Ashley Blog #7: Gordon on the Soviet Occupation

I’m doing a little late-night blogging, pulling an all-nighter to finish up yet another outline that I have to do for tomorrow (Tiananmen Square – I just love the bloody stuff!) and I thought I’d take a quick break to do my post. For this week, I’m going to illuminate a bit on the Jewish perspective of the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in June 1940. The source I’m taking this from is by Harry Gordon, who immigrated to the US in 1949 from Kovno, Lithuania. The citation and analysis follow.

Gordon, Harry. The Shadow of Death: The Holocaust in Lithuania. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1992.

In the second chapter of his memoir on the Holocaust in Lithuania, Harry Gordon detailed the arrival of the Soviet Union to Kovno in 1940. According to his description, the Jews were first seized by an intense terror, fearing that the Germans were manning the tanks. He stated, “They were closed so we couldn’t see anyone. We thought the Germans were coming. We didn’t know what was happening” (Gordon 9). This fear came from knowledge that, should the Germans invade Lithuania, the Jewry of the country would no longer be safe from their ghettos and concentration camps: “We knew what they were doing in the other countries… We thought that if they were coming, that was what they were going to do with us, too. After all, we Lithuanian Jews were no better than any other Jewish population” (Gordon 9).

Yet, upon discovering that the soldiers were not Germans, but instead were the Russians, Gordon described an immediate sense of relief among his family. He wrote, “Suddenly our mood changed. Instead of panic, we felt an unnatural joy. Everyone started hugging and kissing each other, family and neighbors, as if the Messiah had just arrived” (Gordon 9). The entire Jewish section of the city, as he described it, was caught up in an infectious happiness.

This happiness, however, did not extend to the Lithuanians: “The Lithuanian police from the old democratic republic… were very demoralized. They knew their country was being taken over, yet they still had to try to keep order” (Gordon 11). While “the Jewish people felt very free,” the Lithuanians were forced into submission by the Russians, having to walk on the sidewalk and curb their impoliteness lest they be arrested (Gordon 16). Gordon stated that this gave rise to frustrations, writing that “the anti-Semites’ eyes were popping out of their heads from the pressure of having to keep their mouths shut” (Gordon 16). Some, even with the threat of arrest, could not remain silent and spread their propaganda. Even the Lithuanian Communist party, which at this time ruled the government, was “both anti-Semitic and anti-Russian,” paving the way for the German army to take back power in 1941 (Gordon 20).

These details show that the pre-1941 tensions between the Jews and the Lithuanians were heightened by the acceptance of the Soviets by the Jewry. Despite the illegality of their actions, many Lithuanians continued to actively campaign against the Soviet regime, channeling their frustration through anti-Semitism. There is little surprise that this would then lead to the image of Jewish-Bolshevism gaining such popularity amongst the younger generations of Lithuanian men who would go on to participate in the pogroms.

I hope everybody has a nice break! See you all next Thursday!