20.34.17.00
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Audience gathering in Vilnius cinema.
| Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. We're at a film screening organised by the Jewish Culture Club.
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20.34.36.00 |
|
MS Freedman in cinema | I came to Lithuania from Australia for the first time in 1997 to meet my 93 year old, great Uncle Chatzkel and to film his story.
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20.34.51.00 |
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MS Freedman knocks on door which is opened by Uncle Chatzkel who is revealed.
| Freedman: "Uncle Chatzkel, I'm your great nephew, Rodney from Australia ....
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20.35.04.00 |
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Pan Freedman to audience | .... and now I've returned to show the documentary about his life.
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20.35.09.00 | Start: 20.35.23.00 Dur: 1.47
"Weightlessness" |
MCU Stills of elderly faces in the audience.
| The audience tonight are vestiges of the once thriving Litvak or Lithuanian Jewish community. Like my great Uncle Chatzkel, the elderly people here are all survivors of the Holocaust. |
20.35.25.00 |
| Excerpt from "Uncle Chaztkel" documentary on a screen. Headlines: "Face-to-face with the past"
| I thought I was making a film about memory and the past, but the traumatic events of nearly sixty years ago are now front page news in Australia.
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20.35.36.00 |
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Headlines: "Australian charged with Jews' mass murder " "Lithuania seeks help on war crimes"
| The Lithuanian government has asked the Australian government for information about an alleged war criminal. |
20.35.46.00 |
| Tracking shot, stop at Gudelis' house. | He's an Australian citizen named Antanas Gudelis. Aged 88, he's lived in Adelaide, South Australia since 1949. His haven is in the suburb of Prospect - in this house.
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20.36.07.00 |
|
MS Gudelis walking outside house.
| Gudelis was investigated by Australia's Special Investigations Unit for war crimes until it was shut down in 1992. There was a lot of evidence but not enough at the time to lay criminal charges. And since 1992 there's been no further investigation.
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20.36.27.00 |
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Elderly woman witness (Mrs Bartuseviciute) - sitting on a bed | But in Lithuania, I found people who'll never forget Gudelis.
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20.36.34.00 |
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MCU Bartuseviciute interview
| Q Gudelis lives in Australia now. Australians aren't sure if he was involved in the killings. Bartuseviciute: He shot, he shot. he shot. There is no question about it ... They should take me to Australia. But I can't walk very well. I would tell him straight to his face. You arrested our people."
|
20.37.07.00 | End: 20.37.10.00 | MCU Zuroff interview
Super Dr Efraim Zuroff Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Jerusalem | Zuroff: Australia is the only Western country to which many Nazi collaborators emigrated after WW2 which to date has failed to denaturalise, deport, expel, extradite or convict a single Nazi war criminal. That is not true of any other country to which large numbers of Nazis emigrated.
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20.37.32.00 |
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Zuroff interview | Zuroff: This is the country that wants to host the Olympics, this is the country that will host the Olympics. So... brotherhood, harmony and Nazi war criminals ???
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20.37.41.00 | Start: 20.37.41.00 Dur: 0.30
"Violin" |
| These charred remains of a Torah scroll belonged to a community amongst Lithuania's 250,000 Jews. But in just three years from 1941, 94% of them were murdered - a higher percentage killed even, than in Germany.
|
20.38.02.00 |
End: 20.38.11.00 |
WS builidngs lining Tel Aviv beach | To find out more about Antanas Gudelis, I went to Tel Aviv to meet the Chairman of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Joseph Melamed.
|
20.38.15.00 |
Start: 20.38.21.00 Dur: 0.39
" Retaliatory Strike" |
MS Freedman & Melamed walking along street
| Melamed: I saw with my own eyes what happened in Lithuania. All my family was killed by Lithuanians.
|
20.38.22.00 |
| MCU report: " Lithuania: Crime & Punishment"
| So far, his Association has confirmed 12,000 Lithuanians directly involved in the killings with estimates of up to 23,000. Antanas Gudelis is documented as being involved in the towns of Kaunas and Kupiskis.
