Reading List

The Holocaust in Lithuania

Materials in English for Holocaust Studies Educators and Students

COMPILED BY DOVID KATZ. UPDATED 2022.

AMONG RECENT ADDITIONS:

Leib Koniuchowsky’s The Lithuanian Slaughter of its Jews. 121 Testimonies; sequel

David Bankier’s Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Yad Vashem)

Holocaust Atlas by Milda Jakulytė-Vasil

Holocaust Map; List of Towns and Cities

Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA) including numerous eyewitness accounts; Testimonies from The First Week (from 22 June 1941); Latvia

DH Sections

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I:     ONLINE RESOURCES

Note: This list does not include translations from the Yizkor Book or memoir literature on individual towns. Many can be accessed by town name on JewishGen, via the Holocaust Map of Lithuania (using prewar residence as point of departure) or the current Lithuanian Holocaust Atlas project that documents the mass graves of Lithuania and their history.

Yitzhak Arad, “The ‘Final Solution’ in Lithuania in the Light of German Documentation” in YadVashem.org. Yad Vashem.

Yitzhak Arad, “The Holocaust in Lithuania, and its obfuscation, in Lithuanian sources” in DefendingHistory.com.

Solomonas Atamukas, “The Hard Long Road to the Truth: On the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Holocaust in Lithuania” in Lituanus (Winter 2001).

Leonidas Donskis, “Another Word for Uncertainty: Antisemitism in Modern Lithuania” in Nordeuropa Forum 1/2006.

Leonidas Donskis, “The Inflation of Genocide” in EuropeanVoice.com, 24 July 2009. Alternate link.

Karen Ehrlich Friedman, German-Lithuanian Collaboration in the Final Solution, 1941–1944. PhD thesis, University of Illinois at Chicago: Chicago 1994.

Ronald Headland, Messages of Murder. A Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941-1943, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press: Rutherford 1992, pp 122-124.

Clemens Heni, “The Prague Declaration, Holocaust Trivialization and Antisemitism” in Wissenschaft und Publizistik als Kritik, 26 October 2009.

Milda Jakulytė-Vasil, The Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania. Online version. Holocaust Department (=Green House), Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum of Lithuania.

Dovid Katz, Map of “The Jewish Communities of Lithuania: Links to their Holocaust Fate” in www.dovidkatz.net.

Dovid Katz, “List of Locations” in www.dovidkatz.net.

Dovid Katz: “On three definitions: Genocide, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust Obfuscation” in Leonidas Donskis (ed), A Litmus Test Case of Modernity. Examining Modern Sensibilities and the Public Domain in the Baltic States at the Turn of the Century [= Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe 5], Peter Lang: Bern 2009, pp 259-277.

Zvi Kolitz, “The Physical and Metaphysical Dimensions of the Extermination of the Jews in Lithuania” in Lucjan Dobrosycki and Jeffrey S. Gurock (eds), The Holocaust in the Soviet Union. Studies and Sources on the Destruction of the Jews in the Nazi-Occupied Territories of the USSR, 1941-1945, pp 195-204.

Andrius Kulikauskas, “How did Lithuanians Wrong Litvaks?” in Defending History, 5 February 2015.

Konrad Kwiet, “The Onset of the Holocaust: The Massacre of the Jews in Lithuania in June 1941” in  Andrew Bonnell, Gregory Munro and Martin Travers (eds), Power, Conscience, and Opposition, Peter Lang: New York 1996, pp  107-121.

Konrad Kwiet, “Rehearsing for Murder: The Beginning of the Final
Solution in Lithuania in June 1941” in Holocaust and Genocide Studies,
12.1 (Spring 1998), pp. 3-26.

Dov Levin, [short excerpt from] “Lithuania” in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, vol. 3, Macmillan (NY & London) and Yad Vashem (Jerusalem), pp.  895-899.

Joseph Levinson, “The LAF [Lithuanian Activist Front] and the First Acts of the Provisional Government” in his The Shoah in Lithuania, Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum and Vaga: Vilnius 2006, pp 163-224.

Dina Porat, “The Holocaust in Lithuania. Some Unique Aspects” in David Cesarani,
ed., The Final Solution. Origins and Implementation, pp. 159-174.  London: Routledge, 1994.

