http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/3741410725/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/3742204528/
Back in the U.S. now. Feels great to be home. The trip to Israel was great. I managed to find two survivors from Kupiskis who I interviewed. The stories are powerful.
These photos are from Masada. That's Israeli filmmaker Yaniv Berman and his little brother on the trail.
last morning in Iraq http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/4977748771/
Iraq is behind me for good. I flew out to Jordan then traveled by taxi to the Israeli border and then caught a ride down to Tel Aviv. It feels wonderful to know it's behind me. I'm staying in Israel for two weeks relaxing but also to interview anyone I can find from the Litvak community. In 2005 I started shooting a doc in Lithuania about the Jewish holocaust there. Like Bush League, I want to do a village level survey of what happened. I'm trying to find survivors from Kupiskis (where I worked as a Peace Corps volunteer) here in Israel. I got some numbers and contacts, we'll see what happens. Bush League is my real focus right now but I couldn't pass up the chance since I was so close to Israel.
(The following is a string of posts from the old cysfilm blog. Some of the dates have been lost so I compiled all into one post. It's messy but interesting sutff.) Lithuanian Jewry, Entry #3, June 11, 07
May 29, 07 I wrote:
Thanks for the information Ann, its enlightening. Can you tell me more about the documents you're sourcing? I'd also like to learn more about the Kupiskis police officer/triggerman that was turned up in Chicago. I believe you followed that case? Best, Cy
June 2, 07 Ann Rabinowitz replied:
Dear Cy:
I believe that you are referring to the following person in Kupiskis: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2002/January/02crm012.htm
Ann Rabinowitz
(The link Ann sent is to the following Dept of Justice document concerning Petras Bernotavius who participated in the murder of the Kupiskis Jews. To read the document click 'continue reading' below)
Department of Justice Seal Department of Justice FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2002 WWW.USDOJ.GOV CRM
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MOVES TO REVOKE U.S. CITIZENSHIP OF FORMER DEPUTY TO NAZI OFFICIAL RESPONSIBLE FOR MASS KILLINGS
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Justice today initiated proceedings to revoke the U.S. citizenship of a Lockport, Illinois man based on his participation in the persecution and murder of Jews and other civilians during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania in 1941.
The complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court in Chicago by the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, alleges that Peter John Bernes (a/k/a Petras Bernotavi ius), 79, worked during the summer of 1941 as the deputy to Werner Loew, a Nazi-appointed mayor and police commander assigned to Kupiškis, Lithuania.
The complaint alleges that Bernes participated directly in the process of removing condemned prisoners from jail so they could be taken to nearby killing sites. During those months, more than 1,000 Jewish men, women, and children – approximately one-fourth of the town's population – were murdered in Kupiškis by armed men under Loew's command. More than 300 other local residents, among them a nine-year-old boy, were arrested and murdered as political prisoners. Bernes worked in an office near the overcrowded jail where victims were held without adequate food and beaten before being shot to death.
Michael Chertoff, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, said, "The case against Bernes demonstrates the Justice Department's commitment to ensure that individuals who participated in genocide and other crimes against humanity find no refuge in the United States, regardless of when those atrocities occurred."
OSI Director Eli M.. Rosenbaum added, "Although more than 1,000 Jews were living in Kupiškis when the Nazis arrived, not a single man, woman or child survived their murderous spree." During the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, some 190,000 Jews, approximately 94% of the Jewish population, were killed by the Nazis and local collaborators.
Bernes immigrated from Germany in 1947 and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in Chicago in 1954. The complaint states that he was not eligible to immigrate to the United States under visa regulations that barred the entry of any person who had "acquiesced in activities or conduct contrary to civilization and human decency" on behalf of the wartime Axis powers.
The proceedings to denaturalize Bernes are a result of OSI's ongoing efforts to identify and take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution residing in this country. Since OSI began operations in 1979, 66 Nazi persecutors have been stripped of U.S. citizenship, and 54 such individuals have been removed from the United States.
Additionally, more than 150 suspected Nazi persecutors have been stopped at U.S. ports of entry and barred from entering the country as a result of OSI's watchlist border control program. OSI has nearly 200 U.S. residents currently under active investigation.
L i t h u a n i a n J e w r y , E n t r y # 4 , J u n e 1 1 , 0 7
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O n J u n e 1 1 , 0 7 G e r a l d P e a r l m a n w r o t e :
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E v e n b e f o r e I c a m e h e r e t o L i t h u a n i a I w o n d e r e d a b o u t m y r e a c t i o n t o a c o u n t r y w h i c h h a d c o l l a b o r a t e d w i t h H i t l e r ‚ ¨!" s G e r m a n y t o k i l l o f f a l m o s t i t s e n t i r e J e w i s h p o p u l a t i o n . T h o u g h I h a v e l i v e d i n C a l i f o r n i a m o r e t h a n h a l f m y l i f e w h e r e t h e r e i s n o w h e r e n e a r t h e e t h n i c i d e n t i t y p o c k e t s t h a t a r e p a r t a n d p a r c e l o f e a s t c o a s t l i f e , I s t i l l w o n d e r e d . O n c e h e r e I n o l o n g e r w o n d e r e d . I t h o u g h t l o n g a n d h a r d a b o u t w h a t I f o u n d h e r e a n d I d i s c o v e r e d i n m y s e l f a J e w i s h i d e n t i t y s u b m e r g e d i n t h e a s p i r a t i o n t o f r e e d o m t h a t C a l i f o r n i a s o l o n g r e p r e s e n t e d .
