'Unless you could prove that your grandparents [for example] left Lithuania for reasons of occupation, or persecution or political oppression, then you could not hold a second passport'
May 23, 2017 14:13
An investigation has revealed that Lithuania has discriminated against Jews who applied for passports.
Data complied by Daniel Lutrin, a South African whose great-grandmother was Lithuanian, showed that between January 2015 and April 2016, 170 Jewish applicants (with either Israeli or Jewish South-African names) had been turned down, versus 110 non-Jewish applicants. There was an even stronger disparity between January 2016 and April 2016, with 90 Jewish and 20 non-Jewish applications rejected.
Mr Lutrin’s allegations were seen as so incontrovertible that after he made his case, Lithuania’s parliament voted to change part of the country’s citizenship requirements to end the discrimination.
Over 90 per cent of the South African Jewish community are Litvaks — Jews of Lithuanian origin.
Mr Lutrin had decided to apply for a Lithuanian passport in 2012 and was told his application was in order and that a final decision would be made within a year. However, a year on he was told that there was a new requirement for citizenship, which affected anyone whose ancestors had left Lithuania between 1919 and 1940.
“Unless you could prove that your grandparents [for example] left Lithuania for reasons of occupation, or persecution or political oppression, then you could not hold a second passport,” he said. “They gave no idea of what source documentation to give. They came up with this rule because they knew that for the vast majority who left when there was no Hitler, and no-one going around shtetls and taking people to the nearest ravine and murdering them, it would be impossible to prove that you left because of occupation or persecution. With this rule, they then started rejecting application after application.”
Mr Lutrin taught himself Lithuanian and travelled to Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, where he accessed the legal archives of the migration department.
He said: “These archives detail every legal decision made over citizenship restoration, whether it is successful or unsuccessful.
“Time and time again, the unsuccessful were overwhelmingly Jewish South Africans or Jewish Israelis.”
The research compiled by Mr Lutrin was sent in May 2016 to the Lithuanian Consul General in Los Angeles by Grant Gochin, who himself spent years fighting the Lithuanian government to gain citizenship. The resultant publicity — in Lithuania, South Africa and Israel — led to the law change. The new language made it clear Jews who “withdrew” or “fled” and those who “left” were to be treated in the same way.
Mr Lutrin has since gained a passport. He says things are now “a lot better” for Jews applying for passports.
A spokesperson for the Lithuanian embassy said: “Since the 2016 amendment came into force, the Lithuanian authorities have made every effort to individually inform every person whose application was unsuccessful between 2010-2015 about the possibility to resubmit their application.”