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20.38.41.00 |
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CU document detailing name, GUDELIS - Kaunas
| Melamed: Here also Gudelis Antanas he was in Kupiskis, he was one of the heads of these bandits who mudered the Kupiskis Jews.
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20.38.52.00 |
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2S CU Freedman & Melamed talking
| Q To the best of your knowledge he was quite a senior person? Melamed: He was a senior person, of course, he was a lieutenant. But he was probably the head of the whole operation
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20.39.02.00 | End: 20.39.03.00 |
MCU Melamed interview
Super Joseph Melamed | Melamed: The Lithuanians are not going to sue, to bring anybody to real trial because the moment you will bring a man like Gudelis you'll bring to trial, then all the world will know what the Lithuanians have done really during the war and this of course the Lithuanians are not interested in it because the Lithuanian are still denying, till now also, all the documents, they have all the documents, the Lithuanians are still denying the guilt of the Lithuanians of the murderers.
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20.39.42.00 | Start: 20.39.42.00 Dur: 0.10
"Retaliatory Strike"
End: 20.39.51.00 |
Graphic: Map of Poland divided, Baltic states turn red. | Lithuania was independent between the wars, but in 1940, Germany and Russia divided Poland and Russia occupied the Baltic States.
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20.39.57.00 |
Start: 20.39.52.00 Dur: 0.11
Archival music sync-sound with archival footage from Lithuania - soldier playing accordian
End: 20.40.03.00 |
Archival B&W footage: Soldier plays accordion
| Antanas Gudelis was in the Lithuanian Army, which became part of the Soviet Army. |
20.40.14.00 | Start: 20.40.04.00 Dur: 0.25
Archival music sync-sound with archival newsreel footage - German Invasion, WWII
| Archival B&W footage: German invasion, WWII
| On June 22nd, 1941, the Germans invaded Lithuania. They were widely welcomed as liberating the country from the communists.
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20.40.28.00 | " " End: 20.40.29.00
Start: 20.40.30.00 Dur: 1.20
"Double Bass" |
Archival B&W footage: 5 people stand on balcony waving | Even before the Germans were established, the pogroms began. Lithuanian militias, known as ‘white armbands', began massacring Jews all over the country. That their own countrymen participated in the killings, still fills many Lithuanians with horror.
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20.40.51.00 |
" " | Elderly woman witness interview - standing in garden
| As a young girl, this Christian woman worked for a Jewish family.
" No, no, no, not the Germans, but our people. Our people, ours, ours. They had guns and they were hitting with the gun-butts... Oh God... They were made to stand in a row, naked. Small or big, alive or not, they were all buried. They screamed, my God, they screamed. You could hear them, even here. With all their voices, all their voices. "
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20.41.49.00 |
" " End: 20.41.50.00 | Kwiet takes file from shelf and thumbs through documents
| Professor Konrad Kwiet was historical advisor to Australia's Special Investigations Unit, which investigated alleged war criminals until it was closed down.
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20.42.00.00 |
|
CU ‘Kupiskis' on document, dated 28 September, 1967.
| He has a German translation of a 1967 trial in Kupiskis of five war criminals. Had he been in Lithuania, Antanas Gudelis would certainly have faced charges at this trial.
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20.42.16.00 |
Start: 20.42.36.00 Dur: 0.37
"Front Sector Trench"
|
MS Kwiet interview
SUPER Professor Konrad Kwiet Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies
| Kwiet: From the witness statements, we know that Gudelis, as well as other soldiers had deserted the Red Army immediately after the beginning of the war and that he had hid in the deep forest surrounding Kupiskis.
According to the evidence, Gudelis took command of these deserters, who were formed into an Auxiliary Police Battalion, also known as a Punitive Squad.
Kwiet: Their task was quite simple - they were used to cleanse Kupiskis and the environments of Kupiskis of Jews, communists and other elements regarded as hostile to the Germans and to the Lithuanians.
