Democracy

Introduction to the Democracy Page

It is painful to note that a region that has made such enormous strides toward freedom and open society since the collapse of the totalitarian Soviet state should now be backsliding into attempted abolition of free debate, and imposition of state-sanctioned theories of history (with threatened incarceration for dissent), of all things, on the subjects of Holocaust Obfuscation, World War II history, and the attempted codification of ultranationalist and xenophobic versions of European history.

The situation was made much worse by the June 2010 law threatening up to two years of imprisonment for those who would in effect deny the equality or genocidal nature of the Nazi and Soviet regimes (details here).

The increasingly painful topic of democracy now includes also broader questions of easy abuse of the judiciary and prosecutorial agencies by the New Far Right, and the degree to which freedom of expression on the issues at hand is often stifled by the simple mechanism of unwritten rules making it clear that young people in particular who wish to take an independent stance that is at variance with state policy need to make peace with forfeiting their careers in their chosen field at home, and to consider emigration as a top option, leaving the region with fewer and fewer independent thinkers. This disappointing trend can and should be reversed.
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Baltic Times: Hitting a New Low with “Paid Advertisement” Advocating Migration of Latvia’s Russian Speakers?

Posted on 13 May 2013 by Defending History

 

O P I N I O N  /  M E D I A   W A T C H

The half-page article on the “Business” page of the Baltic Times (dated 4-17 April 2013 but widely available this week here in Vilnius) carries at its end the words “This is a paid advertisement.”

But these words do not succeed in mitigating the moral responsibility of the increasingly ultranationalist, far-right newspaper in disseminating hate material against any minority, least of all of in an EU / NATO member state. The inherent equality of peoples and their races and languages and national and personal identities are an inseparable component of what the European Union and NATO are all about.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Democracy, EU, Human Rights, Latvia, Media Watch, News, Opinion | Comments Off

UK’s Minister for Europe Refuses to Criticize Baltic Glorification of Nazism

Posted on 19 April 2013 by Defending History

British Foreign Office on Latvia’s National Waffen SS Fest:

Minister for Europe Enters the Fray; Of Churchill’s Party, He Seems to Forget Great Britain’s Heroism in Bringing Down Hitler and — Scourge (and Historic Result) of Nazi-Worship in the Baltics

Anna Sheinman Reports in the London Jewish Chronicle

Images from the 2013 Waffen SS events in Central Riga

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Democracy, EU, Human Rights, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, News, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

One-Sided Coverage in the “Lithuania Tribune”?

Posted on 20 March 2013 by Defending History

M E D I A   W A T C H   /   O P I N I O N

 

A month has now elapsed since the online Lithuania Tribune took a defamatory press release as God’s-honest-truth news, in absence of the slightest attempt to obtain a quote from the victim, or indeed anyone with a contrasting view. The press release came not from a news agency, but the highly partisan executive director of the “Red-Brown Commission” (the full and rather Orwellian name of which is “The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania”). The Commission is highly controversial to say the least, and resignations to date (all on principle) from its associated bodies include Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Sir Martin Gilbert (London), Prof. Gershon Greenberg (Washington, DC), Prof. Konrad Kwiet (Sydney) and Prof. Dov Levin (Jerusalem). Moreover, while putting forward an educational image to donors, it is in fact the ultranationalist political engine of a sizable part of the Double Genocide movement in Eastern Europe today, and this dubious role has been brought to light repeatedly. Major statements on the Commission’s activities came in 2012 from its former member Yitzhak Arad, and from the world’s last active association of Holocaust survivors from Lithuania.

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Posted in Democracy, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory, VilNews.com | Comments Off

Believe It Or Not: Lithuanian Parliament Honors Organizers of Neo-Nazi March in Central Vilnius

Posted on 15 March 2013 by Defending History

Reporting in today’s Lrytas.lt (Lietuvos rytas), Dovydas Pancerovas describes the parliamentary honors bestowed on organizers of last Monday’s March 11th neo-Nazi march on the main boulevard, Gedimino, of the nation’s capital, Vilnius (DH eyewitness reports by Anna Shepherd and Geoff Vasil; see also page 1 report). The following translation from the original Lithuanian is by Geoff Vasil.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Democracy, EU, LGBT Rights, News | Comments Off

Lithuania’s Social Democratic Party Issues Statement Against Neo-Nazi March

Posted on 15 March 2013 by Defending History

Lithuania’s Social Democratic Party (LSDP), now in power, issued a statement on 14 March concerning the March 11th neo-Nazi march on the central boulevard of the nation’s capital city, Vilnius. The following is an English translation of the statement, which contrasts somewhat in tone with that of the prime minister who is from the same party.