I t b e g a n i n t h e G e n o c i d e M e m o r i a l P a r k o u t s i d e t h e c i t y o f A l y t u s , w h e r e t h e m a j e s t y o f t h e m o n u m e n t s , e s p e c i a l l y t h e B r o k e n S t a r o f D a v i d , s e t i n t h e s o m b e r b e a u t y o f t h e f o r e s t m o v e d m e t o t e a r s . H a n n a h A r e n d t w r i t e s c o n v i n c i n g l y a b o u t t h e p h e n o m e n o n w h i c h s h e d e s i g n a t e s ‚ ¨ S t h e b a n a l i t y o f e v i l ‚ ¨ ù . T h e e v e r y d a y a c c e p t a n c e o f t h e m o n s t r o u s a c t s t h a t c h a r a c t e r i z e s o m u c h o f h u m a n h i s t o r y d o e s s e e m l i k e a n i n e s c a p a b l e t r u t h . G r e a t m a s s e s o f i n n o c e n t h u m a n i t y h a v e b e e n e l i m i n a t e d t h r o u g h o u t r e c o r d e d h i s t o r y f o r n o f a u l t o f t h e i r o w n s a v e b e i n g i n t h e w r o n g p l a c e a t t h e w r o n g t i m e .
A n d t h e r e i s s o m u c h o f t h i s u n w a r r a n t e d d e s t r u c t i o n o f t h e i n n o c e n t , i t l e n d s i t s e l f e a s i l y t o b e i n g c o n s i d e r e d ‚ ¨ S b a n a l ‚ ¨ ù . E s p e c i a l l y w h e n r e g a r d e d f r o m t h e p e r s p e c t i v e o f h i s t o r y w h i c h h a p p e n e d l o n g a g o o r g e o g r a p h y w h i c h r e m o v e s i t a g r e a t d i s t a n c e f r o m w h e r e y o u h a p p e n t o b e . I , h o w e v e r , w a s s t a n d i n g r i g h t o n t o p o f t h e g r a v e s o f a t l e a s t 1 0 , 0 0 0 i n n o c e n t s o u l s s l a u g h t e r e d o n l y b e c a u s e t h e y w e r e b o r n a s J e w s . T h e e v i l w a s n o l o n g e r b a n a l b u t q u i t e p a l p a b l e a s t h e e n o r m i t y o f t h i s c r i m i n a l a c t s u n k d e e p e r w i t h i n m e .
I n o w b e g a n t o c o n s i d e r w h a t h a p p e n e d h e r e i n L i t h u a n i a i n e a r n e s t i n a w a y I n e v e r c o u l d i n A m e r i c a . I r e m e m b e r e d i n s t a n c e s o f a n t i ‚ ¨ s e m i t i s m f r o m m y y o u t h b u t i t w a s a h a l f c e n t u r y a g o . A l t h o u g h i t i s c l e a r t h a t s o m e d e r a n g e d g r o u p s s t i l l e s p o u s e h a r d c o r e a n t i - s e m i t i s m , i t i s a n c i e n t h i s t o r y f o r m o d e r n A m e r i c a . B e s i d e s q u o t a s i n s c h o o l s a n d l a c k o f a d m i s s i o n t o t h e l o c a l c o u n t r y c l u b c o m e s n o w h e r e n e a r t h e m u r d e r o f h u n d r e d s o f t h o u s a n d s o f i n n o c e n t p e o p l e .
A n d i t w a s d e f i n i t e l y m u r d e r i n m y m i n d . I n o l o n g e r h a v e a n y u s e f o r t h e t e r m ‚ ¨ S a n t i - s e m i t i s m ‚ ¨ ù b e c a u s e i t s e e m s t o r a i s e w h a t w a s e s s e n t i a l l y a c t s o f m u r d e r a n d t h e f t t o s o m e t h i n g m o r e i d e o l o g i c a l . A d o c t r i n e p e r h a p s , a l b e i t m i s g u i d e d , b u t s o m e t h i n g l a r g e g r o u p s o f p e o p l e c a n e n t e r t a i n a s b e l i e v a b l e . T h e r e i s b o t h c o m f o r t a n d l a c k o f r e s p o n s i b i l i t y i n l a r g e n u m b e r s . I f a s i n g l e i n d i v i d u a l c o m m i t s m u r d e r a n d s t e a l s a n d i s a p p r e h e n d e d , c h a n c e s a r e t h e y w i l l b e p u n i s h e d ( m o r e s o i f t h e y a r e p o o r a n d f r o m t h e l o w e r c l a s s e s ) . B u t l e t m a s s e s o f p e o p l e b e h i n d a s t a t e p o l i c y c o m m i t m u r d e r ; l e t t h e m s t e a l w h a t i s n o t r i g h t f u l l y t h e i r s , a n d i t i s m o r e l i k e l y t h e y w i l l e s c a p e p u n i s h m e n t . A n t i - s e m i t i s m w i l l n o t e x c u s e t h e i r a c t i o n e n t i r e l y , b u t i t w i l l s o m e h o w r a i s e t h e i r a c t i o n a b o v e t h e g r o s s a c t s o f m u r d e r a n d t h e f t t h a t i n t r u t h t h e y w e r e .