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20.43.05.00 |
" " End: 20.43.13.00
Start: 20.43.51.00 Dur: 1.32
"Weightlessness"
|
CU and tilt down list of witnesses's names
| Kwiet: There were some 42 witnesses called in to give evidence and there was one particular witness, a defendant who testified and I quote from the protocol: "I once met Lieutenant Gudelis and other soldiers. The following day Gudelis ordered all the soldiers to come to the Headquarters. When we went to the Headquarters, Gudelis told us that we were subordinated to him. Q In other words, Gudelis was in charge ? Kwiet: Gudelis was the commanding officer of that particular killing squad.
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20.43.54.00 |
" " |
CU and tilt down list of witnesses's names | With the passing of time, the Lithuanian witnesses are now gone, but the documents still exist. |
20.44.03.00 |
" " | WS Vilinius street with snow on footpath as seen through travelling car | In Lithuania, the Government has not yet filed charges against Gudelis, despite incorrect Australian media reports that it has.
The Chief Prosecutor has merely opened a charge file and is investigating. |
20.44.37.00 |
" " |
MS Valentukevicius, Freedman & another man stand around table which has boxes and files on it
| He tells me Australia has been helpful, sending these materials from our defunct Special Investigations Unit, or SIU. Gudelis had admitted to the SIU being in Kaunas and Kupiskis but no more than that.
|
20.44.54.00 |
" " |
CU bag of videotapes sitting on top of files
| Valentukevicius: This is very important information Q: And this is statements of witnesses on video Valentukevicius: Yes yes yes and paper and tapes interview and audio tapes |
20.45.09.00 |
" "
End: 20.45.24.00 | MS Valentukevicius interview with man sitting beside him
SUPER Rimvydas Valentukevicius Chief Prosecutor | Valentukevicius: The executions were conducted several times a week - I mean several times a day, not per week ... according to lists provided by the German commandant.
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20.45.27.00 |
|
WS Freedman, Pednycia, Valentukevicius and a woman sitting around a large table
| The Chief Prosecutor's boss is the Prosecutor-General. He's keen to assure me of the Government's commitment. |
20.45.35.00 |
|
MS Freedman sitting at table and listening to Pednycia
SUPER Kazys Pednycia Prosecutor-General | Pednycia: I would like to come to a mutual understanding that there should be no doubt whatsoever that the Prosecutor-General and Lithuania itself, agrees that the war crimes, the crime of genocide and the crimes of the Holocaust must be investigated. And Lithuania has to be responsible for the investigation because the crimes were committed here. |
20.46.08.00 |
Start: 20.46.35.00 Dur: 1.52
"Boredom" |
MS Zuroff interview
SUPER Director, Simon Wiesenthal Centre Jerusalem | Zuroff: To date not a single Nazi war criminal has been put on trial in Lithuania despite the fact that at least 9 Nazi collaborators who had escaped to the United States after participating in war crimes in Lithuania, and against whom the US government had initiated legal proceedings, have returned to Lithuania in recent years. Not a single one has sat one day in jail. And I think that really says a lot.
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20.46.38.00 |
" " |
MCU Pednycia interview | Pednycia: They're old. I'm not talking about extreme penalties. It's up to the courts. It's not up to us to be executioners now. But they must be held responsible for those crimes. What penalties they'll incur is another question.
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20.46.59.00 |
" " |
WS building in Vilinius, tild down to cars parked with snow on the ground
| Cynics argue that Lithuania is only making a show of concern because it wants the goodwill of the United States and Israel. Yet there has been progress in acknowledging the past, hidden under the Soviet regime.
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20.47.15.00 |
" " |
Pan Freedman walking along street in Vilinius covered in snow
Super President Valdas Adamkus (Voice of translator)
| Successive Lithuanian Presidents have apologised and reflected about the past. President Valdas Adamkus (translated): The destruction of Jews that took place during the war was a great suffering to Lithuania. Lithuanian citizens were murdered and a horrible crime was committed to the Jews. |
20.47.36.00 |
" "
End: 20.48.27.00 | CU caption above map: "Places of the Mass Murder of Lithuanian Jews"
| Across Lithuania, there are over 240 identified sites of mass murder. This is just one of them. In the forest of Ponare outside Vilnius, about 100,000 people were killed, 30,000 accused communists and sympathisers, and 70,000 Jews. Where memorials existed under the Soviet regime, they referred to the predominantly Jewish dead merely as ‘Soviet citizens' who died at the hands of ‘Nazis'. Since independence in 1990, new memorials do acknowledge the predominantly Jewish victims, but the perpetrators are coyly referred to as ‘local helpers' of the Nazis - not Lithuanians. |
20.48.35.00 |
| MCU Zingeris interview
| Zingeris: There is a sort of a tradition of apologetic history in Lithuania - we were the heroes or we were the sufferers, we were the victims...
