CYRIL WIDES
I did this on behalf of my late stepfather. His family, which he had left behind in Lithuania, were murdered by their neighbours.
He mourned them every day for the 20 years I was in his home and spoke of Lithuania as a Jewish graveyard. He was adamant about having nothing to do with them.
I am now amazed to read the article by Daniel Lutrin in last week’s Jewish Report, lamenting the refusal of his own Lithuanian citizenship and passport application.
He has nicely set out the wrongs done and still being done to the Jews – all the reasons why one should have nothing to do with them. Yet he still persists with his wants. I don’t understand him.
Johannesburg
Daniel Lutrin
Jun 11, 2016 at 4:11 pm
‘Hello Cyril,
I am the author of the article.
Thank you for your note. I fully understand your sentiment and feel the same rage and anger which you do – I myself had family members killed and no doubt many readers will have had too.
My intention in writing this article has been to create awareness and to pursue justice. Lithuania has not yet told the truth about their history and their people. They approach wealthy South African Jews, giving them a false story of how Lithuania regrets the actions of their people and asking for investment in Lithuania. Just as was the case 75 years ago, they want Jewish possessions but they do not want Jews.
The article was written to emphasise that even now, the country has not changed. In a Lithuanian web of twisted bureaucracy sits rabid anti-Semites who are hell-bent in singling Jews out as not worthy of citizenship, of a legal right enshrined in their constitution.
What better away to pay our respects to those murdered than to fight the on-going Jew hate which persists in the country? My hope is that, through enlightening the public, the country will change and people will be put in power who are committed to reconciliation and tolerance. If we do not fight this cause, the very same hatred which led to the holocaust in Lithuania will persist and continue to insult the memory of our ancestors. We must do this, because, if we don’t, we risk the next generation not knowing the consistency of Lithuanian conduct, even 75 years later.
I hope you and other readers will join me in educating the world on these tragic circumstances, so that real change can happen.
Best regards,
Daniel Lutrin’
Grant A. Gochin
Jun 12, 2016 at 5:59 am
‘Many question why we should care about South African Litvaks getting Lithuanian citizenship, and why it matters.
From the perspectives of South
Africans – for utilitarian purposes, a SA passport is cumbersome for travel /visas / work permits; dual citizenships offer multiple benefits. Litvaks have a
legal right to Lithuanian citizenship, which is an European passport, and grants fantastic rights.
From my own, personal perspective, I want Litvak descendant children to get citizenship so they will always have a tie to the “Old Country” that they will be able to pass something tangible to their progeny, to link generations back to our history, so the past will not be forgotten. My quest is emotional only. Just for memory.
From Lithuania’s perspective: The law provides for those that left Lithuania for reasons of persecution or
political oppression to re-claim their citizenship. Descendants are able to apply as well, obviously, conditions apply. Lithuania will not restitute
private property that was stolen from Jews, they have one and only one valuable asset to offer to Jewish descendants; a European passport, and they will do all
in their power not to allow a Jew to claim what is rightfully theirs.
The situation is as follows:
Corruption within the Lithuanian Government is rife, and many posts are staffed by old Soviet style employees. Nonetheless, it is the task of the Government to ensure that the law is applied without racist intent. The youth of Lithuania
are by and large fine people, I do not wish to cast aspersions on the entire Lithuanian population.
The history is as follows:
Jews lived in Lithuania for about 700 years. Lithuania is a country without natural resources, the Jews were
their primary natural resource – the professional and mercantile class in the country that generated a vast portion of their domestic economy.
Jews created the money pot from which Lithuanians would regularly dip into, through pogroms or taxation. This worked for them for hundreds of years.
In 1941-1945, in a frenzy of looting, pillaging, raping and murder, Lithuanians killed off their honey pot,
not thinking about their future generations, and where their descendants would derive loot. Now, the economy struggles, except of course, for EU funds, where Lithuania dips regularly and deeply.
Lithuania now has to find a new honey pot, and who else is there, but surviving descendants of Lithuanian Jews!
But, this time, Lithuanians can’t come up with taxation laws or use a club or a gun to extract the honey, they have to come, hat in hand, to ask.
This Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are staffed with sweet, warm, loving people that come to Jews
and parrot \”you are part of us\”, and then they say \”give us your money\”. But the Lithuanian Interior Ministry, the Lithuanian Genocide Center and the Lithuanian Public Prosecutor’s office have not changed their
ways, and being unable to reach coordinated messaging in the Government, these Departments respond \”No Jews\”. The Lithuanian population, by and
large, do not.
The Genocide Center specializes in whitewashing the crimes of their population and making heroes out of Jew murderers, the Interior Ministry has applied a “No Jew policy” to their citizenship restoration process, and the Public Prosecutors office, who has never prosecuted Jew murderers in their 25 years of independence, now regrets that the perpetrators are all dead, so now they regret that they are now unable
to prosecute. The Lithuanian Court system, a notoriously corrupt system, gives them cover for their actions, much to the chagrin of the business seeking foreign diplomats.
Those that encounter the friendliness of the professional diplomats are unable to comprehend that the exact opposite attitude dominates within other Government Departments. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs have handed citizenships to the wealthiest of
Litvaks in an attempt to have them invest in Lithuania, but those applicants that have had to apply in the traditional format through the Interior Ministry
have met with NO.
It is important that we document Lithuania’s
Judenrein attitudes and create a public record, so that, when they do manage to coordinate messaging, future generations of Jews are not deceived by their
\”changed attitudes\”. By documenting and recording, long after people we are dead, there will be a public record that 75 years after the Shoah, the Lithuanian Government is what it was in 1941, just without the same abilities they had then. As the Lithuanian Government obfuscates Holocaust data now,
these articles will make it impossible to obfuscate facts later.
There will be a time in the future when the Lithuanian Government recognizes that they killed off their
golden honey pot, that Lithuania will never recover her previous greatness, and then they will approach Jews to mass offer us citizenship with the hope that we will re-engage. At that time, we need our future generations to remember what Lithuanians
did during the Shoah, how 75 years later they were still making heroes out of the murderers of our ancestors, how they protected perpetrators from prosecution until they were all safely dead, and how hard they fought against Jews that did try to engage.
Just remember, that’s all.
‘
Choni
Jun 13, 2016 at 12:03 pm
‘Daniel Latrun, Please read and internalise the words in the Yizkor prayer for the martyrs of the Holocaust.
​’