The issue of Polish and Lithuanian relations during the World War II is a controversial one, and some modern Lithuanian and Polish historians still differ in their interpretations of the related events, many of which are related to the Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi Germany and the operations of Polish resistance organization of Armia Krajowa on territories inhabited by Lithuanians and Poles. Several common academic conferences started bridging the gap between Lithuanian and Polish interpretations, but significant differences remain.[1]
Polish–Lithuanian relations were strained during the interwar period, mostly due to the conflict over the Vilnius Region (which had a Polish majority but was seen by Lithuanians as their historical capital).[2] This conflict resulted in enmity within local communities and the mutual harsh treatment of the Polish and Lithuanian ethnic minorities living in both countries. The tensions had begun to diminish by early spring of 1938 (see 1938 Polish ultimatum to Lithuania), when both nations restored normal relations, and telephone, mail, rail, and road communications were established.[3] The rapprochement was however stopped when Germany and Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939. Lithuania remained independent at the beginning of World War II, however, it was soon occupied by the Soviet Union, then by Germany and then again by the Soviet Union, which had earlier annexed it as one of its republics.
Conflicting ideologies
The Vilnius Region had a complex demographic history. This was further aggravated by Germans forcibly relocating Lithuanian families to the region[when?] from western parts of Lithuania.[citation needed]
Monument of Polish victims of Ponary massacre. Tens of thousands of Poles and Jews were executed there by Germans and their Lithuanian auxiliaries.
A significant number of Lithuanians started collaborating with the German occupiers,[4][5][6][7] a prominent example being the Lithuanian Activist Front, many members of whom came from the National Unionists whose pre-war slogan was 'Lithuania for Lithuanians'.[4] The Lithuanian government, encouraged by the Germans, hoped that the Germans would grant Lithuania as much autonomy as it has granted Slovakia.[4] Even through LAF faded after 1941, and Germans never granted the Lithuanians the autonomy they desired, elements within the Lithuanian government, collaborating with Germans, engaged in the program of ethnic and racial purification, targeting Jews, Poles and other non-Lithuanian ethnic minorities.[8]Anti-Polish rhetoric and violence became common under the Juozas Ambrazevičius government in 1941 (followed by the role of Petras Kubiliūnas as a puppet counsel to the German rulers).[9] Kubiliūnas led the puppet-Council advising the German government of the "general District Lithuania" (Generalbezirk Litauen) led by Generalkommissar of Lithuania Theodor Adrian von Renteln.[clarification needed] Some Lithuanian clergy called for pogroms of Poles, stating that the Poles were worse than the Jews and offered indulgences for killing Poles.[9] A Lithuanian professor wrote a pamphlet on "Why Should we hate the Poles", and LAF campaigned for the establishment of ghettos for Poles, requirement for them to wear identifying badges, and reduction of their food rations, claiming that "under Soviets, we killed 50% of Poles, under Germans we will kill the other 50%".[9] One of the most infamous series of incidents took place in the Paneriai (Polish: Ponary) district of Vilnius, where from 1941 to 1943 Germans and Lithuanians massacred tens of thousands of Jews and Poles.[10][11]
Around 1943, one of the political factions of the Government Delegation for Poland for the Vilnius region, the Vilnius Democratic Concentration (Polish: Wileńska Koncentracja Demokratyczna) – the underground union of leftist Polish parties,[12] partly because of the pro-Nazi stance of Lithuanian authorities, and partly influenced by the nationalist stance of Polish Endecja party, stated a plan to occupy Lithuania after the war, submit it under the rule of Polish General Commissariat and to re-educate "corrupt" Lithuanians.[13] On 1 March 1944, the Polish Convent of Political Parties[pl] issued declaration expressing preparation to fight for Eastern Borderlands (Vilnius, Grodno, Lviv, Lida, Novogrudok, and Pinsk).[13] However, such declarations of local Polish politicians differed significantly from the official statement and actions of the Polish government-in-exile, which was the only country[clarification needed] among the anti-Nazi coalition which declared its support for the cause of Lithuanian post-war independence.[14][15]
