The last Jewish victim? Professor Dov Levin
NOTE: it seems that some of this content was lost, also see Jerusalem Post 2020 - story of Prof Levins route to Israel
Following is a summarized version of the tragic affair which many are unaware of. It began in the middle of October 1993, while several colleagues and I were attending a conference in Vilnius which focused on key facts and issues concerning relations between Jews and Lithuanians during the Holocaust. One day, during a heated debate, we suddenly heard a gunshot from the streets outside our conference hall. Within a short time, we learned that the victim of the shooting that had taken place nearby was Vitas Lingis, editor of the local popular tabloid “Respublika.”
The subsequent arrest of Boris Dekanidze, son of the Georgian born local businessman Georgi Dekanidze shocked Vilnius Jewry. Respublika had no doubts as to the identity of the guilty parties even before Dekanidze and his co-defendant were charged. In a deliberate attempt to prejudice the outcome of the case before it started, the paper ran an article entitled “Revealed: the man who murdered Lingis for thirty silver coins.” It was followed by a reproduction of the Leonardo da Vinci portrait, “The last Supper” but superimposed over the faces of the twelve messengers were the
The press made sure the affair remained firmly in the public spotlight by frequently publishing anti Semitic caricatures in which Jews had hooked noses and wore star of David pendants. The trial, which was conducted at lightning speed and with unprecedented determination produced no clear cut evidence linking Dekanidze to the shooting of Lingis. Despite this, Dekanidze alone was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by firing squad.
Lithuania has always purported, since the Holocaust, to model itself after Western style democracies. But since the right of appeal to a higher judiciary does not exist there and consequently any sentence handed down by the courts is final, the only way to save Dekanidze from a firing squad was by appealing directly to the then state president Algirdas Brazauskas. photos of twelve leading local Jewish figures including Dekanidze, who was depicted in the role of Judas Escariot.
The Dekanidze family appointed Tel Aviv-based lawyer Ze’ev Gordon to handle the appeal. In an interview with Pazit Rabina of the former Israeli daily “Davar,” which appeared on July 28, 1995, Gordon spoke of his experiences in Vilnius after agreeing to act for Dekanidze. He was deeply disturbed by the manner in which the trial was being conducted and the surrounding media frenzy, which, he felt, “had severe anti Semitic” undertones. One such example was an article published the day before sentencing, which alleged that the Dekanidze family “bribed the judges so as to ensure they would find Boris innocent.” Well informed sources in Vilnius felt the article would “create intense pressure on the judges to return a verdict that would dispel all such allegations.”
Sources close to the presidential administration attributed Brauzaskas’ decision to the urgent need to placate hard line nationalist and anti Semitic elements in Lithuania, n official request for clemency on humanitarian grounds was subsequently submitted to President Brazauskas following his visit to the Knesset in Israel on March 5, 1995, during which he apologized for the crimes committed by Lithuanians against their Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust. Despite this, it transpired that on returning to Lithuania after visiting Israel, Brazauskas decided to reject the appeal, although the Lithuanian government never acknowledged that such a request for clemency had been received.
who launched a withering attack on him for making statements of contrition while in Israel, which, they felt, were an affront to Lithuanian national honor. Yet although the appeal for clemency had been turned down, the authorities still did not set a date for Dekanidze’s execution.
In the meantime, further developments in the case came when it was learned that a man named Igor Tiomkin, who was described at the trial as a full accomplice in the planning and murder of Lingis, was being held in custody in Germany. Moreover, information forwarded to Adv. Gordon and the likelihood that Tiomkin would be extradited to Lithuania, gave rise to the possibility that Dekanidze would be granted a retrial. On the basis of this, an official application for a stay of execution was filed with the Lithuanian authorities.
But on July 16, 1995, the popular Lithuanian daily “Lietvos Rytas,” in a laconic exclusive, informed the public, including the Dekanidze family that Boris had been executed four days earlier on the twelfth of the month. Put differently, this contemptible act had been carried out in secret without informing the family, community and general public.
It was hardly surprising that Adv. Gordon, on learning that his client had been executed, declared: “the government of Lithuania conducted itself like thieves in the night. Sovereign and democratic states do not behave in this manner. They did not summon a rabbi, nor allow the condemned man’s father to give his only son one final embrace. To carry out such an execution, under cover of darkness, indicates the state had something to hide.”
This incident will no doubt serve as both a chilling and threatening reminder to those of us, who in the summer and autumn of 1941, witnessed the execution of tens of thousands of Jews in the same Vilnius by death squads in official uniform wearing Lithuanian national insignia on their hats. These individuals also used a variety of trumped up charges to justify their vile actions.
Whether the killers were members of the “Ypatingas Burys” or other militias, there can be no avoiding the comparison, albeit momentarily, between what happened to our predecessors during World War Two and what we saw with our own eyes, fifty years on, just as a general amnesty was being granted to thousands of murderers of Jews – among them arch criminals such as Lileikis and his associates.
It should also be remembered that the sentence passed on Boris Dekanidze was the only execution ever carried out in Lithuania since the declaration of independence in 1991! Furthermore, the bill to abolish capital punishment was introduced in the Lithuanian parliament just as the trial of Dekanidze was taking place. The passing of the bill into law was conveniently delayed until the condemned man had been