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20.48.49.00 |
| MCU Zingeris interview
| Markas Zingeris, a Jewish writer and poet, is on a new government Commission evaluating the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupations.
|
20.48.59.00 |
Start: 20.49.44.00 Dur: 1.42
"Retaliatory Strike" | MCU Zingeris interview
Super Markas Zingeris | Zingeris:... And the mature truth about it I suppose that there were those who pulled the trigger, there were those who saved, there were feats of unheard courage and there were brutality of unheard of rage and intensity. And that's why historians have to look at it and international lawyers have to qualify the findings by international standards.
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20.49.45.00 |
" " | Low angle WS Zingelis stands at edge of Fort
| When I first filmed here, Markas showed me the IXth Fort in Kaunas. Along these walls, some 70,000 people were murdered. Markas's family is commemorated in the Fort's Museum.
|
20.50.14.00 |
" " |
CU of document detailing Gudelis' name
| (Sync of Valentukevicius- mentions Gudelis.)
The prosecutor's archives show Gudelis was here in Kaunas from July to December 1941 and in August, took command of the 7th Auxiliary Police Service Battalion, used by the Germans for killings.
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20.50.35.00 |
" " |
CU of date on document
| German records show that on the 29th October at the IXth Fort, they murdered 2007 Jews, 2920 Jewesses and 4273 Jewish children. In brackets it states, ‘cleansing the ghetto of superfluous Jews'.
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20.51.01.00 |
" " |
Archival B&W still: mass killing | Mass killings in Kaunas continued, including people brought from elsewhere in Europe.
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20.51.08.00 |
" "
End: 20.51.25.00 |
Archival B&W still: mass killing | Though never recorded here, the executions were similar to others photographed in Eastern Europe. With so many killed it's not surprising that there were few witnesses.
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20.51.29.00 |
Start: 20.51.40.00 Dur: 1.47
"Cello" | WS street in Kupiskis as seen through travelling car | But I found witnesses in the first place where Gudelis commanded a killing squad, the town of Kupiskis. In Yiddish it was called Kupishok.
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20.51.51.00 |
" " |
MS buildings in old Jewish quarter
| Jewish Kupishok is no more. As in all the other shtetls or towns, the Jewish houses were occupied by locals and the contents distributed.
The synagogues converted for more practical uses. The Yiddish schools taken over or abandoned.
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20.52.23.00 |
" " |
Interior Kupisikis Museum. Jasaitas shows photos | The Director of the Kupiskis Museum, Mr Jasaitas apologises for his meagre record of the Jewish community - a handful of photos, a picture of the old synagogue - not much more.
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20.52.43.00 |
" " |
MS Jasaitas unlocks cupboard | He recently discovered a list of Jews executed in Kupiskis. Compiled after the war from people's memories, it's by no means complete. But here alone are over 800 names and their ages - 35, 32, 4, 1, 16 and so on ...
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20.53.11.00 |
" " |
MS Jasaitas & Freedman talking (interior museum) | The Director is familiar with the events of 1941 and agrees to show us around.
