Anti-Jewish Violence in Interwar Lithuania : Pogroms without Genocidal Elements as a Precondition of the Holocaust?

This chapter analyzes cases of mass of anti-Jewish violence in Lithuania in the period 1920 to 1940. It argues that there was no intensification of such violence in interwar Lithuania. The number of pogroms did not increase compared to the nineteenth century, and there were no genocidal elements in the anti-Jewish incidents. Hence, new research is needed on the pervasiveness of antisemitic sentiments and ideology in Lithuanian society in the 1930s. Such research is needed to explain the active participation of Lithuanian society in the Holocaust.