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Our People: Discovering Lithuania's Hidden Holocaust Hardcover – March 15, 2020

by Rūta Vanagaitė (Author), Efraim Zuroff (Author)

4.6 99 ratings

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A famous Nazi hunter and a descendent of Nazi collaborators team up on a journey to uncover Lithuania’s Holocaust secrets.

This remarkable book traces the quest for the truth about the Holocaust in Lithuania by two ostensible enemies: Rūta a descendant of the perpetrators, Efraim a descendant of the victims. Rūta Vanagaitė, a successful Lithuanian writer, was motivated by her recent discoveries that some of her relatives had played a role in the mass murder of Jews and that Lithuanian officials had tried to hide the complicity of local collaborators. Efraim Zuroff, a noted Israeli Nazi hunter, had both professional and personal motivations. He had worked for years to bring Lithuanian war criminals to justice and to compel local authorities to tell the truth about the Holocaust in their country. The facts that his maternal grandparents were born in Lithuania and that he was named for a great-uncle who was murdered with his family in Vilnius with the active help of Lithuanians made his search personal as well.

Our People exposes the significant role in implementing the Final Solution played by local political leaders and the prewar Lithuanian administration that remained in place during the Nazi occupation. It also tackles the sensitive issue of the motivation of thousands of ordinary Lithuanians who were complicit in the murder of their Jewish neighbors. At the heart of the book, these are the issues that Rūta and Efraim discuss, debate, and analyze as they crisscross the country to visit dozens of Holocaust mass murder sites in Lithuania and neighboring Belarus. This book follows them on their remarkable journey as they search for neglected graves, interview eyewitnesses, and uncover hints of the rich life that had existed in hundreds of Jewish communities throughout Lithuania.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Publication date

March 15, 2020
Dimensions

6.42 x 0.74 x 9.19 inches
ISBN-10

1538133032
ISBN-13

978-1538133033
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Editorial Reviews

Review

A powerful, poignant and painful exploration of the murder by bullets of Lithuanian Jews by Lithuanian nationalists — not Germans. The unusual team of writers consists of the granddaughter and grandniece of perpetrators, and the great nephew of a murdered Jew. . . . Our People is a rare combination of meticulous scholarship and skilled interviewing presented as a sensitive, nuanced, well-rounded and historically grounded portrait not only of the perpetrators, but of the ongoing efforts to rehabilitate them and honor the Lithuanian nationals who killed Jews. . . . Vanagaite and Zuroff began their journey deeply skeptical of each other. They end their journey having shared the deepest of dialogues, transformed, shattered yet strengthened. The reader will be privileged to share that pilgrimage and their rare openness with each other.

There are, fortunately, useful updates and additions in this English version. The authors tell us more about their relationship to each other, to Lithuania and to the Holocaust. The bitterest additions are two new chapters, one, ‘Lithuania Today: Minimizing the Crimes’, on the treatment of the Holocaust in school textbooks and official museums, the other, ‘Mission Impossible?’, on trying to trace all the graves, victims and perpetrators.

― Literary Review

It is not memory, but history that helps the authors turn over a new leaf together . . . In Lithuania, the authors visited thirty-five of the 234 mass graves of Jews mainly murdered by Lithuanians and five such graves in Belarus where Jews had been annihilated by Lithuanians as well. With few exceptions, nearly all these sites are memorialized in some way, yet they are largely neglected to the point of rendering them practically inaccessible. . . . Whenever possible, they interviewed either very old locals or younger people, some of whom (even museum officials or guides) were totally unaware either of the events of 1941 or of the prominent Jewish presence in what was once called “the Jerusalem of the north.” Documents attesting to what actually happened are included in each chapter, often followed by a dialogue between the two authors.

― Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs

This is a painful and important book—painful because so much of it consists of excruciating eyewitness accounts to the torment inflicted on Lithuanian Jews by their fellow citizens, and important because so little has appeared in English on not only this terrible dimension of the Holocaust but also the reluctance, even refusal, of the descendants of the killers to acknowledge their role in the murders all these years later. The account of the Lithuanian government’s vacillations in dealing with the nation’s past is particularly eye-opening. -- Peter Hayes, author of Why? Explaining the Holocaust

Our People is an immensely valuable addition to our knowledge about the genocidal murder of Lithuanian Jews. The authors’ remarkable investigation has brought to light the active role played by Lithuanian citizens, often with minimal oversight by Nazi occupiers, at hundreds of killing sites. It will serve as a powerful wake-up call for grappling with the complicit legacy of World War II. -- Yehuda Bauer, Holocaust historian, academic advisor, Yad Vashem

A powerful, poignant, and painful exploration of the ‘murder by bullets’ of Lithuanian Jews by their Lithuanian neighbors. Authors Rūta Vanagaitė, a prominent Lithuanian journalist, and Efraim Zuroff, the preeminent Nazi hunter, are forced to confront history and memory, shattering conventional understandings of both. A best-selling and controversial book when first published in Lithuania, Our People has challenged many convenient truths that Lithuanians have told themselves about their national heroes, offering a clear and unapologetic portrait of Lithuania’s ‘hidden Holocaust.’ -- Michael Berenbaum, director, Sigi Ziering Institute, American Jewish University

Our People is a harrowing, but important, book that must be read. Uncompromising in its descriptions of the people who committed mass murder, of the Jewish communities they wiped out, of those who helped, and of those who stood by, it is also suffused with the humanity of the two narrators as they painfully learn what happened here in 1941 and what it means for a nation to face the truth of its murderous history.

-- Philip Rubenstein, former director of the UK Parliamentary War Crimes Group

About the Author

Rūta Vanagaitė, one of Lithuania’s most popular public personalities and the successful author of numerous best sellers, became persona non grata in her homeland after this book was originally published in Lithuania.

Efraim Zuroff is the chief Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of the center’s Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs. A Holocaust historian, popular lecturer, and author, he lives in Jerusalem.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (March 15, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1538133032
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1538133033
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.03 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.42 x 0.74 x 9.19 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,091,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,032 in Jewish Holocaust History
- #2,510 in Russian History (Books)
- #9,892 in World War II History (Books)

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4.6 99 ratings

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Leslie Neil Meyers

ABSOLUTE MUST READ !! BEYOND INCREDIBLY POWERFUL

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2020

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This review was written by Marshall Meyers.
This book is powerful beyond words. It describes Dr. Efraim Zuroff & Ruta Vanagaite's travels in Lithuania to Holocaust mass grave sites, many killing locations, as well as key historical sites of Jewish life & culture that were obliterated during the Holocaust. It includes intense emotional interviews with elderly people who witnessed the killings as young children, and were willing to talk about it. The emotions and feelings brought out by these witnesses add greatly to the power of this extremely meaningful and important book. The book also extensively describes the "double Holocaust " that Lithuania uses to hide its guilt, take none to little responsibility for its past, and complicity in the destruction of Lithuanian Jewry. On a personal note, I just went to Lithuania seeking family roots and found that this book dealt with the same deep raw emotions. This book helped me answer some of the questions that I had. It is impossible to put the book down, as one sees the power of the evil that was prevalent then in Lithuania to destroy the entire Jewish population that had lived there for centuries. An ABSOLUTE MUST READ for anyone interested in the Holocaust and Lithuanian Jewish life that was so rich before the war.

9 people found this helpful

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Dennis L. Harris

Sadly,This is a Must read !

Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2020

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A true masterpiece uncovering the hidden and sometimes forgotten history of the Jews in Lithuania.
Very,very sad that always the Jews are referred to or described as non Lithuanians...
Having spent time in Lithuania and also visiting the small shtlel of my paternal grandparents and the cemetery,I question some of the conclusions by the authors.
I doubt if more than a tiny segment of the Lithuanian people know or care what happened to their fellow citizens during the Shoah and the lily white make up of the population today reinforces my feelings.
If you have to visit this country, notice that there are almost no Muslims or blacks or Asians or any Non Aryan or Non Catholic citizens..Yes, there are students from Israel at Vilnius University and tourists ( many being Jewish ) in the major cities, but no real reminder of a culture that existed within the country for hundreds of years..
You will find memorials to Lithuanian partisans, but ask 'the man on the street' about Jewish memorials or history and you most likely will be staring at a expressionless face..
Visit Lithuania-if you must, but once is more than enough...

4 people found this helpful

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Charlottekrn Bookfair

Two Seekers of Truth and Justice

Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2020

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Ephraim Zuroff, a Nazi hunter, together with Ruta Vanagraite, a young Lithuanian, journeyed across Lithuania in search of the killing sites where mass murders of Jews were committed during WWII. Vanagraite, who comes to terms with her countrymen’s complicity, believes her people must admit their collusion. Zuroff struggles with the enormous sense of loss. Both grapple to understand the Holocaust and the Lithuanian participation.
Vanagraite hopes to educate the younger generation of Lithuanians and hold the country to the reforms and promises towards democracy the government made to the West in exchange for and upon entering the EU.
The book also offers important information on the effort of some in Europe who intend to change the specified Holocaust Remembrance Day and adjoin it to the day for Victims of Communist violence and repression.

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2022

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All of my mother's family that did not emigrate to America from Lithuania were killed in WWII. I appreciate the time spent researching this book. I also so appreciate the visits to all the sites where these murders were committed. My mother would never talk about it, such pain. It is so important to reveal the truth about what horrors happened in Lithuania to the Jews. My heart thanks you.

2 people found this helpful

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S. Halevi

Extraordinary

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2020

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In the extensive library on the Holocaust, this book is unique. "Our People" is one of the most powerful accounts of tragedy and reconciliation I've read. It is a story about faith and courage and friendship and trust against a background of unresolved horror and betrayal. From the long-buried killing pits of Lithuania, the authors offer a vision of hard hope. Should be mandatory reading in schools -- and not only in Lithuania.

One person found this helpful

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The Curtains Are Parting

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2020

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Thank you for running the same type of risks that the subterfuge book runners faced in the 1800s when Russia forbade Lithuanian language books in restive Lietuva. That had the effect, I think, to stimulate a forbidden awareness of the wider world and Lithuanian language literacy. Russians surely got what the did not wish for -- educated peasants. Many obviously missed some important moral training. But the censorship you experience will help generate even greater curiosity. Sovietized Lithuanians will be displaced. Truth will replace what some wish to obscure.

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Solly Epstein

Baruch dayan ha’emet.

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2021

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Harrowing book about an unbelievably cruel crime committed by the Lithuanian people. Compulsory reading for those who still believe the Holocaust in Lithuania was perpetrated by a handful of Nazis.

2 people found this helpful

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renee s danziger

Worthwhile

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2021

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Excellent book
Difficult subject

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

dissenter_dan

Important and well written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 5, 2022

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This was a huge surprise. I had been expecting another book about how the Holocaust had happened in this country - and local participation. This was certainly true, but the way it was written, almost in a Q and A manner, with arguments between the two investigators about complicity and blame, touching huge moral arguments about the role of the state and individuals and the complex post WW1 and WW2 history etc bringing up so many challenging feelings for the reader. Tremendous courage by all concerned with this project - and going forward let's hope it helps unravel the still hidden world of Lithuanian complicity that post war soviet and local efforts chose to banish, like the overgrown mass graves and memorial-less sites of mass murder that the authors visit.

2 people found this helpful

lee gallagher

Get this book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 14, 2021

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Amazing read, just like The Ukraine, this country still has not faced up to it's complicity in the Holocaust. Witness testimonies from locals who have never spoken since the events and unmarked mass graves all over the country. A very important contribution to Holocaust literature.

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