"On his deathbed, my friend’s grandfather (I’ll call him Matis) revealed how, as a Lithuanian, he was forced to enroll in a pro-Nazi para-military group shortly after the Nazi occupation of his small town near Vilnius...
As a Nazi officer pointed out, his other options were to become a Social Democrat or a communist, and the Nazis didn’t care for these people. Social Democrats were sent to camps, and communists were shot.Matis’ duty was to patrol his small town, unarmed, with other Lithuanian Rifles and report back to the Nazis. He didn’t like Nazis, but he hated communists, and being a Lithuanian Rifle was better than a camp or a bullet.
- Besides, Germany was the land of art and science. Germans were civilized, and the communists were animals.
Good riddance to the Stalinists who now found themselves under the gun.
Also, Germany was winning the war.
Months after enlisting as a Lithuanian Rifle, Matis, in his mid 30’s, married and father to three children, began to hear insane rumors that the Germans were rounding up Jewish men and teens in nearby towns and shooting them in the forest.
It can’t happen here
Matis and his friends refused to believe the rumors.
Months after enlisting as a Lithuanian Rifle, Matis, in his mid 30’s, married and father to three children, began to hear insane rumors that the Germans were rounding up Jewish men and teens in nearby towns and shooting them in the forest.
It can’t happen here
Matis and his friends refused to believe the rumors.
- Germans were cultured and sophisticated.
- They led Europe in engineering.
- Germany was home to some of the world’s best composers, like Brahms, Bach, and Beethoven. Germans built cities. Soviets, not Germans, were feral.
- Stalin’s men deported thousands of ethnic Lithuanians out of Vilnius, and they were never seen again...
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