Over the past few years I have been fortunate to visit Lithuania a number of times.  Most of my visits have involved offering workshops for Lithuanian educators and mental health professionals under the auspices of a group called The American Professional Partnership for Lithuanian Education (A.P.P.L.E.) . 
     If you want to know a little more about my work with this group, please see the section below entitled About A.P.P.L.E.
     If you'd like to know a little more about Lithuanian history and culture, please see the section below entitled About Lithuania. 
     If you are a traveler, either in fact or in your imagination, allow me to introduce you to two of my favorite places in Lithuania in the sections below entitled On the Road to Druskininkai and On the Road to Nida. 
     If you are interested in history, Judaica, and/or the psychology of war and genocide, I offer some thoughts and historical background in the section below entitled The Lost Culture of Lithuania. 
     As you read, you can click on the links to see associated pictures and photos.  Your comments about this site are most welcome!  Please e-mail torisc@cofc.edu.

    Melancholy Remembrance.  Lithuania is a small country (about the size of West Virginia or Ireland) on the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea, with Latvia to its north, Byelorussia to its east and south, and Poland and part of Russia (Kaliningrad District) to its south and west. During its heyday in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania stretched from the Baltic to the Black seas. Its more recent history consists of a series of occupations and revolts.  Lithuania enjoyed two decades of independence between 1918 and 1940, (although Poland occupied part of the country in 1920),  after which it was invaded by the Soviets, occupied by the Germans, and then occupied by the Soviets again until its independence in 1990.  Of course, this brief historical summary gives no sense of the human suffering underlying these facts.  Many older Lithuanians still recall the fight for freedom against the Poles.  The Giedraiciai  monument to the fallen heroes of one of these battles was so sturdily built that the Soviets could not manage to dismantle it during their occupation.  Recently erected monuments in Kaunas honor the fallen soldiers of these times as well.  Although I saw few World War II memorials, my discussions with many older Lithuanians revealed a deep sense of sadness, shame, and guilt about the fate of most of Lithuania's Jews during the Nazi occupation.  This graffiti swastika and Soviet red star on an old building in Druskininkai still have the ability to evoke powerful feelings.  An older tour guide in Druskininkai related with tears in his eyes how the entire neighborhood of Jews in this city vanished one night, no doubt headed for the concentration camps.  In the ancient town of Merkine, one can visit the museum in the old Russian Orthodox church and see artifacts that span this nation's history,  including the section in the cellar referred to as "The Dump."  Here, the feelings of the people of this community toward the Soviet occupation are clear - in the ripped Soviet flag, barbed wire, and torn photos of Communist party leaders.  A large wart has been added to the portrait of Lenin, and one cannot descend into the moldy cellar room with its heaps of Russian army uniforms without stepping on bas relief images of Lenin on the floor.  Across the street from the museum is the old KGB headquarters, once a synagogue, selected for the gruesome acts of torture that were performed there because its thick walls muffled the screams of the interrogators' victims.  The walls of this building now are covered with photos of mutilated bodies from the KGB's own files.  The wooden sculpture in this picture was carved by a man who, as a young child, was forced to sit on his father's corpse while being interrogated.  The bodies of partisan resistance fighters killed by the KGB during the Stalinist era were thrown into the town dump.  Later, the field was plowed over and used for sporting events.  When the Soviets left in 1990, the remains of these victims were exhumed and buried around the edge of this field, and a monument erected at its center.  Here a grandmother and her grandson visit the graves of two of her sons in this Merkine cemetery.  It has been estimated that Lithuania lost approximately 30% of it's population during the period of Stalin's rule.  Rare is the Lithuanian who did not have family members deported to Siberia.  Most never returned.
       Even Lithuania's achievement of its independence from the U.S.S.R. was not without bloodshed.  A peaceful protest against Soviet influence at the radio tower in Vilnius in 1991 resulted in the death of 14 unarmed protesters, some of them, as in this photo, crushed by Soviet tanks.  The years since independence also have been difficult economically.  Despite the beauty of its old buildings, much of the populace of Vilnius still live in Soviet-style tenements.  The spas of  Druskininkai, a city famous for its mineral springs, are mostly empty now.  Once the communist government paid for its workers to come to this huge concrete resort building, where they would line up by the hundreds for various kinds of massage and hydrotherapy.  Now, few (including Druskininkai's nearby Polish neighbors) can afford such luxuries.  One spa that did seem to have a number of clientele was the Belarus sanitarium, where many young victims of the Chernobyl disaster are cared for. 
       One of my American psychologist colleagues in Druskininkai described Lithuania as a nation in the throes of "post-traumatic stress."  There certainly is reason enough to explain any symptoms of such a diagnosis.  Happily, my other impressions of this land and culture suggest that these people also have some formidable coping skills, as described below. 