 

 Nationalists Violating Principles of Democracy Can No Longer Use Democracy as Cover

14 March 2013

The unsanctioned march by nationalists that took place on Gedimino prospektas on the March 11th holiday tore away the veil of democracy from those who call themselves “patriotic youth.” Citizens who support democracy must pay heed to decisions made by democratic institutions, and ignoring such needs to be interpreted as anti-constitutional behavior.

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Posted in Democracy, Documents, Events, News | Comments Off

Red-Brown Commission’s Newest Layer of Obfuscation: Are Names of Members Secret?

Posted on 17 January 2013 by Defending History

The Lithuanian government sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes of Lithuania,” known for short as the “Red-Brown Commission” has recently added a new layer of obfuscation and opacity to its activities.

Its website has deleted the names of the “Members of the Commission” thereby rendering it a kind of “secret society.”

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Democracy, Double Games, Double Genocide, EU, Media Watch, News, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

New Year’s Call on the US State Department to Reject Politics of Holocaust Denial

Posted on 1 January 2013 by Defending History

2013: Call on US State Dept to Reject Politics of Holocaust Denial and Appeasement of Eastern Europe’s New Far Right

Shock of 2012: When a NATO-EU Ally Reburied and Glorified its 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister who Signed Orders for Kovno Ghetto

Instead of politely protesting, the US Embassy in Vilnius financed a camouflage symposium on Holocaust issues to deflect attention from the week’s event. Framed to honor T. Snyder’s book Bloodlands, it also featured the head of YIVO.

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Democracy, Double Games, Events, Litvak Affairs, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated?, USA | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

UCL Hebrew-Jewish Studies Dept Rejects Monica Lowenberg’s Request for Five Minutes to Read Petition at Lithuanian Government Sponsored Conference

Posted on 14 December 2012 by Defending History

London observers were wondering whether the medal Professor Antony Polonsky received earlier this year from the president of Lithuania for his PR work for the Lithuanian government may have something to do with his denial of Monica Lowenberg’s request, asking for five minutes to read out at next week’s conference her petition to the Lithuanian government, proposing constructive solutions to the issues at hand. The petition has to date garnered over 250 signatories from two dozen countries. The following is the correspondence, which started with Ms. Lowenberg’s appeal to Professor Ada Rapoport-Albert and Dr. Francois Guesnet. Dr. Guesnet, the Corob Reader in Jewish History at UCL is one of the conference coordinators on behalf of the Lithuanian government funded institutions financing the conference. Holocaust survivors consulted cannot understand why safe and secure academics who hold high posts at Western institutions should so fear “even to give five minutes for somebody else to come and disagree” with the conference’s pay-masters in the freedom of the British capital.

MONICA LOWENBERG’S PETITION

PROFESSOR POLONSKY KNIGHTED BY PRESIDENT OF LITHUANIA FOR SERVICE TO ITS GOVERNMENT’S PR

THE UCL CONFERENCE

THE 2011 DEBACLE

UCL and its Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies find themselves challenged by a simple question:

Will freedom of speech and respect for the views of the Holocaust Survivor community be respected to the extent of five minutes being granted for the reading of a petition to the Lithuanian government, or does Lithuanian government financial sponsorship preclude the granting of the request?

Real story behind UCL’s slavish dedication to Lithuanian government PR policy?

The following email correspondence, none of it bearing on personal matters, was released today by Ms Lowenberg’s office in London, and is published below with permission from her office.

One of the emails, from Professor Polonsky, contains a lengthy and standard restatement of Lithuanian government talking points (the “Liekis talking points” version) somewhat tailored for Jewish audiences. Like any set of talking points, each relates somehow, often obliquely to the point made in the petition, without confronting it head on. The opposing points are view are expressed in Ms. Lowenberg’s petition.

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Posted in Democracy, Documents, Double Games, Events, News, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

On Free Speech at University College London

Posted on 13 December 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Monica Lowenberg

The following letter to the provost of University College London was released for publication today by Ms. Lowenberg’s office.

 

To the Provost

Dear Professor Grant,

Please find pasted below correspondence between myself and Dr Francois Guenest of UCL and Professor Polonsky who together have organised with the Lithuanian government this year’s Part 2 conference ‘No Simple Stories’ to be held next week 17-19 December at the Lithuanian embassy in London and UCL.

I requested that I read out a petition that hundreds of people across the world, scholars, survivors and others agree with, a petition that disagrees with Polonsky’s and the Lithuanian government’s interpretation of events and action. Polonsky as designated organiser has refused me the opportunity to read out the petition.

