1 Dr Rimantas Zizas Researcher of the Lithuanian History Institute PERSECUTION OF NON-JEWISH CITIZENS OF LITHUANIA, MURDER OF CIVILIAN POPULATION Table of Contents Introduction 2 Overview of Historiography 3 Lithuanian Residents – Victims of the German-Soviet Hostilities in 1941 19 The People of Lithuania as Victims of “Pay-back” (Revenge) Operations by the German Occupants 23 Massacre of Communists, Members of the Komsomol, Soviet Officials and Party and Soviet Activists of 1940-1941 29 Victims of Repression against the Soviet Underground in Lithuania 47 Retribution ("Pay-back") Operations by the Occupiers to Avenge for Activities Carried out by the Soviet Underground 53 Repressions for Resisting German Military and Labour Mobilisations and Economic Exploitation of the Country 65 1) General Notes 65 2) Repressions for Sabotage of Military and Labour Force Mobilisation 69 3) Repressions for Resistance to Economic Exploitation 94 Repressions for Rescue of the Persecuted Persons 101 1) Repressions for Assistance to the Soviet Prisoners of War 101 2)Repression for Saving Jews 108 German-USSR Warfare in Lithuania in 1944-1945 and Civilian Losses 115 Conclusions 130 Documents Annexed 125 2 Introduction The period of World War II and Lithuania's occupation by Nazi Germany in 1941-1944 has been scarcely researched and objectively assessed by historians. More than fifty years of the Soviet occupation left major gaps in the research of history and a number of suppressed, unsettled important issues in the knowledge of the past: archival sources were not accessible to researchers, research into certain topics was simply prohibited, historical research was to a great extent ideologised and politicised. Judgements about the past, deep-rooted myths and stereotypes created in the historiography of the Soviet period affect the public conscience (including that of historians) up to now. The most painful heritage of the war and Nazi occupation regime in Lithuania is, first and foremost, the tragedy of the Jewish citizens of Lithuania, the atrocious historical phenomenon difficult to perceive by common sense, i.e. the Holocaust and its consequences: slaughtering of approximately 200 thousand of Lithuanian Jews. Step by step, though with difficulty, Lithuania is attempting to trace the history of the Holocaust and to comprehend the tragedy of the past. The historical heritage of the war and the Nazi occupation embraces more than the Holocaust and its consequences; it also includes the repressive operations against other nationalities of Lithuania, their killing and loss. Though incomparable in their scope and consequences to the Holocaust, these ways of repression, too, call for in-depth research into the complex and contradictory historical processes, phenomena, circumstances and facts that underpinned these historical acts. As distinct from the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania, issues and problems related to the repression against non-Jewish nationals of Lithuania attract almost no international (foreign) attention of historians and up to the present, remain an "unconquered past". The purpose of the present research was to analyse the repressive policies pursued by the German occupational regime with respect to non-Jewish population of Lithuania and to overview their consequences. It goes without saying that the division of the Lithuanian population into Jews and other people (non-Jews) can be only conditional, formal, made to facilitate the historical research, to identify historical developments in the period of the Nazi occupation and their main consistent patterns. The division has to take into account that Jews were the only people who were recklessly murdered just because they were Jews; therefore, deaths of thousands of Jewish citizens of Lithuania must not be forgotten when discussing a comparatively small number of murdered 3 non-Jewish people. With the above-mentioned situation of historiography in mind, the author of this research, first of all, aimed at providing a generic overview of the opinions prevailing among Soviet historians, researchers of the Lithuanian émigré community and independent Lithuania about the consequences of the Nazi occupation as well as at defining the tendencies in the development of historiography problems. Based on the material stored in the archives of Lithuania, the work attempts to reveal the causes, procedure and processes of repressive actions perpetrated by Nazi occupiers and their collaborators, to present relevant factography data, to distinguish categories of repressive operations and their victims as well as to give approximate figures reflecting the total scope of the repression, etc. The choice of the research topic was determined by the Research Work Outline approved by the Commission. Since deportations of Lithuanian non-Jewish population for forced labour to Germany, their incarceration in concentration camps, repression of their cultural life and other topics have already been researched or will be researched in future, the present work does not address them. Certainly, the choice of the research topic was also influenced by the availability of sources and data as well as, naturally, by the subjective attitude of the author towards the period of the Nazi occupation in Lithuania. A point should also be made that the subject of the research was only the so-called direct consequences of the war and Nazi occupational policies in terms of civilian losses, with a focus on the victims of the repressive policies. In addition to the direct losses, there were also indirect consequences (side effects) of the war and the occupation, for example, fallen birth rate, increased death rate, suffering of the people of Lithuania, various other losses and social and demographic processes. The scope of the present research does not extend to any of these aspects. Overview of Historiography Soviet historiography. The first "collective historiographer" to examine massacres and other crimes committed by the Nazis and collaborators in the USSR was the Special State Commission. It was formed and operated under agreements made at the Moscow conference of Anti-Hitler Coalition member states (in October, 1943) and elsewhere on the culpability and punishment of the Nazi German leadership for crimes committed in occupied territories, and it undertook political and practical tasks for establishing what the effects of the war and the Nazi occupation were. The USSR Special State Commission for ascertaining and investigating the crimes of the German fascist invaders and their 4 collaborators (further to be called Special Commission) began working in early November of 1942. Territorial units (Soviet republics and oblasts) of the commission were formed in liberated territories of the USSR. The Lithuanian SSR Special Commission was formed on August 13, 1944 (its chairman was Lithuanian Communist Party Central Committee chairman Antanas Snie čkus and its deputy chairman was chairman of the LSSR Soviet of People's Commissars Me čislovas Gedvilas), its members were J. Bartaši ūnas, J. Jurginis (later a well-known historian and academic), and its secretary general was A. Čiplys. USSR Special Commission representative V. Zurabov worked directly with the Lithuanian SSR commission. Later, city commissions subordinate to the oblasts and republics were formed, with from 5 to 7 members each and working groups (of from 12 to 15 people) attached to them. Rural districts had district commission with from 3 to 5 people. Special commissions were formed by resolution of the Lithuanian SSR Special Commission: 1) to investigate the sites of massacres; 2) to establish the extent of material damages caused to residents. In total 16,210 people worked in 3,242 institutions and public and co-operative organisations formed by the commission. The total number of people involved in the work of the Lithuanian Special Commission was 24,256 1. The special commissions and their auxiliary groups investigated crimes committed, collected testimony of witnesses, compiled lists of people killed, exhumed mass graves and performed other tasks. The data and primary sources collected are an important source of information on the history of the Nazi German occupation period (although little investigated by historians). But the work of the Special Commission was extraordinarily hurried by the Soviet political leadership. The Lithuanian Communist Party (b) Central Committee Bureau, after considering the work of the city and district commissions at the end of October, 1944, noted that the material collected and reports made by the Special Commission were far from complete, superficial and failed to reflect "the true nature" of crimes committed by the German occupiers. Until then certain Lithuanian cities (Šiauliai, Panev ÷žys) still hadn't had their mass grave sites or the sending of their civilians to "German slavery" investigated. Drawing up lists of those murdered, tortured in prison and concentration camps, sent to Germany and killed during the war and investigations of massacres of Soviet prisoners of war had to be 1 Writing by Chairman A. Snie čkus and Secretary A. Čiplys of the Special Commission of the Republic of Lithuania to the USSR Special State Commission Chairman N. Shvernik on July 25, 1945, Special Lithuanian Archive (Lietuvos Ypatingasis archyvas , further abbreviated as LYA), doc. f. 16895, inv. 2, file 197, p. l. 1–15. 5 performed as quickly as possible. All these and other tasks were supposed to be finished by November 15, 1944. 2 It's