Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas 1941-1944

By Sara Ginaite-Rubinson and Karla Gruodyte

The image of author Sara Ginaite-Rubinson at the start of her memoir is iconic in terms of the Jewish Resistance movement during WWII, and is featured prominently in the Holocaust Museum. First published in Lithuania in 1999, this book received very wide critical acclaim and is now considered one of the seminal works on Lithuanian Jewry during the Holocaust period. It is co-published with the Holocaust Centre of Toronto, UJA Federation

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mosaic Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781771610483

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INTRODUCTION

Prior to World War II, with more than 200,000 Jewish residents (including the city of Vilnius and its outlying regions), Lithuania was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe. With the invasion on June 22, 1941, Lithuania became the first country occupied by Germany in its war against the Soviet Union. By June 23-24, there were no Soviet military units left in the former Lithuanian capital of Kaunas or in its surrounding areas. Immediately, the mass murder of the Jewish population began.

Even though the initial impulse for violence came from the Nazis, armed Lithuanian partisans took advantage of the situation to launch a wave of terror against the Jews, which spread across all of Lithuania. In the three years of Nazi occupation (1941-1944), nine out of ten Jews in Lithuania were dead. Behind each number was the loss of a person whose life was tragically and prematurely ended.

The enormity of the Holocaust has been the subject of extensive research for a long time. However, historians have only recently begun to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the process that led to the destruction of the Eastern Europe’s Jewish population and culture. A breakthrough in the study of the Holocaust came at the end of the Cold War, when the archives of Eastern Europe became available for investigation. Also very important as a source of that history, however, are the stream of books and testimonies, written by dedicated Holocaust survivors that have been published in recent years. Their eyewitness accounts are helping to uncover new revelations about the war against the Jews and their personal experiences are being woven into the documentary text of that history. By telling the stories of the lives and deaths of the victims, the survivors preserve a living memory of the events of the Holocaust.

The complexity of the history of the Holocaust, the vast geography of the genocide, and the huge scope of the overall human tragedy is of such proportions that a single study can only encompass a very regional, or local, level at best. Having survived the Holocaust, I am telling only my personal story of the evil, of the people of conscience, and of the Jewish resistance movement in the Kaunas Ghetto. In this book, I am describing survival and resistance, but I am also telling of the virtual annihilation of the Jewish population in Lithuania. This book represents my own views on the events recounted here and my own interpretations of the Holocaust in Lithuania.

In writing this book, I have tried to recall the tragic events of the past and to tell the story of the people who did not survive the catastrophe. In so doing, I try to honor their memory. This book is the saga of peoples who did not succumb to Nazi propaganda efforts to dehumanize the image of the Jews. It is the story of people who lived and died, not according to the Nazi plan, but by resisting that plan during their lives and in their deaths. In this book, I recount the lives of those who were murdered, who fell in battle, and who died soon after their liberation. I attempt both to offer a personal view of the historical events and to relate the story of the life of my family. In telling both, words often fail to convey what we felt: our physical and emotional pain. My words can only reveal the lives and fates of the members of my own family and how they reflect the lives and fates of all the Jews of Kaunas.

The events described in the following pages offer no happy endings, no ultimate illumination, even when I speak of courage, of heroism, and of decency. The Holocaust is pure evil as it was perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators, by local organizations, and by the governments of the occupied countries.

I discuss in great detail the events of the first months of the Nazi occupation when almost 75 percent of all Lithuanian Jews were killed and all Jewish communities in the Stetlach were destroyed. The Holocaust, defined as systematic mass murder and total destruction of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany and their collaborators, began on Lithuanian soil. This book points to the active role played, and compliance, of the Lithuanian Provisional Government and its administration of the systematic mass murder of the Jews. It also addresses the decisive role played by the Lithuanian military battalions and police in the process of killing their neighbors. In this respect, Lithuania played a unique role in the history of the Holocaust.

My parents were born and lived in Lithuania. I was born and grew up in Kaunas. From my earliest days, I realized that I belonged to the ethnic Jewish minority. But I could never have imagined that our family, and almost the entire Jewish population, would some day be murdered.