T h e f a c t s a r e t h a t t h e J e w s o w n e d a g r e a t d e a l o f p r e w a r L i t h u a n i a d e s p i t e a h i s t o r y o f a n t i - S e m i t i s m t h a t g o e s a s f a r b a c k a s L i t h u a n i a n h i s t o r y i t s e l f . T h e y c o n s t i t u t e d t h e m a j o r i t y o f t h e p o p u l a t i o n i n a l l o f t h e m a j o r c i t i e s , r a n m o s t o f t h e b u s i n e s s e s a n d o p e r a t e d m o s t o f t h e f a c t o r i e s . E t h n i c L i t h u a n i a n s l i v e d b y c o n t r a s t m a i n l y i n r u r a l v i l l a g e s a n d w e r e e n g a g e d b y a n d l a r g e i n a g r i c u l t u r e . T h e J e w s d i d n o t s t e a l t h e i r w a y i n t o p r o m i n e n c e , t h e y e a r n e d t h e i r p o s i t i o n o f w e a l t h . A n d i t w o u l d b e a g r o s s m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g t o b e l i e v e t h a t a l l J e w s w e r e e q u a l l y s u c c e s s f u l .
S o t h e r e y o u h a v e i t . I f t h e r e w a s a n y m o r e t o t h i s p i e c e , I c a n ' t f i n d i t . " n e v e r a g a i n " t u r n s o u t t o b e " h e r e w e g o a g a i n " a s g e n o c i d e c o n t i n u e s t o w a x m i g h t i l y i n a l l p a r t s o f t h e w o r l d a n d u n d e r d i f f e r e n t n a m e s .
T r i e d t o a c c e s s t h e v i d e o y o u d i d o n M a l a w i b u t c o u l d n ' t q u i t e m a n a g e t h e p r o c e s s .
B e s t
G e r a l d P e a r l m a n
On May 1, 2007 Sally Mizroch wrote:
Hi Cy, Long time no e-mail. I've been doing some databasing of some translated Lithuanian vital records, but I still haven't had a chance to write up details of my trip last August. I have a "deadline" looming, somewhat, because my brother will be visiting Lithuania next month and I want to give him some background to our family's ancestral places.
I have some questions for you, though. I've been e-mailing with an Israeli cousin (our grandmothers were cousins from Kedainiai). She is also researching family history.
I'm trying wrap my head around the events of 1941 (as best as I can, it's impossible, really). My cousin thinks that the Germans had many Lithuanian collaborators, more than in other countries. She thinks this is why such a large percentage of Lithuanian Jews were killed.
As an additional example, her mother was on good terms with a German family (she studied German with the father). Her mother was even invited to a party at their house. Then, afterwards, her mother found out that this German was one of the first collaborators with the Nazis.
I know you've done a lot of research on what happened in 1941. Can you give me (us) your sense of the magnitude of the Lithuanian collaboration, what the locals knew while the genocide was happening, etc?
Best regards, Sally
On 5/7/07, Cy Kuckenbaker wrote:
Hi Sally, good to hear from you.
Well, I guess my short answer is that there was substantial assistance from Lithuanians, but the active participation was not necessarily in large numbers. In the village I'm most familiar with, Kupiskis, there were only about five or six Lithuanians collaborators out of the approximately 6000 people in the town. From what I've been able to learn so far, this is what I've come to understand:
Some Background:
Lithuania's short period of sovereignty from the end of WWI to 1940 was an intense period during which the nation worked very hard to rewrite and reform its identity. Like other nationalist movements, the basis for national identity emphasized ethnicity, language and the motherland. This left the Jewish community out since they were (sometimes) different in appearance and spoke Yiddish in their community. It also may be noteworthy that during this time in Lithuanian literature, there was an intense connection to the land of Lithuania as a basis for identity. The Jewish literary tradition had much less emphasis on nature, and as a traditionally stateless people, didn't really need it. There is also a linguistic element, in the Lithuanian language usage; a man is almost always 'a Jew' not 'Jewish'. The objectification is subtle enough, but something I always feel when I speak with people. This usage seems to be an artifact of the grammar rather than an expression of bias, but the logic within it feels divisive to my American/English speaking sensibility. Likewise, the noun Lithuanian describes the ethnicity as well as the nationality. So Jews were not necessarily considered Lithuanians.
There is a long tradition of blood-libel stories in Lithuania against Jews that is emblematic of a general mythology that casts Jews as outsiders and competition to Christianity. The standard version is that the local Jews would kidnap a Catholic baby, wrap it in a sheet, then put it in a barrel full of nails or glass and roll it down a hill. Then the blood soaked fabric would be cut up and distributed as an ingredient in flat bread during Passover. I've heard this story, or variations of it multiple times. When it was told (its no longer common) it was told in a very similar context as a ghost story. The first man I met who told me about the stories was 83 and he heard it from his grandmother in Skapiskis.
