Published: 21 July 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Documentary J’Accuse! is changing the conversation in Lithuania about its brutal past. GILLIAN KLAWANSKY talks to director MICHAEL KRETZMER.
When filmmaker Michael Kretzmer set out to expose the truth behind Lithuania’s Holocaust distortions, he only dared dream of the ripple effects his film has since had. Since its premiere at Australia’s prestigious Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) last November, J’Accuse! has won multiple awards, been showcased around the world and most notably, is slowly spurring change in Lithuania.
The film tells the largely unspoken truth of those killed in Lithuania and their murderers who have since been lauded as heroes. Some 95% of the Lithuanian Jewish population were decimated in the Holocaust, yet those who murdered 220,000 people are still glorified as heroes in the country.
J’Accuse! is a movie with a mission, centred around the unlikely alliance between dissident campaigners Grant Gochin, whose ancestors were murdered by celebrated Lithuanian nationalist Jonas Noreika, and Silvia Foti, Noreika’s granddaughter, who discovered and exposed her grandfather’s crimes.
Gochin, a South-African born American, has spent over 30 years working to investigate and prosecute more than a dozen Lithuanian leaders who were complicit or active in Lithuanian Holocaust activities, while Chicago-based Lithuanian Foti published a book exposing her infamous grandfather.
After unwittingly producing a piece of Lithuanian war propaganda, Kretzmer decided to dedicate his life to exposing the truth about what really happened. Born to South African parents in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Kretzmer had one Latvian and three Lithuanian grandparents. He later moved to England, where he worked as a journalist and documentary filmmaker for the BBC and other international broadcasters. While he had an idea of the atrocities committed against his Lithuanian ancestors, it was only in 2019 that Kretzmer eventually turned his lens on the country.