    Ecological Artistry.   You will not need to be very long in Lithuania before you realize that , in every means of artistic expression, whether sculpture, architecture, music, dance, painting, crafts, literature, or lifestyle, there is a seamless connection to nature.  So, for example, after collecting your luggage in the Vilnius airport, you will emerge into a large hall filled with old women in babushkas who wait to greet their returning loved ones with bouquets of flowers, each grown in one of the ubiquitous family gardens; and these grandwomen will look as old as the dirt that fills their wrinkled pores.  At the nearby exchange window, you will change your money into litas (each worth about 25 cents and able to buy about as much as a dollar), and you will notice that the figure on the 1 litas bill looks exactly like the kerchiefed old women who fill the space around you with their earthy fragrance.  This figure is Zemaite, a pseudonym based on  the name of the region in which this anonymous 19th century author lived.  She wrote of the life and woes of the Lithuanian peasant woman when to write in her native tongue was against the law.  Suddenly you will realize that great literature is like a grandmother, whose flowers are the life stories she brings to us.  I received many bouquets of flowers while in Lithuania.  In fact, the second time I came here, I was greeted with flowers at the airport by my new friend Ruta, who had attended my seminar the previous year.  At the end of each A.P.P.L.E. seminar, the Lithuanian teachers organize a grand and traditional party, replete with lots of food, champagne, and singing - and of course, bouquets of flowers.  Here I pose with some of my  colleagues from Moletai and the bouquets of home-grown flowers we were given by my seminar participants. 
       To be in Lithuania is to sing, and the tune of choice usually  is one of the 600,000 known folk songs.  Often these are of the ancient polyphonic form called the sutartine, and performances of folk songs usually include native costumes and dancing.  The lyrics speak of life and death, of trees and harvest, of mother sun and father moon.  Accompaniment may be from something as simple as a clay whistle, or a flute fashioned from a twig.   Appreciation of music begins in childhood, and it is not uncommon to find children performing in public with an expertise far beyond their years.  Vilnius, like large cities worldwide,  also has its impromptu street performers, and a meal at a friend's home is likely to conclude with a round of traditional and modern songs.  I must confess that "Welcome to the Hotel California" will never sound quite the same to me after hearing a most heartfelt version sung with a distinctly Lithuanian accent by my friend Girenas!
       Lithuania is a land of sculpture, and don't be surprised if a walk in a park reveals a tree stump with human features or a grand duke who stands as tall as a tree.     Neither should you  be surprised if you see a stone minotaur emerging from the earth.  Europas Parkas, near Moletai, is a sculpture garden where one can ponder "The Woman"  or stand beneath a hovering boulder.  From a store sign in Kaunas, to a theatre marquee in Vilnius, an artistic exuberance emerges.  Some of the most beautiful sculptures are in cemeteries, as in this Druskininkai angel ; many are in parks, like this flying girl or floating man in one of the squares of Druskininkai; often it is just in front of someone's home, as in this wooden brick carrier.  Crosses and other religious statues, once the mainstay of the village, are seeing a resurgence, like this cross in the village of Merkine.  The Forest Echo Museum in Druskininkai works to celebrate nature and preserve the environment and presents many creative uses of forest products, as in this unique cafe on the premises.
       Lithuanian crafts often are based on traditions that are centuries old, from beautiful woven linens and geometric patterned fabrics, as depicted on this loom in the Merkine museum, to the black clay pottery being formed here on the potter's wheel and fired in an outdoor, hole-in-the-ground oven , just as it was centuries ago.  Ubiquitous amber jewelry, formed from the petrified resin of trees that died 50 million years ago, typically  is unpolished.  Simple materials - wood, straw, rock, cloth, clay and paper  - are the raw materials of the craftsman, and natural objects - the sun, moon, stars, and flowers - are the topics of their adornments.  Even this graffiti from Kaunas displays the artistic bent that seems to permeate Lithuanian expression.
       Finally, one can get a sense of the connection between Lithuanian art and nature in the works of one of its most famous painters, the symbolist Ciurlionis.  Two of his most famous works, Serenity and Friendship, like the rest of his paintings,  suggest a quality both natural and supernatural.  And so it is that the creative expressions of this culture again and again illuminate the transcendent quality of the natural world. 