Serious questions have to now be raised about the conference, its agenda and UCL.

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Posted in Democracy, Human Rights, Monica Lowenberg, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated? | Comments Off

Outgoing Lithuanian PM, Red-Brown Commission and (Antisemitic) Genocide Center Joining Forces for Mid-November Vilnius Conference Promoting “Double Genocide”

Posted on 7 November 2012 by Defending History

With the recent Lithuanian elections barely out of the way, and the ruling right-wing Homeland Union Conservatives the undisputed losers, the ultranationalist right is losing no time in pressing ahead aggressively with the Double Genocide “red-equals-brown” agenda, reverting to one of the movement’s original slogans: “United Europe — United History.” For pro-tolerance and liberal forces, the profoundly undemocratic message implied is that a united Europe has to also be united (i.e. have one opinion) on questions of history, and that Double Genocide and its central document, the 2008 Prague Declaration, are inviolable truths.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Democracy, Double Games, Double Genocide, Events, Human Rights, News, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem Manipulated? | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Ukrainian Ultranationalists Sponsor Lecture Tour Across North American Universities

Posted on 12 October 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Per Anders Rudling

 

Last week, a Canada-wide lecture tour by Ruslan Zabily was announced. He is the former director of the Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement and the current director of the Lonsky Street Prison National Memorial Museum (for short: the Lonsky Museum) in Lviv, Ukraine.

AT THE LONSKY MUSEUM: JEWISH HOLOCAUST VICTIMS PHOTOSHOPPED OUT. A woman has just recognized a loved one among the victims of the NKVD killings in 1941. In the background of the original photo one also sees groups of Jewish victims of the massacre which followed within days of the NKVD murders (Jews were forced to carry and rebury these victims). Thousands of Jews were killed as Soviet crimes were blamed on them and used to incite antisemitic violence and murder. In this photoshopped version on display at the Lonsky Museum, the nationalists’ Jewish civilian victims are literally covered by the circular insertions of Soviet crime statistics, implicitly ethniziced as Ukrainian suffering.

◊

The original image, before photoshopping at the Lonsky…

The lecture tour includes some of the most prestigious universities in Canada — the universities of Alberta, Toronto, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Ottawa — as well as Harvard University’s Ukrainian Studies Institute in the United States. The lectures in Alberta and Toronto are facilitated by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies; the Peter Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine; the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies; the Harvard Institute of Ukrainian Studies and its Chair of Ukrainian Studies.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Canada, Collaborators Glorified, Democracy, Events, News, Opinion, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

Efraim Zuroff Comments on Facebook on Next Tuesday’s Zingeris Event at Yivo in New York City

Posted on 12 October 2012 by Defending History

Efraim Zuroff, the Holocaust historian, Nazi-hunter and author, today posted the following message on his Facebook page. It is reproduced here with the permission of Dr. Zuroff, who is director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel office and its Operation Last Chance. For more on the alleged US embassy (Vilnius) blackballing of Dr. Zuroff from an international 2011 summer program in Vilnius see here. Background to the Yivo event: see Milan Chersonski’s article.

  • This is a call for action to those in the NYC area. This coming Tuesday, October 16 at 7 PM, YIVO is hosting an evening at the Center for Jewish History at 15 West 16th St. entitled “Reclaiming The Jewish Narrative in Lithuania Today.” The problem is that the featured guests are all supporters of the Lithuanian government’s efforts to promote the canard of equivalency between Communist and Nazi crimes and are minimizing the huge role of Lithuanians in the mass murder of Lithuanian Jews. Anyone able to go and confront Markas Zingeris, the Lithuanian PM’s advisor on genocide, and former US ambassador to Lithuania Anne Derse whose embassy blackballed my participation in a seminar on Lithuanian Jewish history at the request of the Lithuanian authorities, will be doing a big mitzva!!!

Posted in Democracy, Double Genocide, Efraim Zuroff, Events, Litvak Affairs, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

When I Received a Response from the Genocide Center in Vilnius

Posted on 25 August 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

 

When I wrote about three glorified Lithuanian Freedom Army colonels who had in fact been implicated in the Holocaust, I did not realize quite how deep-rooted the shameful worship of Nazi-era war criminals has become here in Lithuania. I used to think that a few mistakes had been made due to patriotic excesses. A year has passed since that article, and I no longer feel that this is just some irksome problem “still encountered now and then”…

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Democracy, Evaldas Balčiūnas, History, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Reburial as a Means for the Rewriting of History

Posted on 4 July 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Milan Chersonski

At Taxpayer Expense

Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis), 1903 — 1974

Memorial funeral events, dedicated to the moving of Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis’s ashes, were held in Kaunas for a week and a half from May 17th to 27th. He was the acting prime minister of the summer 1941 Provisional Government of Lithuania (PG); his ashes were moved to the former provisional Lithuanian capital, Kaunas.