My story offers a glimpse into the daily life of the Jewish people in Lithuania before the German occupation. It gives detailed insights into the life of our family, and the lives of other Jews in the Kaunas Ghetto, that no archive can offer. It recounts the birth of the ghetto underground movement, the Anti-Fascist Fighters Organization, and details its aims, military activity, training, weapons acquisition, and acts of sabotage. In discussing our experiences in that movement, I talk of the efforts the AFO made in finding places to hide children outside the ghetto, in establishing an underground school, and finally, in sending ghetto youth into the forest to join the partisans. I recount the daily life and activities of the guerrilla detachment, Death to the Occupiers, to which we, the escapees form the Kaunas Ghetto, belonged. I describe the living conditions, which were rough and primitive, and a life that, although it was full of dangers, offered a taste of freedom that was sweet. It provided an opportunity to fight armed battles against the enemy that gave meaning to our existence.

Finally, I tell the reader about the last days of the Kaunas Ghetto and the fate of my family there. It was in those last days that the rich cultural, spiritual, and religious traditions of the Lithuanian Jews, the Litvaks, who had thrived for many centuries on Lithuanian soil, were destroyed or, at the very least, were damaged beyond repair. All that remains today are a few monuments, mass graves, and a very small Jewish community.

The first edition of this book was published in Lithuania in the Lithuanian language. The new English version has been revised and the events described have been carefully re-examined. Every detail of this book came either from research, from testimony of witnesses, or from my own first-hand experience. I have incorporated in it some new and lesser known facts about life of the Jews of Kaunas, the history of their destruction, and their resistance and struggle for survival during the Holocaust. My purpose in writing this book was not simply to offer the reader a source of information, but to share the story of my life with those who were not there. I hope it can give the reader an opportunity to come a little closer to events and lives that are beyond his or her immediate experience.

This book does not pretend to be the definitive history of the Holocaust and the resistance movement in the Kaunas Ghetto. I only hope that this memoir will help to complete the larger text documenting the history of greatest terror in twentieth century Lithuania.

HISTORICAL PROLOGUE

Jewish culture in Lithuania, the Litvaks, with its unique character and strong educational and scholarly traditions, had a significant impact upon the cultural lives of many other nations. The notion of ‘Litvak’ originated in a territory called Litvakija, which originally included Lithuania, Belarus, a part of Poland, and a part of Russia. Jews who lived in these areas regarded themselves as Litvaks and it was they who created the classical Yiddish dialect. First under Lithuanian control, Litvakija then fell under the Russian regime sometime in the 18th century. However, its center was always the city of Vilnius (Vilno), called the Jerusalem of Lithuania.

Vilnius was the cultural center for all Eastern European Jewry. Even when this unified region ceased to exist, the Jews in Vilnius and in Lithuania kept their educational, social, and spiritual traditions. As Professor Vytautas Landsbergis, the first chairman of the Supreme Council of the post-Soviet independent Lithuania put it,

The Jewish culture (The Litvaks) was specifically regional and closely related historically to the ancient Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The culture of the Litvaks, particularly the Lithuanian Jews, was an integral part of historical Lithuanian culture. Its loss is our loss. Those responsible for this loss committed a crime not only against the Jews, but against Lithuania itself.¹

Jews and Lithuanians had been living side by side from the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The first Jews arrived at the beginning of the 14th century when a policy of increased immigration was seen as a good way to improve the expansion of the Duchy’s trade and commerce. Towards the end of the 14th century (1388), Grand Duke Vytautas granted a broad range of privileges to the Jews. He officially endorsed the existence of the country’s Jewish Communities and adopted a charter granting the Jews individual and religious protection, as well as offering them various economic opportunities.

Although the Jews quickly became familiar with the customs and lifestyles of the indigenous population, the overall process of assimilation was very slow. The vast majority of Jews spoke only Yiddish and, along with their own houses of prayer, they established Jewish publishing houses, schools, cultural, education, and social organizations.

Over the centuries, Lithuania became one of the most important centers for Jewish secular and religious learning in Eastern Europe, nurturing great thinkers like the great Gaon (Eminence), Elijah Ben Solomon, who lived form 1720 to 1797. He was renowned for his deeply insightful interpretations and teachings of both Talmudic and secular Jewish texts.