   Ancient Spirituality.   Many of the Americans with whom I worked in Lithuania repeatedly expressed a sense of something special about this place; something not quite capable of expression in words alone; yet something that spoke to our deepest feelings.  It was not merely the surprising religiosity of this former Communist state, although it is a touching testament to the importance of faith to witness its renewal despite a generation of efforts to achieve its demise.  A mostly Catholic country, one can see Lithuanians join their Polish counterparts in marches of penance and pilgrimage, or visit the Gates of Dawn in Vilnius, where the faithful come to pray for miracles or to leave memorials for answered prayers.  And certainly there are churches everywhere; magnificent structures, often centuries old, like the picturesque Catholic church of the Holy Virgin Mary or the Eastern Orthodox church of Druskininkai.  One can marvel at the evocative quality of the interiors of these special places, like that of the Church of St. John's on the University of Vilnius campus, which, during Soviet occupation, housed a science museum; or the Cathedral in Kaunas, where I witnessed a wedding taking place.  How is it that so many sainted visages in alabaster and gilded gold maintained their silent vigil over these sacred grounds?  (Some, like the three saints who once topped the Cathedral in Vilnius, did not survive, but recently have been restored.)  In the Church of St. Raphael, near my residence in Vilnius, where I was attending the Third International Baltic Psychology Conference before my seminar in Moletai,  I dropped in on a Saturday night Mass.  It was peopled with souls young and old, and from foyer to sacristy.  Here I saw a statue of Jesus with what appeared at first to be bloodied feet, until I noticed on another statue nearby that, in fact, what I was seeing were the places where the tender touches, tears, and kisses  of the faithful had worn away the paint and revealed the underlying wood.
       Something more also underlies  the resurgent and resplendent character of Lithuania's religious institutions.  Sometimes, it does so in a most literal way, as in the archeological discoveries of pagan altars beneath the Vilnius Cathedral.  Usually, this pervasive spiritual aspect is more subtle, and it takes many forms.  So, for example, the carefully tied oak leaves that drape the church in Merkine are not merely decorative.  The oak tree, among others, holds special symbolic meaning for Lithuanians.  For some, hugging a certain kind of tree is as reverential an act as kissing the wooden toes of Christ's statue.  In fact, the tree of life , with its function of uniting the Earth (via its roots) with the heavens (via its leaves touching the sky) is a familiar folk motif, dating back to pagan times.  In appears in artifacts both modern and ancient, from papercuts to carvings on  towelracks, and in architecture, as in the gables on the Dainava Center, where I stayed while teaching in Drushkininkai, and some of the "headstones" in a cemetery in Merkine.  It even is symbolized in the structure of the Museum of Ethnocosmology in Utena, part of the Moletai district.  Here one enters beneath the ground level where the earliest artifacts are displayed and ascends through the interior of the building to an observatory that opens to the sky and reveals the pastoral landscape of Moletai below.  And the old gods are still with us, as with Perkunas, the great god of thunder, who is memorialized in this old structure in Kaunas, where his statue was reputed to have been uncovered in the walls during some renovations decades ago. 
       But even more than the remnants of ancient symbols and beliefs; there is something about this place.  Perhaps it is easiest to experience in cemeteries where headstones seem to grow among the trees, and where, like the tree of life, death seems to emerge from its place in the earth and reach out to embrace the sky.  Perhaps it is in the angle of the Northern sun, which sometimes causes one to draw a reverential breath as it captures one's vision with its selective illumination.  Perhaps it is in the undisturbed beauty of its lakes and landscapes, as in the evening view of Lake Bebrusai, or in its spectacular sunsets, as in this one in Moletai.  Whatever it is, it draws one back.  I can recommend this place to any traveler; a place where one can experience a people who know how best to make peace with their history, to live their artistry, and to surround themselves with what is both most simple and most sublime.  With luck, I shall return to this homeland of my ancestors, and these impressions will represent a beginning rather than The End.

