Jan 28, 2021
The Mayor and the Nazis
Silvia Foti’s grandfather, Jonas Noreika, was considered a hero in Lithuania as the “mastermind of a 1945–46 revolt against the Soviet Union” for which he was executed. Foti’s mother was on her death bed when she asked her daughter to write a biography of her grandfather. Silvia agreed and it changed her life.
She went through her grandfather’s papers and discovered the truth:
“I learned that the man I had believed was a savior who did all he could to rescue Jews during World War II had, in reality, ordered all Jews in his region of Lithuania to be rounded up and sent to a ghetto where they were beaten, starved, tortured, raped and then murdered. More than 95 percent of Lithuania’s Jews died during World War II, many of them killed with the eager collaboration of their neighbors.”
Under the communist dictatorship of the Soviets the plight of Jews under Hitler largely vanished. “Lithuanians were only allowed to talk about how many Soviet citizens were killed during World War II. References to Jewish victims were scrubbed away by the occupiers. I would like to think that if Lithuania had been a free and independent nation after World War II, it might have acknowledged its own role in the Holocaust.”
She went through her grandfather’s papers and discovered the truth:
“I learned that the man I had believed was a savior who did all he could to rescue Jews during World War II had, in reality, ordered all Jews in his region of Lithuania to be rounded up and sent to a ghetto where they were beaten, starved, tortured, raped and then murdered. More than 95 percent of Lithuania’s Jews died during World War II, many of them killed with the eager collaboration of their neighbors.”
Under the communist dictatorship of the Soviets the plight of Jews under Hitler largely vanished. Foti said, “Lithuanians were only allowed to talk about how many Soviet citizens were killed during World War II. References to Jewish victims were scrubbed away by the occupiers. I would like to think that if Lithuania had been a free and independent nation after World War II, it might have acknowledged its own role in the Holocaust.”
I lived in Europe for a few years, both in rural Germany and Berlin, as well on the British coast. I attended and/or helped organize multiple libertarian conferences. One of the attendees and speakers in 2007 was a young Remigijus Šimašius of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute.
Only a few years later, in 2015, Šimašius was elected Mayor of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, a position he still holds.
When the matter of the Nazi collaborators first arose Šimašius said it was important to make an informed decision about the facts. “When it is clear what a good decision is, then it needs to be done quickly. In this case, at least our state institutions should perform a full investigation.”
An investigation was done and supported the unhappy truth about Lithuania’s past. The city council voted 21–16 to acknowledge the unhappy history with the Mayor’s support. During the debate Šimašius made the point that Noreika “assumed the responsibility from the Nazi occupation authorities to isolate the Jews in the ghetto and deprive them of their property.” The Lithuania Tribune attacked the Mayor for this, saying it was unlikely he was deliberately lying, “he simply doesn’t know the history.”
Contrary to the Lithuania Tribune what Šimašius was saying was confirmed by Foti. She discovered “a document her grandfather signed on August 20, 1941 that orders the Jews of the Šiauliai Region be sent to a ghetto, and confiscates their property. The thousands of Jews living in that ghetto were shot and killed at the market square and buried in a mass grave less than two months later.”
As Mayor Šimašius ordered the removal of plagues that had been erected years before in honor of Noreika and Kazys Skirpa. He said of these men, “It’s clear that their participation in the Holocaust was not an accident. It’s not about plaques or street names, but about principles.” The Jerusalem Post reported that removing the names of Nazis, reflected “the mayor’s growing willingness to anger nationalists amid tenacious action by Jewish groups and individuals pressuring Lithuanian politicians over the glorification of alleged perpetrators of the murder of more than 90 percent of the country’s Jewish population during the Holocaust.”
The American Jewish Committee hosted Šimašius at a reception in Washington to honor him for his action as Mayor in regards to these two Nazi collaborators. They said:
“Earlier this summer, Šimašius oversaw two important decisions regarding Holocaust memory in Lithuania. The first was changing the name of a street honoring Kazys Skirpa, founder of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) resistance organization, and the second was removing a plaque honoring Jonas Noreika, an anti-Soviet fighter who was responsible for the imprisonment of Šiauliai Jews and seizure of their property during the Holocaust.
Those decisions sparked an intense backlash against the mayor and Lithuania’s International Historical Commission, whose authoritative reports served as the basis for the mayor’s actions. Right-wing, populist Lithuanian groups protested, mainstream politicians were largely silent, and even recently elected President Gitanas Nausėda avoided the controversy by calling for “a moratorium on erasing historic memory.”
Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy said to Šimašius “There aren’t many people around the world standing for truth, standing on principle. the fact that you’re raising this standard has enormous significance.”
Šimašius was taught the myths of these men but he did something every libertarian should be willing to do, consider the facts and change conclusions as necessary. He wrote: “People that collaborated with totalitarian regimes or have shown contempt for their fellow citizens should not be celebrated as heroes here. This is why I decided to take down the memorial signs for both Škirpa and Noreika, who despite their efforts to fight the enemies of Lithuania, acted unjustifiably by collaborating with Nazi officials.”
It is often said that the enemy of my enemies is my friend. That is simply not true much of the time. That the Nazis were anti-Communists didn’t make them heroes anymore than the the fact that Communists were anti-Nazis made them heroes. Both were vicious criminals guilty of genocide. The libertarian message is not merely one of being opposed to one regime or the other, it is support for the rights of the individual against any and all regimes, whether Right or Left, that violate those rights.
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