In the early 19th century, with the growing influence of Western European Humanism, Lithuanian Jews became increasingly secularized and began to adopt the culture and civilization of Western Europe. Toward the end of the century, many young Jews joined Russian socialist parties and, in Vilnius, a socialist Jewish workers’ union, The Bund, was formed. Still, traditional religious practices and learning flourished in the major centers of Vilnius and Kaunas, as well as other cities in Lithuania. Many eminent and world-famous Jewish religious and secular writers, artists, scientists, political figures, and educators were born and lived in Lithuania. Among them were such artists as Chaim Soutine, N. Arbit-Blatas, Isaac Levitan, Pavel Antakolsky, Jacques Lipshitz, and Esther Lurie; one of the first modern Hebrew writers and literary critics, Abraham Mapu; Hebrew poets, A. Lebenzon and Liudwig-Lazar Zamenhof, inventor of the Esperanto language; mathematician, Hermann Minkowski; and many others.

The modern Lithuanian Republic re-established its independence with Vilnius as its capital after WWI (1918). However, in October 1920, Vilnius was captured by Polish legions and remained under Polish rule until October 1939 when the Soviet Union occupied a part of Poland and granted Vilnius back to Lithuania. Between 1920 and 1939, Kaunas became the temporary capital of independent Lithuania and the center of the religious and cultural life of Lithuania’s Jewry. In the history of the Lithuanian Jews, the period between 1919 and 1926 is referred to as the Golden Age. During that period, the Jews won complete autonomy in regulating their affairs. They elected deputies to the Lithuanian Parliament, had their own ministers in the government of independent Lithuania, and a special minister for Jewish Affairs. However, from 1924, this autonomy started gradually to erode and, in 1927, it was completely abolished.² The Jews lost their legal equality, were dismissed from government positions, and were banned from further involvement in state structures. They could no longer work in the courts, the police, the diplomatic corps, nor serve as army officers. In addition to being excluded from political life and from holding government positions, many other restricted rules toward the Jews were adopted. They even lost their right to purchase land.

The greatest source of tension between Lithuanians and Jews became their growing competition in industry, commerce, and the independent professions. The growing role of Lithuanians in trade and commerce, the creation of national enterprises and the establishment of such cooperatives and state companies as Maistas, Lietuvos cukrus, Pienocentras, Parama, Lietukis, and others further increased competition with Jewish-run businesses. The Lithuanian Government was often the majority shareholder in Lithuanian-run companies and granted these and other Lithuanian enterprises strong financial support.

The Lithuanian government also greatly limited the number of Jewish students at university and their chances of acquiring post-secondary degrees. As a result, the percentage of Jewish students fell steadily, especially in the faculties of law and medicine. In 1932, there were 1,209 Jewish students at Kaunas University, making up 26.5% of the student population. By 1938, this figure had fallen to 445 or 14.7%³. In addition, the anti-Jewish press of the time offered detailed calculations that determined the exact percentage of Jewish doctors, lawyers, university students, factory owners, businessmen, and entrepreneurs living in Lithuania. It is important to bear in mind, however, that the curtailment of Jewish rights was not a single act, but rather a gradual process of discrimination that culminated with the beginning of the Second World War.

Despite discrimination and their treatment as second class citizens, the Jews defended Lithuania’s interests, political aims, and international reputation. Serving in national infantry battalions, Lithuania’s Jews actively participated in the country’s 1918 and 1919 battles for independence. In Kaunas alone, 542 Jews were registered as war veterans, including 182 war invalids and 32 men were decorated for bravery during the armed struggle for Lithuania’s independence. From 1918 to 1923, approximately 3000 Jews served in the Lithuanian army, where they bravely fought against the Polish, Russian, and German armies, some of them dying in the battlefield.⁴

Even when they had considerable freedom, it must be stressed that not a single Jewish institution ever made either anti-Lithuanian or pro-Soviet statements. Furthermore, Lithuanian Jewry was not a community of communists. Rather, like all other cultures, it contained, in its overall makeup, individuals of various beliefs. Without any doubt, the Jews were pre-war Lithuania’s most loyal ethnic minority and, even during the Polish ultimatum of 1938 and the Klaipeda (Memel) crisis, the Jews supported Lithuania’s position.