Joshua Rubenstein and Ilya Altman (eds), The Unknown Black Book. The Holocaust in the German-Occupied Soviet Territories, Indiana University Press and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Bloomington, pp 277-315.

Karen Sutton, The Massacre of the Jews of Lithuania, Gefen: Jerusalem 2008.

Liudas Truska, “Contemporary attitudes toward the Holocaust in Lithuania” in Jews in Eastern Europe 2(45) 2001, pp. 5-26.

Katy Miller-Korpi, “The Holocaust in the Baltics” in SCAND 344, May 1998.

Efraim Zuroff: “Eastern Europe: Antisemitism in the Wake of Holocaust Related Issues” in Jewish Political Studies Review, 2005.

Efraim Zuroff, “Killed by their Neighbors” (review of three books) in Haaretz Books Supplement for September 2012, pp. 1-2.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Encyclopedia: “Lithuania”.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Lithuania and the Jews: The Holocaust Chapter. Symposium Presentations.

Yad Vashem Shoah Resource Center: “Lithuania”.

Yad Vashem Shoah Resource Center. Extract from a Report by Karl Jaeger.

II:     BOOKS AND PAPERS

Yitzhak Arad, The Holocaust in the Soviet Union. University of Nebraska: Lincoln & Yad Vashem: Jerusalem 2009, 701 pp.

Yitzhak Arad, Ghetto in Flames. Holocaust Publications: Washington DC 1983.

Christoph Dieckmann, “The Role of Lithuanians in the Holocaust” = pp. 149-168 in Beate Kosmola and Feliks Tych (eds), Facing the Nazi Genocide: Non-Jews and Jews in Europe, Berlin: Metropol, 2004.

David Gaunt, Collaboration and Resistance during the Holocaust: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Peter Lang: Bern 2004.

Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy. Fontana / Collins 1990 [and other editions]. On Lithuania: pp. 51, 78, 154, 182, 234-5, 281, 339. 620, 722, 798-9, 799. On Vilnius: pp. 22, 39, 60, 91, 92, 168, 170, 177, 185-6, 192-5, 206-8, 216-7, 219, 228, 233, 234, 246, 339, 486, 544, 559, 568-9, 583, 590, 592-3, 595, 598, 606-7, 608, 620, 699, 703-4, 735, 777, 788. On Kaunas: pp. 51, 117-8, 124, 153, 155, 157, 161, 168, 178, 180-1, 189-90, 196, 199, 208, 222-7, 229, 234, 235, 323, 520, 554, 593-4, 640-1, 645-6, 664, 678. 702, 741, 783, 786, 799.

Martin Gilbert, Atlas of the Holocaust. William Morrow 1993 [and other editions]. On Lithuania: Maps 4, 5, 11, 12, 14, 25, 26, 33, 36, 42, 74, 75, 87, 88, 98, 99, 182, 214, 274, 316.  On Vilnius: 1, 2, 4. 11, 14, 28, 3, 71, 73, 75, 83, 86, 87, 94, 96, 98, 170, 176, 185, 186, 195, 202, 208, 209, 210, 215, 219, 224, 226, 244, 247, 260, 261, 267, 272, 274, 308, 311, 313, 314.

Martin Gilbert, Never Again. Universe Publishing [and other editions; also available in Lithuanian translation]. On Lithuania: pp. 12, 13, 19, 20, 22, 49, 62, 63, 64, 64, 71, 99, 105, 109, 147, 151, 153, 158, 160, 177.  On Vilnius: pp. 17, 38, 40, 41, 44, 48, 56, 68, 69, 70, 79, 81, 119, 125, 163, 167, 168, 175.  On Kaunas: pp. 7, 17, 49, 63, 68, 69, 78, 96-9, 100, 101, 109, 119, 124, 125, 148, 152, 161, 171, 174.

Sara Ginaite, Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941-1944. Mosaic Press: Oakville, Ontario 2006.  [also available in Lithuanian]

Masha Greenbaum, “The Bloodbath” = pp 302-339 in her The Jews of Lithuania. A History of a Remarkable Community 1316-1945. Gefen Publishing House: Jerusalem & Hewlett, NY 1995.

