Disputes Over Memory: Memories of Participants of the Anti-Nazi Resistance Published in Exile

Abstract

 In 1941, the Soviet occupation of Lithuania was replaced by another, not much easier, German occupation. During the German occupation, resistance to the Nazi regime in Lithuania took place
in various forms: the Lithuanian intelligentsia and resistance organizations, with the help of the under
ground press, sought to protect the nation from physical and moral extermination, tried to expose Nazi policies to the Lithuanian population, oriented the population towards unarmed civil resistance, sabotage and boycott of the occupiers’ campaigns, and planned military mobilizations, among other forms.
Underground resistance organizations such as the Lithuanian Front (LF) and the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Alliance (LFFA) were created during the brutal policy of oppression by the Nazis. After the war, the survivors of the anti-Nazi resistance who had fled Lithuania and were released from Nazi prisons, re-established the Lithuanian underground organizations in emigration and continued their political struggle in the diaspora. This rivalry and competition among themselves, the raising of their own ideological currents and the undermining of their opponents became even more pronounced and stronger in the conditions of emigration after the break in relations with the homeland. In 1983, the book In Pursuit of Freedom: The Contribution of the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Alliance to the Anti-Nazi Resistance published in Chicago received controversial responses, and former participants of the anti-Nazi resistance, such as Adolfas Damušis, Algirdas Vokietaitis, Povilas Žičkus, and Henrikas Žemelis, as well as others, joined the discussion in the press. The discussion soon turned into arguments  between former members of the two main anti-Nazi resistance organizations – the Lithuanian Front and the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Alliance – extolling the merits of their own resistance group and belittling their ideological opponents.
By analyzing the discussion in the press, the article examines to what extent the collective memory of
the underground organizations may have influenced the memories of the resistance participants and
their evaluation in the diaspora, whether (and to what extent) the emergence of these memories and
their content may have been influenced by the strained relations between the resistance organizations transferred from the underground times to emigration, as well as the influence of the time and the place of residence in the resulting disputes over memory.