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DuringWorld War II,Lithuania was occupied twice by theSoviet Union (1940–1941; post-1944) and once byNazi Germany (1941–1944).Resistance took many forms.
During the occupations, there arose parallel resistance movements in Lithuania that had competing goals due to the different priorities of the several ethnicities, besides the fringe Soviet collaborators whose fate was tied to the Soviet Union and were more united by ideology than ethnicity. For example, the anti-Nazi resistance in Lithuania was fractured into:[1]
Notably, although the latter two resistance movements fought against Nazi occupation, they also fought for Lithuania's occupation by their respective countries.[citation needed] Many Polish resistance members were against the possibility of an independent Lithuania after the war's end.[2][needs independent confirmation]
In 1940, PresidentAntanas Smetona fled to Germany, not wanting his government to become a puppet of the Soviet occupation. Soviet attempts to capture him were unsuccessful, and he was able to settle in theUnited States.
In 1940,Jan Zwartendijk, the Dutch consul in Kaunas, andChiune Sugihara, theJapanese consul inKaunas, and his wife Yukiko disobeyed orders and saved thousands of Jewish refugees fromPoland by granting them visas.[3]
In 1941, theLithuanian Activist Front (Lithuanian:Lietuvos Aktyvistų Frontas) formed anunderground government, and following theJune uprising, theProvisional Government of Lithuania maintained sovereignty for a brief period.
Soviet partisans began sabotage and guerrilla operations against German forces immediately after theNazi invasion of 1941. The activities of Soviet partisans in Lithuania were partly coordinated by the Command of the Lithuanian Partisan Movement headed byAntanas Sniečkus and partly by the Central Command of the Partisan Movement of the USSR.[4]
In 1943, the Nazis attempted to raise aWaffen-SS division from the local population as they had in many other countries, but due to widespread coordination between resistance groups, the mobilization was boycotted. TheLithuanian Territorial Defense Force (Lietuvos vietinė rinktinė) was eventually formed in 1944 under Lithuanian command, but was liquidated by the Nazis only a few months later for refusing to subordinate to their command.[5][6][7]
There was no significant violent resistance directed against the Nazis. Some Lithuanians, encouraged by Germany's vague promises ofautonomy,[8] cooperated with the Nazis. Pre-war tensions over theVilnius Region resulted in a low-levelcivil war between Poles and Lithuanians.[9] Nazi-sponsored Lithuanian units, primarily theLithuanian Security Police,[9] were active in the region and assisted the Germans in repressing the Polish population. In the autumn of 1943, theHome Army began retaliatory operations against the Lithuanian units and killed hundreds of mostlyLithuanian Auxiliary policemen and other collaborators during the first half of 1944.[citation needed] The conflict culminated in the massacres of Polish and Lithuanian civilians in June 1944 in theGlitiškės (Glinciszki) andDubingiai (Dubinki) villages.
Also in 1943, several underground political groups united under theSupreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania (Vyriausias Lietuvos išlaisvinimo komitetas, orVLIK). The committee issued a declaration of independence that went largely unnoticed. It became active mostly outside Lithuania among emigrants and deportees, and was able to establish contacts inWestern countries and get support for resistance operations inside Lithuania (seeOperation Jungle). It would persist abroad for many years as one of the groups representing Lithuania in exile.[10][11]
TheLithuanian Liberty Army, during Nazi Germany's occupation, opposed German policies, but did not begin armed resistance. The armed struggle began in mid-1944 when theRed Army reached the Lithuanian borders after theMinsk Offensive. The LLA became the first wave of the Lithuanian partisans, armed anti-Soviet guerrilla fighters. It attempted to become the central command of the armed struggle. However, the organization headquarters was liquidated by the Soviet security forces (NKVD and KGB) by April 1946. Many Lithuanian Liberty Army fighters joined the wider movement ofLithuanian partisans.
Jewish partisans also fought against the Nazi occupation. In September 1943, theUnited Partisan Organization, led byAbba Kovner, attempted to start anuprising in theVilna Ghetto, and later engaged in sabotage and guerrilla operations against the Nazi occupation.[12]
In July 1944, as part of itsOperation Tempest, thePolish Home Army launchedOperation Ostra Brama, an attempt to recapture that city.
As of January 2008, 723Lithuanians were recognized byIsrael asRighteous among the Nations for their efforts in saving Lithuania'sJews fromthe Holocaust.[13] The total number of people who helped the Jews is most definitely underestimated.[14]
Lithuanian partisans, known as theForest Brothers, beganguerrilla warfare against the Soviet forces as soon as thefront passed over them in 1944, and continued an armed struggle until 1953. The core of this movement was made up of soldiers from theTerritorial Defense Force, who had disbanded with their weapons and uniforms, and members of theLithuanian Liberty Army, established in 1941. The underground had extensive clandestine radio and press.[15] Thousands of people engaged in active and passive resistance against the Soviet authorities.[10] The various resistance organizations eventually united under theMovement of the Struggle for the Freedom of Lithuania (Lietuvos Laisvės Kovų Sąjūdis, orLLKS), issuing adeclaration of independence in 1949 that would ultimately be signed into law by the independentRepublic of Lithuania in 1999.[16]The most famous of these partisans is probablyJuozas Lukša, author of several books during the resistance and the subject of the 2004 filmUtterly Alone.
While armed resistance ended in the 1950s,nonviolent resistance continued in various forms (e.g. through Lithuanians living abroad, the Catholic press, safeguarding local traditions and the Lithuanian language, theSąjūdis movement, etc.), until 1991, whenRussia recognized the independence declared by Lithuania on March 11, 1990.
February 16, the date that Lithuania first declared its independence in 1918, played an important symbolic role during this period. The call for volunteers for theLithuanian Territorial Defense Force, the VLIK declaration of independence, and the LLKS declaration of independence were all made on February 16. This day has become anational holiday in Lithuania.
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