     The victims. Despite this recent tragic chapter of the Jewish presence in Lithuania, its history is a long and rich one.  The first Jewish families sought asylum there as early as the 12th Century, (1a, p.339) making them one of the oldest ethnic communities in the country. (1b, p.24) Many more Jews were attracted by the welcome and guarantee of safety extended by Grand Duke Gediminas in 1323. Another Lithuanian Grand Duke, Vytautas the Great, elevated the Jews who had come to Lithuania to the status of the gentry, thus declaring them free people. (4, p.17)  For a while they were the world's largest Jewish community and the period from 1580 – 1648, during the Lithuanian-Polish union, has been referred to as the Golden Age of Lithuanian Jewry.  But again, fate took a turn.  During the cossack uprising against Polish landlords in 1648, between 100,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed in an area that included present-day Lithuania.  Despite this, Lithuania continued to grow as an important Jewish religious and intellectual area, represented by the famous rabbi and Talmudic scholar from Vilnius, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, (1720-1797), the great Gaon of Vilnius.  In 1755, 750,000 of Europe's 1.25 million Jews lived in Poland-Lithuania.  During the 19th Century, Lithuania was ruled by the Russian Czars, and their approach to the Jewish community varied from liberal acceptance to repression, depending upon who was in power.  Nonetheless, a Jewish world, known widely as Litvakia and based on religious traditions and the Yiddish language, thrived. After World War I the three Baltic Republics  (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) regained their independence, although Vilnius, the traditional Lithuanian capital, was occupied by Poland and eventually annexed to it. Kaunas became the provisional capital. Vilnius was quite impoverished and life was difficult, yet this time and place contributed an amazingly vibrant Jewish life, including the outstanding Jewish Institute of Research (YIVO), the Teachers' College, and the Strashun Library.  It was at this time that Vilnius became widely known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania.  The cultural life of the Jewish community of Kaunas was more provincial, but also more comfortable. Jews from the Kaunas area controlled a significant proportion of Lithuania's commerce and industry.  Famous Litvaks who began their professional careers in Lithuania about this time include the mathematician H. Minkovski, the world-famous violinist and musician J. Heifetz, the creator of the Esperanto language L. Zamenof,  the father of modern Hebrew E. ben Yehuda, the sculptors M. Antokolski and Z. Lipshitz, the artist I. Levitan, and the creator of the modern Hebrew novel A. Mapu. (1a, p.340-350); (4, p.13). 
     The fate of Lithuanian Jews during World War II can be understood only in the context of the invasion of Lithuania by the Soviet Red Army following the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact of June, 1940.  The Lithuanians had a traditional hatred of the Russians dating back to Czarist oppression and the Bolsheviks' abortive attempt to make Lithuania a Soviet state in 1918.  (1c, p.273)  While the bulk of the Lithuanian populace was dismayed by the Red Army invasion in 1940, the Jewish population welcomed them. For this, the Lithuanian anti-Soviet underground movement (the Lithuanian Activist Front) saw the Jews as traitors. (1d, p.211) In one of their political pamphlets (from March 19, 1941), they made their anti-semitic position clear: "Lithuania must be liberated not only from the Asiatic Bolshevik slavery but also from the Jewish yoke of long standing . . . The old rights of sanctuary granted to the Jews in Lithuania by Vytautas the Great are abolished forever. . . " (1e, p.391)  While it is true that many Jews embraced communism (1a, p.350), for most the choice was simply between Soviet domination and the obvious Nazi danger.  Meanwhile, in the face of massive deportations (30,000 - 45,000) of Lithuanian citizens (including 5,000 – 6,000 Jews) to Siberia, many non-Jewish Lithuanians nourished the hope that Germany would free them from the USSR.  (1f, p.390;  5, p.11)  So it was that Jewish and non-Jewish Lithuanians found themselves adopting diametrically opposed political positions.  And just as the Jews had greeted the Soviet invaders in 1940, the non-Jewish Lithuanian populace took to the streets and greeted the Nazi invaders in 1941.  I spoke to one older Lithuanian woman, an American émigré of many years, who was among those handing out roses to the Nazi soldiers as they marched into Vilnius.  She was just a young girl at the time, but recalls the sheer joy of her friends and family that the Soviets were being driven from the country.  She confessed that she gave little thought to the Jews; after all, the Soviets had treated Jews just as badly as they had treated everyone else – how could the Germans be any worse?  For her at least, and perhaps for some other Lithuanians who welcomed the Nazis to their country, there was the bliss of ignorance.  But if they were blind to the Nazi's intentions toward the Jews, they could not remain so for long.  Meanwhile, some Jews left with the retreating Red Army. (1a, p.351) Others joined the Sixteenth Lithuanian National Infantry Division, part of the Red Army created by the Soviets to wage armed combat to regain the Soviet Lithuanian Republic. (1c, p.273)  Jews made up to one third of the servicemen in the ranks of this division and formed the majority among the regulars. (1g, p.323) Other Jews resisted the Nazis from within the ghettos, such as the United Partisan Organization (FPO in the Yiddish abbreviation) that helped Soviet POW's and carried out acts of sabotage against the Germans. (1h, p.311).  Despite these efforts, as has been detailed above, within half a year of the beginning of the Nazi occupation, most the Jewish inhabitants of Lithuania – close to a quarter of a million people - were annihilated.  About 35,000 were kept alive a little longer in the ghettos of Vilnius, Kaunas and Siauliai for slave labor. (4, p.13)  In the blink of an eye, a centuries old culture, a community, a people, had vanished.  How this terrible deed was accomplished is briefly described below. 

