This remarkable book traces the quest for the truth about the Holocaust in Lithuania by two ostensible enemies: Rūta a descendant of the perpetrators, Efraim a descendant of the victims. Rūta Vanagaitė, a best-selling Lithuanian writer, was motivated by her recent discoveries that some of her relatives had played a role in the mass murder of Jews and that Lithuanian officials had tried to hide the complicity of local collaborators. Efraim Zuroff, a noted Israeli Nazi-hunter, had both professional and personal motivations. He had worked for years to bring Lithuanian war criminals to justice and to compel local authorities to tell the truth about the Holocaust in their country. The fact that his maternal grandparents were born in Lithuania and that he was named for a great-uncle who was murdered with his family in Vilnius with the active help of Lithuanians made his search personal as well.
Journey with an Enemy exposes the significant role played by local political leaders and the prewar Lithuanian administration that remained in place during the Nazi occupation in implementing the Nazis’ Final Solution. It also tackles the sensitive issue of the motivation of thousands of ordinary Lithuanians in the murder of their Jewish neighbors. At the heart of the book, these are the issues that Rūta and Efraim discuss, debate, and analyze as they crisscross the country to visit dozens of Holocaust mass murder sites in Lithuania and neighboring Belarus. During the journey, they searched for neglected graves, interviewed eyewitnesses, and looked for traces of the rich Jewish life that had existed in hundreds of Jewish communities throughout Lithuania. This compelling book recounts their harrowing journey.