His ashes were delivered by airplane from the distant state of Connecticut to the current Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, and then escorted with honors to Kaunas, where the ashes, originally buried in 1974, were re-buried, this time with full state honors.

Apparently, those who initiated the reburial were pursuing three goals of importance to them:

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Democracy, History, Milan Chersonski, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged | Comments Off

Congratulating Algimantas Kasparavičius who Gets it Right: Trying to Manage History is a Big-Time Loser for Mature Foreign Policy

Posted on 30 May 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

 

It isn’t every Monday and Thursday (as the old Yiddish saying goes) that this journal publishes an opinion piece congratulating a contemporary historian in Lithuania who is a current mainstream player (rather than a pensioner, conceptual or actual exile, or someone painted up as a narrow ethnic-minority champion, anarchist, Soviet apologist, plain old personal maverick, or what-not). It is even more unusual for DefendingHistory.com to go out on a limb without even knowing said historian’s views on the issues that lie at the core of DH’s modest corner in the contemporary marketplace of ideas.

Let it be said at the outset  that we sincerely hope that a vote of confidence and congratulations from DefendingHistory.com will not unduly (let alone fatally) harm the man’s future career prospects in the vaunted circles of Lithuania’s most powerful politicians, state institutions and history professors. But come to think of it, the improper leap-into-bed together of this untenable ménage-à-trois goes to the core of the conundrum.

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Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Democracy, Double Games, Dovid Katz, EU, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Unelected 1941 Pro-Nazi Provisional Government of Lithuania Never Intended Good for Country

Posted on 28 May 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

 

In May Lithuania celebrated the return of the ashes of the Nazi puppet prime minister of June, 1941, Juozas Ambrazevičius (who changed his surname to Brazaitis as a matter of convenience when he began using papers issued to one Brazaitis). The schizophrenic nature of the events were evident from the start, from the Kubilius government’s resolution allocating 30,000 litas in funding to celebrate the Lithuanian Nazi which, several items down the list, also allocated 3,000 litas for a project to “name the names,” to draw up a list of Lithuanian Holocaust victims, in conjunction with the Yad Vashem institution in Jerusalem.

The dissociative shell game continued when the government and state institutions sought to pawn off the events they financed on other institutions: the Catholic Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kaunas, and an “academic conference/commemoration” planned at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. After a scandal broke and former professor now MEP Leonidas Donskis published an eloquent protest on DH, the rector of VMU, who didn’t want the heat, told the Nazi celebrators to find another venue, one supplied by the Kaunas municipality, the chambers of the Kaunas city council. Then, in keeping with the theme of schizophrenia, VMU decided to allow another “academic conference” on university premises, initially with the exact same list of speakers as the banned event.

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Democracy, Double Games, Geoff Vasil, History, Human Rights, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated? | Comments Off

Public Statement Concerning Instrumentalization of Academic Publications in Ukraine

Posted on 28 May 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe and Per Anders Rudling

 

Vadym Kolesnychenko, a member of the parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions, recently published a volume (http://r-u.org.ua/kniga/kniga.pdf) of Russian language translations of articles written by Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, Per Anders Rudling and Timothy Snyder.

The articles appeared originally in journals such as Kritika, New York Times Review of Books, Carl Beck Papers and KakanienRevisited. Mr. Kolesnychenko translated and published the volume without the approval or consent of the authors. We regard this conduct as unethical.

Our objections to the political instrumentalization of our work by the Party of Regions are the same as our reservations to analogous instrumentalization by pro-nationalist groups and organizations.

 

  • Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe
  • University of Hamburg
  • Per Anders Rudling
  • Lund University
Posted in Democracy, G. Rossoliński-Liebe, History, Media Watch, News, Opinion, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

“Moderate Litvak” Status is Conferred by his Highness, the Norwegian Property Magnate cum Editor-in-Chief of Vilnius

Posted on 1 May 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

 

Getty Images

Thought experiment: Imagine an African American in the city of Columbia, South Carolina, being called an extremist or fanatic for peacefully expressing the opinion that it is offensive for the Confederate flag to be hoisted on the grounds of the state capitol building. Imagine him or her being called extremist or fanatic for failing to be grateful that the flag was, after much protest, moved from atop the dome to the mere grounds of the capitol and its design slightly changed to conform to the Confederate Battle Flag (as a “concession”).

Imagine if a snow-white editor of a web journal singled out for David Duke style praise “Moderate African Americans” who just say “Thank you” when a pathetic morsel of PR is offered up by local authorities in the face of mounting international opprobrium.

There would be public outrage at the racism.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Democracy, Dovid Katz, Human Rights, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory, South Africa, VilNews.com | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Three Progressive Members of Lithuania’s Parliament Ask Prosecutors to Investigate Threats by Genocide Center’s “Chief Specialist”

Posted on 15 April 2012 by Defending History

On 1 April 2012, three members of the Lithuanian Parliament — Petras Auštrevičius, Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis and Justinas Karosas — submitted a formal letter to prosecutors asking for an investigation into the threats made by a “chief specialist” (PDF here) at the state-sponsored Genocide Research Center, who has also published antisemitic, racist and homophobic statements and participated in the organization of neo-Nazi marches (see e.g. here, here, here, here and here).

[Two of the three targeted parliamentarians are signatories to the Seventy Years Declaration, and were recently attacked by the foreign minister; see here and here; see also MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis's response here.]

The Lithuanian original of the three parliamentarians’ 1 April letter to prosecutors is here. A full English translation follows below.

[See also the 5 April 2012 article by MP Andriukaitas (English here), Ignas Krasauskas's 4 April report, and Geoff Vasil's 12 April analysis.]

To the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Lithuania

1 April 2012 No. 04-11/2012

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Lithuanian Neo-Nazi Leader Calls for Murder of MPs

Posted on 12 April 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

Ričardas Čekutis, “chief specialist” at Lithuanian’s state-sponsored Genocide Center in Vilnius old town, a fascist party leader and co-organizer of the annual neo-Nazi marches through Vilnius, has again made controversial comments on Facebook, this time apparently calling upon other Lithuanian neo-Nazis to murder three MPs. Two of the three are signatories to the Seventy Years Declaration (SYD) first published in DefendingHistory.com and presented to the president of the European Parliament in Strasbourg last month.

Confirming suspicions that SYD had angered not just the clique of apparatchiks who earn a good living from the Double Genocide industry in this part of the world, and had made wider waves in the Lithuanian neo-Nazi underground, Čekutis seemed to call for someone to shoot MPs Vytenis Andriukaitis, Justinas Karosas—both of whom signed the SYD—and the MP Petras Austrevičius.

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Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Democracy, Geoff Vasil, Human Rights, News, Opinion | Comments Off

MP Vytenis Andriukaitis: Open Letter to Genocide Center “Chief Specialist” Ričardas Čekutis

Posted on 12 April 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis

Authorized translation from the Lithuanian original that appeared on Balsas.lt on 5 April 2012.

 

Yesterday, April 4, my colleague Petras Auštrevičius sent me a fragment of some internet correspondence between you, Ričardas Čekutis, and Morta Vidūnaitė. You, commenting upon the conversation, expressed this thought:

“But a nationalist [or “ethnic”] state, Morta, is one where government, i.e., sovereignty, belongs to the [ethnic] nation, which is what is written in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania. Not to some sort of ‘citizens’ but to the [ethnic] Lithuanian people. This is also the principle of the supremacy of national law over all transnational formations, such as the EU, into which we were shoved through deceit and forgeries.

“In a nationalist [ethnic] state, for example, characters such as Auštrevičius, Andriukaitis and Karosas would be shot without hesitation, and that would be right, for treason. Well, you’ll see, very soon…”

I wouldn’t want to argue with your thought that they would shoot us, because an opinion is an opinion. But this sentence that “well, you will see, very soon,” understood rather clearly from the context that we will see some shootings has a very different meaning. But more about that a bit later.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Democracy, Human Rights, News, Opinion, Vytenis Andriukaitis | Comments Off

Once Again, Moral Abdication at the American Embassy in Vilnius?

Posted on 10 March 2012 by Defending History

C O M M E N T

In contrast to its potent and convincing public response to neo-Nazi events in the center of  Vilnius in earlier years, the current leadership of the American embassy in the Lithuanian capital has followed a pattern disturbing to many Americans, of failing to even mention what America’s values are in commenting in official communications on both a neo-Nazi march and a pro-tolerance march, both scheduled for tomorrow, Lithuania’s independence day.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Democracy, Events, Human Rights, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated?, USA | Comments Off

Monica Lowenberg in Dialogue with Latvia’s Ambassador to the UK

Posted on 5 March 2012 by Defending History

D E B A T E

From the 2009 Waffen SS march in Riga. Photo Ilmars Znotins.

Monica Lowenberg is the creator of the international petition against this year’s Waffen SS march scheduled for 16 March 2012 in the heart of Riga, Latvia’s capital city. The petition has to date attracted some six thousand signatures from every part of the planet.

Its author approached the Latvian ambassador to the UK for support.

Below is his letter of 1 March (as PDF here). It is followed by the text of Monica Lowenberg’s 5 March reply, supplied to DefendingHistory.com for publication.

 

◊

I: The Latvian Ambassador to Monica Lowenberg (1 March 2012) Continue reading →

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Democracy, Events, History, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

March 11th: A Grand Opportunity for the Lithuanian Human Rights Community — and the People of Vilnius

Posted on 4 March 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

When three of us from the DefendingHistory.com community headed out from Vilnius on February 16th to confront the neo-Nazi march in central Kaunas, we were sure we would be joined by dozens, or more, true lovers of Lithuania  —  folks who cannot remain silent that perverted political leadership allows today’s neo-Nazis to achieve free reign in the center of a great city in the middle of the nation’s cherished independence day. Folks who cannot let the glorification of stylized swastikas (including the “Lithuanian swastika“), and white armbands (celebrating the LAF Holocaust perpetrators of 1941) go unchallenged in the country with the largest rate of murder of its civilian Jewish population in all Holocaust-era Europe. Folks who want to send at least some modicum of support to today’s minorities. And a message to the world that the neo-Nazis do not represent Lithuanian society.

It was a shock to find in Kaunas on February 16th, that the somewhat quixotic DefendingHistory.com threesome would find itself the only visible anti-Nazi presence during the march and the rally that followed.

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Posted in Democracy, Dovid Katz, Human Rights, Media Watch, News, Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

March 11th is Not a Day to Glorify the Perpetrators

Posted on 28 February 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Olga Zabludoff

When I learned that the municipality of Vilnius had again issued permits for a neo-Nazi march on Lithuania’s March 11th Independence Day, I was disturbed for more than one reason. Why would the government, which has been purporting its wish for reconciliation with its small Lithuanian Jewish community and Jews everywhere, sanction the resurrection of a Holocaust image? Why would the government, which has been purporting its wish to better its tarnished image with worldwide Jewry, accept and endorse the display of the LAF white armbands imprinted with the flaming swastika?

Most survivors of the Lithuanian Holocaust are more traumatized by memories of the white-armbanded Lithuanian Activist Front than by memories of Hitler’s Aryan henchmen. It was the local LAF murderers who began to butcher Jews who had been their neighbors — this even before their German Nazi masters/commanders came upon the scene. It was the LAF who unleashed the Holocaust in Lithuania. It was then that their slogan was born: “Lithuania for Lithuanians!” (Lietuva Lietuviams).

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Democracy, News, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion | Comments Off

300 Neo-Nazis March through the Center of Kaunas on Lithuanian Independence Day; They are Addressed by Members of Parliament

Posted on 16 February 2012 by Defending History

E Y E W I T N E S S    R E P O R T  /  O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

With attention focused on the government-permission-granted central Vilnius neo-Nazi march slated for Lithuania’s March 11th independence day — now the subject of an international petition on Change.org — there was minimal foreign interest in today’s independence day neo-Nazi march and demonstration in central Kaunas, Lithuania’s second city. The March 11th independence day marks the date in 1990 when Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union. Today’s holiday is on the date of the 1918 declaration of independence which heralded the rise of the modern Lithuanian state in the twentieth century. Both dates are revered by the country’s diverse minorities and factions. They represent freedom from oppression and foreign domination, and celebrate the building of a free and democratic state.

But in recent years, both dates have been hijacked by neo-Nazi groups in the heart of the country’s major cities, with the support of some members of parliament and leading political figures. There is, moreover, the proverbial blind eye of much or most of the elite classes, which serves as a contributing catalyst.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Democracy, Dovid Katz, Human Rights, LGBT Rights, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Lithuanian Parliamentarian Vytenis Andriukaitis, Signatory of 70 Years Declaration, Replies to Foreign Minister, Cites ‘Moustache’ Remark and the Implications of ‘Double Genocide’

Posted on 11 February 2012 by Defending History

 

O P I N I O N

by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis

 

The following is an authorized translation from the Lithuanian text published on Delfi.lt on 9 February 2012. It is a reply to the foreign minister’s article published a week earlier (English translation here).

