Lithuania must stand up to anti-Semitism [Op/Ed]

[K. A. Pital]

Some less-known Nazi ideologues thought the Slavs were Aryan, some "pure" portion of them at least.

Yeah, the "percentages" the Nazis found as "suitable" for germanization. Incidentally they were higher in the Baltics, and the further east the Nazis went, the less people remained "suitable" and the more were required to be destroyed.

I also know that various groups of partisans and irregulars committed crimes against lives and property; if we can indict Nazi criminals, why not criminals on the other side?

If we were indicting people for crimes against "life and property", we should be indicting the entire Allied armies for every collateral death of Axis civilians. We don't do that, do we - aside the "victors usually don't go on trial", the difference in scope of civilian deaths between Axis and Allies is simply far too great, too overwhelming to seriously consider the Axis actions remotely comparable. Also, what do you consider a crime? A partisan murders the entire family of a collaborator - that's a crime on the same order as said collaborator aiding the Nazis in extermination of thousands of entire villages, and murdering every single Jew they find? Do you really think the "crime" of the defending party should be judged with the same yardstick in these circumstances?

No, I must have missed that.

Here are some things to consider:

Lithuanian politician burns Israeli flag, plays Nazi songs
Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet) / Mon, 29 Jul 2002 6:20:16 PDT

VILNIUS, July 29 (AFP) - A Lithuanian politician burned an Israeli flag while playing Nazi marching songs to protest a 10,000-dollar (euro) reward offered by Nazi hunters for information on war criminals, a newspaper reported on Monday.

Saulius Ozelis, a member of the municipal council in the western city of Taurage drove around town for half an hour on Sunday playing Nazi marching songs loudly on his car stereo before setting the flag on fire, according to the daily Lietuvos Rytas.

Several dozen members of Ozelis' far-right Lithuanian Freedom Union attended the action, which had not received permission from local authorities.

Ozelis told the newspaper he was protesting against an offer made earlier this month by the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center to pay a reward of 10, 000 dollars for information about Nazi criminals.

LITHUANIAN HOOPS TEAM'S NAZI 'PRIZE': TEN JEWS TO KILL

Lithuanian hoops team's Nazi 'prize': ten Jews to kill
By Mike Lebowitz
The Jerusalem Post
March 2, 2004

In 1941, a Lithuanian basketball team was awarded a dubious prize for its victory over a team comprised of members from the occupying German military - each player was given the opportunity to shoot about 10 Jews.

Next week, the names of two suspected members of that Lithuanian team are expected be presented to a special prosecutor in Vilnius.

These events coincidentally come at a time when Israeli basketball teams travel to the Baltic nation in matches that, in the past, have been marred by expressions of anti-Semitism.

"It is so horrifying that the prize for winning a basketball game was to murder innocent men, women, and children," said Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Jerusalem office. "This certainly does add a different dimension and a certain resonance to the games being played now."

Although exact information is not available for the public, Zuroff said the two suspects are brothers living in the US, with at least one of the siblings residing in Waterbury, Connecticut.

"They are both in their early 80s," Zuroff said. "You have to keep in mind that these men were very young when this crime occurred. I'm sure many, not all, but many people in Lithuania remember this. Who would have thought that 56 years later we would discover that the likely perpetrators are living in the US."

The events surrounding the basketball game were detailed in a 1948 book by Josef Gar, a Lithuanian.

The book describes how the champion-caliber Lithuanian team engaged in a contest against the Germans in a town near the capital of Vilnius.

After the match, the victorious team was told that it had won the right to kill some Jews. According to the book, each player accepted the prize. The team reportedly herded Jewish residents near a tower, where each player took their turn shooting about 10 people.

Statistics indicate that approximately 90 percent of Lithuania's nearly 220,000 Jews were killed during World War II.

After offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the prosecution and punishment of people suspected of murdering Lithuanian Jews, the Simon Wiesenthal Center received 198 names, and 144 were credible enough to pursue, including the two brothers, Zuroff said.

"A man who remembers the basketball game recently saw an interview in the Canadian/Lithuanian press and then tracked them down," he said.

Zuroff said Lithuania has not punished a Nazi-era criminal since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The only person convicted for the murder of Jews was Kazys Gimzauskas, last February, but he was not jailed because he has Alzheimer's disease. Gimzauskas's superior officer in those crimes died of a heart attack before his sentencing.

Still, Lithuanian prosecutor Rimvydas Valentukevicius maintained that a "historical justice had been done" and vowed to continue prosecuting the criminals.

