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VILNIUS—Solveig Grothe’s article in Germany’s weekly Der Spiegel, appeared today in the journal’s print edition, and yesterday, in a slightly longer version, in the online edition (alternate link). The piece resulted from months of research including onsite work in Vilnius, and at the forest fort, and seeking out statements for the record from all sides in the debate.

For some, the article’s greatest revelation will be the degree to which not only the state-sponsored Genocide Center, but also its prestigious Ministry of Culture, rushed to go on the record to trash the legacy — and the memory and possibility of commemoration — of the tiny handful of Lithuanian Jewish citizens who survived the Holocaust by joining up with the partisan anti-Nazi resistance in the forest.

Regarding the Genocide Research Center, Der Spiegel is apparently the first mainstream outlet to overcome reticence about publishing details of the director of the center proudly speaking on a June 23rd “celebration” flanked by posters of two major Holocaust collaborators. June 23rd, universally regarded by survivors as day of the outbreak of the Lithuanian Holocaust, is celebrated by the far-right as the day of the “uprising” against the Soviets (an historic nonsense; the Soviets were fleeing Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in human history, not the local LAF Jew-killers).

To date Jewish organizations that have traditionally honored the Jewish partisans, including the Bund, Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetaot, Nusach Vilna, and Yivo, not yet having not found the gumption to issue a public statement on the imminent disappearance of Lithuania’s last relic of the anti-Nazi Jewish partisan resistance with a call for preservation.

In the case of Yivo, there is the baggage of a decade and a half of alleged lack of loyalty to the history of the Jewish partisans (and legitimization of the state’s history commission). Vilnius’s last Vilna-born Holocaust survivor, who once wrote an open letter on the subject, was not invited to the 100th anniversary Yivo festivities here in Vilnius last year. He is arguably Lithuania’s last native speaker of Vilna Yiddish, now in his high eighties.

In contrast to (for some inexplicable) fears of other Western journalists, Ms. Grothe does not hesitate to document the campaign of defamation against the late Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Brancovskaja) (1922-2024) that has continued apace since hear death in 2024.