Dovid Katz, “On three definitions: Genocide, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust Obfuscation”  in Leonidas Donskis (ed), A Litmus Test Case of Modernity. Examining Modern Sensibilities and the Public Domain in the Baltic States at the Turn of the Century [= Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe 5], Peter Lang: Bern 2009, pp 259-277.  At: https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2009SeptDovidKatz3Definitions.pdf

Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen & Volker Riess (eds), “Pogroms in Kaunas and elsewhere in Lithuania” = pp 23-58 in their ‘The Good Old Days’. The Holocaust as Seen by its Perpetrators and Bystanders. Foreword by Hugh Trevor-Roper [Oxford University]. Free Press (Macmillan): New York 1991.

Herman Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania. Edited and introduced by Benjamin Harshav. Translated by Barbara Harshav. Yivo and Yale University Press: New Haven & London 2002.

Dov Levin, “World War II, the Holocaust and the Jewish Survivors” = pp 187-247 in his The Litvaks. A Short History of the Jews in Lithuania. Yad Vashem: Jerusalem 2000.

Joseph Levinson (ed), The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania. Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum: Vilnius 2006.  [Note: original edition in Lithuanian].

Rachel Margolis, Partisan from Vilna[memoir]. With an introduction by Professor Antony Polonsky. Afterword by Marjorie Margolis. Academic Studies Press: Boston 2010.

Ephraim Oshry, The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. Judaica Press: New York 1995. [original Yiddish edition: Khurbn Lite, NY 1951].

Dina Porat, “The Holocaust in Lithuania. Some Unique Aspects” = pp. 159-174 in David Cesarani (ed.), The Final Solution. Origins and Implementation, Rutledge: New York 1996.

Joshua Rubenstein and Ilya Altman (eds), “Lithuania” = pp 277-315 in their The Unknown Black Book. The Holocaust in the German-Occupied Soviet Territories.Indiana University Press: Bloomington & Indianapolis 2008.

Kazimierz Sakowicz, Ponary Diary 1941-1943.  A Bystander’s Account of a Mass Murder. Edited by Yitzhak Arad. Preface by Rachel Margolis [rediscoverer of the manuscript and publisher of the original Polish edition of 1999].  Yale University Press: New Haven & London 2005.

Michael Shafir, Between Denial and “Comparative Trivialization”: Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe. Hebrew University: Jerusalem 2002 [= The Vidal Sasoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, ACTA no. 19].

N.N. Shneidman, Jerusalem of Lithuania: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Vilnius. Mosaic Press: Oakville, Ontario 2002.

N.N. Shneidman, Three Tragic Heroes of the Vilnius Ghetto. Mosaic Press: Oakville, Ontario 2002.

Sara Shner-Neshamit, “Jewish-Lithuanian Relations during World War II: History and Rhetoric” = pp 167-184 in Zvi Gitelman (ed), Bitter Legacy. Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR. Indiana University Press: Bloomington & Indianapolis.

Lyn Smith, Remembering: Voices of the Holocaust. Carroll & Graf: New York [memoir by Juozas Aleksynas, member of the 12th & 13th Lithuanian police battalion, on pp 96-98].

Karen Sutton, The Massacre of the Jews of Lithuania. Lithuanian Collaboration in the Final Solution 1941-1944. Gefen Publishing House: Jerusalem & New York 2008.

Abraham Tory, Surviving the Holocaust. The Kovno Ghetto Diary. Edited with an introduction by Martin Gilbert. Textual and historical notes by Dina Porat. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass 1990.

Tomas Venclova, “Jews and Lithuanians” in his Forms of Hope. Sheep Meadow Press: 2002.

Sima Ycikas, “Lithuanian-Jewish Relations in the Shadow of the Holocaust” = pp 185-213 in Zvi Gitelman (ed), Bitter Legacy. Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR. Indiana University Press: Bloomington & Indianapolis.

Isaac Zibuts et al, The Sounds of Silence. Traces of Jewish Life in Lithuania. R. Paknio Leidykla: Vilnius 2009.  [Note: parallel, concurrent edition in Lithuanian].

Galina Žirikova (compiler), The Collections of the State Archive of Lithuania: A Soure of Research on the Holocaust in Lithuania. Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum: Vilnius.

Efraim Zuroff, Operation Last Chance: One Man’s Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice. Palgrave Macmillan: New York & Basingstoke 2009.

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