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20.53.18.00 |
" "
End: 20.53.28.00
|
Pan from Freedman, Jasaitas, and man across road to cemetery gate
| Down this road the Jews stumbled to their death. In 1941, this was the Atheist's cemetery, unconsecrated ground, where Gudelis's squad murdered the Jews of Kupishok.
|
20.53.34.00 |
Start: 20.53.32.00 Dur: 2.30
"Attack Squadron" |
MCU Jasaitas interview in cemetery
| Jasaitas: When the shooting started it was here on the low ground. That's where the ditches were... |
20.53.46.00 |
" " |
Pan from Jasaitas and Freedman to WS memorial in cemetery
| The recent memorial reads : "On this spot the Nazi Henchmen and their helpers in 1941 killed approximately 1000 residents of Kupiskis. The majority of the killed ones were Jews."
|
20.54.01.00 |
" " |
CU plaque on memorial
| There's no mention of Lithuanians, just the oblique reference to ‘helpers'. It's as if they don't know - or don't want to say - that the murderers were Lithuanian citizens.
|
20.54.18.00 |
" " |
WS 3 men walk along cemetery path surrounded by snow
| Across town is the old Jewish cemetery. When I inquire why there are so few graves, I'm told that in 1980, the Soviets bulldozed them to build this watertower.
Nearby is the old soldiers' barracks where the Soviet Army deserters gathered.
|
20.54.42.00 |
" " |
MCU Jasaitas interview
| Jasaitas: One of them was Gudelis. When the occupation started, when the Germans came, the Punitive Battalion was stationed here. I don't know what to call it...the killers' unit. It was there. And here on this spot, as I told you, they shot Lithuanians, Russians, Soviet activists, young Communists, party members, revolutionaries, underground people.
|
20.55.24.00 |
" " |
CU pan across document revealing Loew's name | When the Germans arrived in Kupiskis, they appointed a local German schoolteacher, Werner Loew, as Mayor and Chief of Police.
|
20.55.36.00 |
" "
End: 20.56.02.00 |
| Kwiet: Loew also gave orders that the killing squad was permitted to wear the old National uniforms of the Lithuanian army marked with the hakenkreuz symbols, with swastika armbands.
Loew was also in charge of drawing up the lists of those who had to be executed but it was up to the Punitive Killing Squad, headed by Gudelis to carry out the orders given by the Mayor and Head of Police, by Loew.
|
20.56.25.00 |
Urbonas shows his ID cards (interior Urbonas' room)
| In July 1941 Bronislovas Urbonas was 19. He was arrested and held for two weeks in the Kupiskis jail. Every day, he saw the Chief of Police, Werner Loew and Antanas Gudelis, with a list of people who'd been arrested.
| |
20.56.47.00 |
Start: 20.57.00.00 Dur: 1.05
"Front Sector Trench" |
MCU Urbonas interview (interior)
| Q So Loew made up the lists and Gudelis read them out ? But, at the time, Gudelis... Urbonas: He stands to one side. For example ..... Stop the recording. I'll show you how it used to be. He stands to one side, say where the table is. The door opens and the commandant enters. With a gun in his hand. That one reads. As that happens, he hits them here with the gun. And here, faced with rifles, they're told to strip. They're stripped and led away. Q And at the table reading, was that Gudelis ? Urbonas: Gudelis. Yes, Q It was Loew with the gun? Urbonas: Yes, Loew, Loew.
|
20.57.36.00 |
" " |
MCU Urbonas interview (interior)
| Mr Urbonas was fortunate. He was released. Urbonas: It was like this ... He shook your hand while holding the gun "Forgive me, men" he talked haltingly. Loewe did... "Forgive me for holding you . I'd rather shoot a few innocent people than free a guilty one." His very words.
|
20.58.00.00 |
" " End: 20.58.05.00 |
Pan to Urbonas standing in snow
| Mr Urbonas shows us the Kupiskis jail where he was held.
|
20.58.09.00 | Start: 20.58.06.00 Dur: 1.38
"Double Bass"
|
MS Urbonas interview (exterior jail)
| Q How come you saw Gudelis every day? Did he come for you ? Urbonas: He came for the executions, he came with a list (walks) He'd stand next to this window. Let's say ... This window here.. He reads out the list. The commandant gives greetings. He keeps reading. Over there there were pallets. Everybody stands on them. As a name is called, they jump and run, to avoid being hit. We knew what it was like. Even if they let you go you wouldn't come out of here. Somebody would drag somebody out. It was a very cruel time..
|
20.59.10.00
|
" " |
MCU Urbonas interview (exterior jail)
| Urbonas: I ate the bread of dead men. Lying down on a pallet, a man dies next to me. So my neighbour and I, we share his bread and eat it. That's the type of bread we used to eat.