To date, basketball and other sports continue to attract anti-Semitic rhetoric in Lithuania, often when local teams play clubs from Israel. For example, in March 2002, fans in Vilnius chanted "Jews get out" and other Nazi slogans as many waved Palestinian flags during a basketball game with an Israeli team. Similar reactions took place at two soccer matches in August 2001 between a Vilnius team and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

"These chants were even heard on TV, but still the security at the game did nothing," said Simonas Alperavicius, a Jewish community leader in Lithuania.

Lithuanian officials, responding to public rebukes from Alperavicius, said at the time that the commotion was caused by a "small number of fans" and that measures would be taken to avoid any more displays of anti-Semitism at sporting events.

The Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team is set to play next Tuesday night in Vilnius in a ULEB Cup match. Maccabi Tel Aviv is scheduled for a basketball game March 11 in the Lithuanian capital as part of the Euroleague tournament.

Murder and terroristic destruction of private property should be punished if guilt can be discerned by due process, regardless of the status of the culprit.

Should murder of Nazi collaborators in partisan actions be punished? Technically the collaborators could have been civilians. How would you punish them? If them, why not the entire partisan movement - undoubtedly thousands of collaborators were killed, along with their families.

Except said collaborators murdered millions of civilians easily, in the scope of 3 years. The people killing them were resisting annihilation.

It would be even better if criminals on the winning side had also been tried.

Some were; but the considerable difference in the scope of crimes was simply too great.

If we were honestly trying for crimes against property and life, all German soldiers should have been collectively accused with only case-by-case pardons, much like with the SS, and then tried for it. But we didn't. Too much work.

I actually believe that Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz got a lighter sentence after an US officer of the Pacific theatre pointed out that if Dönitz would be prosecuted for ordering his U-boats and other naval assets not to rescue survivors of enemy ships, then the US commanders of the Pacific should also face the war crime tribunal.

He was aquitted of some crimes, but condemned for other instances. The idea that Doenitz was indicted for conduct similar to the US one is pathetically false; he was indicted for issuing criminal orders, one of them that the survivors of Allied boat crews be immediately transferred to the SS for execution. I haven't heard Admiral Nimitz issuing an order to give all Nazi seamen for immediate execution to a criminal organization whose only function was murder.

[Darth Hoth]

Yeah, the "percentages" the Nazis found as "suitable" for germanization. Incidentally they were higher in the Baltics, and the further east the Nazis went, the less people remained "suitable" and the more were required to be destroyed.

No, I was not talking about the Generalplan Ost or the policies that were actually implemented; I meant the less known Nazis who were not as virulently anti-Slavic. Johann von Leers was one of them, I think. After the Second World War it became "good practice" for Nazis and fascists to salute the marginalised figures (such as Strasser) as the "true National Socialists" in an attempt to distance themselves from the Holocaust and assorted mass murder.

If we were indicting people for crimes against "life and property", we should be indicting the entire Allied armies for every collateral death of Axis civilians. We don't do that, do we - aside the "victors usually don't go on trial", the difference in scope of civilian deaths between Axis and Allies is simply far too great, too overwhelming to seriously consider the Axis actions remotely comparable.

There is a difference between collateral damage caused by military necessity and deliberate illegal targeting of noncombatants.

Also, what do you consider a crime? A partisan murders the entire family of a collaborator - that's a crime on the same order as said collaborator aiding the Nazis in extermination of thousands of entire villages, and murdering every single Jew they find? Do you really think the "crime" of the defending party should be judged with the same yardstick in these circumstances?

In my mind, anyone who knowingly and deliberately murders innocent children deserves to hang. If one murders a village, one also deserves to be hanged (for we cannot do much worse than that for punishment, can we?). There is a difference in severity for the crimes, but both are bad enough to warrant the harshest punishment the law provides for.

Here are some things to consider:

Alright, that is screwed up and cannot be defended, though sadly it is not as rare as one would think; there is very much "anti-Zionism" (extremist codeword for Judeophobia) here, as well, with politicians openly comparing the Gaza War to the Holocaust.

Should murder of Nazi collaborators in partisan actions be punished? Technically the collaborators could have been civilians. How would you punish them? If them, why not the entire partisan movement - undoubtedly thousands of collaborators were killed, along with their families.

I cannot make any general statement, here; since many collaborators were armed and designated helpers of the occupation government, they would be valid targets. I cannot see why their families would be, however.

Some were; but the considerable difference in the scope of crimes was simply too great.

