A contemporary view of one of the many murder pits at the Ponary Memorial near Vilnius, Lithuania
The Holocaust atrocities in Lithuania are horrifying enough, but the modern effort to shift blame and rewrite history echoes disturbingly in today’s Gaza conflict. This article explores how victimhood fuels violence—and why understanding history is key to breaking the cycle.
History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Patterns of suffering, complicity, and extremism emerge time and again, haunting us with their familiarity. As I worked on my upcoming World War II historical novel, Echoes of Ponary, I found myself struck by the parallels between Lithuania’s dark past and today’s conflicts, particularly the ongoing struggles in the Middle East.
At the heart of my novel lies the Ponary Massacre—where Lithuanian partisans actively participated in the systematic murder of people they disliked—it explores the complex forces that drive ordinary people to commit extraordinary atrocities.
These same forces exist today—political extremism, the seduction of victimhood, and the exploitation of individual pain to achieve larger political agendas —are tragically visible in the events of October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
The Lithuanian experience during WWII offers a chilling lens through which to examine the intersection of human behavior, ideology, and violence. The parallels between these events remind us that the lessons of history are never distant—they’re woven into the fabric of our present.
Historical Context: Lithuania's Holocaust at Ponary
World War II swept across Europe with devastating speed, leaving destruction in its wake.
Lithuania was at the heart of it all.
With over 200,000 Jews in this small, Eastern European nation, Lithuania was considered the Jerusalem of the North" due to the vibrant Jewish community and its renowned center of learning, particularly in Vilnius. Yet many historians view the events in Lithuania as the "birthplace of the Holocaust."
The war’s impact was especially brutal, as the nation found itself caught between two oppressive regimes. First came the Soviets, who stripped away Lithuanian sovereignty, deporting families to frozen wastelands and erasing their cultural identity. Then, in 1941, the Nazis attacked, bringing with them a new kind of horror—mass murder at places like Ninth Fort and Ponary. Places where tens of thousands of Jews took their last breath.
The serene forest of Ponary, just outside Vilnius, hides a dark past. Over 70,000 lives were taken there in the "Holocaust by Bullets," their voices silenced beneath the trees.
Lithuanian partisans stand guard over condemned Jews awaiting execution in Ponary, Lithuania
The victims—mostly Jews—were marched into massive pits, often forced to stand atop the bodies of those who were murdered minutes before, and executed with rapid efficiency. The ground, once fertile and green, was soaked with the blood of the innocent. Then to hide their atrocities from the world, the Nazis assembled “burning brigades” consisting of condemned Jews who were forced to exhume and cremate the decomposing corpses.
Initially, the perpetrators of the massacre were Lithuanian partisans, impressionable young men who were initially hailed as heroes for resisting the Soviets. Their motivations were tangled by anger at the Soviets, the lure of revolution, and the toxic antisemitism that swept through Europe, painting Jews as the architects of all suffering.
In the crucible of the moment, the forest became a place where morality was replaced by the numbing effects of animosity, victimhood, and unchecked power.
Jews lined up for execution in Ponary
Yet the atrocities committed at Ponary still prompt us to confront a chilling reality: these acts were not carried out by monsters, but by ordinary folks—neighbors, workers, soldiers—caught in the tide of ideology and fear.
How does such darkness take root in human hearts? How do people we would otherwise see as harmless, become so quickly complicit with such evil?
Historians like Richard Evans remind us that complicity in terrible crimes against humanity are rarely a simple matter of everyone agreeing to commit murder. Instead, it usually results from a mix of external pressures that create a downward spiral of rationalization which ultimately results in the abandonment of long-held ethical and moral standards.
Like smoldering embers hidden deep in the underbrush, lying in wait for the right conditions, the flames of complicity in mass murder need only a sudden gust of wind to burst into a raging inferno. Likewise, when the right circumstances are present, even a small spark can ignite the flames of hatred. This is particularly volatile when these feelings stem from a sense of victimhood, as they can be readily manipulated and exploited by the widespread impact of misinformation and half-truths.
Contemporary Comparison: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
In October 2023, a new tragedy unfolded in the Middle East, echoing the familiar patterns of hatred and violence seen in Lithuania decades before.