|
20.59.43.00 |
" " End: 20.59.44.00 | MS Bartuseviciute sitting on her bed | In July 1941, Mrs Bartuseviciute was 9 years old. She tells us Gudelis and others arrested her father and two brothers, who were then executed.
|
20.59.56.00 |
|
MCU Bartuseviciute interview
Super: Genovaite Bartuseviciute
| Bartuseviciute: I can't talk about it because it breaks my heart. ... More Jews lived here than locals of Kupiskis Q Lithuanians ? They were... There were more of them you know .... And Itka and Etka were my girlfriends. They lived here. They had a cow ,. They lived across the road. From us. I was always with them. With Itka and Etka, the Jewish kids.
|
21.00.43.00 |
|
MCU Bartuseviciute interview
| Bartuseviciute: Dr Pranskevicius hid Itka and Etka. Somebody opened their mouth ... they talked.. They opened their mouth and Itka and Etka were taken and shot. It was horrible, horrible, Just imagine, Behind the Jewish cemetery, they shot our people, Lithuanians. And the Jews were killed next to the Atheist's cemetery.
|
21.01.32.00 |
Start: 21.01.58.00 Dur: 1.00
The Cry of Israel - traditional. Accordian live recording by Rod Freedman in Lithuania |
MCU Bartuseviciute interview
| Q Regarding the killings, was Antanas Gudelis involved? Bartuseviciute: He was. Q Can you remember anything about him, what did he do? Bartuseviciute: He shot people.
I can't any more It's very, very difficult. I can't do it. It's too difficult for me to talk.
|
21.02.08.00 |
" "
| WS Kupiskis street, as seen from travelling car, turn corner to reveal view of old Synagogue.
| The 1967 trial in which Gudelis was cited was held in the old Kupiskis synagogue, then a house of culture. It's now a library. The Museum Director was present when the verdicts were announced.
|
21.02.26.00 |
" "
End: 21.02.58.00 |
MCU Jasaitas interview (exterior synagogue) | Jasaitas: The trial generated intense interest. The hall was full of spectators. There could have been 300 or more. ... I remember when the verdict was being handed down. When the verdict came, there was clapping in the hall.
|
21.02.59.00 |
Start: 21.03.18.00 Dur: 0.19
"Roar of Guns" |
MCU Kwiet interview
Super Prof. Konrad Kwiet
|
|
21.03.20.00 |
" " End: 21.03.37.00
Start: 21.03.59.00 Dur: 1.10
"Roar of Guns" |
WS exterior Gudelis' house | And with apparent immunity.
I try to speak to him but his wife barely opens the door.
Rod: Is it possible to talk to you Mrs G:udelis: No thank you, You can talk to our solicitor. Rod: I beg your pardon? Mrs G:udelis: You can go to the solicitor. Rod: To the solicitor? Oh, I see, your husband won't talk to me ? Mrs G:udelis: He cannot talk because he's deaf. Rod: Is it possible to talk to you at all ? Mrs Gudelis: I have nothing to speak with you Sorry.
She refers me to their solicitor who says that war crimes are ‘the big end of town' and it's not in her client's interest to participate in this program.
|
21.04.11.00 |
" " |
Exterior Gudelis' house
| Antanas Gudelis remains a free Australian citizen. |
21.04.18.00 |
" " | MS Zuroff interview
Super Efraim Zuroff
| Zuroff: Part of the tragedy of Australia was that the Special Investigations Unit was closed down just at the time when archives in Eastern Europe were opening up. And these are the archives where there is considerable documentation regarding the crimes committed by people living in Australia- case in point, Antanas Gudelis. Now this information was made available to the Australian Federal police but unfortunately they did not take any steps and the reasons for that are simple: lack of expertise, lack of resources, and no political will to proceed. You put it all together & there's a terrible result, no prosecutions.
|
21.04.58.00 |
" " | MS collage of newspaper headlines | The American, Canadian and British stance has been to strip suspected war criminals of their citizenship and deport them.