According to the 1923 Lithuanian census, 153,743 Jews lived in Lithuania (not counting Vilnius), 25,000 of them in Kaunas. By 1932, that number had climbed to 154,321, and the Kaunas Jewish community had grown to over 40,000 people.⁵ With 215 Jewish organizations and institutions thriving throughout Lithuania, Kaunas alone had 5 Jewish high schools, a teachers college, the famous Yeshiva Rabbinical Seminary, and several vocational schools (ORT). Prior to the 1940 Soviet occupation, the city boasted approximately 30 synagogues, 2 Jewish theatres, 15 Jewish periodicals, 5 daily Jewish newspapers and 3 Jewish libraries: Jellin’s, the Mapu, and the Balosher. There was a Jewish hospital, an old age home, an orphanage, daycare centres, and the OZE health association, as well as several sports clubs, and various social welfare and charity organizations.

In Kaunas, as in other Lithuanian cities and towns, although the Jews were free to live in any part of the city, they generally settled in neighborhoods either mostly or exclusively populated by Jews. Many of the religious and less wealthy Jews of Kaunas lived in the suburb in Vilijampole (called Slabodka by the Jews). A considerable number of Jews lived in Kaunas’ Old Town, where they had their factories, workshops, stores, and other businesses and where most of the Jewish schools, libraries, and cultural centers were located. The wealthiest Jews gradually moved out of the Old Town to the central part of Kaunas.

Lithuania’s Jews were not a homogenous ethnic minority from either a social or political perspective. There were blue and white-collar workers, employees at various small companies, small shop owners, and craftsmen. Others were bankers, owners of mid-size and substantial companies, and, therefore, distinctly members of the upper and middle classes. Nor were these Jews undivided in their political views. Most politically active Jews in Lithuania were members of the Zionist movement and as such they belonged to various local political organizations. They participated in international Zionist activities, and sent their children to private Hebrew or orthodox Jewish schools. The Zionist organizations supported the study of Hebrew, trained agricultural specialists, and encouraged Jewish emigration to Palestine. According to Jewish agency figures, of the approximately 20,000 Jews that emigrated from Lithuania between 1919 and 1941, 9241 of them immigrated to Palestine.⁶

There were also those in the Jewish community who called themselves Yiddishists. Considering Lithuania to be their homeland, the Yiddishists claimed that Jews should continue to live there, but that they must have complete cultural and religious autonomy as well as equal rights with Lithuanians in all aspects of economic and political life. The Yiddishists felt they had two native languages – Lithuanian and Yiddish. They supported the Yiddish schools, theatre and cultural organizations, and maintained close ties with Yiddishists around the world.

Like other national groups, the Jewish community included communists and members of related organizations. Since the Communist Party was banned in independent Lithuania, communists had formed various legal, but officially non-communist, organizations. These relatively small organizations propagated communist ideas, published articles criticizing the Lithuanian government’s internal and foreign policies, and informed their readers about the difficult living conditions of workers and peasants. They also expressed their support for the Soviet Union by providing general assistance to political prisoners and forming cells in factory workers’ clubs, high schools, and post-secondary institutions. Of the 1120 Communist Party members living in Lithuania in 1939, 670 were Lithuanians, 346 were Jews, while the rest were made up of Russians, Poles, and Germans.⁷ In addition to those, 145 Jews and 142 Lithuanians (or individuals of other nationalities) were serving prison terms for communist activities.⁸

As anti-Semitic sentiments grew in Lithuania in the mid-1930s, there was some rise in anti-Semitic statements in general and the occasional act of vandalism committed against Jewish organizations. Lithuanian historian Professor Saulius Suziedelis holds the view that, although anti-Semitism existed in Lithuania as an internal problem during the inter-war years, independent Lithuania can hardly be considered to have been an anti-Semitic state.

There is no question, writes Suziedelis, that, as it did in other parts of Europe, German racist propaganda appealed strongly to certain nationalistic oriented individuals in Lithuania. This can clearly be seen in references made in Lithuanian newspapers to the successful resolution of the ‘Jewish question’ in the Reich.⁹

On the other hand, Jury Bluvsteinas, a well-known Jewish lawyer and journalist, believes that it is highly inaccurate to say that the Jews enjoyed a happy existence in pre-war Lithuania. Even though their situation was far better than in neighbouring Poland, at the same time, the Jews in Denmark or England had much higher status.¹⁰

I would have to agree with both of these opinions. Lithuania was not an outspoken anti-Semitic state. Racist ideas were not popular among the Lithuanian political and cultural elite, and the government made no moves to solve the Jewish problem. In fact, the situation of Jews in Poland and Romania, not to mention Nazi Germany, was considerably worse than in Lithuania. On the other hand, it is safe to say that, in Lithuania, Jews were treated as second class citizens and that they were less integrated than the Jews in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. It is doubtful whether relations between Lithuanians and Jews might have been less strained had Jews been more familiar with Lithuanian culture, customs, and aspirations or had they been more integrated into Lithuania society during the period of inter-war independence. After all, they had lived side by side for many centuries - but not together.

