Millions of people around the world — concentrated in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, Israel, and the United Kingdom — descend from Lithuanians who left their homeland during the turbulent decades of the twentieth century. What many of them do not realize is that Lithuanian law treats a substantial share of these families as never having lost their connection to the state. Through citizenship by descent, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of interwar Lithuanian citizens can restore or acquire citizenship today, receiving an EU passport with full rights to live, work, and study across all member states — often without ever having set foot in Vilnius.
