Jonas Noreika (8 October 1910 – 26 February 1947), also known by his post-war nom de guerreGenerolas Vėtra (lit.'General Storm'), was a Lithuaniananti-Sovietpartisan, military officer.
In July 1941, he was the leader of the Lithuanian Activist Front in the Telšiai district.[1] Noreika later served as governor of the Šiauliai district during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, where he signed orders confining the district's Jews in a ghetto[2] and confiscating their property. Noreika later became one of 46 Lithuanian authority and intellectual figures imprisoned by the Nazis at Stutthof concentration camp from March 1943 until the camp's dissolution on 25 January 1945 for inciting resistance to Nazi mobilization efforts. During the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Noreika was drafted into the Soviet Army, then worked as a jurist in Vilnius, where he was an organizer of the anti-Soviet Lithuanian National Council. He was arrested by the Soviets in March 1946 and executed on 26 February 1947.
In 1933, Noreika published an anti-Semitic booklet titled Hold Your Head High, Lithuanian!!!, which called for a total economic boycott of Lithuanian Jews on nationalistic grounds.[5] In 1939, in the military magazine Kardas, he published an essay, "The Fruitfulness of Authoritarian Politics", praising the leadership of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.[6]
Occupation of Lithuania
Soviet forces occupied Lithuania in June 1940, and Noreika was released into the reserves that October. He is credited as the leading organizer in Samogitia of the underground, anti-Soviet Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF).[1] Noreika was also a prominent publisher in Plungė of underground leaflets, including Brangūs vergaujantys broliai! ('Dear Slaving Brothers!', 1941) which called for ethnic cleansing.[7]
In July 1941, Noreika's rebels held the 1,800 Jews of Plungė in a synagogue for two weeks. For several days, Lithuanian nationalists under the command of Noreikas took groups of 50 Jews at a time and killed them near the village of Milašaičiai [lt]. Finally, on 12 July, the nationalists started fires in the town, which they blamed on the Jews. Noreika gave the order to massacre the Jews of Plungė, and the nationalists marched and conveyed the remaining Jews to a site near Kaušėnai [lt] and killed them there on 12–13 July.[10] Catholic priest Petras Lygnugarisbaptized 74 Jewish women but they were killed nonetheless.[citation needed]
On 20 July, Noreika led a "Manifestation of Freedom and Friendship with Germany," where a crowd of thousands approved a resolution that he had written in support of Lithuania's Provisional Government and complete independence, as well as the German Army, the Reich and Hitler, and the Lithuanian Activist Front.[1] A week and a half later, a group of Samogitian local leaders chose Noreika to head the Iron Wolf-affiliated Žemaičių žemė ('Land of Samogitia') delegation, which was tasked with negotiating unity between the Provisional Government, the Lithuanian Activist Front and the Lithuanian Nationalist Party.[11] On 30 July, Noreika participated in a committee in Telšiai which sentenced Jurgis Endriuška to three months of a labour camp for leading a Communist Youth choir.[12]
Noreika was appointed governor of the Šiauliai district on 3 August 1941.[12] He issued orders on 22 August and 10 September 1941 on sending all the Jews of the district to ghettos and on the confiscation and distribution of their property.[2][13][14] Many Jews were shot on the spot instead.[15] Noreika also sent a proposal on 23 August to Lithuania's General Counselors that they permit the construction of a forced labour camp at Skaistgirys to imprison 200 Lithuanian "undesirables."[16] Noreika returned to Plungė, and his family moved into a home nearby on Vaižganto 9, which had belonged to the Jewish Orlianskis family.[17] He was sent by the Nazis on a propaganda trip to Germany from 31 January 1943 to 16 February 1943 as part of a group of 14 Lithuanian officials.[18]
Arrest
Noreika was arrested and dismissed from his position of governor on 23 February 1943, for failing to fulfil orders to raise a Waffen-SS division from the local population.[1] On 17 March, the Nazis again arrested Noreika along with 45 other Lithuanian political, intellectual and religious authorities, and the group was brought to the Stutthof concentration camp on 26–27 March.[1] They were housed separately from other inmates, allowed to wear civilian clothes, move about freely throughout the camp, receive parcels, write letters, and continue their education.[19] Noreika studied English, but persisted in believing that the Nazis would defeat the Allies.[citation needed] In 1944, when the Germans retreated, Noreika was evacuated with other prisoners. The Soviets moved Noreika with other former concentration camp inmates to barracks in Stolp (Słupsk, Poland). There, in early May 1945, he was mobilized into the Soviet Army.[20]
Post-war
In November 1945, Noreika returned to Vilnius, where he found work as a legal advisor to the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.[21] Soon, along with Ona Lukauskaitė-Poškienė and Stasys Gorodeckis, Noreika founded the self-proclaimed National Council of Lithuania, which worked to centralize anti-Sovietpartisan forces throughout the country. Noreika assumed the rank of general and the nom de guerreGenerolas Vėtra ('General Storm'). Soviet authorities arrested Noreika and other leaders of the council on 16 March 1946. When first interrogated, Noreika claimed that he worked for Soviet military counter-intelligence SMERSH, but three weeks later, he asserted that he had lied.[22] Noreika was sentenced to death on 27 November 1946.[4] He was executed on 26 February 1947, and buried in a mass grave by Tuskulėnai Manor.[23]
Legacy and controversy
Memorial stone in Šukioniai, where Noreika was born
The memorial plaque at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences'es Vrublevsky Library was destroyed on 7 April 2019 in a livestreamed demonstration by human rights attorney Stanislovas Tomas.[32] Though Mayor of VilniusRemigijus Šimašius initially stated that there were no plans to restore the destroyed plaque, on 9 April he announced that the plaque would be restored after documents confirming its initial placing in 1998 were found.[33] The new plaque was removed by the Vilnius municipality on 27 July 2019, days after the changing of a street name honouring another collaborator, Kazys Škirpa.[34] However, in September 2019, the Lithuanian nationalist youth organisation Pro Patria installed a new commemorative plaque in place of the previous one. The plaque remains the subject of legal and political controversy and a focal point of disagreements about the role of Lithuanians like Noreika and the Provisional Government of Lithuania in the Holocaust.
On 27 January 2021, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Noreika's granddaughter, journalist Silvia Foti, in which she says,
"I learned that the man I had believed was a savior who did all he could to rescue Jews during World War II had, in reality, ordered all Jews in his region of Lithuania to be rounded up and sent to a ghetto where they were beaten, starved, tortured, raped and then murdered."[35]
^Noreika, Jonas (1933). Pakelk galvą, lietuvi!!! [Hold Your Head High, Lithuanian!!!] (PDF) (in Lithuanian). Kaunas. Retrieved 20 March 2019.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Noreika, Jonas (1939). "Autoritarinės politikos vaisingumas" [The Fruitfulness of Authoritarian Politics]. Kardas (in Lithuanian) (1): 11–13. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
^Dean, Martin, ed. (2012). "Žagarė". Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945. Vol. II. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. pp. 1154, 1108. ISBN978-0-253-35599-7.
