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THE HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR ANTISEMITISM IN LITHUANIA AND

JEWISH-LITHUANIAN RELATIONS DURING THE 1930s

Millersville University of Pennsylvania^ Saulius Sužiedėlis

Jewish-Lithuanian Relations before the National Movement

Before the momentous changes of the nineteenth century, Lithuanian society, predominantly agrarian and “feudal,” was divided into a number of more or less clearly defined communities, each with its social, religious and linguistic peculiarities: Polonized landowners, Muslim Tatars, Lithuanian peasants, petty gentry and, of course, the Jews. While it is true, in Zygmunt Bauman’s expression, that the latter constituted a unique “caste,” it was nonetheless one estate among many: the Jews like the other communities, had their place as social inferiors beholden to the landed aristocracy, but, as a rule, economically occupying a space above the peasantry. Social interaction between the various estates was ritualized and, for the most part, carefully regulated by traditional law and custom.^1 As in the rest of Europe, the coming of political, economic and social “modernity,” to utilize Bauman's concept, altered and eventually revolutionized the relationships of Lithuania's various ethno-religious and social castes. However, this modernity, including modern forms of anti-Semitism, came later in Eastern Europe than in the West. Until the late nineteenth century, Jewish interaction with ethnic Lithuanians essentially meant economic contacts with the peasantry since the latter, except for the petty gentry of Samogitia, constituted by then the only significant stratum of Lithuanian speakers. As late as the middle of the last century, the relationship of the Lithuanian peasants and Jews was “pre-modern,” situated within the framework of a stratified semi-feudal society entrenched within a traditional agrarian world. The

symbiotic, but also conflicting, interactions between the two groups sometimes played out in a quasi-ritualistic fashion reminiscent of a bygone age, as depicted in this colorful 1857 account of a confrontation at market toll barricades in southwestern Lithuania:

.avoiding the guard and the required market levy... a loaded wagon is flying with great speed toward the town in the hope of At this very moment, a war-The Lithuanian [driver], caught in a reckless deed, scratches his head, then pleadslike command reverberates: ‘Halt|.’ — in an instant, the wagon is stopped. that he has nothing with which to pay, that he has barely enough money formarket. He comes down from the wagon, a whip in his hand, bargaining with the unyielding guard.impudent! A dozen Jews cluster around him, while the Lithuanian staves them Sometimes, he even refuses obedience; woe then to the off as best he can with his riding crop peasant constantly with his knees and mussing his hair, keeps crying: ‘Pay! Pay!’ — [a] little Jewish fellow, kneading the The Lithuanian... seeks to lift his arms to beat off the unwelcome ‘guest,’ when a new rattle of arriving wagons and a dozen fists under his nose, or, on occasion, even a careful shove, applied from a careful distance, deflects his attention fromhis pestered head. Willy-nilly, he reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a small bag ... Confused and unable to quickly regain his composure, the peasantfinally pays the few groszy with great difficulty. Turning away, he puts back his bag and wants to finally rid himself of the little nuisance fastened on him, but the little Jewish fellow isn’t stupid --with one leap he is already several steps away from the peasant, and is hanging onto another Lithuanian, reaching for the latter’shead. There’s just nothing to be done; one must drive on. The peasant settles into his wagon, spurs on his horses, all the while shaking his head indissatisfaction. However, once he arrives in the town square and glances at the white peasant overcoats... a smile returns to his face.happily and forgets about his ruffled hair. 2 He greets his brothers

Formalized economic tension, replete with ethnic stereotypes, was further reinforced by religious prejudices as well as the mutual hostility of village and town; in ethnic, social and cultural terms, the latter was an inhospitable place for the peasants. In the logic of their caste, most rural folk considered that “only the work of the land was fit for human labor.” Yet the very nature of ritualized interaction within a conservative social hierarchy contained a modicum of stability and, hence, a measure of violence-mitigating security. The mutual stereotypes of the different communities were often negative, but hardly genocidal. Anti-Jewish unrest in the ethnically Lithuanian lands was neither wide-spread nor frequent.^3

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 3 But while Jews and Lithuanians lived side-by-side for centuries, the proximity did not engender mutual understanding. The communities had limited knowledge of each other’s languages and, for the most part, little interest in the Other’s cultural and spiritual world. As commonly observed, in Eastern Europe Jews and Gentiles lived beside one another, but not with each other. Familiar as individuals, they were strangers culturally. Educated Jews and Lithuanians tended to assimilate into one of the region’s “high” cultures: Russian proved attractive to Jews, Polish culture to Lithuanians (at least until the latter half of the nineteenth century). It should not be surprising that superficially reciprocal stereotypes have dominated the histories, literatures and collective memories of Jews and Lithuanians, a situation which, with few exceptions, has continued to the present. The vast Jewish literature consists mainly of recounting the life and death of the numerous litvak communities; as a rule, they are chronicles rather than critical histories. Even in scholarly studies, Lithuanians are often invisible or one-dimensional, appearing either as inert peasant masses, or as perpetrators of the Holocaust. On the other hand, until recently, most Lithuanian-language works, with the exception of authors such as Augustinas Janulaitis and Mykolas Biržiška, who had a genuine interest in Jewish culture, treated the Jews as a footnote, the largest of the minorities, and only in so far as the “Jewish problem” affected Lithuanians themselves.^4 Despite their name, the majority of litvaks actually inhabited what is now Belarus. The 1897 imperial census revealed about one and one-half million Jews in the lands of the former Grand Duchy, only a third of whom lived in what is now the Republic of Lithuania. The nineteenth-century conflict between the Tsars and the increasingly assertive Polish and Lithuanian national movements presented the Jews with a political dilemma: a minority supported the anti-Tsarist forces, others preferred Russian “law and order,” while a great many took the view that “Russia is the father and Poland is the mother. When they fight, children

