Jonas Noreika

Jonas Noreika (8 October 1910 – 26 February 1947), also known by his post-war nom de guerre Generolas Vėtra (lit. 'General Storm'), was a Lithuanian anti-Soviet partisan, military officer, and Nazi collaborator.

In July 1941, he was the leader of the Lithuanian Activist Front in the Telšiai district. Noreika later served as governor of the Šiauliai district during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, where he signed orders confining the district's Jews in a ghetto and confiscating their property. Noreika later became one of 46 Lithuanian authority and intellectual figures imprisoned by the Nazis at Stutthof concentration camp from March 1943 until the camp's dissolution on 25 January 1945 for inciting resistance to Nazi mobilization efforts. During the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Noreika was drafted into the Soviet Army, then worked as a jurist in Vilnius, where he was an organizer of the anti-Soviet Lithuanian National Council. He was arrested by the Soviets in March 1946 and executed on 26 February 1947.

Noreika was born in Šukioniai in western Lithuania in 1910. He studied law at Vytautas Magnus University, and went on to serve in the military. He wrote for the military press, served on a military tribunal, and was later promoted to captain.

In 1933, Noreika published an anti-Semitic booklet titled Hold Your Head High, Lithuanian!!!, which called for a total economic boycott of Lithuanian Jews on nationalistic grounds. In 1939, in the military magazine Kardas, he published an essay, "The Fruitfulness of Authoritarian Politics", praising the leadership of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Soviet forces occupied Lithuania in June 1940, and Noreika was released into the reserves that October. He is credited as the leading organizer in Samogitia of the underground, anti-Soviet Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF). Noreika was also a prominent publisher in Plungė of underground leaflets, including Brangūs vergaujantys broliai! ('Dear Slaving Brothers!', 1941) which called for ethnic cleansing.

Noreika made several trips to Nazi Germany with the help of former police officer Kazys Šilgalis, and maintained contact with Pilypas Narutis of LAF Kaunas and Juozas Kilius of LAF Vilnius. However, and Voldemarists Klemensas Brunius and Stasys Puodžius of LAF Königsberg, liaisons with the German army's high command Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, military intelligence Abwehr, and LAF's network of messengers.^{[citation needed]}

At the start of the June Uprising in Lithuania, on 22 June 1941, Noreika led a platoon of farmers and youths in Mardosai. German scouts brought him to Memel, where he was given instructions, armbands, and weapons.^{[unreliable source?]}

In July 1941, Noreika's rebels held the 1,800 Jews of Plungė in a synagogue for two weeks. For several days, Lithuanian nationalists under the command of Noreikas took groups of 50 Jews at a time and killed them near the village of Milašaičiai [lt]. Finally, on 12 July, the nationalists started fires in the town, which they blamed on the Jews. Noreika gave the order to massacre the Jews of Plungė, and the nationalists marched and conveyed the remaining Jews to a site near Kaušėnai [lt] and killed them there on 12–13 July. Catholic priest Petras Lygnugaris baptized 74 Jewish women but they were killed nonetheless.^{[citation needed]}