![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/borderblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Uta-Hoffman.jpg\")
996 other Viennese Jews, on November 29, 1941. I wasn\u2019t sure why I wanted to go there, but now I know \u2013 it was a powerful experience to be where I know a particular family member was killed, on a particular day.<\/p>\nI recently spent a day at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas, Lithuania, where my mother\u2019s favorite cousin, Jutte, was shot at age 16, along with her mother and 996 other Viennese Jews, on November 29, 1941. I wasn\u2019t sure why I wanted to go there, but now I know \u2013 it was a powerful experience to be where I know a particular family member was killed, on a particular day.<\/p>\n
And it made me angry, because so much of the Ninth Fort museum and the whole project of memorializing the history of genocide and terror in Lithuania is dedicated to preventing the murders of hundreds of thousands of Jews during the Nazi era from overshadowing the murders and terror visited on non-Jewish Lithuanians during the Soviet eras.<\/p>\n
Two days earlier I visited the Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius,* which dedicates dozens of rooms to the oppression of Lithuanian Gentiles under the USSR, and only one to the genocide of the Lithuanian Jews. In fairness, the museum is in a building that served for decades as a KGB prison, where thousands of Lithuanians were held, tortured, and in some cases killed, and that history deserves to be commemorated. But\u2026<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/borderblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/museum-of-genocide.jpg\")
\u2026the use of the word \u201cgenocide,\u201d and specifically the use of Jewish deaths in service of the narrative of non-Jewish suffering is striking. For example, there is a large panel showing the numbers of Lithuanians killed by the Soviets and Nazis: First the roughly 75,000 deaths during fifty years of Soviet occupation, from 1940 to 1990 — 20-25,000 \u201cprisoners who died\u201d; 28,000 \u201cdied in deportation\u201d; and 21,500 \u201cPartisans and their supporters killed.\u201d Then the number killed during the four years of German occupation, between 1941-44: “240,000 killed (including about 200,000 Jews).\u201d That is how they phrase it, with the parenthesis.<\/p>\n
Of course, it\u2019s fair to argue that numbers are not the whole story \u2013 except, in the case of Jews, in this museum, numbers ARE the whole story. Not one Jewish Lithuanian is mentioned by name in the entire museum.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about the power of naming since reading Ari Shavit\u2019s book, My Promised Land<\/em>. For those who don\u2019t know it, it is a liberal Zionist’s exploration of Israeli history, which purports to fairly acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinians. But Shavit\u2019s careful even-handedness is consistently numeric and falls apart\u00a0 at the level of naming and specificity. In a long chapter on the terrorist bombings and killings of the 1930s, he scrupulously notes that there were more Palestinians killed by Jewish terrorists than Jews killed by Palestinians \u2013 but the Jewish victims are consistently named, along with their ages and details about who they were and what they were doing when they were killed (walking home from a movie, tending an orchard, studying), while the Palestinian victims are just numbers, all but a couple unnamed, no ages provided. I\u2019m guessing Shavit did this unconsciously, but that\u2019s not a defense: on the contrary, it underscores the degree to which Jews, for him, are human beings, while Palestinians are not.<\/p>\n That division is maintained throughout the book. For example, a chapter on the ethnic cleansing of Lydda describes how Jewish government forces murdered men, women, and children, drove thousands of people from their hom After reading that book I started paying closer attention to when historical narratives include names, ages, photographs, and details of individuals and when they only give numbers. It is an interesting exercise, and often very revealing \u2013 in the US, it has become common for historical narratives to refer to the genocide of Native Americans, but how many mention any of the victims by name?<\/p>\n Then I went through the museum at the entrance to the fort. The first section is a dramatic, full-room stained-glass installation titled \u201cUndefeated Lithuania.\u201d Then we get the history of the first Soviet occupation, 1940-41, with photos and biographies of Lithuanians who were exiled or killed, and details about what happened to each of them. There is a panel on the \u201cPriests\u2019 Massacre in Budavone Forest,\u201d showing the three priests who were killed. There is a panel on the \u201cMassacre of Panevezys Physicians,\u201d with names and photos of the four physicians who were tortured and killed. Then there are multiple panels on the deportations of Lithuanians during the second Soviet occupation, after 1944, with names, photos, and objects belonging to the victims, like the seven-string guitar V. Lapiusko brought with him to Siberia.