4 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis must stay out of their quarrel.”^5 What is missing in this bit of folk wisdom, of course, is any mention of Lithuanians. The advent of the national movement after the anti-Tsarist insurrection of 1863, and, most important, the emergence of a secular Lithuanian-speaking intelligentsia complicated the relationship between Jews and Lithuanians. Much of the nationally-minded Catholic clergy nurtured, in various degrees, traditional anti-Judaic animosities which were now compounded by social and political concerns. Bishop Motiejus Valančius (1801-1875), an important forerunner of the Lithuanian national revival, emphasized the harmful impact on the moral and social life of the peasantry exercised by Jewish tavern-keepers and merchants. The Jews’ alleged support for the Tsar made them allies of the Church’s rival, the Orthodox autocracy. On the other hand, traditional Catholic anti-Judaism was mitigated by the Church’s admonitions which emphasized the dignity of all human beings. Even as he advised peasants about dishonest Jewish traders, Valančius cautioned them against violence towards “God’s children.”^6 The beatified Jurgis Matulaitis (1871-1927), modern Lithuania's most ethical hierarch, condemned anti-Jewish pogroms as Bishop of Vilnius.^7 At the same time, the secular Lithuanian intelligentsia encountered modern anti-Semitic trends, primarily from Austria, Germany and France, reinforcing homespun negative stereotypes with the bacilli of pseudoscientific racism. The first published work by Vincas Kudirka (1858-1899), one of the founders of modern Lithuanian nationalism, was a folksy, primitive caricature of the Jewish restriction against pork.^8 In Varpas (The Bell), the first Lithuanian-language periodical with a political program, Kudirka railed against “the Jews...our most terrible enemies...the most vicious wolves dressed in sheep’s wool,” assailing them as a danger to the peasants’ Catholic faith. Since Kudirka, like many other secular nationalists, was personally indifferent to the Catholicism of his youth, such passages were an obvious incitement

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 5 of pious village folk. At least one leftist contemporary speculated that the intelligentsia of the Varpas movement had acquired simplistic anti-Jewish attitudes from “childhood days in the village or frequent sermons in the churches.”^9 But Kudirka’s anti-Semitic philippics, in addition to primitive appeals to the peasants’ sense of exploitation, revealed an acquaintance with French and Austrian purveyors of racial anti-Semitism. In one striking passage Kudirka argued, in Edouard Drumont’s vein, that the inborn malignant nature of the Jews was immutable and could not be ameliorated through education or assimilation.^10 Kudirka’s was not the only voice. The democratic slogans of the insurrection of 1863- and the Revolution of 1905 raised hopes of Jewish emancipation as well as the liberation of Gentile peasants. Anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic Tsarism could be seen as an enemy of both Jews and Lithuanians; there was room for cooperation as well as hostility.^11 While Lithuanian-language periodicals urged economic competition with Jews, both the secular and clerical press discouraged anti-Jewish violence and urged a common front against Tsarist oppression. During the elections to the First Duma in 1906 Lithuanian and Jewish leaders agreed to support each other’s candidates.^12 The latter sometimes remarked on the weakness of an anti-Semitic tradition and the paucity of pogroms in Lithuania before the Great War.^13 In sum, Lithuanian-Jewish relations of the turn of the century could be described as “complicated and contradictory, but not predominantly antagonistic.”^14 Not surprisingly, the generation of Lithuanian leaders who received their political baptism of fire before 1914 also produced the most determined critics of anti-Semitism in later decades.

Ethnicity, Politics and Self-Determination in the New State The new, vibrant and often chaotic world of post-Versailles Eastern Europe intensified regional and ethnic rivalries even as it opened new possibilities of inter-ethnic accommodation based on

6 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis liberal democracy. The advent of majority rule in independent Lithuania after 1918 rapidly transformed Lithuanian relations with the national minorities. The land reform was widely understood not only as economic democratization, but as the historic defeat of Polish influence. The Republic’s attempts to integrate Klaipda Territory encountered the hostility of the country’s Germans. In turn, the relationship of the country’s Lithuanians and Jews, the largest national minority, was dramatically reshaped by the escalating competition in commerce, industry and the professions fueled by the unprecedented influx of ethnic Lithuanians into cities and towns between the wars. The struggle for Vilnius led to violent anti-Semitic pogroms by Bolshevik and Polish forces in the spring of 1919.^15 During the wars of national liberation of 1918-1920 anti-Jewish outbreaks on a smaller scale also occurred in the lands controlled by the newly organized Lithuanian government. Jews had been accused of conniving with the detested German Ober Ost authorities whose requisitions had driven many villagers close to famine. Some of the economic, social and cultural tensions that characterized Lithuanian-Jewish relations of the interwar period were pre-shadowed by the privileged position of some Jews employed by the German occupation authorities during 1915-1918.^16 At the first Lithuanian Jewish Congress in Kaunas in January 1920, Jewish leaders raised concerns about their situation in the new state. While some of the problems reflected traditional economic frictions with the peasantry, reminiscent of the picturesque toll-gathering of the previous century, others reflected the realities accompanying the advent of majority rule. The Congress protested the excesses of Lithuanian troops in Panevžys in May 1919 during the war with Soviet Russia, as well as the lack of Jewish participation in the bureaucracy; there were allegations that virtually all Jewish railroad workers had been dismissed.^17 Yet evidence of pogroms during the period between 1915 and