And yet, despite the increasing tensions between Lithuanians and Jews, ethnic conflicts between them were extremely rare, and vague efforts were made, even at this point, to bring the two peoples together in common dialogue. In order to help Lithuanians better understand the aspirations of the Jewish people the Jews published a Lithuanian-language newspaper called Apzvalga (Review). Upon the initiative of Mykolas Birzishka, a Lithuanian pre-war writer and historian, a Lithuanian-Jewish friendship association was founded. A survey of Lithuanian literature was published in Yiddish, while the Lithuanians published collections of Jewish poetry and short stories. But these modest efforts at reconciliation did little to encourage the two nationalities to communicate and interact more successfully, and the tensions continued in Lithuanian-Jewish relations.

Then Hitler invaded Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Klaipeda (Memel), and declared war against Poland. It became increasingly clear that, in the event of a direct confrontation with Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, the three Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were unlikely to remain neutral. They could be swallowed, at any time, by either power. The majority of Lithuania’s Jews felt that, because the Soviet Union was more tolerant towards the Jews and did not pose a direct threat to their existence, it was the lesser of the two evils. In the end, of course, no one asked either the Lithuanians or the Jews what they would prefer and neither had any power to influence the two powerful and aggressive states battling over Eastern Europe.

Occupying Lithuania under the terms of the secret German-Soviet pact, the Red Army marched on Lithuania in June 1940. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyachislav Molotov told the Lithuanian government, because the Soviet army is going in tomorrow anyway.¹¹ In August of that year, Lithuania had become annexed by and integrated into the Soviet Union. During the first months of the Soviet occupation, it appeared to the Jews that the Golden Age they had enjoyed until 1927 had been restored. Between July and September 1940, the Soviet leadership in Lithuania abolished the discriminatory laws that had regulated minority rights. All ethnic groups were now equal when applying to institutions of higher learning. Jews were elected to parliament and could be hired to fill positions in state structures.

However, the Jewish influence during the first year of Soviet rule was more superficial than significant. From 1940 to 1941, excluding refugees from other countries, there were approximately 200,000 Jews living in Lithuania (including those in the Vilnius regions) and still, of the 79 deputies elected to parliament, only four were Jews. In 1940, three Jews were appointed to government posts: Minister of Health Care, Leonid Koganas; Minister of Industry, Chaim Alperavichius; and Minister of Food Industry, Elias Bilevichius.

By 1941, five Lithuanian Jews held high positions in the state security apparatus. Non-locals filled the vast majority of posts in that institution, almost 82%.¹² In the first half of 1940, Lithuania’s Communist Party had consisted of only 1690 members and approximately 1000 Communist Youth members. These former underground movements had not had any political influence nor played any significant role in the life of independent Lithuania. With the establishment of the Soviet regime in Lithuania, however, Communist Party membership began to grow rapidly. By the end of 1940, the party had 2486 members, and by the middle of 1941, there were 4625. At that point, while the proportion of Lithuanians and Russians in the party grew, the percentage of Jewish members began to drop. On January 1, 1941, the ethnic make up of the Lithuanian Communist Party consisted of 67% Lithuanians, 16.6% Jews, and 15.5% Russians, Byelorussians, and Ukrainians.¹³

In the summer of 1940, the 13-member bureau of the Lithuanian Communist Party Central Committee was made up of seven Lithuanians, two Latvian-Lithuanians (Fridis Krastinis and Karolis Didziulis-Grosmanis), and four Jews. Following the Fifth Conference of the Lithuanian Communist Party at the beginning of February 1941, the percentage of Jews in the party apparatus had dropped. Of the 47 members of the new Central Committee, 24 were Lithuanians and five were Jews, while the Central Committee bureau consisted of six Lithuanians, four Russians and one Jew.¹⁴