Hamas’s coordinated attack on Israel was a brutal eruption of pain and rage—a wave of bloodshed that targeted civilians in their homes, at bus stops, and in places of worship. The horror of those hours, captured in anguished cries and shattered streets, drew the world’s attention to a conflict steeped in generations of suffering.
Damage in Gaza Strip during the October 2023 (Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contract with APAimages)
The images of that attack—homes engulfed in flames, parents cradling lifeless children, survivors searching through rubble for loved ones—are a stunning reminder of the human cost of ideological warfare. Yet the violence did not end there. Israel’s swift and forceful response, driven by the weight of its historical trauma and the unrelenting need for security, brought its own toll. For many, the victim has somehow become the perpetrator. The response to the October 7 attack is somehow too unseemly. Too swift. Too severe. The result is an international court charging the victims of the October attack with crimes against humanity.
Such distortions are not new.
In the Lithuanian parliament, a prominent leader claimed “the Jews have killed the Lithuanians—not the reverse.”
Kaunas, the most ethnically Lithuanian of all cities and former capital during the inter-war period from 1920-1940, has the distinction of having the most public monuments, plaques and museum exhibits honoring figures associated with Nazi collaboration.
In state-funded museums memorializing the Holocaust, nearly all references to "Jews" have been removed in favor of terms like "Soviet citizens." This is the new “double genocide” narrative used by ultranationalists to portray the Holocaust and Soviet atrocities as parallel events. The result is to minimize Lithuanian’s participation in killing 96% of the Jews living in Lithuania, among the highest percentage of Jews killed in all of Europe.
The Seduction of Victimhood
Victimhood is a powerful force—it can inspire justice or fuel hatred. During World War II, Lithuanian partisans used their own suffering under Soviet oppression to justify atrocities against Jews, labeling them as collaborators. This manipulation of pain into a narrative of vengeance opened the door to unimaginable violence. Today, Hamas employs a similar strategy, exploiting Palestinian hardship to frame acts of terror as righteous resistance. Both cases reveal how victimhood, when weaponized, fosters a dangerous sense of moral entitlement.
Unchecked, this dynamic can distort judgment and erase accountability. For Lithuanian partisans, it meant rationalizing mass murder as retribution. For Hamas, it means recasting terrorism as justified retaliation. In both instances, personal pain is twisted into ideological narratives, creating cycles of violence that devastate innocent lives.
But victimhood does not have to lead to destruction. History offers shining examples of individuals and societies that chose reconciliation over revenge. Figures like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. showed the world how even the deepest grievances can be transformed into movements for peace, proving that the path forward lies not in hatred, but in humanity.
Why This Matters: Relevance to Readers and the Novel
The lessons of history aren’t confined to the past; they resonate deeply in the conflicts we face today. My upcoming novel explores these enduring themes through the lens of a Lithuanian family caught in the chaos of World War II. Against the backdrop of Soviet occupation, Nazi ideology, and the atrocities at Ponary, it examines how ordinary people are forced to confront acts of unimaginable cruelty when fear and ideology take hold.
This story is grounded in years of research. I’ve walked the forests of Ponary, stood inside the “murder pits,” and felt the weight of history in the air. I’ve searched the archives, interviewed historians, and listened to the accounts of survivors and witnesses. These experiences have shaped a narrative that, while fictional, reflects the profound moral dilemmas faced by countless individuals during one of history’s darkest periods.
Echoes of Ponary can be more than just an informative read—I hope it can be a tool to help readers reflect on the human condition. The dynamics of victimhood, complicity, and ideological manipulation that shaped WWII Lithuania are alarmingly relevant to today’s conflicts, from Gaza to Ukraine. By understanding these patterns, we can better recognize and counteract them in our own time.
The importance of history is in its capacity to educate, caution, and motivate—and it is more crucial now than ever to learn from it.
History, after all, is not just about what has been—it is about what might still be.
PS: If these themes resonate with you, I invite you to join me on this journey leading up to the publication of this, my latest book. Sign up for updates by subscribing to our newsletter, offering exclusive insights into its creation and release.
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