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 7 the early 1920s is sketchy at best and the story of peasant-Jewish relations of those years is marred by the sparsity and subjective nature of the sources.^18 Thus, Jewish-Lithuanian relations of the interwar period evolved within a radically transformed landscape. Gone were the layers of authority which had separated the Jews from the peasant majority: the Tsarist bureaucracy, the Polonized aristocracy and the German military administration. For all minorities, dealing directly with the Lithuanian-speaking majority without these intervening agencies was a novel experience. Would Jews consider the new Lithuania of peasant upstarts their state as well? Most Jews had less faith than their ethnic Lithuanian countrymen in the permanence of the new state; many preferred a version of the old multinational Grand Duchy in which the Lithuanians, Poles, Jews and Belarusians would co-exist as autonomous Swiss-like ethnic “cantons.”^19 Jewish sentiment for autonomy within a new Russia, which would include the litvak -inhabited lands of Belarus, as well as suspicions and even prejudiced condescension concerning the new “peasant” Lithuanian state, were initially widespread.^20 Yet for most Lithuanian leaders, separation from Russia and Poland was the sine qua non of the country’s existence. And as the new Lithuanian state grew in strength and fended off its foreign enemies, Jews increasingly came to accept the Second Republic, albeit for somewhat different reasons than ethnic Lithuanians. A certain community of interests developed. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Jews fought for the Republic in the wars of independence, many as volunteers. Many Lithuanians and Jews felt victimized by Józef Piłsudski’s Poland, especially Gen. Lucjan Żeligowski’s seizure of Vilnius in October 1920, and were disturbed by the avowedly anti-Lithuanian and anti-Semitic stance of many of the latter’s supporters. Acutely aware of the need to convince the international community of the viability of their state, and

8 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis seeking recognition within the new Wilsonian order under construction at Versailles, Lithuania’s leaders strove to present their nation as a paragon of liberal democracy. Initially Lithuania’s official policy toward the Jewish minority was based on a wide-ranging cultural autonomy, solemnly outlined in the declaration of principles issued by the Lithuanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference on 5 August 1919 and reaffirmed for all the national minorities by the Constitution of 1922. A Minister of Jewish Affairs was part of the Lithuanian Cabinet until 1924. But Jewish autonomy, as well as an expansive attitude towards the minorities’ cultural development in general, aroused opposition among Catholic, conservative and nationalist circles who considered ethnic home rule the creation of a “state within the state.” The Jews and other minorities became entangled in domestic political battles: the Christian Democrats, egged on by elements in the Church, sought to settle scores with Jewish politicians whom they accused of siding with the secular center and left parties. The Catholic Bloc’s political dominance between 1922 and 1926 coincided with a progressive curtailment of Jewish self-government.^21 During the anti-leftist agitation of the mid-1920s primitive leaflets appealed to the fears of Bolshevism, subversion by disloyal national minorities and Jewish “domination.”^22 However, even after the abolition of the Jewish Ministry and the Nationalist seizure of power in 1926, Lithuania’s Jews preserved a significant measure of communal autonomy.^23 The Republic continued its contributions to rabbinical salaries: in 1927 the government’s per capita subsidy to the Jewish religious community actually exceeded that assigned to the majority Catholics.^24 Initially, the proponents of a Lithuanian-dominated national state did not automatically consider Jews the most “dangerous” minority. A nationalist memorandum concerning the political crisis of 1926 emphasized the need for an “ethnic national state,” but also affirmed that the Jews were the only minority which should be allowed to “participate in the

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 9 government...without harm to the state’s independence,” since, unlike Poles and Germans, they had neither dangerous foreign sponsors nor irredentist claims.^25 While Lithuania provided a relatively safe climate for its Jews during most of the interwar period compared with, for example, Poland and Romania (not to speak of Germany), economic problems and Zionist agitation led to the emigration of nearly 14,000 Lithuanian Jews between 1928 and 1939 (about 15% of total emigration from the Republic) of whom the majority went to South Africa (35%) and Palestine (25%).^26

Jews, Lithuanians and the New Economy In 1912 only an estimated 6.5% of ethnic Lithuanians owned real estate; barely one of twenty-five proprietors of commercial and industrial enterprises were Lithuanian speakers. After 1918 the percentage of Polish, Russian and German landowners and urban bourgeoisie declined, leaving the non-agrarian economy largely in the hands of Jews who were now challenged by newly assertive Lithuanians. In 1923, 83% of the country’s commercial and retail enterprises were owned by Jews, 13% by ethnic Lithuanians. During the ensuing years the ethnic face of the Lithuanian economy changed: by 1936 Lithuanians owned some 43% of the country’s commercial and retail establishments. One estimate holds that between 1923 and 1936 the number of Lithuanian-owned commercial enterprises grew three-fold, while that owned by Jews fell by 9%. Furthermore, Lithuanians had come to hold three-fifths of the industrial and artisan businesses compared to a Jewish ratio of 32%, although the latter enterprises tended to be on a somewhat larger scale. The Lithuanian cooperative movement acquired an increasing share of the agricultural markets. Linas, the Lithuanian flax producers’ and exporters’ cooperative founded in 1935, was a good example of the growth of Lithuanian-owned concerns: by 1939-1940 it accounted for

