Ashley Blog #1: Dina Porat and the Uniqueness of Lithuania

I’ve actually been quite fortunate this week to discover that two sources I ordered on a whim are actually primary sources in the form of memoirs from Holocaust survivors. Talk about happy accidents! I haven’t had a chance to start digging into them yet, but I have recently finished reading a very intriguing work by Dina Porat. I’ve included the Chicago Manual of Style citation and analysis below.

Porat, Dina. “The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects.” In The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, edited by David Cesarani, 151-174. London: Routledge, 1994.

In this chapter, Porat seeks to outline some of the disturbing and interesting trends within Nazi occupied Lithuania that separated it from the surrounding areas for its treatment of the Jewish population. Most scholars agree that the Holocaust started in Lithuania, as the full force of the killings began in that country and spread outward. However, the uniqueness of the Lithuanian Holocaust stems not from its beginning, but rather from the specific details of how it was carried out.

She begins by describing the utter devastation of the Lithuanian Jewry. While the overall number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust was high, the percentage of the Lithuanian Jewry decimated by the killing actions was, most sources agree, around 95% (160). The murders were also unusually quick. From the invasion of Lithuania by the Germans in June of 1941 to December of the same year, 80% of the Jewish population had already been killed (161). Furthermore, Lithuania became the last stop for many foreign Jews transported to Lithuanian ghettos from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia (162).

Porat also describes the “intense involvement of the local population, in large numbers, in the murder of the Jews,” and the “eagerness the Lithuanians demonstrated” when asked to participate in Einsatzgruppe killing sprees (162). She theorizes that this readiness to volunteer for the Nazis stemmed from the intense anti-Soviet propaganda within Lithuania, and intrinsically aided the annihilation of the Lithuanian Jewish population. She states, “According to Jewish sources, there was hardly any need for the presence of Germans in the small places” as the Jews were almost completely wiped out not by Nazi forces, but by their own fellow Lithuanian citizens (163). Descriptions by survivors “make it quite clear that Lithuanians perpetrated most of the torture and killing, generally without any German officials on the spot” (162). She also states that research by Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm indicates that “possibly half or two-thirds of Lithuanian Jews were killed by local units” and not by Germans (162).

The reason for this volunteerism attitude, Porat theorizes, originates from several factors. Though her chapter does not delve into these reasons with very much detail, she nevertheless states that “it was a combination of... national traditions and values, religion, severe economic problems and tragically opposed political orientations” (166). The common Nazi ideology of “Jewish Bolshevism” was rampant in Lithuania, as those involved in the killings saw the Jews as pawns of the Soviet regime they had supported in 1940-41. This regime had stripped Lithuania of its independence, and the subsequent German invasion, coupled with Hitler’s strong anti-Soviet stance, “provided the framework and the legitimation for the killing of Lithuania’s Jews” (166). Porat also takes care to stress that “not all Lithuanians took part in the killings,” but the situation in Lithuania was nevertheless unique from those of other Eastern European countries in its scope and speed (166).