The use of a conditional clause is prompted by the fact that the hypothetical increase was largely nullified by Soviet depopulation measures, such as deportations and mass executions. A large-scale deportation measure was carried out in the night of June 13-14, 1941 (shortly before the outbreak of the GermanSoviet war on June 22). Captured documents prove that at least 20,000 men, women, and children were seized, loaded in cattle cars, and shipped, under most inhuman conditions, to Western Siberia: the Omsk-Semipalatinsk-BarnaulNovosibirsk area; Russia's North; the White Sea, Kotlas, and Perm's areas; and the Donbas coal mines in the Ukraine. Deportation reports and routing lists did not cover Vilnius and other places in Eastern Lithuania, where large deportations also were staged. The Lithuanian Red Cross subsequently, after the Soviet flight, drew up complete lists of deportees with as many as 35,000 names." Other estimates raise the figure to 49,000 or even 66,000.10

Additional losses were caused by torturing and executing thousands of prison and concentration camp immates. The whole fury of terror struck toward the end of the Soviet occupation. These facts were ascertained: Only 300 prisoners out of 12,000 in Vilnius and Kaunas survived the final week; about 2,000 prisoners were machine-gunned along their evacuation route in White Russia (Cherven'); all 5,000 inmates of Pravieniškiai concentration camp were shot (so were even dogs); mass graves or tortured bodies were found at a number of places throughout Lithuania. About 10,000 young men and women perished upon their spontaneous uprising against the Soviet oppressors in the first week of the GermanSoviet War."

Thus, a single year of Soviet occupation cost the Lithuanian people about 60,000 victims. The reliability of these estimates seems quite high. After the Soviet police fled in a hurry, leaving behind even their files, an opportunity was on hand to assemble documents, send out questionnaires, get witness depositions, etc. Photostats of captured documents, with authentic signatures, seals, and ink blots, were subsequently published in the American press." In substantiating one of its memorandums to the United Nations, the Supreme Lithuanian Committee of Liberation was so sure of its cause that it offered to submit proofs of Soviet genocide committed in Lithuania in 1940-41 "at any time." All guesses about the number of escapees and evacuees to the Soviet Union-mostly Administration and Party officials and Jews are unreliable and confusing. However, they will be considered later.14

15

After Soviet troops and police fled, the Germans came in and stayed until the second half of 1944. During the German occupation, the Lithuanian population also experienced plus and minus shifts. On the plus side, Lithuania-which was renamed Generalbezirk Litauen in the framework of Reichskommissariat Ostland-received the predominantly Lithuanian-inhabited Ašmena and Svyriai districts in the east, with 173,000 inhabitants. This raised the population for the country as a whole to 3,116,000. On the minus side, the first measure the German occupation authorities took was to eliminate the country's entire Jewish population from an active role in Lithuanian demographic statistics. The Jews were herded into ghettoes, where they died rapidly of starvation or were otherwise exterminated. The Jews did not even appear in the Ostland census taken on May 27, 1942. It is believed that only a small fraction of the Jews the Germans found in Lithuania survived the ordeal-often by hiding with Catholic families, at great danger to the latter. The total loss can be ascertained fairly easily and reliably.

The number of Jews in Lithuania before the German occupation was about 225,000. It consisted of some 155,000 Jews who had been living in Lithuania throughout her independence period" and nearly 70,000 "newcomers" who were transferred to Lithuania by the Soviet-Lithuanian treaty of October 10, 1939, 18 providing for the return to Lithuania of Vilnius and the adjacent territory, 18 An undetermined number of Polish Jews escaped to Lithuania after the outbreak of the German-Polish war in the fall of 1939. These Jews, however, were only transients. Most of them had gone to other countries before the Germans arrived in Lithuania in mid-1941. The eventual small remainder is disregarded here. Some Lithuanian Jews escaped to the Soviet Union along with the retreating troops and thus avoided a sure death at German hands. How many did so is irrelevant. The fact is that the Germans at the very outset placed all Jews they found in a position that from a statistical viewpoint-made no difference whether they were in the country or not. Demographically, they ceased to exist. It is logical, therefore, to take under further consideration only the non-Jewish Lithuanian population : 3,116,000—225,000=2,891,000.