10 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis 58% of exports in a branch of the economy historically dominated by Jewish middlemen. Jews charged that government policies favored Lithuanian-owned corporations in which the state held substantial shares, such as the sugar concern, Lietuvos Cukrus, but the growing participation of Lithuanians in the economy by no means eliminated the important role of the Jews: in 1936, despite considerable inroads by Lithuanian shopkeepers, Jews still operated more than half of the country’s small retail establishments. In 1939 Jews controlled an estimated 20% of Lithuania’s export trade and 40% of the import business. Members of the Jewish community remained well-represented in the professions: in 1937 more than two-fifths of the country’s doctors and lawyers were Jews. On the other hand, only a handful of Jews were employed by the central government or served as military officers.^27 The ethnic urban landscape did not change without a fight. In 1926 the Kaunas City Council heard allegations that Jewish landlords charged lower rents for their coreligionists than the Gentile tenants and manipulated auctions to ensure sales to Jews. Lithuanian “immigrants” to Kaunas then petitioned the President to help establish “Lithuanian neighborhoods” in the city, while their representatives in the Council urged the “National Government to undertake the solution to this problem since it is a question of ensuring the Lithuanian nation’s position in Kaunas.” The demand for encouraging Lithuanian property rights in Kaunas presupposed a political struggle along ethnic lines: Lithuanians complained that they expected “nothing positive from the local bodies of self-government since the dominant element in the City Council is composed of non-Lithuanians, who had, have, and will have a negative attitude on the question of strengthening the Lithuanian element.”^28 On the other hand, what is also interesting about these petitions is the absence of any overtly anti-Semitic rhetoric. Whether attempts to redress historic imbalances in economic opportunity, such as American “affirmative action” programs, represent long-delayed social justice or “reverse discrimination”

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 11 depends, of course, on highly subjective perceptions. In any case, the First Republic’s efforts to encourage the previously disenfranchised majority’s economic advancement should be viewed against the background of the minuscule ethnic Lithuanian representation in the professions, industry, commerce, and post-primary education before independence. But Lithuania’s economy was not the rapidly expanding post-World War II American pie that could absorb legions of newcomers. The growing ethnic Lithuanian share of the non-agrarian economy inevitably came at the expense of others and, in Lithuania, this meant the Jews, and, proportionally to an even a greater extent, Polish landowners.

The emergence of the Lithuanian Businessmen’s Association ( Lietuvi  Verslinink 

Sąjunga ) in 1932 reflected the economic competition between the Lithuanian “newcomers” and entrenched business interests. The verslininka i, as they were called, sought to limit “alien” economic influence and they initially concentrated much of their resentment against the German minority, urging well-to-do Lithuanians not to hire German nannies from among foreigners, but to choose Swiss or French candidates instead.^29 In 1932, as German-Lithuanian tensions escalated, the businessmen’s weekly wrote: “The Germans have long been and, perhaps, have remained the most malevolent of our nation’s enemies, because they are the most clever.”^30 However, despite professed opposition to all “aliens,” the Jews provided the main target. Militant verslininkai came to see Jewish economic clout, or, in their parlance, tyranny, as the major obstacle to the continued modernization of Lithuanian society, which they understood as ethnic Lithuanian dominance in urban and commercial life. Publicly, the verslininkai denied evil intentions or envy towards non-Lithuanians, rejected violence towards Jews and asserted that the goal of 85% Lithuanian participation in the economy, its rightful proportional share, would be achieved by “natural evolution.”^31 This seemingly benign posture was belied by the business weekly’s vitriolic articles which painted Jews as rootless profiteers with an inbred urge

12 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis towards world hegemony. The Jewish press in Kaunas, especially Yidishe Shtime, and the Lithuanian-language Jewish newspaper, Apžvalga (The Review), responded with their own scathing counterattacks, ridiculing crude anti-Semitic notions.^32 In addition to the constant harping on alleged Jewish economic hegemony in Lithuania, the verslininkai complained that Lithuania’s own governing elite favored Jews and did too little for “native” businessmen. The excesses of the nationalist businessmen did not go unchallenged. Concerned about agrarian unrest and the Nazi threat in Klaipda, the regime had little stomach for extremist rhetoric. In 1935-1936, the mayor of Kaunas, Antanas Merkys, as well as several government ministers, criticized the verslininkai and reaffirmed the regime’s pledge to protect minorities. The businessmen’s association was cautioned to observe the principles of “moral competition” and to avoid “low-brow chauvinism.”^33 The respected former prime minister, Ernestas Galvanauskas, suggested that anti-Semitism among the younger Lithuanian generation resulted partly from the fact that they could not find jobs in a saturated public sector and were, thus, forced to compete in areas heretofore dominated by Jews. But he denied that there was economic anti-Lithuanian discrimination on the part of the Jews, a favorite theme of the verslininkai.^34 Chastened by the fact that they had been compelled to publish criticism of nationalist excesses in their own newspaper, the radical businessmen moderated their views during 1936 and, for a while, adopted a more professional stance under a new editor. But there was no long-term change of colors. Emboldened by the growing right-wing opposition to the Smetona government during the late thirties, the atmosphere grew uglier again. In December 1938 the verslininkai demanded “laws which would regulate the Jewish question,” specifically to establish quotas in employment and business “until such time as the majority percentage of Lithuanians is also reflected in commerce.”^35

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 13 Lithuanian-Jewish economic competition evolved within a broader context of political and social grievances. The depression of the early and mid-1930s provided the underground LCP and its front organizations with ammunition against factory owners, many of whom were Jews.^36 Anti-capitalist passions could easily translate into anti-Semitic attitudes, amplified by long-standing cultural irritants. In 1935, when Lithuanian workers in Vilkaviškis petitioned to be released from Sunday work, the Jewish owners threatened to fire them if they persisted in their demands. The resentful workers thus found themselves, in their words, “quietly observing [Saturdays] with the Jews.” In the “Tigras” factory in Pilviškis, the non-Jews were dissatisfied because “the local owners and workers, mostly Jews, work on Sundays and even on national holidays.”^37 But it was also the talk in the synagogues that “Jews are being increasingly persecuted in Lithuania. Various concessions to the farmers are impacting the Jews, who, at the same time, are burdened with [higher] taxes.”^38

Problems of Reorientation: Education, Culture and Language The changing structure of the modernized higher education system in a country with limited white-collar employment opportunities presented another arena of inter-ethnic contention. Until 1930 Jews constituted a large share of students training for the professions — an estimated 35-40% of medical students and at least a third of those entering law. The government rejected nationalist demands for proportional national enrollment, the numerus clausus , although the introduction of compulsory Lithuanian-language entrance examinations effectively reduced Jewish enrollment at the University of Kaunas. During 1935-1936 there were, reportedly, 486 Jews out of 3,223 students in Lithuania’s higher education system, about twice the proportion of Jews in the total population, but also a two-fold decline in the percentage of Jewish students since 1928-1929.^39 But Jews were still a force in higher education: the 1931 elections to the

14 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis Kaunas University student assembly brought twelve representatives from the ateitininkai , the influential Catholic group, while the Jews elected nine students from two slates, and the Communist front group elected two persons, one of whom was Jewish.^40 The rapid development of Lithuanian-language public discourse within the new state presented a vexing dilemma for Jews. For the first time, Lithuanian became the country’s official language; historically, however, most Jews preferred Russian culture as their “second home.” The persistence of this pattern during independence irritated those Lithuanians who were sensitive to the prerogatives of their now official native language. Occasionally, this led to public disagreements and clashes. In February-March 1923 nationalist youth carried out a sudden cultural “Lithuanianization” of the country’s major cities, demonstrating their patriotism by painting over Yiddish and Polish storefront signs. Much of the older intelligentsia and political elite condemned the outbreak and called for respecting the rights of minorities,^41 but the issue festered. Even the tolerant Smetona once wondered at the Jewish propensity for using Russian; like many Lithuanians, he would have preferred that the Jews preserve Yiddish or Hebrew among themselves, but utilize Lithuanian when addressing persons outside the community.^42 In fact, some Jewish leaders showed sympathy for Lithuanian sensitivities. In 1937 Jewish organizations in Kaunas sponsored a meeting and passed a resolution condemning the “use of Russian in public places,” their leaders reminding the audience that such behavior “really does intensely irritate Lithuanians.” Jews were urged to understand Lithuanian feelings about past persecution of their culture and native tongue. The meeting was well received: even the verslininkai commented that “we can only welcome such an attitude on the part of Jewish society.”^43 Despite tensions, there were factors encouraging Jews and Lithuanians to adopt a real, if limited, modus vivendi. Lithuania’s conflict with Poland over Vilnius nudged the country’s

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 15 Jewish leadership towards a pro-Lithuanian political stance, much to the annoyance of nationalist Poles. As one Jewish leader explained, the Polish demand for, at the very least, “neutral” Jewish behavior on the issue would be a “sellout of our [Lithuanian] fatherland.”^44 Even more important in the long term, a number of educated younger Jews gravitated toward a Lithuanian cultural orientation. The first Lithuanian-language Jewish secondary school was opened in Kaunas. Jewish scholars published articles in the Lithuanian press concerning such cultural and historical issues as “Lithuanian influences on the Jews.”^45 On 20 August 1929 the Lithuanian nationalist daily Lietuvos Aidas remarked:

A few years ago it was difficult to find a Jew who could speak fine Lithuanian and wasacquainted with Lithuanian literature, but now we can see among the Jews young philologists who easily compete with young Lithuanian linguists.Lithuanian Jews will go in the same direction as the Jews of other civilized countries, This is a sign that the contributing their part to the cultural treasures of those nations in whose states they live.^46 The extent to which official Lithuania and the Gentile establishment were willing to accommodate Jewish cultural and religious needs fell within parameters of not unreasonable social and legal compromises. Several examples from 1932 are illustrative. In one case, Kaunas rabbis asked the Ministry of Communications that Jews not be required to pay taxes on goods held over at railroad stations on Saturdays (and thus apply “Sunday” rules to Jewish businesses). Officials rejected the request on the grounds that “Saturday is a day of work for all state institutions.”^47 On the other hand, the proposed Catholic University of Lithuania, which planned to open its doors during the early 1930s, announced its intention to treat both Saturdays and Sundays as holidays since it was expected that “Jews would form a large contingent of students,” especially in the faculty of commerce.^48 When Lithuania’s rabbis asked the government to delay the drafting of conscripts until after the Jewish New Year, the authorities approved the postponement.^49

16 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis Unfortunately, the gradual reorientation of Lithuanian Jews towards the dominant Lithuanian cultural paradigm and the Republic’s official tolerance collided with an exclusionary nationalism, already evident in the 1923 student attack on the country’s multilingual heritage, which progressively invaded all areas of public life, even sports. Questions arose about the participation of Jews in the World Lithuanian Olympics to be held in Kaunas in early 1938.^50 Initially, Kaunas's Yiddishe Shtime quoted reliable sources that all athletes from Lithuania, regardless of nationality and religion, could participate in the event, while only ethnic Lithuanians would be included in the diaspora teams.^51 However, soon afterward, the director of the Kaunas's Physical Education Center told Folksblat that the National Olympiad was open only to ethnic Lithuanians, although the national team that would participate in the 1940 Olympics would be chosen without regard to ethnicity.^52 Even before the late 1930s Lithuania saw its share of anti-Semitic agitation and violent outbreaks. A typical incident occurred in November 1931 in a small town near Kaunas, when “three hooligans began to smash Jewish windows and tried to beat a Jewish woman.” Detained were: “the chief of the post office, his assistant and a representative of the Singer Co. in Kaunas.” The matter was turned over to the Trakai district chief.^53 Sometimes, the authorities were not sure whether to adopt a “hard” or “soft” attitude towards the culprits. In October 1931 the state prosecutor demanded the “severest punishment” for four youths who had vandalized a Jewish cemetery in Klaipda, arguing that the mandated three-year term was too lenient. But the judge sentenced one of the men to six months, while the others received five. After announcing the verdict, the chief judge noted that the press had “blown up” the incident. “The court,” he concluded, “looks at this crime as the thoughtless work of drunken kids.”^54 Localized attacks on Jews and clashes between Lithuanian and Jewish university students grew more frequent after the mid-1930s. The Telšiai military commandant punished eighteen

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 17 anti-Jewish “troublemakers” in the month of October 1935.^55 Rural disturbances were occasioned by alleged “kidnapings” of Gentile children for blood rituals, all eventually proven false.

