Talk:Jonas Noreika

Unacceptable sourcing

I reverted, as most of the text was sourced to Lithuanian language sourcing (we generally prefer English when available - per WP:NOENG) from an organization known for Holocaust denial. Sourcing from Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, in an unattributed manner, is grossly unacceptable. Furthermore, while perhaps this has stirred controversy in post-1991 Lithuania - Noreika's well documented actions are not controversial outside of Lithuania. Please stick to sources that are not associated with Holocaust denial, thank you. Icewhiz (talk) 05:51, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Noreika's involvement in the Holocaust is cited to entirely non-academic and non-RS sources and authors with no education in history:

• Evaldas Balčiūnas whose blog post, originally published on Anarchy.lt, is currently most cited source -- can't find his professional background. Might be Evaldas Balčiūnas, a city council member in Šiauliai. According to his election profile, he only has high school diploma.
• Silvia Foti and her interviews in the press -- granddaughter of Noreika, with degrees in teaching, journalism, and creative writing.
• Grant Arthur Gochin -- financial advisor, degree in finance, claims to have lost 100 relatives in the Holocaust.
• Leiba Lipshitz -- Holocaust survivor, a mechanic, unpublished manuscript cited by Balčiūnas

The actual accusations of Noreika's involvement in the Holocaust center on three episodes:

• Plungė - 1800 Jews. One author Aleksandras Pakalniškis claims Noreika was the organizer. Contradicted by post-war interrogation testimony of 6 men (policemen and witnesses Zenonas Rudavičius, Jonas Buivydas, Jonas Šližius, Zigmas Daržinskas, Leonas Laurinavičius and priest Povilas Pukys) who identified Povilas Alimas.
• Telšiai - 800-1500 Jews. He gave a speech in town on 20 July during a celebration of ending Soviet occupation. The massacre occurred on 15–16 or 20–21 or 30 July. Very possible that Noreika was somehow involved, but purely circumstantial.
• Šiauliai/Žagarė - 2200 Jews. He ordered creation of Žagarė Ghetto following orders from superiors. Undisputed. The ghetto got liquidated few weeks later by Karl Jäger's group. Is Noreika responsible for these deaths? Moral/ethical question and not a question of fact. It does makes him an accomplice in the Holocaust and IMHO should disqualify him from any honors, but no one is asking my opinion.

So that's 4800-5500 Jews which generally is in line with Lipshitz's figure of 5100. I have no idea where and how the granddaughter comes up with "2,000 Jews in Plungė, 5,500 Jews in Šiauliai and 7,000 in Telšiai" to get to the 14k figure which is cited 3 times in the article as a proven and undisputed fact. The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania is disputing these amateur claims and is being accused of Holocaust denial... though it has published dozens of books and articles documenting the Holocaust... One of the key arguments by the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania that Noreika was not involved in the Holocaust is his post-war Soviet trial which mentioned nothing about his involvement though Soviets did persecute Holocaust perpetrators. I have started to re-write the article to provide the details of the different claims -- and attributing them -- instead of one side of the story per WP:POV even though the accusations are really not published in reliable sources. Renata (talk) 07:37, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Noreika's involvement in the Holocaust is a well known historical fact. Beyond news media covering this (including Der Spiegel back in 1984, and a whole bunch of news media well prior to Foti showing up), this is supported by sources such as USHMM's Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos and Shafir, Michael. "Ideology, memory and religion in post-communist East Central Europe: a comparative study focused on post-Holocaust." Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 15.44 (2016): 52-110. There does seem to be a divergence on the exact number (which is rather common in Holocaust studies - e.g. Foti's number (which is very well publicize by top-end new orgs) might take the total deaths in the region during his command) - however it is definitely in the thousands.Icewhiz (talk) 08:02, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Shafir and Encyclopedia of Camps mention only his order of creating Žagarė ghetto, which no one is disputing. Der Spiegel has a single sentence on Noreika accusing him of murders in Plungė based on the memoirs of Pakalniškis which are contradicted by other evidence. Just because accusations have been republished multiple times does not make them true. None of these news media outlets are conducting independent Holocaust research. I am not interested in battling out who is right and who is wrong, but both views need to be presented in the article. Renata (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

It far from clear that the great multitude of sources on the Plungė massacre are based on Pakalniškis. In as much as there is another side here - find a reasonable source for it (The Genocide Center is a topic of study, not a reasonable source), and present it in an attributed manner. Icewhiz (talk) 14:43, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Looking at Foti's number - she assigns Noreika command responsibility for the entire district (looking at her publication, she also enumerates non-Jewish Lithuanian victims - however the majority were Jews) - "Noreika led the nationalist uprising in Žemaitija and then became a county administrator in the northwestern part of the country after the German invasion. On his watch, an estimated 14,500 Jews are believed to have been murdered in Plungė, Telšiai, and across the Šiauliai district." [1]. The number is actually fairly straightforward - it is more less the entire pre-war Jewish population (few survivors) - you add just Plungė (1,700), Telšiai (2,800), Siauliai (6,600 - depends how you count) and you get to 11,100 victims - and to this you need to add Jews in villages and hamlets in the district. And reporting on this is rather clear in regards to this being "on his watch" as district head (41-43).Icewhiz (talk) 08:02, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Foti is utterly unqualified to make these sweeping generalizations. Renata (talk) 14:58, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

The two dozen or so mainstream WP:NEWSORGs reporting this seem to disagree (and it also seems that Foti is assisted by Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas). I agree we should attribute estimates, however Foti/Kulikauskas's estimate for Noreika command responsibility as LAF Telšiai commander and then as head of Šiauliai country are par the course in the field for Holocaust perpetrators (who are generally assumed to be responsible for the underlings under their command).Icewhiz (talk) 15:12, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Kulikauskas is another amateur historian: PhD in math, taught philosophy, ethics and creative writing at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University for a couple of years. Fundamental flaw in their logic: Noreika was head of civilian administration which had no jurisdiction over any police or other armed units. Renata (talk) 16:01, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

The Genocide center is not remotely a reliable source (and this is far wider than just Noreika, and well pre-dates the current kerfuffle) - some have even go so far as to suggest it is neo-Nazi (e.g. Arad) - it would seem employing a PR specialist who is also a Lithuanian Nationalist Union leader and organizer of an annual march that is seen by many as neo-Nazi is behind this. Multiple WP:RSes note the center's nationalist stance and its role in Holocaust obfuscation/distortion - e.g. news media - [2][3], historians such as Steven F. Lawson [4], academic publications - [5][6][7][8][9][10]. It can at most be used in a very limited attributed fashion to support some of the wild claims made by this far-right nationalist institution - and even that is probably undue - there's usually secondary coverage of their more outrageous claims.Icewhiz (talk) 08:02, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

POV

The article is using non-neutral language and sources which were never confirmed; some of the sentences in this article are fiction. -- Ke an (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:29, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Just one small example of many: "Meanwhile, in Telšiai, the Lithuanians had forced Jews to exhume, lick and clean the bodies of 75 Lithuanian political prisoners who the Soviets had murdered at Rainiai at the start of the war." The fact itself is not supported by the source, and it has no direct and not direct evidence about Jonas Noreika participation. I would suggest to keep some sanity and not to use Jonas Noreika personality as an xcuse to throw in the article everything we know or don't know or just imagine. -- Ke an (talk)

murderer

He was a murderer of Thousands of jews , during WW2 Mgabay (talk) 19:32, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Learn to write before writing.--Itzhak Rosenberg (talk) 09:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC)