Genocide

My grandfather, Lithuanian hero & Jew-killer: US author’s journey to discover dark family past

A US author who promised to write a book about her grandfather, a Lithuanian national hero, is now campaigning for his role in slaughtering Jews and collaborating with the Nazis to be recognized.

Jonas Noreika is honored in modern Lithuania as a hero, a resistance fighter who fought both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and was persecuted by each side. There is a plaque in his memory on one of the buildings in the capital Vilnius, where his name is displayed next to his nom-de-guerre – Generolas Vėtra, or General Storm.

Silvia Foti is a US fiction writer and maternal granddaughter of Noreika. On her mother’s deathbed she promised her that she would finish a book about her grandfather, a patriot and a hero, as he was described in family lore. She went to Lithuania to learn more about his heroic deeds, but was shocked to discover a darker aspect to the family history.

Noreika, who led an uprising against the pro-Soviet government shortly before the invasion of Nazi Germany, was a key figure in organizing the killings of thousands of Jews by Lithuanian nationalists and was a collaborator under the occupying Nazi regime. Foti told her story of discovery and personal crisis in the Salon journal.