Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

This article takes a micro-analytical approach to examining a war crimes trial in Klaipėda in 1964, when seven defendants were sentenced for their contribution to the extermination of 3,000 people, mostly Jews, in the summer of 1941, in Skuodas, northwest Lithuania, and its area. The article is a case study that attempts to shed a light on the role of the wives of war criminals during similar wartime events. In order to achieve this aim, it presents the historical context of the Holocaust in and around Skuodas, and discusses the war crimes trial that took place in the city of Klaipėda in 1964, before presenting socio-psychological portraits of the wives of the defendants, insofar as this can be done based on the case material. In addition, the article reveals their attitudes towards the war crimes committed by their husbands, and discusses their role in the region during the Holocaust. The paper also seeks to locate these female trial testimonies within the broader context of the case, by revealing how in general the Soviet interrogators (re)presented images of women in the course of this war crimes trial.

In 1944, as the Eastern Front was approaching Lithuania, which was then still occupied by Nazi Germany, and the Red Army retook the country, a substantial number of civilians and former members of paramilitary organisations joined the armed resistance to sovietisation. For a long time, the history of the anti-Soviet armed resistance, or guerrilla war, in Lithuania has been told as a story of men, dominated by descriptions of their combat action and stories of the dead. The memories of women, mainly helpers and messengers, have been treated as a supplement to this image, but not as a formative factor. Insufficient attention has also been paid to the role of women who fought with weapons in their hands, and the narratives of those who acted simultaneously as partisans and wives and mothers. The aim of this article is to take a multifaceted look at the experiences of women who contributed to the armed anti-Soviet resistance in Lithuania. It aims to discuss the changing attitudes of the partisan leadership towards women’s participation in action, to show the diversity of female activity in the partisan war, and to reveal how their involvement in the war contributed to changes in their family roles.

The missions of the Republic of Lithuania to the United States of America (the Embassy in Washington, the Consulate-General in New York, and the Consulate in Chicago, as well as two honorary consuls in Los Angeles and Boston) did not cease their activities after the Soviet Union’s aggression against Lithuania in the summer of 1940. In 1937–1971, Petras Povilas Daužvardis worked as consul (later consul-general) in Chicago, in one of the largest Lithuanian communities in the United States. After his death, his widow Juzefa Rauktytė-Daužvardienė took over his diplomatic functions. Her appointment was hardly unexpected: even before she took over the responsibilities of honorary consul-general, local Lithuanians called her an unofficial consular attaché. The article delves into the origins of Rauktytė-Daužvardienė’s accumulation of social capital during the Second World War. This is done by researching her social activities: first of all with the American Red Cross, and in other associations that promoted blood donor activities, relief and civilian charity. Based on the American-Lithuanian press, this biographical sketch aims to show the burden of war assumed by a Lithuanian woman in the USA.