Jonas Noreika

Jonas Noreika (8 October 1910 – 26 February 1947), also known by his post-war nom de guerre Generolas Vėtra (General Storm), was a Lithuanian army officer, anti-Soviet rebel, Nazi collaborator, Nazi hostage, and anti-Soviet partisan.

In July 1941, he was the leader of the Lithuanian Activist Front in Telšiai District. Noreika was one of 46 Lithuanian authority and intellectual figures who were imprisoned by the Nazis at Stutthof concentration camp from March 1943 until the camp's dissolution on 25 January 1945. Noreika was mobilized into the Soviet army, and 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.

Early life
Noreika was born in the small village of Šukioniai in Northern Lithuania in 1910. Noreika studied law, served in the military, wrote for the military, and served on a military tribunal. 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. In 1939, in the military magazine Kardas, he published an essay, "The Fruitfulness of Authoritarian Politics", about the exemplary leadership of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. During Soviet rule, Noreika was promoted to captain.

Occupation of Lithuania
Soviet forces occupied Lithuania on 15 June 1940. Noreika was released into the reserves on 28 October 1940. He lived with his wife Antanina in the village of Mardosai, near Plungė. She taught in the village school, and he gave lessons in Russian. He is credited as the leading organizer in Samogitia of the underground, anti-Soviet Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF).

Noreika made several trips back and forth to Germany with the help of former police officer Kazys Šilgalis. He acquired two radios and had contacts with Pilypas Narutis of LAF Kaunas and Juozas Kilius of LAF Vilnius. However, his best ties seem to have been with Voldemarists Klemensas Brunius and Stasys Puodžius of LAF Koenigsberg, who were the liaisons with the German army's high command OKW, military intelligence Abwehr, and LAF's network of messengers. Noreika was a prominent publisher in Plungė of underground leaflets, which LAF Kaunas advised against. Such leaflets led the Soviets to arrest in Samogitia key organizers of the rebellion. The leaflet "Dear Slaving Brothers" (Brangūs vergaujantys broliai), which called for ethnic cleansing, is known to have been printed in the Telšiai region.

At the start of the June Uprising in Lithuania, on 22 June 1941, Noreika led a band of 12 farmers and youths in Mardosai village. German scouts brought him to Memel, where he was given instructions and armbands for carrying weapons. On 24 June, he travelled onward to Telšiai to meet the commandant there, Alfonsas Svilas. Permits to bear weapons in the name of the Lithuanian National Socialist Police were signed by the Telšiai Commandant. Noreika was included in a committee of 12 local leaders which subsequently became the "Land of Samogitia" delegation. LAF published an anti-Semitic newspaper with the same name (Žemaičių žemė).

World War II
Noreika returned to Plungė where Lithuanian rebels had forced its 1,800 Jews into a synagogue. Noreika's family moved into a home nearby on Vaižganto 9, which had belonged to the Orlianskis family. Captain Noreika was the highest authority, followed by Captain Stanislovas Lipčius, Lieutenant Povilas Alimas, Sergeant Pranas Šapalas, and Arnoldas Pabrėža. The German army had passed through and left behind only two Germans, unfit for the front: a major with an injured hand, and a soldier who talked to himself. For several days, Lithuanian activists took groups of 50 Jews and killed them near the village of Milašaičiai. Finally, on 12 July, the activists started fires in the town, which they blamed on the Jews. Noreika gave the order to massacre the Jews of Plungė. The activists marched and conveyed the remaining Jews to a site near Kaušėnai village and killed them there on 12–13 July. Catholic priest Petras Lygnugaris baptized 74 Jewish maidens but the Lithuanian activists killed them there, notwithstanding.

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. He handed out medals at a water sports festival.