In pre WWII Lithuania, Lithuanians were the farmers and Jews were the traders and shop keepers. There was an economic divide. Among Lithuanians, there was a the notion that the Jews worked together against them. If you ask a Lithuanian today why the Jews were killed, some will say: because the Jews weren't good to Lithuanians. This perception was propagated by plenty of politicians through out history toward one end or another and even today is a convenient excuse. In fact Jews probably held more capital, but there were plenty of poor Jews as well.
1941:
By 1941 the Lithuanians were already a heavily traumatized society. They had learned to rely on passive aggression to survive under the Tsar and other occupiers. They had very little tradition of public protest and had rarely succeeded in resisting occupation except by clinging to their language and traditions. During the first Soviet occupation (40-41), the Lithuanian social and political leadership was completely removed, so in the political vacuum of the Soviet retreat in June 1941 you can imagine how easily chaos reigned. It's also important to note that Lithuania was not an armed country. Very few private citizens owned firearms, and the small militarization that took place between wars, was just that, small.
The politics of 1941 are sticky. When the Russians reoccupied in 1940, they expanded the rights of Lithuanian Jews to participate in public life and politics. That compounded resentment among the Lithuanians. Lithuanians, in general, preferred a German occupation. They'd been suppressed by the Russians for a hundred plus years under the Tsar and certainly didn't want to go back. When I talk with old folks who remember the gossip, one standard rumor concerns Lithuanian Jews learning to speak Russian 'too quickly'. In my opinion this social compression and polarization during Russian occupation is the real set up for the horror that follows the Russian retreat. Imagine a tiny nation dead center between Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia, in a time when people had to choose a side.
When the Germans invaded in 41, it was still very early in the war and Hitler's final solution hadn't even been made policy yet. The Nazis used Lithuania as a testing ground, so their methods are inconsistent over time and place. In general, machine gun bullets are what killed almost everyone. I don't know a whole lot about this, but I do know that there was a group called Rolling Commandos, among the Nazi units assigned to Lithuania. In the larger cities like Vilnius and Kaunas they used a ghetto system, but in the country it was different. With the help of locals they would simply round up the Jewish community and march them out to a preselected area (often for cover and soft soil) and machine gun one group at a time. In Kupiskis, a small jail was used to centralize people before being walked to the mass grave and killed. What's impossible to comprehend is how they killed children. The Kupiskis memorial that was just put up in the synagogue in 2004 lists the names and ages of each person killed. There were many very small children and babies. I've been able to figure out a lot about those events, but I can't fathom how anyone did that. When the killing was done, the Jewish property was centralized and redistributed. An eye witness in Skapiskis described seeing one of the local Lithuanian triggermen walking through the square with two fur coats on and a machine gun over his shoulder.
So now about Lithuanian participation. Yes, absolutely, many of the triggermen and much of the organization was carried out by Lithuanians collaborating with the Nazi's. In Kupiskis I don't think there was more than a hand full of Nazis even present. According to an eyewitness, two Nazi officers over saw and photographed the four to five Lithuanian perpetrators. They took the photos as 'proof' that the killing was taken out by Lithuanians and not Germans. The Lithuanians who helped included local police and the police chief. So it's very odd that so few men, probably less than ten in all, were able to kill nearly every Jew in the town (the pre-war Jewish pop was app 1400), but they did. Bigots did the killing, but it was made so easy because of fear, complacents and a more passive form of bigotry on the part of average Lithuanians.
I don't know exactly why the percentage of Lithuanian Jews killed is so high, but I suspect a couple things. First, it's a very small country, you can cross it in a day and there are virtually no geographic barriers. Second, the Jewish population was large, well defined, and they were essentially the first. Though very few Jewish communities anywhere had any idea what was really coming, the Lithuanian communities had no time what so ever to react. The German attack on Russia was so fast and so successful, Lithuania was in German hands almost instantly.
Today:
Today's dialog about the Lithuanian Jewish holocaust has a very unusual character. Where we see the German national psyche has struggled for 60 years now to rectify itself, and establish an open dialog about the event, no such thing exists yet in Lithuania for two reasons. The first is that Lithuanians claim their own holocaust under the Soviets in which 130 – 300 thousand people were deported to the Gulag. Because this 'Lithuanian Holocaust' is generally unrecognized world wide, there are no museums, few memorials etc; there is a sense of competition and again, resentment, that Lithuanians should have to recognize the Jewish holocaust when no one is recognizing theirs. Rationally, it doesn't make any sense because the events were based on completely different dynamics, one was internal, one was external, etc, but emotionally, to the Lithuanians it's the same thing.
The second reason is because under 50 years of Soviet rule, the history was scrubbed clean so to speak. The Russians reoccupied in 1944 after the defeat of the Wehrmacht, put the perpetrators of the Jewish holocaust on trial, executed those they could find, built memorials then tucked the whole matter away. Many Jews who survived or returned were required to abandon their religious practices in the new atheistic Soviet Lithuania; so many of the Jews in today's democratic Lithuanian community have forgotten the old traditions. During Soviet times there was no rigor, no real research on the holocaust, so you could say that Holocaust studies only really started in Lithuania during the 1990s, and its way behind.