     The perpetrators.   Although historians debate the exact numbers of Lithuanians involved in the killing of Jews, there is no doubt that the role of those who were involved was considerable. As mentioned above, some sources estimate that Lithuanian collaborators with the Nazis were responsible for at least half of the deaths that occurred.  In fact, in at least forty different communities Jews were physically attacked even before the arrival of Nazi troops. (1e, p.392) The brutality of some of these people has been documented.  They broke down walls and doors with axes and spades to find their victims. (1d, p.213) In some cases they mocked, chased, and disrobed them before killing them.  Some eyewitnesses told of people clapping and singing anthems at beatings and executions. (1, p.506-507)  The Special Executionary Squad (Sonderkommando) of 108 servicemen was predominantly formed by ethnic Lithuanians.  Its victims (including Jews and Communists) numbered in the tens of thousands.  By November 25, 1941, almost 19,000 Jews were killed by the squad (and by members of the Nazi Einsatzkommando 9) near Paneriai, just outside of Vilnius.  Here victims were marched through the woods or brought by train, "registered," stripped naked, blindfolded, and marched to the edge of large circular fuel storage pits where they were shot at the rate of 100 per hour; efficiently falling into their own mass graves.  Later, to hide the evidence of their atrocities, Nazis forced other Jews to exhume and burn the bodies in other large pits.  Those responsible for burning the bodies were kept in this 8-meter deep pit to prevent their escape when they were not working.  Eventually, 70,000 Jews would be murdered and their bodies burned at Paneriai. (4, p.39-47)
     Many Jews, especially those in the ghettos, fell victim to organized mass murders by units of police battalions. (1e, p.394)  The Germans, following the principle of "divide and rule," tended to send these battalions to fight in other countries.  So, for example, the Vilnius ghetto was liquidated by Latvian and Estonian battalions.  The Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions were formed of approximately 6,000 Lithuanian soldiers who became part of the Soviet Army during the 1940 occupation by the U.S.S.R.  As war captives, the Nazis gave them two choices: either join the police battalions or starve to death in the prisoner of war camps.  Most chose to join the police battalions, although about 3,500 of them eventually escaped their conscription.  In addition, there were about 2,500 volunteers.  Of the 8,300 men who comprised the Lithuanian police, 21 battalions were formed, of which 17 went to the Eastern front and 4 were reserved for executions of Jews and Communists, either in Lithuania, Poland, or Byelorussia. (1, p.510-511). 
     Notorious among the Lithuanian killing fields is the 9th Fort of Kaunas (Kovno), a fortification build by the Tsarist government in 1909, where Nazis murdered about 60,000 people, mostly Jews from the Kaunas ghetto and countries of Western Europe. (1, p.451)  An interesting report from the SS leader concerning Nazi activities in Kaunas is quoted in an exhibit in the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum and reproduced here.  It implicates the involvement of the partisan leader and Lithuanian journalist Klimaitis in the Kovno pograms.  It also suggests, with some twisted logic, that this "inferior race" of Jews consisted, nonetheless, of "craftsmen . . .  indispensible at present for the repair of essential installations . . . and for work of military importance."  (The building in Vilnius that housed the Jewish technicians needed to repair Nazi motorcycles is still in use today.  A plaque memorializes these victims, whose usefulness kept them alive longer than the others, and a monument erected after Lithuanian independence marks the place of their burial.)  Also notable in the Einsatzgruppe report quoted here is the suggestion, at least from this Nazi commander's perspective, that Lithuanian cooperation with the annihilation of the Jews was not always easy to achieve. (2) So what do we know of the Lithuanians who witnessed, but were not involved in, the murder of Jews?

     The bystanders.   After visiting Lithuania several times, and spending the equivalent of several months there, there is only one time I can recall seeing someone become angry.  One of my older students was telling a story of the war, and she was still angry, almost six decades later – at her mother!  It seems that the Nazis had roughed up their elderly Jewish housekeeper, and her mother, having learned of this, marched down to the Nazi garrison to complain.  Luckily for her, her mother was sent away with a just a warning – if you interfere, you will share the Jews' fate – and so will all of your family members.  "How could she have been so stupid as to risk all of our lives like that?" my student fumed.  The threat given to her mother was not an idle one.  We know of many Lithuanians killed because they tried to help their Jewish neighbors.   There are probably many more of whom we will never know because they, their families, and the Jews they tried to rescue - did not survive to tell their tale. (1a, p.352; 5, p.15, 24) 
     Needless to say, it is important to Lithuanians alive today, as well as to Jews everywhere, to know that some people did care and did try, even at the risk of their own and their family members' lives, to rescue Jews from the Holocaust.  Many cases have been documented, and some of these names are well-known in Lithuania today – Ona Šimaitè , Bronius Gotautas, Juozas Stakauskas, Juozas Rutkauskas, Domas Jasaitis, and Sofija Jasaitienè, to name a few.  (5, p.15)  Yad Vashem, the Holocaust  Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, was established by the Israeli Knesset in 1953 to, among other things, recognize those who tried to rescue Jews during the war by conferring on them the title of Righteous Gentile.  (5, p.211) By the beginning of 2002, this title had been conferred upon 504 Lithuanians. (5, p.34)  The Rescuers' Section at the Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum has, during the ten years of its existence, documented a list of the names of more than 3,000 people who rescued Jews in Lithuania, as well as the names and numbers of Jews they rescued. (5, p.37) Still, one may ask, why are these numbers not greater?  Perhaps they were.  It already has been noted that not all altruists, or the people they attempted to rescue, survived to become part of the historical record.  Another possibility is that the secrecy and censorship of the Soviet government, which again took over Lithuania after the war, kept such information from the historical record.  Individuals would never be included in a list of rescuers at that time if they did not hold communist views, or if they had fled to the West, or if, because of their nationalistic stance, they had been sent to Siberia, or if they were priests.  At least 185 priests, now confirmed as rescuers, were never listed as rescuers by the Soviets. (5, p.25)  Moreover, in this totalitarian state, all people - victims, perpetrators, and bystanders - lost their national identity.  Jews murdered for being Jews became "Soviet citizens." (1e, p.396)  Monuments erected at mass graves indicated only that "Soviet people" or "citizens" were buried there. (4, p.15) So, for example, the memorial at Paneriai erected during the Soviet years has the inscription (in Russian and Lithuanian): "Here in the Paneriai forest between July, 1941 and July, 1944, the Nazis shot over 100,000 Soviet people."  Only in 1990, with the beginning of the Lithuanian Revival Movement, was a new text added in Lithuanian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian.  It reads: "Among those to be ruthlessly murdered in the Paneriai forest were 70,000 Jewish men, women, and children." (4, p.41) 
     It is possible that some rescuers are humble and do not desire recognition for their acts; some, especially those living in foreign countries, may never have been asked about their role during the Holocaust. (5, p.25) As time passes and these rescuers pass on, the chances increase that their stories will be lost forever.  It is unfortunate then, that some historians indict whole nations and their peoples because the ratio of Righteous Gentiles to the general populace is so small.  As a Jewish Lithuanian man in Vilnius told me, one man with a machine gun could kill many hundreds or even thousands of Jews, but it took the kindness and bravery of dozens, maybe hundreds of people to save even one Jew. 
     So what is it that we're counting, anyway?  Is someone who beat a Jew while waiting for the Nazi soldier to shoot him any less a murderer? (1, p.507)  Is someone who risked his life by giving bread to a Jew any less righteous than someone who hid a Jew for years?  And how do we count you if you turn your back on your neighbor's child in order to save your own?
     Lithuanians perhaps can find some solace about this period of their history in the official acts of their government before the war and since their independence from Soviet rule in 1991.  For example, it is estimated that during the period of Lithuanian and Soviet rule in 1940 and 1941, the government issued 6,500 transit visas enabling Jews from Lithuania and nearby countries to flee the area.  We know that, in 1938, when Nazi Germany started openly persecuting Jews, the Lithuanian government issued several formal protests.  (5, p.10) One of the first declarations issued by the Seimas (governing body of Lithuania) on May 8, 1990, was a condemnation of "the annihilation of the Jewish people during the years of the Nazi occupation in Lithuania." (1e, p.397)  Each of the known Jewish massacre/mass grave sites (about 200) has a memorial and a government promise that these places will be preserved and tended.  (4, p.15)  Other towns have memorials to their lost Jewish communities, such as this monument in Druskininkai, whose population of 800 Jews were deported to the Treblinka death camp in 1942. (6, p.335)  The Jewish State Museum soon will be moving to a new, larger building to accommodate their growing files and exhibits.  Of course, none of this can replace what had been lost, but it can help us to remember.
     Today there are about 5,500 Jews and only a handful of synagogues in Lithuania.   No one can say what the future will hold for these Litvaks.

