Part 3 of 4: The day Lithuanians could no longer murder Jews with impunity

In Part 1, I exposed the formula — Nazis, Soviets, and collaborators — that Lithuania deploys before Jewish audiences to conceal Lithuanian agency in the murder of Jews. In Part 2, I presented what the yiskor books and the Koniuchowsky testimony collection document: the specific Lithuanian murders the formula was designed to hide. This installment addresses the date that brought those murders to an end, and the prosecution Lithuania launched against the Jew who marked it.

May 9, 1945, is the date on which Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender took effect on the Eastern Front. For Jews with Lithuanian roots, the date carries a meaning Lithuania would prefer to suppress: it marked the definitive end of the conditions under which Lithuanians could murder Jews with impunity. As documented in Parts 1 and 2, Lithuanian murder of Jews did not begin with German orders and did not end with the German retreat. After the Nazis left, Lithuanians continued to murder Jews who returned home. The consolidation of Soviet control — whatever its own crimes — imposed a constraint that Lithuanian society had never imposed on itself: it became dangerous for Lithuanians to murder Jews.

Lithuania mourns May 9 because Soviet occupation was confirmed. Jews mark May 9 because the murder of Jews by Lithuanians ended. These are the same historical fact observed from different positions in the killing field.

Jews Have No Love for the Soviet Union

Nothing in this analysis should be misread as affection for the Soviet regime. The Soviet Union was a criminal state. It is reprehensible to deny or minimize Soviet crimes, Nazi crimes, or Lithuanian crimes — I reject all three. The Soviet Union’s own record on Jews is a catalog of persecution. Stalin’s regime liquidated the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1948, executing its chairman Solomon Mikhoels. In 1952, Stalin launched the Doctors’ Plot — a fabricated conspiracy accusing predominantly Jewish physicians of plotting to poison Soviet leaders, designed to justify mass deportation of Soviet Jews to Siberia. Stalin died in March 1953 before the plan was fully executed. Soviet antisemitism was institutional, pervasive, and lethal. Jews who mark May 9 are not celebrating Soviet ideology. They are marking the date on which an external force stopped Lithuanians from murdering the last tattered remnants of Jewish life.

What Fridman Did and What Lithuania Did to Him

On May 9, 2024, Artur Fridman visited Antakalnis Cemetery in Vilnius to honor his grandfather — a Jew who fought against Nazi Germany. He posted a message on Facebook. Lithuania responded with two........

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