Only these people played an active demographic role during the entire German occupation. German statistics for the Generalbezirk Litauen show this picture of demographic changes in 1941-1944:19

The rate of excess births over deaths is extremely high: 1.3 percent in 1942, which is one-third higher than in normal prewar years; the picture was almost the same in 1943. One is tempted to disbelieve such a high natural increase rate in wartime, yet it would be unreasonable to imply the German statisticians had deliberately falsified data to show how everything went well in Ostland, for they recorded, for example, a drop in population in Estonia.20 Hence, the Lithuanian population which was present at the beginning of the German occupation, minus the Jews, should have grown by the second half of 1944 about 96,000. It did not.

As the Lithuanians showed no enthusiasm for collaboration with the Germans, repressive measures were taken, and terror began. Prisons and concentration camps filled. Reprisals were imposed, sometimes resulting in the extermination of entire villages (for example, Pirčiupis). Hostages were executed on the principle of "an eye for an eye." Young men were pressed into auxiliary military services, where quite a few of them died or were taken prisoners of the Soviets. Losses through the application of all these measures were relatively low, however. The Lithuanian Association of Anti-Nazi Resistants and Former Political Prisoners estimated that "only" 14,000 Lithuanians of non-Jewish origin died in prisons and concentration camps. Possibly another 2,000-3,000 found

21

death as a result of other terroristic measures, so that the figure of 16,000-17,000 may quite well cover Lithuanian victims of the German occupation (not counting the Jews). These victims reduced the natural population increase during the 3 years of German occupation to 80,000.

23

A further decrease in non-Jewish population resulted from deportations to Germany for work ("slave labor") and voluntary exile in fear of the returning Soviet troops and police. A Soviet estimate placed the number of "slave laborers" taken to Germany from Lithuania at 36,000." The Nuremberg Military Tribunal accepted in evidence an American estimate that 130,000 "Balts" were put to work for the war effort in Germany. Since the population of Lithuania nearly equalled the combined population of Latvia and Estonia, her share of "slave laborers," according to the American estimate, would have been in the neighborhood of 60,000. While both estimates are exaggerated, the American estimate is out of proportion. For the total number of Displaced Persons (DP's) in UNRRA's care at the peak of registration (179,000) was only a quarter larger than the purported number of Baltic "slave laborers," all of whom ultimately registered at its field offices.

Of course, the question may be raised whether all "slave laborers" became DP's. The answer is in the affirmative with only minor exceptions. By failing to register with UNRRA, "slave laborers" would have gained nothing but lost indisputable advantages. Nor was it possible they could have been repatriated without going through UNRRA repatriation machinery. There were no returnees among the Lithuanians. A report prepared by UNRRA's Director General for the period up to March 31, 1946, shows that nearly 6 million DP's were repatriated by that time; the number of Lithuanians among them-0.25 UNRRA ultimately had to admit "there was little chance that the Jews, the Balts, and the Polish Ukrainians would return," despite its policy "to make every effort to facilitate repatriation." 28

An insignificant number of Lithuanians also succeeded in escaping to Sweden and other countries, and were not covered by UNRRA. Conversely, some of those who had expatriated to Germany in 1941 and were ineligible for UNRRA'S care managed to circumvent eligibility rules and get on relief rolls. One can safely assume these two groups compensated each other. These considerations lead one to the conclusion that the combined number of refugees and "slave laborers" from Lithuania was identical with, or close to, the official number of Lithuanian DP's in UNRRA's care, i.e., 56,000. Hence, the number of people (without the Jews) the Soviets found in Lithuania upon their return in the second half of 1944 was: 2,981,000+80,000-56,000=2,915,000.

29

28

The return of a Soviet administration in the second half of 1944 caused the addition to Lithuania of the Klaipeda district, with a population of about 40,000, compared to 154,000 before the war. The Jews either returned home from the Soviet Union or, those who survived the German occupation, acquired their human rights. Assuming that only the small number of 25,000 Jews the 1959 census found in Lithuania were newcomers, not having lived there prior to World War II, their number in 1944 was perhaps 22,000 (which discloses the extent of the calamity that befell the Jews under the German occupation). On the minus side, the White Russian Republic promptly detached from Lithuania the Ašmena and Svyriai districts which the Germans had attached to her. This represented a loss of 176,000 persons, including the natural increase since 1941. As a result, the Lithuanian population at the beginning of the second phase of Soviet occupation numbered: 2,915,000+40,000+22,000-176,000=2,801,000.

expatriation brought about the loss of 177,000 persons within less than 2 years.30 After the expatriation, the Lithuanian population dropped to 2,643,000. The 2 years' natural increase raised the number again to 2,690,000 by the end of 1946.