<\/p>\n There is a display in this room about the Nazi period, with photographs of the Kaunas ghetto, yellow stars, and Jewish corpses. There are pictures from Nazi extermination camps outside Lithuania: Ravensbruck, Bergen-Belsen, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The photos are horrifying, but identified only by camp, except for a display titled \u201cLithuanian intellectuals at Stutthof concentration camp,\u201d which includes names, photos, and biographies of those intellectuals and mentions that 85,000 people were killed there, including 1,100 Lithuanians.<\/p>\n The Nazi display also includes one document that suggests why a patriotic Lithuanian museum might want to shift the discussion from local details to the broader German genocide. It is a typed report from a German officer on July 11, 1941, explaining that a ghetto has been established for the remaining Jews in Kovno (Kaunas). The accompanying label translates a key paragraph: \u201cIn Kovno a total of 7,800 have now been killed \u2014 a portion through the pogrom, a portion shot by Lithuanian commandos. All corpses have been disposed of. Continued mass shootings are no longer possible. Instead I explained to a committee of Jews that up to now, we have not had a reason to intervene in the internal conflicts between the Lithuanians and the Jews\u2026\u201d Unlike every other display in the room, this document is labeled and translated only into English \u2013 not into Lithuanian.<\/p>\n I was in that section for fifteen minutes, and maybe two dozen people wandered through the first room, looked at the photos, looked at the quotations from Hitler, looked at the wall of names. Only a couple pulled back the curtain, and not one bothered to watch the film. I understand; there was a lot to see and watching a film takes time. Not one plaque or label anywhere else mentioned that Lithuanians were involved in any of the Nazi murders. I was taking note, because in the Vilnius genocide museum they use the same technique: the room on the Nazi period includes a video that mentions Lithuanian involvement in the murder of Jews, but you have to watch the video to get that information \u2013 the texts and wall displays do not even hint at that possibility.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not trying to make a point about the Lithuanians. I mentioned an Israeli historian above, and US historians, and my point is how nationalists construct national narratives. Some are more subtle than others, but the process is pretty general.<\/p>\n Which is true enough, in its way. The Ninth Fort museum even has History is always an effort to preserve and remember what is important from the past, which always requires selecting what is important, which always means what is important to us, whoever we may be. But here I am writing specifically about how national histories are framed to suit nationalist needs, defining a national \u201cus\u201d and making us feel good about being part of that \u201cus.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the most powerful ways of creating a unified “us” is by recalling the terrible things other people did to us, and how we survived and overcame those trials. That often requires a bit of creative amnesia, since other people frequently have horror stories in which we were the perpetrators. One technique is simply to deny the ugly parts; others are more subtle, acknowledging that crimes were committed, but framing them in ways that make them seem less ugly, or just less meaningful, or less visceral.<\/p>\n In the last few weeks I\u2019ve visited Auschwitz and Majdanek, where far more people were killed than at the Ninth Fort, but neither of those visits hit me as hard as this one. Because this one is personal: I have the photo, the names, the dates, and my mother\u2019s memories of Jutta, the story of why she and her mother remained in Vienna, and the record of their transportation to Kaunas and their murder. I\u2019m telling some of that story here, and plan to write more about it, because individual stories are powerful.<\/p>\n The people making these museums understand that. Their displays are full of individual heroes and martyrs. And, looked at another way, full of absences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *In response to years of protests, the Vilnius museum has officially been renamed the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, but all its signage still says the Museum of Genocide Victims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently spent a day at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas, Lithuania, where my mother\u2019s favorite cousin, Jutte, was shot at age 16, along with her mother and 996 other Viennese Jews, on November 29, 1941. I wasn\u2019t sure why I wanted to go there, but now I know \u2013 it was a powerful experience … Continue reading Look for the names\u2026<\/span> ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/borderblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Arab-expulsion.jpg\")