My Personal Perspective:
Being neither Jewish nor Lithuanian, I think people need to get past the specific labels if they're going to understand it constructively. The Israeli dialog can be extremely aggressive, and Lithuanians are very defensive and would rather stick their heads in the sand than look at reality straight. What everyone needs to figure out is that genocide is not about good and evil. Genocide, as far as I'm concerned, is a human behavior and unfortunately, it happens all the time, though rarely on this scale. In the generic western version of the Jewish holocaust, the Nazi's are evil and they used a giant mechanized system to murder on in incomprehensible scale. So how do we extract meaning from this version of an event? The character of the Lithuanian Jewish holocaust is such that I think enormous understanding can be drawn from it, constructive understanding. The motivations that stoked it, which drove it along, don't come from monsters, we all have them and we've all felt them. The abstraction of the holocaust into the realm of myth, of monsters and evil, seems enormously problematic to me, a long hard look at what happened in Lithuania and anyone can see, it's a tragedy full of average people on both sides who are just like us.
Hope this helps Sally, I"ve struggled to get a grip on what happened there. Sometimes the only way for me to understand it, is by thinking about the L.A. riot. First there's a long compression, then a spark. The difference is, in Lithuania the official effort was to keep it going rather than stop it.
Take care, Cy
Thanks, Cy,
I think it's important to get this information (and perspective) into people's heads. It's instructive and horrifying that this type of thing can happen anywhere there's a oppressed population. The scale of what occurred in Lithuania is outrageous, but I don't think people saw it coming. I wonder what they could have done, if they'd figured out what was in store for them.
The Lithuanian nationality thing is interesting to consider. My relatives were at least tri-lingual. My father and his family grew up speaking Russian, Lithuanian and Yiddish (though he never spoke those languages here in the US). My great-grandfather was a 2nd guild merchant in the Russian system and I think he was quite a wealthy man. My grandfather and siblings were rich kids, well dressed and well educated. They lived in Svedasai, then Kupiskis, then Panemunelis. I imagine the kids went to school in Panevezys and Kaunas. My grandmother's brother was an eye doctor in Kedainiai and my grandfather's sister was a dentist in Panevezys (married to a doctor). They were well settled and contributory members of their society.
Do you think that the young Lithuanians would be fearful if Jews tried to establish a presence again in Lithuania?
Is it OK to forward your e-mail to my cousin Tami in Israel, the one who first raised the issue about her mixed feelings about Lithuanians? Her aunt Dina left Lithuania in the late 1930s as a young woman, and maybe Tami can gently get Dina's perspective on the relationship between the Jews and the Lithuanians (i.e., the Litvaks and the Lithuanians) as she remembers it.
My brother works for the US Dept of Energy and will be traveling to Latvia and Lithuania next month. I'm hoping to write up some of the family history for him before he goes, in case he has some time to visit the old villages. Is there anyone in Kupiskis (or elsewhere) he should meet?
Sally
On 5/15/07, Cy Kuckenbaker wrote:
Sorry for the long delay Sally,
Yeah, please do forward this on to Israel, I'd be really interested to hear her perspectives.
About Lithuanians being fearful today if Jews reestablished themselves, I'd say yes, probably and unfortunately. Today's Lithuania has a brand of anti-Semitism that's purely mythical. Unlike their grandparents who, bias or not, probably knew a lot of Jewish people, today's kids don't really know anything about Jewish society, but a lot of the old feelings and myths are still apparent. The product is pretty aggravating since a lot of young people are bias toward a people they've never seen or heard.
In 2005 Israel released a list of (former) Jewish properties in Lithuania and it was all over the papers. It was presented as a kind of assault on Lithuania and was also a demonstration of the enormous presence that community had. Every town and village had properties on the list, most had several including Kupiskis. One of the properties there is now the vice mayors home, so you can imagine the tension that created. Capturing the momentum are a few politicians including a nut in Siaulai who established a political party based on anti-Semitism. The group is small but because they're controversial and aggressive, they were catching front page attention regularly in 2005. In the vacuum, with few counter points, these things have a disturbing amount of sway. All this said, in general, Lithuania is not a hostile place. Any person identifiable as a Jew like some of the Orthodox rabbi that have visited can expect to be cat called, but that's about it.
Would you mind if I blogged our exchange? There are some other people I like to invite to weigh in on all this.
Cy
Hi Cy, I'm happy to have our exchanges blogged. There desperately needs to be more discussion about these issues.
My family was settled in Lithuania for at least a couple hundred years and they must have loved their home country. And they must have co-existed peacefully with most of their neighbors. When my grandmother and her 4 little kids returned home to Keidan in 1922-1923 after their exile (starting in 1915) into the Ukraine, they visited Lithuanian homes to get back some of the belongings they had to leave behind. My aunt told me the story of going to visit Lithuanian families and getting their stuff back. I had the impression that these people were their friends and they were holding family stuff for safekeeping. It had to be. My grandfather was already in the US and my grandmother couldn't have gotten the stuff back by force.
I'll send along your e-mail to my cousin and cc you and she can be part of the discussion.