Although Lithuanian and Polish resistance movements had common enemies – Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – they never became allies. The main obstacle in allying was the question of Vilnius – the Polish government in exile and the Polish resistance regarded Vilnius as part of Poland, while Lithuanian resistance regarded Vilnius as the capital of Lithuania. Lithuanian resistance saw the Soviet Union as the main enemy and Nazi Germany as its secondary enemy. Polish resistance saw Nazi Germany as the main enemy and had no clear consensus on the Soviet Union. Only in 1944–1945, after the Soviet reoccupation, did Lithuanian and Polish resistance start cooperating in the fight against the Soviets.[16]
Armed conflict
Lithuanian authorities had been aiding Germans in their actions against Poles since the very beginning of German occupation in 1941, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Poles.[4] Thousands of Poles were killed by Lithuanian collaborators working with Nazis (like the German subordinated Lithuanian Security Police[17] or the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force under the command of general Povilas Plechavičius,[18] many more were deported into Germany as slave labour.[19]) Tadeusz Piotrowski notes that thousands of Poles died at the hand of Lithuanian collaborators, and tens of thousands were deported.[19]
In autumn 1943, Armia Krajowa started operations against the Lithuanian collaborative organization, the Lithuanian Security Police, which had been aiding Germans in their operation since its very creation.[5] Polish political and military underground cells were created all over Lithuania, Polish partisan attacks were usually not only in Vilnius Region but across the former demarcation line as well.[20] Soon a significant proportion of AK operations became directed against Nazi Germany allied Lithuanian Police and local Lithuanian administration. During the first half of 1944 AK killed hundreds of Lithuanians serving in Nazi auxiliary units or organizations: policemen, members of village self-defence units, servants of local administration, soldiers of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force and other Nazi collaborators.[5][21] Civilians on both sides increasingly numbered among the casualties.[11][13][22]
In response, Lithuanian police, who had murdered hundreds of Polish civilians since 1941,[11] increased its operations against the Poles, executing many Polish civilians; this further increased the vicious circle and the previously simmering Polish–Lithuanian conflict over the Vilnius Region deteriorated into a low-level civil war under German occupation.[23] The scale of disruption grew over time; Lithuanian historian Stanislovas Buchaveckas[lt] noted, for example, that AK was able to paralyze the activities of many Lithuanian educational institutions in 1943.[24]
In May 1944, in the battle of Murowana Oszmianka AK dealt a significant blow to the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force which has been terrorizing local Polish population.[21] At that time, Aleksander Krzyżanowski, AK commander of Vilnius region, commanded over 9000 armed Armia Krajowa partisans.
On June 23, 1944, in response to an earlier massacre on June 20 of 37 Polish villagers in Glitiškės (Glinciszki) by Lithuanian Security Police[17][19] rogue AK troops from the unit of the 5th Vilnian Home Army Brigade (under the command of Zygmunt Szendzielarz "Łupaszko" who was not present at the events) [19] committed a massacre of Lithuanian policemen and civilians, at Dubingiai (Dubinki), where 27 Lithuanians, including women and children, were murdered.[17] These rogue units were acting against specific orders of Krzyżanowski which forbade reprisals against civilians[19] In total, the number of victims of Polish revenge actions at the end of June 1944 in Dubingiai and neighbouring towns of Joniškis, Inturkė[lt], Bijutiškis[lt], and Giedraičiai, was 70–100 Lithuanians, including many civilians.[13][20] The Massacre at Dubingiai was the only known massacre carried out by units of AK.[17][19] Further escalation by either side was cut short by the Soviet occupation of Vilnius region two weeks later.
Polish and Lithuanian historians have to yet reach an agreement on the number of victims. Polish-Lithuanian historian Jarosław Wołkonowski puts the number of Lithuanians killed by rogue AK elements at under 100.[17] An estimate by a Lithuanian investigator Rimas Bružas is that about 500 Lithuanian civilians were killed by Poles during the war.[25] A state commission was established by the Government of Lithuania to evaluate activities of Armia Krajowa in Lithuania which had to present conclusions by 1 December, 1993.[26][clarification needed] Not a single member of Armia Krajowa, many veterans of which live in Lithuania, has been charged with any crimes as of 2001.[17] A Lithuanian historian Arūnas Bubnys stated that there were no mass murders carried out by AK (with the only exception being Dubingiai), but that AK was guilty of some war crimes against individuals or selected families; he also notes that any accusations of genocide are false and have an underlying political motive, among them a counteraction to the accusations of widespread Lithuanian collaboration with Germany and crimes committed by units such as the Lithuanian Security Police (see also Holocaust in Lithuania).[17]
Postwar developments
The postwar assessment of AK's activities in Lithuania was a matter of controversy. In Communist Poland the actions of AK in general, and particularly the actions of commanders and units operating in Lithuania,[citation needed] were presented in a very negative light (see Cursed soldiers). The Communist regime executed or imprisoned commanders of the AK en masse after the war for political reasons, preventing any fair legal examination of crimes they may have committed during wartime. Zygmunt Szendzielarz "Łupaszka", after several years in the postwar underground, was arrested by the Polish Communist authorities, sentenced to death and executed on February 8, 1951, for his anti-communist activities. The assessment of his actions outside of Communist Poland was different, and in 1988 he was posthumously awarded the Virtuti Militari, the highest Polish military award, by the Polish government in exile. Similarly, the Lithuanian general Povilas Plechavičius who was engaged in fighting the Polish and Soviet partisans received a medal from the Lithuanian president in post-Soviet Lithuania.[27] For these reasons, the AK is considered to be a controversial organisation in today's Lithuania in a manner somewhat similar to the view taken of Soviet partisans. Similarly, in Lithuania, many heroes of Lithuanian resistance against the Soviets are blamed as Nazi collaborators who cooperated in the murder of the Poles and Lithuanian Jewry, which caused controversy in Poland.[28]
In 1993, Lithuanian Government established commission consisting from historians to evaluate Armia Krajowa activities in Lithuania. Tomas Venclova distanced himself from the commission and called it a "pathetic spectacle" and "anti-Polish propaganda campaign" in one of his essays.[29]
↑ Michael MacQueen, The Context of Mass Destruction: Agents and Prerequisites of the Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 12, Number 1, pp. 27-48, 1998,
↑ Kazimierz Sakowicz, Yitzhak Arad, Ponary Diary, 1941-1943: A Bystander's Account of a Mass Murder, Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN0-300-10853-2, Google Print.
1 2 3 4 (in Lithuanian) Arūnas Bubnys. Armijos Krajovos ištakos ir ideologija Lietuvoje (Beginnings and ideology of Armia Krajowa in Lithuania). Armija Krajova Lietuvoje, pp. 6-13. A. Bubnys, K. Garšva, E. Gečiauskas, J. Lebionka, J. Saudargienė, R. Zizas (editors). Vilnius – Kaunas, 1995.
1 2 (in Lithuanian) Rimantas Zizas. Armijos Krajovos veikla Lietuvoje 1942-1944 metais (Acitivies of Armia Krajowa in Lithuania in 1942-1944). Armija Krajova Lietuvoje, pp. 14-39. A. Bubnys, K. Garšva, E. Gečiauskas, J. Lebionka, J. Saudargienė, R. Zizas (editors). Vilnius – Kaunas, 1995.
↑ Timothy Snyder, Yale University Press, 2003, ISBN0-300-10586-X, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999
↑ (in Lithuanian) Stanislovas Buchaveckas. Rytų Lietuvos Mokyklos ir Armija Krajova 1941-1944 m. (Schools in Eastern Lithuania and Armia Krajowa in 1941-1944). Armija Krajova Lietuvoje, pp. 40-56. A. Bubnys, K. Garšva, E. Gečiauskas, J. Lebionka, J. Saudargienė, R. Zizas (editors). Vilnius – Kaunas, 1995.
↑ (in Lithuanian)Rimas Bružas, R.Bružas: Mano tikslas buvo sukelti istorikų diskusiją (R.Bružas: My aim was to initiate a discussion of historians), ELTA, 14 March 2005
↑ Daniel J. Walkowitz, Lisa Maya Knauer, Memory and the Impact of Political Transformation in Public Space, Duke University Press, 2004, ISBN0-8223-3364-3, Google Print, p.188
Around six million Polish citizens are estimated to have perished during World War II. Most were civilians killed by the actions of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian Security Police, as well as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its offshoots.
