How a Nazi Collaborator Became a Lithuanian National Hero

March 11 2021

Growing up in a Lithuanian family in Chicago, Silvia Foti learned that her grandfather, Jonas Noreika, was a hero who led an anti-Soviet revolt in his native country in the aftermath of World War II. After the fall of Communism, independent Lithuania honored Noreika, naming streets and even a school after him. Foti was thus surprised when, researching her grandfather’s life, she discovered that he—like many who fought against Stalinism in Ukraine and the Baltics—was also a Nazi collaborator:

I learned that the man I had believed was a savior who did all he could to rescue Jews during World War II had, in reality, ordered all Jews in his region of Lithuania to be rounded up and sent to a ghetto where they were beaten, starved, tortured, raped, and then murdered. More than 95 percent of Lithuania’s Jews died during World War II, many of them killed with the eager collaboration of their neighbors.

Lithuania is like many other countries that spent 50 years under Soviet occupation. During this time, there was a deep freeze on the truth: Lithuanians were only allowed to talk about how many Soviet citizens were killed during World War II. References to Jewish victims were scrubbed away by the [Soviet] occupiers. I would like to think that if Lithuania had been a free and independent nation after World War II, it might have acknowledged its own role in the Holocaust.

Correcting historical memory turned out to be dangerous. When I publicly questioned the official story of my grandfather’s life, I was vilified by the Lithuanian community in Chicago and in Lithuania. I was called an agent of President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Lithuanian leaders still believe their country’s identity depends on holding onto its heroes, even at the cost of the truth.

In 1933, as a young soldier in the Lithuanian Army, he wrote Raise Your Head Lithuanian, Lithuania’s equivalent of Mein Kampf, which incited hate toward Jews as a solution to Lithuania’s problems. In June 1941, he led an uprising against the Soviets, even as he was collaborating with the Nazis. . . . Under his watch, roughly 8,000 Jews were killed.

Read more at New York Times

More about: Communism, Holocaust, Lithuania, World War II

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy