Neighbors look to Neighbors. Debates over the Holocaust in Lithuania
Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, No. 21 (2025), Pages: 56-69
Submission Date: 2025-07-28Acceptance Date: 2025-12-27
Publication Date: 2025-12-27
https://doi.org/10.32927/zzsim.1131
Abstract
Jan Tomasz Gross’s book Sąsiedzi, published twenty-five years ago, provoked a significant debate on the Holocaust in Poland, with political fallout in Poland and throughout Central and Eastern Europe. This article examines similar debates over the Holocaust in Lithuania, provoked by the popular publications of Rūta Vanagaitė and Silvia Foti. Coming from outside academia, the non-fiction works of these authors have played an important role in bridging the gap between academic historical research and public reckoning with the past by squarely addressing the dark legacy of local collaboration with the Nazi administration, the participation of „ordinary” Lithuanians in genocide, and the plunder of Jewish property, along with the complex biographies of certain leaders of the anti-Soviet resistance.
Keywords
Holocaust in Lithuania , Holocaust research , collaboration , memory , autobiography
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