     Epilogue.   On my most recent visit to Lithuania, I was having dinner at the home of two friends, a mother and daughter.  I had the good fortune to meet the (grand)mother of my friends and her sister, their (great)aunt.  After dinner, at my request, the grandmother, who was in her late 70's, told us some stories of what it was like to grow up in Lithuania during this terrible period of its history.  She told us how her brother had been shot in the back of his head by a Polish soldier during the occupation of that army; how the Red Army would pass through the countryside, stopping anywhere and taking anything they wanted; how another brother, just a little boy, had almost been shot by a soldier who was vexed by the boy's interest in his gun as he cleaned it; how a Russian soldier had been shot in their yard by his superior officer because he stole the pancakes that the officer had ordered her mother to make for him; and how, during the Nazi occupation, her father and brother had been stunned while fishing on the river when an escaping Jewish man popped his head up from the water and begged them for their boat.  They gave it to him, she said, but then worried for the rest of the war that someone would find him, find their boat, ask about their missing boat, turn them in, shoot them - all of them - for helping the Jewish man to escape.  Sitting there, listening to these childhood tales told by this gentle and serene dear lady, I couldn't help but ask her, "How is it, after witnessing all of this inhumanity, after growing up with all this fear, you have become such a sweet and kindly person?"  She did not hesitate in her answer.  "Others had it much worse than me!  I once worked with a man – others told me about this, he never did – who, as a young Jewish boy, was forced by the Nazis to remove the clothes from the bodies of children who had been shot.  Yes, others had it far worse then me."  And of all the sad stories she told that night, this one was the only one that brought tears to her eyes.

(1) Lithuanian State Jewish Museum, (2001),  Atminties Dienos – The Days of Memory. International Conference In Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto. October 11-16, 1993.   Baltos Lankos, Vilnius, Lithuania.
(a) Plasseraud, Yves. Jews and Gentiles in Lithuanian History: An Outsider's View.
(b) Zingeris, Markas. Unlocking the Gates of the Ghetto.
(c) Levin, Don. Some Facts and Problems About the Fighting of Lithuanian Jews Against the Nazis and Their Collaborators.
(d) Cohen, Nathan. The Attitude of Lithuanians Towards Jews During the Holocaust as Reflected in Diaries.
(e) Zuroff, E. The Memory of Murder and the Murder of Memory.
(f) Jakubcionis, A. Lithuanian Attitudes Towards Jews, the Vilnius Ghetto, Its Inmates, and Their Fate.
(g) Zizas, R. Armed Struggle of the Vilnius Ghetto Jews Against the Nazis in 1941-1944.
(h) Margolis, R. The Underground Antifacist Organization FPO in the Vilnius Ghetto.
(i) Faitelson, A. Place of Murder – 9th Fort.

(2) The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum of Lithuania. Exhibit, August, 2002.

(3) Hilberg, Raul, (1992). Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945.  Aaron Asher books, New York, NY.

(4) Levinson, Yosif, (1997). Skausmo Knyga – The Book of Sorrow. VAGA Publishers, Vilnius, Lithuania.

(5) Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, (2002), Whoever Saves One Life . . .The Efforts to Save Jews in Lithuania Between 1941 and 1944. Garnelis, Vilnius, Lithuania.

(6) Spector, S. (Editor). (2001). The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust. (Vol I. ) New York University Press, Washington Square, NY.