mano neapykanta stipresnė; Baranauskas and Rukšėnas, Documents Accuse.

23 Malinauskaitė, Mediated Memories, 85–86.

24 Budrytė, “Defending Memory.”

25 Dovilė Budrytė has analyzed what she calls the “narrative of fighting and suffering” extensively, including from a gender perspective. See “Points of Memory in the Narrative of a ‘Mnemonic Warrior.’”

26 Bubnys, Vokiečių okupuota Lietuva; Truska, “Ir atleisk mums mūsų tėvų bei senelių nuodėmes”; Pettai, “Negotiating History for Reconciliation”; Sužiedėlis, “The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.”

27 Davoliūtė, “The Prague Declaration of 2008 and its Repercussions in Lithuania.”

28 See online article by Violeta Davoliūtė, “Heroes, Villains and Matters of State: The Partisan and Popular Memory in Lithuania” DOI 10.25626/0078 (accessed June 30, 2021). On the securitization of memory in the Baltics, see Mälksoo, “‘Memory Must Be Defended.’”

29 See online article by Violeta Davoliūtė (December 19, 2018), “Between the Public and the Personal: A New Stage of Holocaust Memory in Lithuania,” DOI 10.25626/0092 (accessed June 28, 2021).

30 Beresniova, Holocaust Education in Lithuania. Jelena Subotić describes this as a new stage of historical revisionism; see Yellow Star, Red Star.

31 Vanagaitė and Zuroff, Our People, 243.

32 These projects are also described in Vanagaitė, Mūsiškiai, 26–27. A more recent work by Vanagaitė, co-authored by German historian of the Holocaust Christoph Dieckman and published in 2020, is titled Kaip tai įvyko? (How Did it Happen?).

33 Interview with Markas Zingeris (Vilnius), September 24, 2016.

34 Online citation at: lzb.lt/en/2016/09/08/moletai-holocaust-procession-draws-record-crowd, (accessed May 9, 2021).

35 Online press release (December 5, 2017), at: pen.org/press-release/lithuanian-writer-ruta-vanagaites-publisher-set-pulp-27000-books (accessed June 28, 2021).

36 Online article by Masha Gessen (December 15, 2017), at: newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-a-single-remark-stole-a-lithuanian-writers-livelihood (accessed June 28, 2021).

37 Online article by Silvia Kučėnas Foti, at: lituanus.org/1997/97_4_02.htm (accessed June 28, 2021).

38 Online citation at: lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1159437/state-research-centre-wins-case-over-noreika-holocaust-report (accessed June 28, 2021).

39 See, for instance, Silvia Foti: “When Truth Trumps Family Loyalty,” Hard Talk (15 April 2021), online at: bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1n10 (accessed June 28, 2021).

40 Yitzhak Arad (1926–1921) was a famous Lithuanian Holocaust survivor anti-fascist partisan, and a member of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania. He served on the Commission until 2008, at which time the Lithuanian prosecutor’s office initiated an investigation into his role in a Soviet partisan attack on a Lithuanian village during World War II. The investigation caused an international scandal and was soon dropped The work of the Commission essentially stopped at this time.

41 Schaumann, “The Children of Nazi Victims, Perpetrators, Collaborators, Bystanders,” 249.

42 Gabis, A Guest at the Shooters’ Banquet, 9.

43 Online at: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn531220 (accessed June 28, 2021).

44 Online article by Vidmantas Valiušaitis, “Istorikas A. Idzelis: NKVD metodai naudojami ir dabar” (2 November 2017), online at: delfi.lt/news/ringas/lit/istorikas-a-idzelis-nkvd-metodai-naudojami-ir-dabar.d?id=75931891 (accessed June 30, 2021).

45 Šukys, Siberian Exile, 32.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid., 67.

48 Bull and Hansen, “On Agonistic Memory.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Violeta Davoliūtė

Violeta Davoliūtė is Professor at Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science. Recently, she was a Fellow at the Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena (2018–2019) and Associate Research Scholar at Yale (2015–2016). Violeta Davoliūtė completed her PhD at the University of Toronto and is the author of The Making and Breaking of Soviet Lithuania: Memory and Modernity in the Wake of War (2014). A specialist in matters of historical trauma, the politics of memory and national identity, she has co-edited three volumes and has published numerous articles in journals such as Ab Imperio, Osteuropa, East European Jewish Affairs, Ethnologie Française, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, the Journal of Baltic Studies, Politologija and others.