If we were honestly trying for crimes against property and life, all German soldiers should have been collectively accused with only case-by-case pardons, much like with the SS, and then tried for it. But we didn't. Too much work.

I do believe everyone has a right to a free and fair trial, on the basis of assumption of innocence till guilt has been proven. That said, I do know how many criminals in the East got off the hook free of charges (including the vast majority of the members of the Einsatzgruppen, which is sickening if you have some even second-hand knowledge of it), and I deplore it one hundred per cent. But two wrongs do not make a right. I believe that criminals on both sides should be tried as well as can be done, however botched the attempts to do so in the past have been.

[Tiriol]

I actually believe that Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz got a lighter sentence after an US officer of the Pacific theatre pointed out that if Dönitz would be prosecuted for ordering his U-boats and other naval assets not to rescue survivors of enemy ships, then the US commanders of the Pacific should also face the war crime tribunal.

He was aquitted of some crimes, but condemned for other instances. The idea that Doenitz was indicted for conduct similar to the US one is pathetically false; he was indicted for issuing criminal orders, one of them that the survivors of Allied boat crews be immediately transferred to the SS for execution. I haven't heard Admiral Nimitz issuing an order to give all Nazi seamen for immediate execution to a criminal organization whose only function was murder.

Correct; it appears that the accusation was about waging an unrestricted submarine warfare, which is different from the one I originally said. My apologies, I worked from memory on that one.

[K. A. Pital]

I meant the less known Nazis who were not as virulently anti-Slavic

They did not define the policies of the Nazi state, so their existence is in my view irrelevant to the subject at hand.

There is a difference between collateral damage caused by military necessity and deliberate illegal targeting of noncombatants.

Yes, there is. However, to conduct such sort of a trial, one needs to find solid evidence of deliberate targeting of noncombatants.

In my mind, anyone who knowingly and deliberately murders innocent children deserves to hang.

They might have all been of adult age; however, they would technically still be noncombatants. Also, how would you kill a collaborator without killing his family? One of the common cases of accusation is usually that the partisans threw a grenade into the house of the collaborator and it killed his family along with him. Is that a war crime?

I cannot see why their families would be, however.

They wouldn't; but many would still die (see example above). Also, partisans are irregular troops; they are often not wearing uniforms and don't have a second chance at life, so they often planned operations with lots of collateral, or even deliberately killed all witnesses of their actions to protect themselves even if the witnesses were non-combatants. The case described in the article, for example: partisans were informed that Germans were in the village, but it turned out to be noncombatants, who were killed in the fight - the civilians themselves might well have been armed and considered an attack a sign that they would be killed.

I'm not saying everyone who fought on the Allied side is immune from prosecution; and in fact many were prosecuted immediately after the war. But the problem is that if with a formal army you have records and proof about the dislocation of a unit, reports and lots of paperwork which is generally an evidence for war crimes, or at least co-servicemen reports... in case with partisans you're relying on hearsay. Hearsay that Person X was in a partisan unit, hearsay that Partisan Unit X commited a war crime. The partisans are the hardest to try and convict.

I believe that criminals on both sides should be tried as well as can be done, however botched the attempts to do so in the past have been.

Yes, but the bulk of evidence is becoming harder and harder to collect as people die. In a few decades from now or so there won't even be hearsay - the last possibility to jail someone who was an irregular - and finally, most of these people would die. Even now the veracity of accusations of irregulars is very hard to prove. At least regular forces have written records of events, of ammo wasted, et cetera which would often allow to determine the participants of a war crime even without hearsay evidence from witnesses. Not so with the partisans.

If we were trying every single war criminal from the Nazi era, for example, we would end up in a very large process; even the USSR which tried to destroy every Nazi collaborator had to lax the efforts; concentrate only on the most evil and notorious, try to at least screen and try everyone who was in the SS - at least, not speaking of countless others.

I'm not saying anyone should be let off the hook; but politically motivated trials which lack evidence aren't helping. The USSR used to try many people in the Baltics as collaborators; undoubtedly by trying, imprisoning and deporting dozens of thousands of people the Soviet Union obviously destroyed the nationalist movements in the Baltics; and quite possibly imprisoned every or most of the collaboratros and partisans who engaged in anti-Soviet armed resistance.

However, such politically motivated process came at a price - many people got injustly accused and imprisoned. Do you trust the current Lithuanian government not to accuse the Jewish partisans without a 100% solid evidence? Personally, I don't - a politically motivated trial doesn't look like "fair game".