Nazi invasion & collaboration · Lithuania · 1941–1944

German killing units and Lithuanian collaborators destroyed Jewish communities.

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1941–1944

Nazi invasion & collaboration · The accusation becomes permission to kill

German killing units and Lithuanian collaborators destroyed Jewish communities.

German invasion, 1941

German forces invaded Soviet-held Lithuania in June 1941. Nazi ideology treated Jews as a racial enemy, while local antisemitic movements supplied their own accusations. Anti-Jewish violence involved identifiable German and Lithuanian perpetrators. It should not be attributed indiscriminately to every Lithuanian.

Ponary and the ghetto

Near Vilna, German killing units and Lithuanian auxiliaries murdered Jews at Ponary. The occupiers also confined Jews in ghettos, extracting labour before later liquidation. These were different instruments within the persecution. A family’s survival depended on conditions it had little power to control.

People defend life and culture

Within Vilna’s ghetto, Jews organized resistance and tried to protect books and cultural records from destruction. These efforts did not remove the overwhelming danger. They show people making choices under coercion and refusing to let their lives be described only through their persecutors’ categories.