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Personal Story

I exposed Lithuanian duplicity for you, Zayde

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Dear Zayde,

Growing up in South Africa, you implored me to “remember [zachor]”. I was to remember who we Jews are and where we came from. You showed me the photos and told me stories. You taught me only love. You asked me to visit our family cemetery in the “old country”, and to recite kaddish for our family. Zayde, I have.

So then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I travelled to the “old country”, specifically Lithuania. Once there, my first destination was your shtetl. There was nothing Jewish remaining. They destroyed everything. Deliberately. I erected a new gravestone where I could say kaddish.

The cemeteries were in utter disarray and in shambles. It was glaringly apparent to me that the overgrowth was intentional. No-one wanted to remember that Jews had lived in Lithuania.

Together with others, I began to document and restore dozens of Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania. Zachor Zayde, we preserved memory.

I searched for survivors. I found Sarah, our only cousin, who survived the Shoah. Sarah’s descendants and I have formed strong family bonds. We remember. We are a family again. Everybody else was murdered. Lithuanians did it. Not Nazis.

My research led me to other survivors who could easily have been our Jewish relatives. I helped them Zayde, to the best of my ability. We worked tirelessly to support and love them. That is what you would have expected from me. I delivered.

I began to research your life. You didn’t tell me of the brutality and cruelty Lithuanians perpetrated against you, your mother, your father, and your siblings. You sheltered me because you worried that I was too young to comprehend. Indeed, even as an adult, it’s almost impossible to comprehend the cruelty and viciousness Lithuanians perpetrated against our family. They did so viciously, opportunistically, and joyously.

Zayde, you embodied the dignity of Litvaks. I wanted the Lithuanians to know your name. Simply for them to know you had existed, and to record your name in a modern document. I applied for Lithuanian citizenship. I didn’t need their citizenship, because I’m American now. I just wanted to preserve your memory. Lithuania denied you existed. They lied. They slandered you. When I applied, they used every tool they could create to deny citizenship to any Jew.

Zayde, you were pure love and dignity, and I wouldn’t allow such monstrous people to obliterate and sully your name. I declared moral war on the Lithuanian government, and fought it in its own courts. I exposed its modern virulent antisemitism. I won. I’m now a citizen of Lithuania. Many of your grandchildren are also.

We have used Lithuania’s slanders against you to crack open its stealth wall of hate. Now, through and because of you, many thousands of Jews have reclaimed their Lithuanian citizenship. Because of the principles you instilled in me to fight for truth, stand for respect, and defend the vulnerable. Zachor.

Reciting kaddish as you asked me to, I discovered the identity of the murderer of our own family. His name was Jonas Noreika. Lithuania considers him its national hero!

Initially, I couldn’t believe that such an evil ideology was still possible. I did what you asked of me, Zayde, I stood up for truth. I approached the Lithuanian government to explain to it that it had made a “mistake”.

In my own mind, it wasn’t possible that a monster who murdered thousands of his own co-citizens simply because they were Jews could be elevated to a modern-day national hero. But I made a horrific discovery. The Lithuanian government has fraudulently rewritten its national history and has zero tolerance for truth.

I tried everything. I was able to show it the facts. It treated me just as they had treated you and all of our relatives – with contempt and brutality.

Zayde, you had no ability to stand up to Lithuanians during your lifetime, so I did it for you. I did it for all its victims, for all Jews. I demanded that the Lithuanian government tell the truth. I fought it with every fibre of my being.

Lithuania almost won.

It declared its murderers as its heroes, and contemptuously told us few surviving Jews that Lithuania was a rescuer nation. Zayde, it spat in your face. It had only contempt for the 220 000 Jews their national heroes had murdered.

No Holocaust organisation would help me. They were bystanders. No Jewish institution helped me. Almost nobody would help me fight for the truth. I realised that if I didn’t stand up for you and for all 220 000 murder victims, Lithuania would successfully declare itself the victim of its own murders. Doing that, the memory of every Lithuanian Jewish murder victim would be murdered again. It was the murder of truth and the murder of memory. How could I accept this and still face you? I couldn’t.

Your life lessons left me no choice but to fight. I sued them in every court in their country, I sued them in the European Court of Human Rights and at the United Nations. I faced down their death threats, their threats of criminal and constitutional charges, their slanders, and their attacks. It was them or you. I had no choice. You were love, they are hate. I couldn’t have lived with myself had I allowed them to repeat their vile conduct.

I fought them for 15 years. I spent hundreds of thousands of hours fighting them. You gave me no option. Allowing them to win would have been a betrayal of you and every Jewish victim.

I led a decade-long international media campaign against the Lithuanian government to expose the truth. I spent years researching, bringing truths to light, and preserving memory. I sat on boards where we preserved documents and authentic history. I dedicated my life to remembering, documenting, and preserving. Respect for you dominated my world and motivated all of my actions.

Good Lithuanians helped. Noreika’s own granddaughter, Silvia Foti, stepped forward to tell the truth about her grandfather. Michael Kretzmer made an extraordinary documentary to expose the truth. And under the withering glare of international media, Lithuania finally crumbled.

Lithuania has admitted only some of Noreika’s crimes. It remains the most intense Holocaust revisionist in the world. It continues to lie about its many murderer heroes whose crimes I have exposed. Lithuania’s national history is a fraud, but we have finally penetrated the wall of its deception. And the world now knows. I have restored the truth.

Zayde, I have honoured your legacy. You may now rest in peace. I love you.

  • South African-born Grant Gochin is actively involved in Jewish affairs in the United States, Israel, and Lithuania.
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4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Dr. Efraim Zuroff

    January 23, 2025 at 3:43 pm

    Grant Gochin indeed is a dedicated activist against Lithuanian Holocaust distortion, but he is NOT THE ONLY PERSON FIGHTING AGAINST THE Lithuanian lies. The Wiesenthal Center has devoted much time and resources to the struggle, and I am continuing to do so after my forced retirement. Popular Lithuanian author Ruta Vanagaite sacrificed her career to do so, and Silvia Foti, the grandaughter of Lithuanian hero (and Nazi collaborator) Jonas Noreika has also played an important role.

  2. Michael Appleby

    January 23, 2025 at 3:46 pm

    Thank you for pursuing justice and exposing the Truth for others to read about and share! Awesome Legacy, Grant! MAy God Bless!

  3. Roger Gordon

    January 24, 2025 at 4:14 am

    Well done Grant as well as the other truth seekers that helped. Many South African and (Zimbabwean) Rhodesian families had their roots in Lithuania, you did us all a very big mitzvah!

  4. DR JEFFERSONB BEDER

    January 24, 2025 at 5:07 am

    Grant I take my hat off to you. Thank you for exposing the shear brutality of the Lithuanian teenagers and young men who murdered my grand aunt and her family including her 2 grand children who were about 2 and 4 at the time in May 1942.
    Kol hakavod

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