Koniuchy massacre
[6] Prior to the massacre, to defend from Soviet partisan raids, the village had formed an armed self-defense force with the encouragement and backing of the German-sponsored Lithuanian Auxiliary Police.
Before World War II, it belonged to the Second Polish Republic and, after the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, it was transferred to Lithuania according to the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty.
According to the census, carried out in August 1942 in Generalbezirk Litauen, the village had 374 people – 41 of them declared their nationality as Lithuanians, 17 as Poles, and the rest chose ambiguous "of Lithuania".
Koniuchy is located at the edge of the Rūdninkai forest, where partisan groups, both Soviet and Jewish, set up bases from which they attacked the German forces.
[18] Therefore, Soviet partisans regularly raided nearby villages to rob the locals of food stock, cattle, and clothing.
In response, German administration deployed Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions in the area and provided weapons to self-defence units organized by villagers.
[23] One of the leaders of the village self-defence unit, Vladislavas Voronis, in his post-war trial by NKVD, trying to minimize his anti-Soviet activities, claimed that the group had only eight rifles and ten sawed-off shotguns.
[26][8] In January 1944, a Soviet partisan was killed in Didžiosios Sėlos [lt] in an operation by the Lithuanian Auxiliary Police that involved a few men from Koniuchy.
[26] Post-war testimony by locals shows that the partisans sent two or three open letters to the residents of Koniuchy urging them to surrender their weapons and cease anti-partisan activities, and vowing reprisals if they refused.
[1][7][29] The Vilnius Brigade included partisan groups "Death to Fascism", "Avengers", "To Victory", "Fight", "Thunder", and a unit named after Adam Mickiewicz).
[4] According to reports of the Lithuanian Security Police, 36 houses, 40 granaries, 39 barns, and one banya were burned down, 50 cows, 16 horses, about 50 pigs, and 100 sheep were slaughtered.
[38][39] Even partisan personnel files maintained by Soviet security agencies often neglected to mention the person's involvement in the massacre.
In a 1969 book Kauno getas ir jo kovotojai (Kovno Ghetto and Its Fighters) Dmitri Gelpernas and Mejeris Elinas (Meir Yelin) portrayed the massacre as a fierce battle "for every house" with well armed "Hitlerites".
[11] Chaim Lazar in his book Destruction and Resistance (published in 1985 in New York) wrote that the village was to be destroyed completely and described how half-naked people jumped out the windows to escape the bullets.
[45][34] According to reports of the Lithuanian Security Police, about 40 policemen from the 253rd Battalion surrounded Didžiosios Sėlos, searched for weapons, and severely injured two residents.
Zimanas even suggested that the partisans might retreat to forests near the Lake Narach where units commanded by Motiejus Šumauskas were based.
[24] The institute examined a number of archival documents including police reports, encoded messages, military records and personnel files of the Soviet partisans.
[3] In April 2006, the Lithuanian daily Respublika published excerpts from memoirs of Yitzhak Arad, former chairman of Yad Vashem, about his role in the Koniuchy massacre.
[51] As part of its investigation, Lithuanian prosecutors sought to question other Jewish veterans of the partisan movement, including Sara Ginaitė, Rachel Margolis, and Fania Branstovsky.
[53] In response to the investigation, Yad Vashem issued a protest saying it focused on "victims of Nazi oppression" and suspended Israeli participation in the international commission.
[52] The failure of the Lithuanian judiciary to investigate local Nazi collaborators like Aleksandras Lileikis while choosing to question Jewish partisans led to charges of hypocrisy, attempt at victim blaming, and antisemitism.
[56] Hanna Maria Kwiatkowska concluded that daily Nasz Dziennik used the stories of Koniuchy and Naliboki massacres as a balancing counterweight to the Jedwabne pogrom which came to public attention in 1999.