Sally
Cy Kuckenbaker :: 05.28.07 :: Permalink
comments (1) dalia venckuviene:
Hello Sally and Cy , nice to hear from you both , its amazing how you Cy understand our nations mentality and other feathures of ours , we agree with your opinions about holocaust , and we really see in our nation , that we are not people of city or town , we belong to farmers , villages mentality , this is one of the main reasons why we dont want to see the reality of our history , not just connected with holocaust but in other spheres as well.But what we really are afraid of that yoth will not remember and want to hear these things , its a very painful topic , now almost everyone is involved in their material world. Well , Sally your brother is welcome to Kupiskis , we will stay in Kupiskis all June , so dont hesitate please , just write when he is coming , we will try to help as much as we can . We will be in touch .
Lithuanian Jewry, Entry #2, May 2007
On May 29th, Ann Rabinowitz wrote:
Thanks for your note.
One of things I learned from materials I have had translated from the Lithuanian is that there was a pervasive envy and underlying dislike of the Jews in the towns and villages. Why you may ask?
Due to their being restricted from the countryside and farming occupations by the Tzar, their only choice was to form the basis of the economic life of the towns and villages. This is where they usually centered themselves around the communities main squares where their businesses bloomed.
The Lithuanians felt that they were not in the same league as equal competitors in this urban economy. As a result, restrictive laws were passed that prevented the Jews from participating in a growing number of occupations.
It was not until WWI that this issue of economic competition really became apparent. For the most part, during the War, Jews were sent into Russia for several years leaving behind an economic vacuum.
The Lithuanians eagerly filled this vacuum and took over the businesses. They found that they liked being in charge and having the upperhand.
When the Jews returned, of course, they took over their businesses again. This caused much ill-will amongst certain groups of Lithuanians and one finds in the nationalist and/or anti-semitic magazines articles regarding this.
Combine this with the turmoil caused by the ebb and flow of various armies in Lithuania and the imposition restrictive laws of one sort or another and then the great changes brought about by Russian occupation, you have a significant situation for blaming someone one else for your troubles.
After WWI, the economy languished and things were tough for everyone. With the formation of various cooperatives with which Jews could not compete and additional restrictive laws on what professions Jews might be involved, this helped to further distance the Jews from competition with Lithuanians. The Jews were being compressed into a smaller and smaller segment of the economy.
Due to this, there was a mass exodus of young people during the 1920's and into the 1930's of Lithuanian Jewry to South Africa and America. It was also a time when Lithuanians also left to seek better conditions.
All this was a prelude to 1941 and what was considered to be payback by certain segments of the Lithuanian population for their long-held grudges and appetite to take over Jewish property.
In Kupiskis, the destruction of the community followed the same general pattern as was found throughout most of Lithuania. There were German agents provocateurs who came into the communities, sussed out the lay of the land and then used their connections to carryout the killings.
Those killed first were the Jewish intelligensia, professionals, leadership and the male population. This was done in various sadistic ways such as enclosing people in buildings and setting them on fire and shooting them in the forests or the outskirts of the town. After the men were killed, the women and children who had been held all the while in very poor conditions were then disposed of.
During this time, the Lithuanian population was either watching the destruction or participating in it. There were those who were children then who were affected deeply as they watched their playmates and friends killed and heard their screams of terror.
Many have never discussed their feelings or what they saw until recently when approached by Jewish visitors to their towns.
Ann Rabinowitz
The high notes are on which side of the piano? Last week was a spinal tap of shrill notes from the left side of the mouth, from the mouths of the old. This place keeps dishing its guts. Sixty years after the fact they're raw red and still hot to the touch.
Kristina's Grandma sat in a huge overstuffed brown chair in an enormous living room in one of the biggest houses in Kupiskis. Dim light. Kristine's Mom sits across the room far enough away I forget her. Tom and his girlfriend are college students. They sit deep in the sofa holding hands like they're watching a horror movie. They're helping me with the language. The house is a white silicate brick castle that sits out by the road into town. There are concrete telephone polls and hay drying racks then the road, the forest and the horizon.
Karas Laikas. - War Times. That's all you have to say, and it goes on for an hour.
The kids were curious. They went out to the hill to see what was going on. The Jews were being brought in groups from the little red brick prison in the center. About five Lithuanian men did the shooting, and a few Nazis supervised. The Nazis took lots of photographs, mostly of the 'jewshooters'. It was later understood that these were 'proof' that the Lithuanians were the ones who did the killing.
When the shooting was done a layer of lime was poured on the bodies. She emphasized this about the lime - it ran red. Then they killed the next group and they were stacked on top of the last, more lime, more red.
The big question for the children was "why don't they run?" The Lithuanian ringleaders collected the property. Gold rings and fur coats. The empty houses in the center stayed empty for a long time. The children didn't go there. A year before that, the Soviets occupied Lithuania. There were rumors about a few communist Jewish doctors torturing a Lithuanian in Panevezys. On the night of the first deportations to Siberia six or seven Jews were at the train station helping the authorities organize the deportees. People wondered why Jews had learned Russian so fast.
I asked her what the adults said about it. "It was explained to us that the Jews were being killed as punishment for the crucifixion and because they didn't believe in Christ." I give her a lot of credit for saying it straight. The note went right through my fingers and the walls, the dogs in the yard could hear it. The 'jewshooters' fell back with the German line when the Russians retook Lithuania. One of the ringleaders in Kupiskis was arrested in Chicago about three years ago. He lived a comfortable life in America.