Honorable A. Ažubalis, Did You Pull Such an Understanding of History out of Thin Air?

by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lithuanian Parliament

 

Honorable minister, looking at the headline of your public statement, I hoped at least that you would apologize for the position expressed earlier that “it is impossible to find any difference between Hitler and Stalin except in their moustaches (Hitler’s was smaller).” I agree with the position expressed by Dennis MacShane, member of the British House of Commons, that such jokes by foreign minister Audronius Ažubalis are inappropriate in discussing the mass murder of six million Jews.

In your public statement, you again place two signed declarations in opposition to one another. One of them — the “only true one” — the “Declaration on European Conscience and Communism” signed in Prague in 2008, maintains that the precondition for a unified Europe is a unified view of history and the ability to condemn the last century’s crimes against humanity. The second, the Seventy Years Declaration — the declaration referred to as if it were a crime and condemned by you —was adopted marking the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee conference, a declaration which rejects attempts to trivialize the atrocities of the Jewish genocide.

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Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Democracy, Double Genocide, EU, History, News, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vytenis Andriukaitis | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Free Speech Reaffirmed by Vilnius Judge in Algirdas Paleckis Case

Posted on 18 January 2012 by Defending History
O P I N I O N / E Y E W I T N E S S   R E P O R T

by Dovid Katz

One of the placards carried by pro-Paleckis demonstrators outside the Vilnius courthouse

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Box Coverage on Algirdas Paleckis case to Midday 18 January 2012

Posted on 18 January 2012 by Defending History

Free Speech on  Trial?

DefendingHistory.com was there. . .

Paleckis Verdict, Postponed to 30 Dec, Postponed again to 18 January 2012 (3 PM)

BACKGROUND: HERE AND HERE

Moacir P. de Sá Pereira comments

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Algirdas Paleckis’s critique of legal neo-Nazi parades, legalized swastikas and military personnel participating in Nazi activities — at the November 2011 conference on tolerance in Vilnius: video; translation; report.

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‘Prague Declaration’ is Removed from Own Site (www.PragueDeclaration.org)

Posted on 10 January 2012 by Defending History

The 2008 Prague Declaration has mysteriously disappeared from its own site: www.PragueDeclaration.org, where it had been comfortably seated for years. Instead, that domain now yields information on a totally different Prague Declaration. (Prague is a delightful city for conferences and declarations, and there are truly many.)

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Suspense in Vilnius as Paleckis Verdict Day Nears

Posted on 9 December 2011 by Defending History
O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

Suspense is growing in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, concerning the verdict in the free speech trial of the flamboyant, controversial young left-wing politician, Algirdas Paleckis. The court’s ruling will be read from the bench next Wednesday 14 December 2011 at 2 PM at the First District Court at Laisves 79, Vilnius. The charge carries a possible one-year prison sentence if Mr. Paleckis is found guilty. A press release was received today from the Lithuania Without Nazism organization (not to be confused with the ‘secret’ internet group ‘Lithuania Without Neo-Nazism’, that some believe to be a manipulated group, somewhat sophomoric, or both).

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How the Zingeris-Račinskas Red-Brown Commission “Gently” Pushed Along the Conversion of Holocaust Studies into Double Genocide Studies

Posted on 23 November 2011 by Defending History
O P I N I O N

by Rachel Croucher (Melbourne)

Although not seeking to deny the Holocaust, the ultimate consequence of the movement to redefine genocide is the equalization of National Socialist and Soviet crimes. The characterization of Soviet crimes as genocide is a misrepresentation that hinders authentic remembrance of the Holocaust in Lithuania by helping to obscure the extent and nature of Lithuanian complicity in the killings of the local Jewish population.

The idea that the crimes of Hitler and successive Soviet regimes are in fact equal has been a growing force behind public discourse on the Holocaust since the formulation of the national Holocaust and Genocide Education Program at the sixth meeting of The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania in June 2002.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Democracy, Double Genocide, EU, History, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rachel Croucher | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Open Debate, Open Society, and Secret Societies

Posted on 9 November 2011 by Defending History
O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

Last Thursday, 3 November, an article I’d submitted to the Jerusalem Post for consideration appeared on the op-ed page (PDF here). In democratic societies, sending an opinion piece to a respectable publication, signing it with one’s real name, and opening it (and oneself) to further open debate and discussion are rather standard. As usual, I linked to the article on my Facebook page, expecting some to agree and some to disagree, moving debate forward.

But a number of Facebook Friends who did not react on my page, or any other open forum, did for some reason find it appropriate to join a kind of witch hunt against the article and its author on a page of a “Secret Group” called Lietuva be neonacizmo (Lithuania Without Neo-Nazism), located at: www.facebook.com/groups/135816956486382.