|
21.05.08.00 | End: 21.05.09.00 |
MS Rosenbaum interview
Super Eli Rosenbaum, Director US Office of Special Investigations
| Rosembaum: We have succeeded to date in denaturalising more than 60 participants in nazi crimes of persecution and we've removed from the United States more than 50. We are in fact as active now as we've ever been. We have 18 cases in courts throughout the United States and some 250 people under investigation.
|
21.05.29.00 |
|
MS Zuroff interview
Super Efraim Zuroff | Zuroff: Australia has refused to change its tactics, adopt denaturalisation and deportation which has proven so successful elsewhere... and therefore they remain totally unsuccessful - a very very sad story.
|
21.05.43.00 | CU Lithuanian plaque of knight on horse | Even if the Lithuanian Government eventually requests extradition of Gudelis, it's unclear whether Australia would consider it.
| |
21.05.52.00 |
Start: 21.06.01.00 Dur: 1.20
"Weightlessness"
|
2S Freedman sits at table with Pednycia | But will Lithuania even file charges ? The Prosecutor-General, Mr Pednycia, tells me they're looking for more specific evidence.
Pednycia: The problem of the witnesses from Lithuania is this - they cannot tell us the names of those executed. They do confirm the very fact of the killing. There are those who have seen the Jews being led away and other Lithuanian citizens, not without the involvement of Gudelis and others. But due to age, the passage of time and other reasons, today we do not have a witness who could give us the names of those taken for execution. To us, this is the main problem in this case.
|
21.06.46.00 |
" " |
MS pages with lists of names being thumbed through
| But in Kupiskis, we filmed the names of over 800 executed Jews. Surely this evidence is sufficient?
|
21.06.58.00 |
" " |
MCU Pednycia interview
| Pednycia: In other words, talking about Kupiskis, we do know the names of the Jews who were killed. But it's important for us to highlight the names of the Jews for whose deaths Gudelis was responsible. Not anyone else.
|
21.07.21.00 | End: 21.07.21.00
|
MCU Kwiet interview
Super Prof. Konrad Kwiet
| Kwiet: I find this a most remarkable statement and particularly coming from the Chief Prosecutor. If this statement would have been a principle of legal proceedings of war crimes investigations and war crimes trial, hardly any war crimes trials could have been conducted.
|
21.07.45.00 | Start: 21.07.45.00 Dur: 2.18
"Attack Squadron" |
MCU Rosenbaum interview
Super Eli Rosenbaum, Director US Office of Special Investigations | Rosenbaum: It's a human being, and a human being has been murdered. Its always advisable, always preferable to have the identities of the victims, but it's a human being and a human being has been murdered. That should be sufficient.
|
21.08.04.00 |
" " |
MS Freedman sitting in chair
| Rod: What do you say to people who say it's too late for justice to be served by pursuing these cases? Rosenbaum: It's of course not too late. .... It's too soon to give up. To give up sends the worst message to would-be perpetrators of the future, the worst message to survivors who've been looking to the governments of the world for some justice. It's certainly not too late.
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21.08.35.00 |
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ZI to MS Gudelis walking in front of his house
| The accused are too old. They're probably unfit to stand trial.
The witnesses are unreliable - or dead. It's too late for justice to be served.
What's past is past. It all happened a long time ago, far away.
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21.08.59.00 |
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| There are arguments for doing nothing - but here where the blood was spilt, are they adequate in the face of the crimes committed?
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21.09.11.00 |
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MS gravestone
| Despite the distance, the time elapsed and the tortuous legalities, we remain connected to this terrible past with responsibility to the victims and to ourselves.
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21.09.24.00 |
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End: 21.10.03.00 |
WS cemetery
MS Melamed interview
Freeze and fade to black | Melamed: Justice has to be done - the truth has to come out. And we have to know exactly what this man did. This is A. B, these people like Gudelis, he has shot, they have shot people who were much older than himself now. There were rabbis in Kupiskis - rabbis and other people who were ninety years old, almost already dying. They were old and still they killed them. Now, why shouldn't a man like this go to trial ?
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21.10.04.00 |
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END |
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