WASHINGTON (CNN) "Bernes worked in an office near the overcrowded jail where victims were held without adequate food and beaten before being shot to death," according to a statement issued by the Office of Special Investigations. .. The Justice Department Monday initiated court proceedings in Chicago, Illinois, to revoke the citizenship of Peter John Bernes of Lockport, Illinois. Authorities in the department's Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations filed a complaint accusing Bernes -- then known as Petras Bernotavicius -- of serving as a deputy to Werner Loew, the Nazi-appointed leader of Kupiskis, Lithuania
Pokaras Laikas- After War Times. That's all you have to say and it goes on for about an hour.
According to Kristine's Grandma, the partisans around Kupiskis were young and ruthless. They were jealous of the other kids their age that had some normalcy and could go to school. They shot a boy their age because he was having fun at a party while they sat in the woods. There was a rumor that a girl in the class had family members who were party members. She appeared one day at school with a star branded into her forehead. It was attributed to the partisans, but could have just as easily been KGB. It was a KGB tactic to dress as partisans and commit crimes in an effort to sway public opinion. The girl had surgery years later, but always covered the star with her hair. The boys in class used to pull her hair back and ridicule her.
Stribai (destroyers) were the leading edge in a campaign to twist the soul out of a society. They were the locals who did the dirty work for the Soviet authorities. Everyone knew who they were. They came in the day when it was safe for them. They came to inspect the basements, to take food, to figure out who to deport. They could kill without discretion. They were rewarded with property and power. In later years they became more powerful. They lived comfortable lives. Normal people lived in the middle. Farmers had partisans coming for food at night. The farmer would be sworn to secrecy and asked to give all he could. The Stribai came in the day. If there was no food then partisans must have been there, the farmer would be required to give the names of partisans or get shot or deported, and so it went for several years.
The body of people who watched the holocaust through a crack in the curtain eventually learned to stop looking. KGB was everywhere. Guilt required only the suggestion of truth. She talked at length about the fear her generation carries. The fear of the outside, fear of change, the inability to relate to young people and the democratic shift. She was an honest woman.
I was up there all last week and I followed up on the list from the Litvaks in Israel. Turns out that the only properties than can be reclaimed are those that were public. So the synagogue, a community center and a grocery store are being reclaimed. The synagogue is a library now. The grocery store is a small building with private apartments. Turns out that the vice mayor bought a home in the building just six months ago. There doesn't seem to be any open public backlash, but there's always a lot of word-of-mouth.
The cemetery project is in the details now. Tom's father is a builder and he did a bunch of estimates last week. The main problem at the moment is the headstones. The sun thaws the soil on the south side so they're all leaning back in that direction. Nobody knows what's under them or how they're constructed so we have to dig one up. That means we need a Rabbi for any religious protocols. No big deal except that there's a battle going on in the Jewish community between the two Rabbis in Vilnius. Nobody in the states wants to get involved, or get them involved in the project. I met with the Mayor in Kupiskis and he's all for the project. I also met with the teachers at the school in Skapiskis, they're interested in whatever comes out of it. Part of the project is an educational initiative.
The tickets for Africa are all set. Jake called me two weeks ago and we talked for about 45 seconds on Tony Paul's dime. This should be damn interesting. I went up to Birzai where Jake was assigned in Peace Corps (50 km north of Kupiskis) and met with his old school director and some of his old friends. I want to get some gifts from them to take down, so next week I'll pass through again.
The woodwork opened up again. I heard about a man whose leg was run over by a Russian tank on Jan 13th. Looks like he's willing to talk to me, hopefully next week.
The grey and white blindfold of winter has completely vanished. Spring is here, people are smiling, ice cream cones bob down the street, the gym is packed and all my energy has returned.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/7112702/ If you've ever doubted resurrection, spend a winter in Lithuania. Snow on the ground now for five months. When it's not snowing its gray. When its not gray its too cold to stay outside. My first year here I was sure I was dying by this time in March. I'd never seen my face so pale. I got so thin. During spring break that year I watched Gintaras and Lili's kids cause they had to be out of town for the week. So with no work and nothing to really occupy my time I hung out with the boys in a region of Kupiskis everyone calls Kamchatka. The Kamchatka of Kupiskis is a Soviet style region made up of gray blockhouses and a great big smoke stack. Not such a bad place really, but with five months of winter already under my belt, I was under serious strain. What had looked like a planned community in workers paradise that Fall, by late March looked like a leaden demon ship lost from the inferno on its way through a frozen southern ocean to sink somewhere silent and painful. My face was plastered to the kitchen porthole, by the second day the boys were taking care of me. I fell asleep on the couch in the afternoon and when I woke up Gintaras' younger son was looking at me from a couple feet away. 'Your eyes are red like a rabbits' he said. They stayed like that for another month. I couldn't stop looking out the window. I kept thinking that it should have already ended, but it was still gray and cold. On Easter I was with Gintaras and family on their farmhouse about 10km out of town. No sounds. Just us and the babble of a little tiny T.V. This was even worse than the demon ship. It was a demon dinghy lost from the ship, white knuckles and icy waves. It started to snow and I started to pace. Gintaras asked me repeatedly if I wanted something to eat or drink. A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling over the table spitting spindly anemic glare all around the room. Musty damp wood, small windows bleeding weak light and yeah I'm being dramatic about it, but I'd never witnesses my own decay before. It snowed two feet, and I went out of my tree. The next day was Easter and the boys and I ran around outside making big snowballs. We kung fu kicked, karate chopped and body slammed each of them to bits. In my heart I was cursing that frozen white fluff from hell that had been smothering me for half the year with great might. The bashing of the snowballs was very very violent and highly visual. I'm sorry that Pagan blows were delivered on that Christian day, but lost souls will do what they must. Then it snowed the rest of the day.
