Crisis, War, and the Holocaust in Lithuania

Crisis, War, and the Holocaust in Lithuania examines the Holocaust with a new perspective based on previously inaccessible sources. The book relates the history of the crises which preceded the Shoah, describes in detail the process of destruction, and concludes by addressing Lithuanian society’s struggles to confront the legacy of unprecedented violence. Crisis, War, and the Holocaust in Lithuania is the first scholarly English-language study of Lithuania during World War II which utilizes previously inaccessible archives as well as academic works published in that country in the post-Soviet era. In the first chapters, the book examines the multifaceted relations of Lithuania’s national communities before World War II and the international and domestic crises which led to the destruction of the Lithuanian state in 1940. The author describes in detail the process of the mass persecution and murder of the country’s Jews during the Holocaust, the role of Nazi and collaborationist forces, acts of resistance, as well as the society’s responses. The book concludes with an examination of the postwar struggle within Lithuania to confront this legacy of unprecedented violence.