The June Uprising was a brief period of the history of Lithuania in late June 1941 between the first Soviet and the Nazi occupations.
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity.
In Poland, the resistance movement during World War II was led by the Home Army. The Polish resistance is notable among others for disrupting German supply lines to the Eastern Front, and providing intelligence reports to the British intelligence agencies. It was a part of the Polish Underground State.
Poland was invaded and annexed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the invasion of Poland in 1939. In the pre-war Polish territories annexed by the Soviets the first Soviet partisan groups were formed in 1941, soon after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Those groups fought against the Germans, but conflicts with Polish partisans were also common.
The Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force was a short-lived Lithuanian volunteer military unit created with the active involvement of the anti-Nazi Lithuanian resistance during the German occupation of Lithuania during World War II. The LTDF was disbanded one and a half months after its creation by its commander Povilas Plechavičius when Nazi Germany's occupational authorities threatened the unit's independence. During the subsequent repressions, the German occupiers sent 52 officers to the Salaspils concentration camp, executed 86 LTDF members in Paneriai and deported 1,089 to Stutthof and Oldenburg concentration camps. While some were later forced into Nazi service, all except four of the force's fourteen battalions successfully escaped Nazi persecution. Those who escaped later contributed to the Forest Brothers' armed anti-Soviet resistance.
The Glinciszki massacre was a mass murder of Polish civilians by the German-subordinated 258th Lithuanian Police Battalion, committed on 20 June 1944 in the village of Glinciszki during World War II. In the massacre 39 civilians were murdered including 11 women, 11 children, and 6 elderly men. They were executed as a collective punishment for the death of four Lithuanian auxiliary policemen the previous evening.
Aleksander Krzyżanowskinom de guerre "Wilk" was an artillery colonel of the Polish Army, officer of the Service for Poland's Victory, Union of Armed Struggle, commander of the Vilnius District of the Home Army, political prisoner of the Stalinist period. In 1994 he was posthumously promoted to the rank of brigade general.
Ypatingasis būrys or Special Squad of the German Security Police and SD was a killing squad operating in the Vilnius Region in 1941–1944. The unit, primarily composed of Lithuanian volunteers, was formed by the German occupation government and was subordinate to Einsatzkommando 9 and later to Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo).p.15 The unit was subordinated to German police, and had no official autonomy. In Polish they were colloquially called strzelcy ponarscy.
Arūnas Bubnys is a Lithuanian historian and archivist. He started his studies at Vilnius University in 1985. In 1993 he received a Ph.D. for the thesis Lietuvių antinacinė rezistencija 1941–1944 m..
Kazimieras Garšva is a Lithuanian linguist, and the leader of the cultural "Vilnija" organisation.
The Dubingiai massacre was a mass murder of 20–27 Lithuanian civilians in the town of Dubingiai on 23 June 1944. The massacre was carried out by the Polish Home Army's 5th Wilno Brigade, part of the Polish resistance, in reprisal for the Glinciszki (Glitiškės) massacre of Polish civilians committed on 20 June 1944 by the Nazi-subordinated 258th Lithuanian Police Battalion.
The Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total eradication of Lithuanian (Litvaks) and Polish Jews in Generalbezirk Litauen of the Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Nazi-controlled Lithuania. Of approximately 208,000–210,000 Jews at the time of the Nazi invasion, an estimated 190,000 to 195,000 were killed before the end of World War II, most of them between June and December 1941. More than 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population was murdered over the three-year German occupation, a more complete destruction than befell any other country in the Holocaust. Historians attribute this to the massive collaboration in the genocide by the non-Jewish local paramilitaries, though the reasons for this collaboration are still debated. The Holocaust resulted in the largest loss of life in so short a period of time in the history of Lithuania.
The Battle of Murowana Oszmianka of 13–14 May 1944 was the largest clash between the Polish resistance movement organization Home Army and the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force (LTDF); a Lithuanian volunteer security force subordinated to Nazi Germany occupational administration. The battle took place in and near the village of Murowana Oszmianka in Generalbezirk Litauen, part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. The outcome of the battle was that the 301st LTDF battalion was routed and the entire force was disbanded by the Germans soon afterwards due to its members refusing to take an oath to Hitler and be subordinate to German commanders.
