My Grandfather’s Crimes Against Humanity: The Search for Truth

Silvia Foti, author and journalist, will speak on the topic, My Grandfather’s Crimes Against Humanity: The Search for Truth.  Twenty-two years ago, Silvia made a deathbed promise to her mother to write a book about her famous WWII hero grandfather, Jonas Noreika. Silvia’s grandmother begged her not to write about her husband. “Just let history lie,” she whispered.  Silvia had no idea that in keeping her promise to her mother, her discoveries would bring her to a personal crisis, challenge her Catholic faith, unearth Holocaust denial, and expose an official cover-up by the Lithuanian government.  Her goal in writing this story of her grandfather, known as General Storm in Lithuania, is to upend Lithuania’s narrative that Lithuanians had nothing to do with killing Jews and that it was all done by German Nazis.

Silvia Foti, author of the memoir Storm in the Land of Rain: A Mother’s Dying Wish Becomes Her Daughter’s Nightmare, is an award-winning investigative journalist in Chicago and a high school literature teacher.  She holds master’s degrees in journalism, education, and creative nonfiction.  Her memoir is also known as The Nazi’s Granddaughter: How I Discovered My Grandfather Was a War Criminal.  Silvia is fluent in English, Lithuanian, and Spanish.