The Struggle Over Anti-Semitism Aside from the blood libel, articulated by the Nazis in its modern racially virulent form, two allegations dominate modern anti-Semitism: the Jews’ leading role in the Bolshevik movement and their economic exploitation of non-Jews. These ideologically motivated anti-Semitic arguments, while more characteristic of the late 1930s, had already made their appearance in the Lithuania of the twenties. Not surprisingly, they surfaced first among the far right, especially the infamous Iron Wolf (Lith. Geležinis Vilkas) founded in 1927, whose members utilized the statute of the Italian fascist party as a guide for their own organization and explicitly stated that “only [ethnic] Lithuanians can be Wolves.”^56 A program of “humane” anti-Semitism was proposed:

... the Wolves should not forget the Lithuanian struggle for liberation from Jewish economicslavery. The year 1929 should mark the beginning of a new anti-Semitic movement. Of course, excesses will not serve our final goal, but will only postpone its achievement.The anti-Jewish action initiated by us must flow into entirely different, cultural forms, which do not violate the principles of ethics and humanity.

The Wolves urged support for Lithuanian businesses in order to “shake off Jewish mediation and Jewish exploitation.”^57 While the Judeo-Bolshevik canard became a staple after 1940, it appeared much earlier in milder form. In 1929 the writer Povilas Jakubnas warned that the country’s Yiddish-language schools, in contrast to the conservative-religious and national-Hebrew institutions, had become breeding grounds for young Marxists, “opening the door to internationalist and nihilist” theories.

18 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis The lack of religious orientation was said to turn Jewish youth into “victims of Communist propaganda.” Dr. M. Sudarskis replied by defending the Yiddish schools, even while admitting that some of their graduates exhibited leftist orientations.^58 The exchange revealed interesting attitudes concerning the place of Jews in the new Lithuania: they are still acceptable, either within their familiar role as a conservative religious community, or as sympathetic “fellow nationalists.” The most public example of support for Zionism was the editorial, “A Blow to the Jewish Nation,” published in Lietuvos aidas in response to the 1929 upheavals in Palestine, describing Arabs as an “ignorant and fanatical nation” who should not begrudge the Jews a little land and expressing condolences to our “Jewish citizens” in Palestine. “One's hair stands on end,” wrote the editors, when confronted with the persecution of the Jews:

Every day terrible news flows from Palestine.Arabs are attacking and murdering the unfortunate Jewish colonists... The Zionist idea Fired by religious and nationalistic fanaticism, the cannot be unattractive to any person who loves his own country.that the Jews are a parasitic, purely cosmopolitan nation without any noble ideals and Formerly it was said whose messiah is money. The Zionist movement has proven that this is not true.^59

The “enlightened nationalism” of 1929 thrived within an unusually nurturing political context: the power struggle between Smetona and Voldemaras was in full spate and excesses in Kaunas's Jewish neighborhood of Vilijampol (Slabada) had resonated in the press. On the night of 1 August 1929, during the so-called “Red Days” organized annually by leftists, a group of policemen and security officials had carried out an “action” against the Communists. The criminal police initially reported the incidents as a disturbance involving “a few Jewish fellows who had tried to organize a protest against militarism,” which failed when “the police rounded them up with the help of workers, detaining 81 persons, 16 women and 65 men: 76 Jews and five Catholics.”^60 But as the anti-Semitic character of the disorders became

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 19

public, the Riflemen's Union (Lith. Šauli  Sąjunga ) denied involvement, publishing a

condemnation of anti-Semitism and pointing out that the Union included Jewish members.^61 Voldemaras promised an investigation.^62 Subsequent court proceedings revealed the unsavory details. Groups of men, some in civilian dress and others in šauliai uniforms, armed with revolvers, rifles and clubs, had detained passers-by. As the court noted, the victims were “exclusively citizens of Jewish nationality,” who were beaten with fists and humiliated through compulsory “calisthenics.” The judges concluded that the “reason for the excesses were that the hooligans had for a long time been full of hatred for the Jewish nationality, since [according to them], among the Jews there are many Communists, [and they believed] that at least 95% of Lithuania's Communists are Jews.” One of the victims avoided a beating when the pogromists found an issue of the “patriotic newspaper,” Lietuvos aidas, in the man’s pocket.^63 The court classified twelve of the accused as “participants,” while a policeman at the local precinct was sentenced for failing to protect the victims. A civil case for damages brought by some of the aggrieved Jews was dismissed.^64 Prosecutor Matas Krygeris demanded harsher sentences, but the court forwarded the case to the Highest Tribunal.^65 In his report to Smetona and in the order of the day, the interior minister announced the dismissal of a number of policemen and reprimanded Kaunas authorities for their irresolute response to the incident.^66 On 20 August 1929 Lietuvos aidas published a denunciation of the “Slabada excesses” singling out the culprits as “yahoo patriots, super patriots and chauvinists.” While the daily regretted that some Jews of the older generation “still cannot get accustomed to the idea of an independent Lithuania,” it also stressed the fact that the younger generation of Jews had shown loyalty to their country: “This means that Lithuanian Jews will also have to become good patriots of their country. But this depends partly on Lithuanian patriots as well, who must return the Jews’ trust with their own.” In view of the fact that the summer of 1929 had also witnessed