The original discussion of 3 and 4 November 2011 is available here. A full English translation is available here.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Democracy, Double Games, Dovid Katz, Human Rights, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, Opinion | Comments Off

Lithuania’s Defense Ministry Clears Soldiers who Participated in Neo-Nazi March

Posted on 6 September 2011 by Defending History

Lithuania’s main newspaper Lietuvos Rytas reported today on an internal investigation by the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense into participation by Lithuanian soldiers in neo-Nazi marches. The investigation found that the soldiers hadn’t violated the law, but the ministry isn’t making public the contents of the inquiry. The presence of neo-Nazis in the Lithuanian military came to light after the website Antifa.lt published photos of participants in a March 11 neo-Nazi independence day march through central Vilnius, next to pictures of the same people in Lithuanian military uniforms. See Antifa.lt’s posts here and here.

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New Hungarian Press Norms are License for Antisemitism and Racism

Posted on 4 August 2011 by Defending History

Citing  recent events in Hungary, in which authors Ben Cohen and Karl Pfeifer had a role to play, the Jerusalem Post’s Benjamin Weinthal has published an article in today’s Jerusalem Post exposing the sharply increased proclivity toward primitive antisemitism in the mainstream press in Hungary. The tendency has picked up steam since election of the right wing of government Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party. The freedom and responsibility of the media have been main issues for the country’s right wing government.

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Far Right Organization, Led by Genocide Center’s ‘Specialist’, Publishes a List of Enemies Including Advisor to the Lithuanian Jewish Community

Posted on 29 July 2011 by Defending History

A far right organization in Lithuania today published a list of enemies, comprising liberals, tolerance-advocating authors, gay rights activists and a poet who is an official advisor to the Jewish Community of Lithuania (English translation here).

One of the organization’s leaders is a ‘chief specialist’ at the state-sponsored Genocide Research Center which is one of the engines of Holocaust Obfuscation and the Double Genocide movement in the European Parliament. He was one of the leaders of last March’s state-authorized neo-Nazi parade through central Vilnius.

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Lithuanian Government Agencies Provide Financial Support to Fascist Youth Organizations

Posted on 28 July 2011 by Defending History

In an article published today on Delfi.lt, Eglė Samoškaitė investigates state funding for fascist organizations, including those that lead or participate in neo-Nazi marches. A full English translation is here.

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‘Prague Process’ Crowd, with Lithuanian Jewish politician for cover (as usual), now proceeding with plans to ‘overhaul European history textbooks’ for Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation

Posted on 22 May 2011 by Defending History

The Prague Declaration proponents in European Parliamentary circles, having renamed their movement the ‘Prague Process’, are triumphantly reporting on their latest initiative to bring to fruition yet another of the movement’s stated objectives: to overhaul all the history textbooks in Europe to reflect the supposed ‘equality’ of Nazi and Soviet crimes, in other words to continue with the far right’s revision-of-history project to downgrade the Holocaust in the course of Double Genocide ideology.

As ever, the group is able at critical moments to wheel out Lithuania’s right-wing Jewish MP, Emanuelis Zingeris, himself a signatory of the Prague Declaration, who publicly resigned from his country’s Jewish community many years ago, but continues to run the ‘Jewish track’ of a complicated double-game policy that has led, in 2011, to the absurdity of a year to remember the Holocaust as well as a year to commemorate some of its local perpetrators who are glorified as ‘anti-Soviet heroes’ (see here, here and here).

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Democratic Hungary’s First Nazi War Crimes Trial Opens in Budapest

Posted on 5 May 2011 by Defending History

The courtroom was packed as post-Soviet democratic Hungary finally put one of its own citizens on trial for alleged complicity in the genocide of the country’s Jewish population in the Holocaust. The massive local media coverage pointed to what some observers called a mood of national catharsis breaking a taboo against admission of Nazi-era complicity that has swept much of the new-accession state area in the European Union.

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Three Years Later: Neither Charged nor Cleared

Posted on 5 May 2011 by Defending History

marked three years to the day since police in Vilnius came looking for Holocaust Survivors Dr Rachel Margolis (born 1921, at right of photo) and Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (born 1922) in a ‘war crimes investigation’ that has still not been publicly closed.

Both women were incarcerated in the Vilna Ghetto from 1941 to 1943. Both lost their entire families to the barbarity of the Nazis and their local collaborators. They both escaped, on different days in September 1943, to join up with the anti-Nazi partisans in the forests of Lithuania. The underground forest fort, a half-hour’s drive from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, where Fania lived with another hundred or so Jewish escapees of the Vilna Ghetto, is being allowed to sink into the ground and disappear from history’s view.

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