J.D.B. News Letter

Dictatorship in Lithuania Weighs Heavily on the General and Jewish Population (By our Kovno correspondent)

It is some time now since Lithuania has been under the military dictatorship of President Smetona and Premier Voldemaras, and it is more or less possible to estimate what effect it has had on the life of the 150,000 Jewish inhabitants of Lithuania.

No one saw any great prospects for the Jews under the new regime, for from the beginning it took office under the slogan–“The Minorities must have no influence in the affairs of the State!” And the influence of the Jews on the life of the country has indeed been reduced to nil. No one takes any account of the Jewish demands and never on any occasion has a Jewish representative been consulted on any question. The President has even refused to receive the Jewish delegations which came to intervene with him on behalf of Jewish workers who were sentenced to death on charges of Communist activity. The Government desired thus to make it clear that it does not wish to reckon with the Jews at all. It desired in particular to make this clear to the real rulers of the country, the officers and Generals before whom the Government is forever abasing itself, since to them it owes its power.

There is no Sejm in Lithuania. There has not been a Sejm for a long time. Its place has been taken by the Kovno Officers Club. It is this Club which gives the Government all its instructions, and it is from this Club that the Government derives its power to rule over a peasant population of two million.

Even in foreign affairs the Officers’ Club has the deciding voice. Before he left for Geneva, the Premier, Professor Voldemaras, came to the Club for instructions and when he returned from Geneva he went to the Club to report.

The officers feel themselves the real rulers of the country, and everyone feels the spur of the military jackboot. And more than all, the Jewish population feels it, especially in the provincial places. The inevitable amusement on any holiday is for a few drunken officers to beat Jews. Drunken officers have even shot at Jews, in the street. One woman in Panevisz was mortally wounded. But, of course, the culprits are never proceeded against.

One does not believe that the Government or the higher military authorities, even if they are avowed anti-Semites, really desire these anti-Jewish excesses, but they appear to be powerless to prevent them or to punish the guilty. The Government recognizes that it is in power not by the will of the people, but by the will of the officers and the Generals, and it must therefore turn the blind eye upon their misdeeds.

This state of affairs has naturally had a very deplorable effect upon the Jewish masses. It accounts for the very humble attitude of the Jewish delegations which receive the President on all his visits to the provinces. Anxious to ingratiate themselves in the favor of the ruler, they assure him not only of the determination of the Jews to fight for the independence of Lithuania, but they even sing songs of praise to the present regime and assure the present Government of their support. They remind one of the Jewish delegations which used to go out to meet the Czar in the olden days. In one town, an aged Rabbi has even fallen to his knees to kiss the hand of the President.

There is no need to explain that with such a feeling dominant, Jewish social life has absolutely disappeared and except for the synagogue there is no Jewish activity at all in the country. The Jewish public is as if in a state of trance. From time to time, it rouses itself when it hears of another death sentence passed by the court martial upon a Jew, but it falls asleep again immediately.

The high and mighty personages who govern the country, however, are not assured by this state of lethargy. They fear (not only with regard to the Jews) that under the surface there is a subterranean movement going on preparing for the overthrow of the regime. And arrests are taking place all over the country.

Recently six Jews were put on trial at Antion on a charge of nothing less than organizing armed insurrection. When the accused were brought into court the judges simply refused to believe their own eyes. “The organizers of armed insurrection” were six ordinary Antion residents who are obviously more concerned with the Beth Hemedrash than with revolutions. It looked ridiculous. What had happened was that on Simchas Torah the six Jews has drunk a glass or two too many and had made a bit of a noise in the street. The policeman had come along and there were some words between them, and the policeman went away and wrote out a protocol, not a charge of disturbing the public peace, but of organizing “armed insurrection,” Fortunately, the judges realized the position and passed sentences on the accused varying from six months to six weeks.

This shows how easy it is today in Lithuania for any little official to bring the most serious charges against a Jew, and get him sentenced to death or life long penal servitude. In this case the accused were lucky in being tried by a Civil Court. But scores and hundreds of Jews do not enjoy this good fortune and are tried by court martial.

Of course, it is not only the Jewish population which suffers under this system. It happens to anyone. If anyone has earned the enmity of a policeman or some other officials, he may be sure that he is going to prison before long for quite a stretch. It is not safe to quarrel with an official today or to arouse his resentment or his envy.

There is a case in point of the Jewish director of the book-keeping courses in the town of Tilvishak, Mr. Barkel. When the present government took office, Mr. Barkel was delighted, for he had always been an adherent of the party led by Smetona and Voldemaras, and a few years ago he founded a branch of their party in his town. No one would have thought of suspecting him of Communism. And yet it was enough for the local police chief to make a charge against him of being a Communist, and he was arrested and interned in a concentration camp.

Or to take a second case: In Ponevisz, there is a Jewish doctor named Ratch-kowsky, who has for many years been a Social Democrat and is known to be a violent opponent of Communism. But the local District Chief had a long-standing dispute with him over matters of local administration, and suddenly this Jewish doctor found himself arrested and interned in a concentration camp.

These are only one or two cases to illustrate how easy it is in Lithuania to exchange one’s home for a less delightful place of residence if one has in any way been luckless enough to arouse the spite of any petty official. People who are anti-Communist with heart and soul are accused of Communism and without public trial are sent away and shut up in concentration camps or prisons.

And the prisons and the concentration camps in Lithuania are filled with Jews, and there is no question there of a Numerus Clausus for Jews. Only it must be remembered that it is not the Jews alone who suffer. The whole country is groaning under the present dictatorship and everywhere the hope rises strong that things cannot go on like this much longer and that some change must take place in the Government of Lithuania.