Policies for Soviet unit groups were based on class, not ethnic principles. Because there was a shortage of such cadres in the Lithuania, many were brought in from other Soviet republics. According to estimates made by Lithuanian historian, Professor Liudas Truska, during the first year of Soviet rule close to 2000 communists were sent to work in Lithuania, approximately 40% of the total membership of the Communist Party of the Lithuanian SSR. By June 1941, as many as 3000 non-local Communist Party personnel were working in Lithuania. ¹⁵

The facts themselves, therefore, confirm the inaccuracy of claims that Jews dominated the state and Communist Party apparatus. Rather, the Central Committee apparatus, state security structures, and other important positions were occupied, not by Jews, but by representatives of other nationalities. Jews did work in Soviet institutions of repression, but so did ethnic Lithuanians, Russians, and Poles. All of them participated in drawing up lists of people slated for arrest and deportation. These lists included individuals of different nationalities and included wealthy and politically prominent Jews. It is clear, therefore, that Jews played only a minor role in the sovietization of Lithuania.

It must also be stressed that during the Soviet period, Lithuanian Jews not only shared their countrymen’s fate in the political and social spheres, but also suffered in the repression that the new regime conducted against its citizens. Like other members of the Lithuanian population, they were arrested, deported, and, finally forced to witness the ruthless destruction of their culture. Tragically, some of Lithuania’s Jews did not grasp the fact, until it was too late, that the Soviet regime’s promise of equality of rights only extended to the equal absence of those rights. Most of the Jewish print media, and educational and cultural institutions, were dissolved under the Soviets. Of the many Jewish newspapers that were being published in 1939, the only ones left by the spring of 1941 were Der Emes (The Truth), one youth weekly, Die Shtralen (Rays of Light), and one monthly literary magazine. All the others were liquidated and their editors arrested and banished from Lithuania. These included Reuvim Rubinstein, leader of the Lithuanian General Zionist Organization and editor of the long-standing Zionist newspaper, Yiddishe Shtime (Jewish Voice); Efraim Grinberg, editor of Dos Vort (The Word); and Jacob Goldberg, head of the Union of Jewish Soldiers. He was one of those who had fought for Lithuanian independence in 1918 and 1919.

The functioning of all of the Hebrew high schools and the centres for Jewish religious teaching and the study of the Talmud was severely restricted, including the world famous Telsiai and Slabodka Yeshivas. All of the Jewish Zionist organizations, from the leftist Bund to the rightist Beitar, were banned. All of the leaders and activist members of these organizations were arrested and deported, and many were shot. Most of the synagogues were closed.

The Jewish Museum of History and Ethnography and the Jewish Scientific Research Institute (YIVO), devoted to the study of current Jewish cultural and national issues, as well as Yiddish language studies, were stripped of their independence At the beginning of 1941, the YIVO was absorbed by the Lithuanian Academy of Science and became the Jewish Cultural Institute, one of the Academy’s research institutes. As a form of compensation for the abolition of all the educational and cultural organizations, Jewish cultural workers were allowed to produce a special Jewish radio program.

On September 16, 1940, the Jewish Community Centre in Vilnius was closed down. All of its employees were dismissed and its buildings and inventory were confiscated. The Jewish community lost the Jewish cemetery. The activities of most Jewish cultural, social assistance, and charity organizations were terminated. In effect, the sovietization process had destroyed the culture and way of life of the Lithuanian Jews.

It can be said that, relative to other ethnic groups, the Jews suffered as much as or even more from the ensuing confiscation and nationalization of private property than any other group in Lithuania. Although there were Jews on the commission responsible for the nationalization process, Jewish property owners enjoyed no advantages. They often experienced even greater discrimination, probably because the Jewish commission members were workers eager to gain revenge on their former employers. They confiscated light equipment, any personal belongings they found on the company’s grounds, prevented the owners from being present during the confiscation procedures, and evicted them from their former work premises.

Wealthy and active politicians from the period of Lithuania’s independence were labeled ‘anti-Soviet and nationalistic elements’. They suffered discrimination and sanctions whether they were Lithuanians, Jews, or members of other ethnic minorities. These people had little chance