At this point, Soviet rulers of Lithuania took some sort of count of the country's population. This was necessary for subdividing the republic into 179 electoral districts with 15,000 inhabitants each, as provided for by the decree of November 27, 1946. If the count was well executed, the population at that time numbered 2,685,000, which figure is almost identical with one arrived at hypothetically. However, the Soviet count included all residents of the country at that time-armed forces, police, government officials, etc.-regardless of their nationality. It will be shown later that the group of non-Lithuanians was substantial in 1959; it also must have been substantial in 1946.

With no further territorial changes, the hypothetical population of 2,690,000 by the end of 1946 continued to grow. As for the rate of growth, the Statistical Administration of Lithuania claimed it was running surprisingly high.

1959, namely: 2,711,000-210,000=ca 2,500,000. Conversely, conolists must be added to the statistical losses of 360,000 as calculated in the foregoing: 360,000+210,000=570,000. The addition of 60,000 victims of the Soviet oссираtion of 1940-41 yields a composite figure of 630,000 persons killed or deported under Soviet rule in Lithuania in 1940-41 and 1944-58 and failing to produce their share of natural increase.

These are direct losses, for which Moscow bears the full responsibility. Indirect losses, incurred through "voluntary" expatriation and/or exile, are also frighteningly high: 283,000 according to the available data, much higher according to other estimates. Although Soviet authorities bear no direct responsibility for the loss of people who left their homeland voluntarily, one wonders, however, whether these people would not have remained at home had it not been for the lesson of Soviet invasion in 1941 and the threat of reinvasion in 1944. So that, in the final analysis, the two Soviet occupations have caused the Lithuanian nation direct and indirect losses of over 900,000 persons. The accuracy of these calculations can be easily checked, using the following method (in round figures):

Losses under Soviet occupation 1940-41.
Losses under German occupation----
Losses under Soviet occupation 1944-58-
Expatriates and escapees

Combined losses___

Autochthonous population found in 1959_

Autochthonous population plus combined losses.

60,000

250,000

570,000

280,000

1,160,000

2,500,000

3,660,000

The resultant figure is almost identical with the hypothetical Lithuanian population for 1959, under normal conditions (no occupations, no war), as projected at the beginning of this study. These are plain figures and cold facts. The extent of the losses is not subject to doubt. Some of the losses are accounted for: 280,000 expatriates, 200,000 Jews, 20,000 prison and concentration camp victims; the total-500,000. The question remains, however, where are the other 660,000 persons? A hint as to what might have happened to the missing two-thirds of a million was given in 1941, when lists of 35,000 deportees to the Soviet Union were drawn up. There is ample evidence that deportations resumed as soon as the Soviet police returned to Lithuania in 1944, and continued in many waves for about a decade.

Soviet authorities made an indirect admission of the presence of Lithuanian deportees in the Soviet Union upon listing 175,000 Lithuanians living in other union republics. Of these, 32,000 were listed as living in Latvia. For unexplained reasons, the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR chose not to disclose the whereabouts of a further 143,000 Lithuanians. No Lithuanians at all were listed in the neighboring White Russian Republic, where the Germans in 1941, however, found a sizable Lithuanian group and, as a consequence. attached their inhabited districts to Generalbezirk Litauen. The unidentified group of 143,000 Lithuanians was not a negligible statistical unit, even if it was scattered among several republics. After all, as small a group as 5,000 Jews in Estonia was shown; so were national groups as small as 4,000 in other republics. It may be assumed that the underlying policy was not to disclose that large groups of Lithuanians were living in Kazakhstan and other placesthousands of miles away from Lithuania, where the first loads of deportees, as attested to by shipping orders, had been dispatched in 1941.34

While the fact and extent of 1941 deportations cause no doubt, the Supreme Lithuanian Committee of Liberation in the late forties and early fifties addressed to the United Nations repeated complaints about the continuance of deportations and executions also in later years. The complaints gave details on these mass deportations: three in 1945; one in 1946: five in 1947; one in 1948; and two in 1949.35 A complaint of November 15, 1950, claimed that "the number of victims of Communist atrocities in occupied Lithuania already has reached a half million. this number comprising the arrested, the massacred, and the deported." 36 These and other similar complaints and petitions caused the United Nations to create

34 The census disclosed, however, the presence of 53,000 Poles in Kazakhstan, where hardly a single Pole lived before World War II. 35 Memorandum, p. 54. 36 Ibid., p. 70.