On 25 July, Noreika, in the name of LAF, and Augustas Ramanaukas, as Telšiai District Chief, issued an order prohibiting local initiative in condemning and executing those detained. On 27 July, Noreika gave a speech in Plungė at a "Manifestation of Joy", where the locals approved his resolution. On 29 July, a group of 18 Samogitian local leaders chose LAF Telšiai leader Noreika to head the seven-member "Land of Samogitia" delegation, which also included Juodikis, Ramanauskas, Svilas, Plungė LAF leader Povilas Alimas (an organizer of the Plungė genocide), Dr Leonardas Plechavičius (who led the autopsies in Rainiai), and Jurkus (director of the Telšiai chapter of the Bank of Lithuania). The group drafted a letter voicing affinity with the "Iron Wolf", a fascist clique which on 23–24 July had failed to overthrow the Provisional Government, but had succeeded in taking over Lithuania's battalion and police forces, had established the Kaunas ghetto on 25 July and was organizing the Lithuanian Nationalist Party. The Samogitian group charged their delegation with negotiating unity between the Provisional Government, the Lithuanian Activist Front and the Lithuanian Nationalist Party. On 30 July, Noreika participated in a committee in Telšiai which sentenced Jurgis Endriuška to three months of a labor camp for leading a Communist Youth choir.

In Kaunas, on 31 July, the Samogitians proposed that Noreika represent them in a troika which would merge the Lithuanian Activist Front and the Iron Wolf into the Lithuanian Nationalist Party. The Lithuanian Activist Front rejected this plan. The Provisional Government decided to appoint Noreika as Šiauliai District Chief as a way of getting him out of Kaunas. Interior Minister Jonas Šlepetys, who was being held hostage by the Iron Wolf, made the appointment on 3 August 1941.

On 4 August 1941, Noreika replaced Šiauliai District Chief Ignas Urbaitis, who had asked the Provisional Government to accept his resignation. The Provisional Government, which Nazi Germany had never acknowledged, disbanded on 5 August 1941. Even so, on 6 August 1941, Noreika issued an edict advancing the Provisional Government's policy that Jewish property belonged to Lithuanian authorities. On 9 August 1941, Šiauliai Gebietskommissar Hans Gewecke announced himself in the Šiauliai newspaper Tėvynė. He asserted German control over Jewish property.

Noreika aspired to a higher post, but Gewecke did not support him. Thus Noreika was not responsible for the City of Šiauliai, nor the ghettos there. However, about 100 documents relate Noreika to the management of Jewish matters in Šiauliai District, outside of the city, such as managing the ghetto at Žagarė. On 9 August, he commanded that the Jews of Tryškiai be moved to the town of Gruzdžiai. On 22 August 1941 Noreika informed local authorities and mayors that on the orders of the Šiauliai Gebietskommissar, all half-Jews and Jews in the district were to be moved to Žagarė ghetto, the Jews were allowed only to take clothing and at most 200 Reichsmark. Many Jews were shot on the spot instead of being sent to the ghetto.

Noreika also took the initiative to send a proposal on 23 August to Lithuania's General Counselors that they permit the construction of a forced labor camp at Skaistgiris to make rational use of 200 Lithuanian undesirables. The Lithuanians rejected his proposal as they already had three forced labor camps. He was very popular with the farmers, and Noreika had the farmers supply food to students, so he was popular with them as well.

During this time, Noreika was an organizer for the underground Lithuanian Front, and distributed their underground newspaper. The Lithuanian Front collected weapons for use against other Lithuanian factions such as the Iron Wolf. He was loyal enough to the Nazis to be sent on a propaganda trip to Germany in 1943 from 31 January to 16 February as part of a group of 14 Lithuanian officials, including Šiauliai mayor P. Linkevičius and Dr Sipavičius, all led by Baron von der Ropp.

Arrest
On 23 February 1943, Noreika was arrested by the Nazis, but let go promptly after his friends in Šiauliai and Mardosai came up with money. He met with Lithuania's General Councilors on 24 February as they returned from Riga, the capital of Ostland, where they had been unsuccessful in linking recruitment of Lithuanian forces to political prospects for independence.