es and sent them on a forced march in which the weak fell and died, destroying towns and villages in a region where Arabs had treated arriving Jews as friends and neighbors. Shavit frames this as a devastating indictment of Israeli policy — but in 32 pages mentions the name of only one Arab. He begins by telling how named Jews settled in the area and befriended unnamed Arabs; tells of meetings between named Jewish leaders and unnamed Arab leaders; and quotes named Jewish perpetrators about their attacks on unnamed Arab victims. Even when an Arab is finally named, as a victim with his family of the death march, he is never quoted directly\u2014unlike numerous Jewish witnesses\u2014and Shavit\u2019s sympathetic description of the abuses inflicted on his father, mother, cousin, grandmother, and brothers does not include their names. Jews are condemned for committing atrocities, but they are individuals, with names and voices; the Arabs are nameless and voiceless.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/borderblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Gustl-and-Jutta.jpg\")
I came to Lithuania following Jutta’s story, bringing her picture and the story of how she got stuck in Vienna, the number of the transport that brought her to Kaunas, and the date when the 998 Viennese Jews on that train were chased up the hill at the Ninth Fort, pushed into mass graves, and shot \u2013 or in some cases shot, then pushed into mass graves. I wondered if the museum might be interested in having a copy of the photograph of Jutte and her mother, Gustl.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/borderblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/glasses-and-shoes.jpg\")
It gives the numbers of Lithuanian Jews killed, and displays personal items \u2013 eye glasses, shaving brushes, a pair of child\u2019s shoes \u2013 found in the mass graves. It is a touching display. Not one Jew is named.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/borderblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ninth-fort.jpg\")
There is a second museum in the fort itself, for those who wish to delve deeper. It was largely funded from abroad, and includes rooms with photographs of individual Jews, their names, their stories. There is a powerful display sponsored by \u201cLes Familles et Amis des D\u00e9port\u00e9s du Convoi 73, Paris (France),\u201d about a transport of 878 French Jews killed here in 1944, including walls of photographs identified by name. There is a room about the Kaunas ghetto, with family pictures, names, and stories from survivors. There is a room about the escape of 64 prisoners who were brought in 1943 to burn the thousands of corpses, naming them and noting that 60 were Jews, along with three Russians and a Pole. There is a room with stories of survivors, saying what happened to them in later years. There is a room about the Japanese consul who in defiance of his government provided six thousand Jews with exit visas. There is a room about \u201cLithuanians, the Saviours of the Jews,\u201d with stories of Lithuanian Gentiles who hid or helped their Jewish neighbors. And there is a room about Hitler and the genocide of European Jews, with names of 1,344 Jews from various parts of Europe who were killed here, each with their age and home town. Jutta and Gustl were not included \u2013 I looked for them, and the omission bothered me. But to continue\u2026<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/borderblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/miming-shooting.jpg\")
At the back of that room is a curtain, and if you go through there is a smaller room with a film showing the testimony of eight Lithuanian soldiers who were sentenced to death by the Soviet government in 1962 for participating in Nazi-organized massacres. One mimes standing at the edge of the mass graves and shooting down into the crowds of people, and explains how he would sell items he picked off the victims to buy a drink afterwards because \u201cwhen you do such kind of thing you need to wet your whistle.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/borderblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/memorial-stones.jpg\")
At the Ninth Fort there are memorial stones placed by the city of Frankfurt in memory of the Jews transported from there to Kaunas; by the families and friends of the Jews transported and killed from France; by the city of Berlin in memory of the thousand Jewish children, women and men transported on Nov 17, 1941 and killed here on Nov 25; by the city of Munich in memory of the thousand Jews transported from there on November 20, 1941, and killed here five days later. There is no stone from Austria or from the city of Vienna to commemorate the transport on November 23 that included my cousins. Like the Lithuanians, the Austrians prefer to recall the Nazi period as their own tragedy, not a Jewish tragedy. They do not deny that Jews were particularly selected for extermination, but they have their own issues, and feel we must remember it was a tough time, and everybody suffered\u2026<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/borderblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/soviet-corpses.jpg\")
one photograph that, if you take the trouble to read the small print on its caption, turns out to show \u201cthe exhumation of remains of Soviet prisoners of war.\u201d They aren\u2019t denying there were Russians killed in the Nazi period. If asked, I\u2019m sure they would acknowledge that the Nazis killed millions of Soviet citizens, including some in Lithuania. That\u2019s just not the story this museum is here to tell.<\/p>\n