Our People

Ruta Vanagaite, one of Lithuania’s most popular public personalities and the successful author of numerous best sellers, became persona non grata in her homeland after this book was originally published in Lithuania. Efraim Zuroff is the chief Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of the center’s Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs. A Holocaust historian, popular lecturer, and author, he lives in Jerusalem.

• Preface Introduction: Efraim Zuroff: Lithuania and the Holocaust Part I: Before the Journey1 Efraim Zuroff: My Connection to Lithuania 2 Ruta Vanagaite: My Connection to the Holocaust 3 Meeting the Enemy Part II: Preparation for the Journey4 Lithuania, 1941: Getting Rid of the Jews 5 Lithuania Today: Minimizing the Crimes 6 Mission Impossible? Part III: Journey with the Enemy: Thirteen Destinations7 Kaunas/Kovno 8 Linkmenys/Ligmiyan 9 Švencionys/Shventzyan 10 Kavarskas/Kovarsk 11 Ukmerge/Vilkomir 12 Šeduva/Shadeve 13 Telšiai/Telz 14 Plunge/Plungyan 15 Plateliai/Plotel 16 Taurage/Tavrig 17 Butrimonys/Butrimants 18 Panevežys/Ponevezh 19 Belarus Part IV: The Hell of Vilnius/Vilna20 Portraits of the Witnesses 21 Portrait of a Student 22 Portrait of a Postman 23 Dreams of a Killer 24 Portraits of the Victims 25 Portrait of a Corpse-Burner 26 The Fates of the Killers 27 The Last Day Part V: Conclusion28 Human Faces of the Murderers 29 Lithuania Got Richer 30 The Farewell Afterword: Ruta Vanagaite: Lithuania Is Angry, Lithuania Is Sad Index

A powerful, poignant and painful exploration of the murder by bullets of Lithuanian Jews by Lithuanian nationalists — not Germans. The unusual team of writers consists of the granddaughter and grandniece of perpetrators, and the great nephew of a murdered Jew. . . . Our People is a rare combination of meticulous scholarship and skilled interviewing presented as a sensitive, nuanced, well-rounded and historically grounded portrait not only of the perpetrators, but of the ongoing efforts to rehabilitate them and honor the Lithuanian nationals who killed Jews. . . . Vanagaite and Zuroff began their journey deeply skeptical of each other. They end their journey having shared the deepest of dialogues, transformed, shattered yet strengthened. The reader will be privileged to share that pilgrimage and their rare openness with each other.