Martin Weiss was a German Nazi official and de facto commander of the Vilna Ghetto and a Holocaust perpetrator. He was also the commander of the notorious German - sponsored Ypatingasis būrys killing squad, which was largely responsible for the Ponary massacre where approximately 100,000 people were shot.
The military occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany lasted from the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, to the end of the Battle of Memel on January 28, 1945. At first the Germans were welcomed as liberators from the repressive Soviet regime which had occupied Lithuania. In hopes of re-establishing independence or regaining some autonomy, Lithuanians had organized a Provisional Government. It lasted six weeks.
The Koniuchy massacre or the Kaniūkai massacre was a World War II massacre of civilians, mostly women and children, carried out in the village of Koniuchy on 29 January 1944 by a Soviet partisan unit together with a contingent of Jewish partisans under Soviet command. At least 38 civilians who have been identified by name were killed, and more than a dozen were injured. In addition, houses were burned and livestock was slaughtered. It was the largest atrocity committed by the Soviet partisans in present-day Lithuania.
The Lithuanian Liberation Army was a Lithuanian underground organization established by Kazys Veverskis, a student at Vilnius University, on December 13, 1941. Its goal were to re-establish independent Lithuania via political and military means. During the Nazi Germany occupation it opposed German policies, but did not begin armed resistance. The armed struggle began in mid-1944 when Red Army reached the Lithuanian borders after the Minsk Offensive. The LLA became the first wave of the Lithuanian partisans, armed anti-Soviet guerrilla fighters. It attempted to become the central command of the armed struggle. However, the organization was liquidated by the Soviet security forces by April 1946. The remnants of the organization were absorbed by other partisans. The guerrilla war continued until 1953.
The Lithuanian Auxiliary Police was a Schutzmannschaft formation formed during the German occupation of Lithuania between 1941 and 1944, with the first battalions originating from the most reliable freedom fighters, disbanded following the 1941 anti-Soviet Lithuanian June Uprising in 1941. Lithuanian activists hoped that these units would be the basis of a reestablished Lithuanian Army commanded by the Lithuanian Provisional Government. Instead, they were put under the orders of the SS- und Polizeiführer in Lithuania.
During the German occupation of Poland, citizens of all its major ethnic groups collaborated with the Germans. Estimates of the number of collaborators vary. Collaboration in Poland was less institutionalized than in some other countries and has been described as marginal, a point of pride with the Polish people. During and after the war, the Polish government in exile and the Polish resistance movement punished collaborators and sentenced thousands of them to death.
References
Timothy Snyder, Yale University Press, 2003, ISBN0-300-10586-X, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999
(in Lithuanian) A. Bubnys, K. Garšva, E. Gečiauskas, J. Lebionka, J. Saudargienė, R. Zizas (editors). Armija Krajova Lietuvoje. Vilnius-Kaunas, 1995
Anušauskas, Arvydas; Česlovas Bauža; Juozas Banionis; Valentinas Brandišauskas; Arūnas Bubnys; Algirdas Jakubčionis; Laurynas Jonušauskas; Dalia Kuodytė; Nijolė Maslauskienė; Petras Stankeras; Juozas Starkauskas; Arūnas Streikus; Vytautas Tininis; Liudas Truska (2007). Lietuva 1940–1990: okupuotos Lietuvos istorija (in Lithuanian). Versus Aureus. p.712. ISBN978-9955-601-47-0.
Rojek, Wojciech (2002). ""Wielka Brytania wobec państwowej przynależności Wileńszczyzny. Sierpień 1939 - sierpień 1940" (Great Britain on the National Status of the Wilno Area. August 1939 - August 1940)". "Tygiel narodów" (Melting Pot of Nations) (in Polish). Warszawa / London: ISP PAN / RYTM. ISBN83-88794-72-8.
External links
(in Polish) Jan Sienkiewicz in "Kurier Wileński" on Zbigniew Kurcz, „Mniejszość polska na Wileńszczyźnie”, Parts 51–55 on World War II relations: 51, 52, 53, 54, 55
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