20 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis similar attacks on “Polish-speaking citizens,”^67 the paper stressed that violence against any non-Lithuanian citizen deserved the “greatest condemnation.”^68 The Jewish establishment also wished to bury the incident. I. Serebravičius, a prominent Jewish leader, warned Lithuanian Jews that “foreign interests” were blowing up a local disturbance into a “pogrom” and questioned the wisdom of hiring foreign attorneys to file law-suits, as this would only aid “Lithuania's enemies.”^69 Public criticism of anti-Semitism grew more vociferous in reaction to the deadly 1931 pogroms in Vilnius, the outrage enhanced by the political opportunity to excoriate the “Polish occupation” of the Vilnius region. The daily Lietuvos žinios moralized: “A cultured person is always disgusted by the excesses of zoological nationalism and racism... Similar pogroms can never take place if the government is determined not to allow them.”^70 On 15 November 1931 the Jews of Kaunas petitioned the government “to intervene and take steps to ensure the lives of our brothers in Lithuanian Vilnius, the Jerusalem of Lithuania.”^71 Four days later, a large demonstration was organized by the Jewish-Lithuanian Association for Cultural Cooperation featuring prominent Lithuanian and Jewish speakers, the proceedings broadcast nationwide. Former foreign minister Juozas Purickis maintained that “until now Lithuanians had not been soiled with the blood of Jews,” while Mykolas Biržiška, a literary scholar and long-time proponent of Jewish-Lithuanian cooperation, invited people “to be vigilant that [our] beautiful toleration should never change in the future, and that our own instincts should not degenerate.” The Jewish leader Rubinšteinas charged that “the Poles have brought the pogrom tradition to Vilnius.” The resolution adopted at the meeting emphasized the Vilnius issue and had a distinctly anti-Polish tone.^72 On 20 November 1931 the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Volunteers’ Union, not known for liberal attitudes, issued a statement reminding the readers of the 1919 Easter pogroms in Vilnius, and expressed sympathy for the victims:

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 21 “...once again the cries of the Jews and the terrible suffering of the wounded have resonated within the walls of our [true] capital.”^73 The violence in Vilnius produced some of the most interesting public condemnations of anti-Semitism and racism in interwar Lithuania:

It may seem to some that the Jewish nation has some unsympathetic characteristics (and what nation doesn’t have them?). It may even be supposed that Poland’s Jews have more such features than their co-nationals in other countries.no conditions can pogroms [emphasized in the original] be justified. But in no way and under A pogrom is an inhuman, disorderly use of brutal force against other people, citizens of the same state ofa different nationality. A pogrom is essentially an immoral and indecent method of struggle, the use of which contradicts the most elemental principles of human solidarity...When one thinks about it, it seems that humanity in general, and especially our closest and greatest neighbors have turned in the direction clearly characterized by insanity andmoral atrophy... Independent Lithuania cannot forget that all of the inhabitants of the occupied Vilnius district, without regard to religious, national or other differences, areher children. 74

The editorial also regretted that the predominantly Polish students who had been involved in the Vilnius pogroms had called themselves “National Democrats and carriers of Catholic ideas.” The more liberal Aušra (Dawn) excoriated racism in a text that could have been written in the America of the 1960s:

The European, an allegedly cultured person, has placed the heavy hand of slavery onpeople of a different color, destroyed the patriarchal structure of the New World, turning the free nations found there into blind instruments of labor... The essence of the pogromis the attack on unarmed peaceful people, often old people, women and children. If you put yourself in their shoes, what are they to do?nationality... they are also human beings, they have an equal right to be protected by the They cannot become people of another state from violence and destruction...what slogans they utilize, are and remain the greatest shame of the civilized world... Just as the slave trade, so the pogroms, no matter

After noting that racism and pogroms become possible when universal moral and religious values are undermined, the editors concluded with a warning:

To simply express condolences to the victims in banal words is not enough.more effort to protect the young people from the threatening danger so that they, perhaps not We should all exert understanding their actions, not go the way of Poland’s youth who try to create their country’s greatness and progress through pogroms.^75 Such “philo-Semitism” can function as a means of achieving self-serving goals, in this case arousing anti-Polish sentiment and scoring points with the international community. But political benefits gained from good works do not negate their import. Pro-Jewish sentiments, just as anti-Semitism, subsisted within a specific political landscape. In January 1935 Smetona published a speech attacking H. Stuart Chamberlain’s racist theories, arguing that it was not possible “to speak seriously about national or racial purity, when science and technology have so facilitated and speeded communications.” He presented the United States as an example of a “first-rate power,” which had assimilated many nations. While Smetona rejected the “other extreme” of indiscriminate nation-mixing, he stressed that there were no good or bad nations. The President emphasized the rights of minorities who were, after all, “our citizens,” and begged Lithuanians not to protest persecution of their ethnic brethren abroad by attacking minorities at home.^76 Smetona’s recognition of the Nazi threat was informed by a supporter and confidant, Valentinas Gustainis, the Nationalists’ leading journalist and editor of the semi-official Lietuvos aidas. After a careful reading of Mein Kampf , Gustainis not only warned of Hitler’s penchant for world conquest, but also penned, in 1933, perhaps one of the first insights on the genocidal nature of Nazism, uncannily predicting the use of “chemical science, primarily the various horrible gases...” in a program of racial extermination.^77 For his part, Ignas Šeinius, a leading writer with close ties to the Nationalist establishment, authored Siegfried Immerselbe atsinaujina (The Rejuvenation of Siegfried Immerselbe), a wicked satire of Nazi anti-Semitism and racial pseudoscience, one of the acclaimed interwar novels.

