The Tragedy of Europe’s Jerusalem: Lithuania’s Jews and the Holocaust

Vilna is often referred to as “Europe’s Jerusalem,” largely because of the Lithuanian capital’s celebrated history as a hub of Litvak culture and for its rich intellectual and religious Jewish traditions. This course will examine several critical aspects of the history of Lithuania’s Jews during the twentieth century and will consist of three sessions, which examine the transformation of the region after the Great War; the Holocaust, which resulted in the destruction of more than 90% of Lithuania’s Jews; and a survey of topics specific to the Holocaust in Lithuania with an emphasis on local history and case studies of selected locales and personal histories.

Course Readings
 

“Collaboration and Resistance” — Aya Ben-Naftali

“Commemorative Causality” — Timothy Snyder

“Conflicting Memories: The Reception of the Holocaust in Lithuania” — Saulius Sužiedėlis and Šarūnas Liekis

“The Context of Mass Destruction: Agents and Prerequisites of the Holocaust in Lithuania” — Michael MacQueen

“The ‘Final Solution’ in Lithuania in the Light of German Documentation” — Yitzhak Arad

“From the Diary of a Killing Unit” — Konrad Kwiet

“The Historical sources for Anti-Semitism in Lithuania and Jewish-Lithuanian Relations During the 1930s” — Saulius Sužiedėlis

“Holocaust in LIthuania in the Focus of Modern History, Education, and Justice” — Yitzhak Arad

“The Holocaust in Lithuania as Reflected in Jewish Sources – Diaries, Memoirs, Testimonies” — Yitzhak Arad

“The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some unique aspects” — Dina Porat

“The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in LIthuania: Successes, Challenges, Perspectives” — Saulius Sužiedėlis

“Killing Sites: Research and Remembrance” — International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

“’Listen, the Jews are Ruling Us Now’: Antisemitism and National Conflict During the First Soviet Occupation of Lithuania” — Saulius Sužiedėlis

“Lithuanian Collaboration During the Second World War: Past Realities, Present Perceptions” — Saulius Sužiedėlis

“Memories of Blood: Some Aspects of Lithuanian Responses to the Holocaust” — Saulius Sužiedėlis

“Persecution and Mass Murder of Lithuanian Jews During Summer and Fall of 1941” — Christoph Dieckmann, Saulius Sužiedėlis

“Rescued from Oblivion: The Leyb Koniuchowsky Papers and the Holocaust in Provincial Lithuania” — T. Fielder Valone

“Transition to Genocide, July 1941: Einsatzkommando 9 and the Annihilation of Soviet Jewry” — Alex J. Kay

“The War and the Killing of the Lithuanian Jews” — Christoph Dieckmann

Saulius Sužiedėlis is professor emeritus of history at Millersville University of Pennsylvania Professor Sužiedėlis received his Ph. D. in Russian and East European history from the University of Kansas in 1977. From 1982 to 1987 he was a research historian for the  Office of Special Investigations at the U. S. Department of Justice, and during 1989-1990 worked as a radio journalist and commentator for the Voice of America. Professor Sužiedėlis is the author of a number of scholarly books and articles on Lithuanian history published both in the United States and Lithuania. Between 2007 and 2010 he served as director of Millersville University’s Annual Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide. In 2013 Professor Sužiedėlis was awarded an honorary doctorate from Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas in recognition of his work in furthering the study of humanities in Lithuania and for contributions to Holocaust research.

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