COMENIUS MULTILATERAL PROJECT

CONFLICTING PAST- COMMON FUTURE:

A PRACTICAL SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR YOUNG EUROPEANS

Palanga Senoji GymnasiumLithuania

2010

This project has been funded with support from the European

Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the

Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the

information contained therein.

FASCISM AND DICTATORSHIP

ANTI-SEMITISM

• Anti-semitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, or religion.

• Hitler’s main goal was to destroy the Jews. In all the countries they had occupied the Nazis persecuted and shot the Jews, took them to concentration camps where they were tortured to death.

The old Jewish cemetery in Palanga reminds us that before World War II

the Jewish community was quite large.

• Before World War II there were two Jewish synagogues in Palanga. The Jews also owned shops. Now there is a street called Synagogue’s street in the centre of the town where one of the synagogues was situated.

• The Jews comprised 7% of the total population of Lithuania. On the very first days of World War II a massive destruction of the Jews started. Different criminals joined the armed Germans in these pogroms.

• Special groups formed in Germany were sent to Lithuania in order to destroy the communists, the Gipsies and the Jews.

• The role of the Germans in the pogroms, which were planned by the Nazis’ secret agents, was kept top secret. In Germany the murders were reported to have been committed by the locals in revenge for the Jews’ support of the Soviets.

• During World War II about 90% of the Jewish population were killed in Lithuania. In our region it was not done on a large scale, however.

• There are around 200 places in Lithuania reminding us of the massive murdering of the Jews during the first months of the war.

The Jews were shot in the field near Birute’s hill in the Botanical

Gardens of Palanga

• In spite of the great threat to their own lives a lot of Lithuanian people helped the Jews by providing shelter or adopting the Jewish children.