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 23 In April 1936 police spies reported that Jews “holding rightist opinions” in the Marijampol area were urging their community to support the government against the agrarian strikers since “Jews can never expect another President like Smetona and one must fight for him.” Other Jews referred to Smetona as “our Father.” In Šakiai the rabbi told local Jewish communities: “May God bless our President.” Police spies reported talk among Jews that “the present government stands as if an iron wall against all sorts of persecutions.” In general, the Jews of Marijampol were satisfied with the local district chief and blamed “Jewish disunity” for that fact that not a single Jew had been elected to the 1936 Seimas.^78 On the other hand, during this violent period of agrarian unrest in the southwestern region of the country, other Jews had established sympathetic contact with the rebellious peasants. The police reported that one Manaškis Kopolovičius was spreading the word that local peasants wounded in clashes with the police should “seek out Dr. Freida in Šakiai, since Freida is the only one who will keep their injuries secret. Also in Pilviškiai there is a certain Jewish doctor who helps the farmers.”^79 At times, Jews found they could support Lithuanian nationalist goals. As the crisis with Germany intensified in late 1935 because of the government’s crackdown on the Nazis in Klaipda, some Jews urged that, rather than expending resources improving the port, the Republic should use the money not only to buy up German land and settle it with Lithuanians, but also “to forbid the German language in schools and public institutions.” The police noted “considerable interest in the economic and political situation [among the Jews].”^80 Conservative Jews shared the Smetona regime’s aversion to Communism. In May 1929 the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Rabbinical Association directed a memorandum to the President opposing the Education Ministry’s plan to consolidate religious (so-called “Yavne” or Javne) elementary schools with the general Jewish primary system, noting that devout parents desired that their children not grow up to be “leftists” or come under other dangerous influences.^81 In

24 Jewish-Lithuanian Relations – Sužiedlis this case, the rabbis stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the State Security Department which in January 1934 urged strict vigilance against both anti-Semitic agitation and Communist influence among the Jews.^82

Years of Crisis: From the Late 1930s to 1940 While the entire interwar period witnessed anti-Semitic agitation and anti-Jewish incidents, the most visible deterioration in Lithuanian-Jewish relations in the First Republic occurred during the late 1930s. One unsettling sign was a lowering of rhetorical restraints evidenced by a nationalist writer's vitriolic article advocating the segregation of beach facilities on the Baltic, citing the “dirty habits” of the Jews.^83 Despite the regime’s tense relations with Berlin, German racist propaganda resonated, as it did elsewhere in Europe, among some elements in Lithuania. The last years of independence also saw the growth of street-level anti-Semitism, reflected in the police reports of vandalism against Jewish institutions and the appearance of anti-Jewish leaflets distributed by shadowy groups of “patriots.”^84 The increased respectability of anti-Semitism was grounded in older anti-Judaic prejudices but, more important, it was an outgrowth of the general fascination with fascism and radical ethnic nationalism amongst certain intellectual circles characteristic of the later 1930s. As a matter of principle, the Catholic hierarchy condemned racism and violence against minorities, while, at the same time, propagating stereotypes of secularized, Communist and commercially clever Jews as harmful to the Christian community. In 1937 one of the more intellectual clerics, Rev. Stasys Yla, published a tract expounding on the reasons for the Jews’ dangerous attraction to Communism. But Yla admitted the importance of the Communist stance against ethnic discrimination as an incentive for Jews to join the Party and, as a solution, proposed a Western-style, civically progressive attitude towards minorities, including a patient policy of

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations – Sužiedlis 25 attracting them to Lithuanian language and culture, while maintaining a tolerant official multi-culturalism.^85 A prominent Catholic philosopher of the younger generation proceeded in a more radical direction, belittling bourgeois decadence and proposing an exclusive “organic state” in which non-Lithuanians would be “guests” rather than citizens.^86 While the most strident anti-Semitic voices were hushed by the censorship, some academic publications and articles in the popular press propagated an exclusive nationalism whose counterpoint was a negative image of Jews.^87 In January 1939 a prominent young historian, Zenonas Ivinskis, described to a student gathering the Führer’s “decisive rule” in Germany and lauded Austria’s post- Anschluss racial laws for “liberating the country from one parasitic minority...a positive aspect of racism.”^88 In the spring of 1940 Nationalists in Šiauliai petitioned the government to “solve” the Jewish question by establishing a “reservation” for Jews.^89 During 1938-1939 the anti-Smetona

opposition briefly coalesced into the Lithuanian Activist Movement ( Lietuvi  aktyvist  sąjunga)

which sought German assistance and openly proclaimed Jews and Poles as the nation’s enemies. But even so, Lithuanian anti-Semitism paled in comparison with the more radical variants of the disease in Germany and Romania. The leader of the Klaipda Nazis, Ernst Neumann, felt that the LAS “activists” had not yet adopted a genuine anti-Semitic program: according to him, the Lithuanian radicals were “too democratic and too gentle in their behavior regarding the Jews.”^90 European universities provided a breeding ground for anti-Semitic and radical nationalist excesses, stimulated by the domestic and international crises of the late 1930s. In March 1938 there were disturbances at the University of Kaunas, including attacks on Jewish students. Professors who tried to calm the malcontents were publicly ridiculed; some students even posted a copy of the Nazis’ anti-Semitic periodical, Der Stürmer , as a provocation. The University Senate condemned the incitement, while the rector, prof. Mykolas Römeris, told the press that the “hooligan-like and uncultured outbreaks against the Jewish students were for me entirely