The Nazis grew furious that Lithuanian leaders had succeeded in discouraging the youth from signing up for a Waffen SS "Lithuanian Legion". On 17 March, the Nazis arrested Noreika as one of 46 Lithuanian political, intellectual and religious authorities. On 26–27 March they were brought to Stutthof concentration camp, where they were held as hostages. The hostages included Pranas Germantas-Meškauskas, Stasys Puodžius, Vytautas Stanevičius, Pilypas Narutis-Žukauskas, Kazys Bauba, Rapolis Mackonis, Petras Buragas, Robertas Grigas, Juozas Narakas, Mečislovas Mackevičius, Mykolas Mačiukas, and Jonas Čiuberkis. In the first five weeks, several of the hostages died, but afterwards they were deemed honorary prisoners. 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. Noreika studied English, but persisted in believing that the Nazis would defeat the Allies. In 1944, when the Germans retreated, Noreika was evacuated with other prisoners. Noreika nursed his friend, professor Juozas Jurgutis, and saved his life. The Soviets moved Noreika with other former concentration camp inmates to barracks in Slupsk, Poland. There, in early May 1945, he was mobilized into the Soviet army.

Post-war
In November 1945, Noreika returned to Vilnius. With Jurgutis's help, he got a job as a jurist for the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. Noreika, Ona Lukauskaitė-Poškienė and Stasys Gorodeckis were the three organizers of a self-proclaimed National Council of Lithuania, which recruited suicide squads. Noreika assumed the rank of general and the nom de guerre General Storm (Generolas Vėtra). The Council worked to centralize partisan forces throughout the country, which helped Soviets locate partisan leaders, such as Jonas Šemaška. The Council engaged Lithuanian intellectuals as potential ministers, which led to the arrest and conviction of writer Kazys Boruta, who admitted to reading one of the Council's documents. 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. Noreika was sentenced to death on 27 November 1946. He was executed on 26 February 1947, and buried in a mass grave in Tuskulėnai Manor.

Legacy and controversy
The memoir of Stutthof hostage Rev. Stasys Yla established Noreika as a hero amongst the Lithuanian community in exile. Noreika was portrayed as a member of the select group of Nazi hostages, which was living proof of Lithuania's anti-Nazi stance, and that exemplary individual who ventured back into Soviet-occupied Lithuania to fight for freedom. Noreika also cut a dashing image to the young people who knew him, such as Julius Šalkauskas.

In 1997, the Lithuanian state awarded Noreika with the Order of the Cross of Vytis, first degree. A memorial plaque was placed at the entrance of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. A plaque in honor of Noreika is also at the front of the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. A village school, as well as numerous streets in Lithuania are named for Noreika.

Noreika has been accused by several people and organisations for taking part in organisation of the Holocaust in Lithuania. An investigation conducted by the state-run Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania stated that these claims were not confirmed by the documentary evidence and a decision of the Regional Administrative Court of Vilnius Region confirmed this view. A subcommission of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania found the Centre's findings unacceptable and offensive, and objected to the commemoration of Jonas Noreika.

In 2018, Grant Gochin, an South-African Jew of Lithuanian ancestry (Litvak), filed a lawsuit against the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania for the charge of Holocaust Denial, for erecting a plaque commemorating Noreika in front of the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. The lawsuit was dismissed as having no legal standing or merit. Silvia Foti, Noreika's granddaughter who researched and wrote on Noreika, filed an affidavit of support of the lawsuit.

On 7 April 2019, the plaque was destroyed by Stanislovas Tomas, a Russian human rights lawyer from Andorra, who planned to participate in the 2019 European Parliament election. Remigijus Šimašius, the mayor of Vilnius, stated that there were no plans to restore the destroyed plaque, however, on 9 April, he announced that the plaque would be restored after documents confirming its initial placing in 1998 were found. The plaque was removed by Vilnius municipality on 27 July, 2019, days after the changing of the street name in honor of Kazys Škirpa , the founder of Lithuanian Activist Front which was accused of antisemite standings.

On 18 December 2019, the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania published new report about Noreika with important testimony. According to the priest Jonas Borevičius, who was himself saving Jews from the Šiauliai Ghetto and was named the Righteous Among the Nations, testimony in the United States' court, Noreika was saving Jews in Šiauliai already since becoming the Šiauliai District Chief and at the same time led the Samogitian anti-Nazi resistance. The centre notes that initially Noreika did not understod the true purpose of the Nazi ghettos in 1941 and that he was being compromised already in the Soviet era by the order of the KGB.