All of that internal drama happened before I learned about spring. I'd been in San Diego for seven years before I came over here. Spring in San Diego means you change wetsuits. You go from the one with long legs, to the one with short legs.
There is a single tree in the middle of a big field on the way to Kamchatka. It was along my familiar path to visit Gintaras. On a dreary day in April I passed under that thing and noticed that the branches were well covered with unbloomed buds and I almost wept. Seriously, it was the most beautiful thing I'd seen in months. It was really over. The great cosmic machine wasn't broken after all, and after just a few weeks this whole country exploded in tender tones of green. Then cabin fever yielded and was immediately replaced with Spring fever. All the meters spiked. High energy and libido are not the traditional allies of young single male teachers. The rest of the school year I spent tied to the mast, and thankfully remained there till summer.
These days are completely different. I'm a little sad to see winter go cause I know this means I have to return to the States soon. The novel days will give way to normalcy, and at first I'll resent that, then it'll lull me in. I'll wake up sometime next year very happy to be home, but it'll take a while. In the meantime, I have a lot to do.
This week I'm going up to Kupiskis and Skapiskis and hopefully I'll get a bunch done. The newspapers just released 'the list' from Israel made by the Litvaks there who want their property returned. There are three places in Kupiskis on it, they look like the addresses of private homes, so I wanna go see who's there. I doubt they'll talk to me about it but I'll try anyway. I'm also trying to Interview Kristina's Grandmother who witnessed the murder of the Jews in Kupiskis as a little girl. Then there is Sandra who has all the writing and recordings her Grandfather made during fifteen years in Siberia. And lastly, everything in Skapiskis remains to be done. I have to find the mayor(s) and talk to them about the cemetery project and I also want to get some shots of the cemetery before the snow is completely gone. Beauty the car, has been rolled off the front sidewalk and towed to the shop. They're putting a new starter in it, so I should have wheels to roll around Spring in.
Here's something I found in my journal I wrote while still a Peace Corps volunteer in Kupiskis, Lithuania.Sept 14, 2001:
...Today Gaf and Regina picked me up and we went to Skapiskis. Regina is good at her job. A guide for Jewish people interested in their heritage here. She asks the locals if there are any old people around. Eventually she finds someone who can tell the whole thing. A man named Jonis. Great guy, 80, a character. Healthy! We went into the local cafe/bar, the pensioners received money today. Twelve noon, three tables of the six are full. Vodka bottles, beer bottles, one man sleeps drunk in his own arms, another's eyes roll around like egg yolks (Faulkner), sinister sounds bark around the concrete walls. We are taken to another room. Jonis and a woman who was a Lithuanian language teacher, now retired, begin to talk. When the Russians were here they came into the villages to collect men. They were used to dig defensive lines. The Germans got here so fast it was useless. The Jews saw the German aircraft flying above and knew it was over. That afternoon some fled Skapiskis on bicycles. A few got away. Most were intercepted in the larger communities. In Rokiskis, on the way to Latvia, the militia forced Jews into a pond, jabbing them with sticks if they tried to climb out, beating them, torture. Lithuanians formed this militia, wore white bands on their arms, rounded up Jews, marched them to pits, told them to give them all their money, to take off their clothes, everyone, old women, to humiliate them, then they shot them and buried them with a thin layer of earth, more people would be buried on top of them. Jonis was told by an eye witness that the soil was moving because many people weren't actually dead. He was a young man when this happened, 21. He was gathered with the other young people in town when one of the white bands, carrying suitcases full of Jewish clothing and wearing fur coats walked by them. He pulled a machine gun off his shoulder and fired into the air to scare the kids off. Jonis said the motivation was property and jealousy. The Jews were the shop owners and generally better off. They supported each other and that produced resentment among some Lithuanians. In the community at large, there was an undercurrent of misinformation and rumor about the Jews. Stories about breads made during a major Jewish holiday requiring the blood of a Catholic child. A dead baby wrapped in cotton sheets and rolled over nails. The blood soaked the sheet, which was then cut into small squares and distributed among the Jews for the recipe. That was a story Jonis heard from his grandmother who was in her eighties when he was a small boy. We walked around the village for a while; Regina interviewed quite a few people. They really want to talk, to tell their stories. I think it must be part of the human condition. Stories and story telling. Gaf gave each of these people a gift. Really generous guy. The last thing we did was visit the Jewish cemetery. Hebrew and Yiddish on the stones, old, some 1850, a lot are illegible, much much older...