Monthly Archives: November 2011

‘That Awful Summer’ — Conference at Efrata College in Jerusalem

Posted on 30 November 2011 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 Joshua Markovitz (Jerusalem)

It was Thursday November 24th. Thanksgiving. One couldn’t really feel it in Jerusalem, though; the city was bustling as it would on any other crisp autumn morning. I made my way through its fashionable Baka neighborhood, asking several passersby where to find Efrata College. (One of them couldn’t understand my question, and asked me if I spoke English. I happily replied in the affirmative. When one is an immigrant to a faraway land, it’s quite delicious to be mistaken for a native!)

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Posted in Double Games, Events, Israel, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Yiddish Affairs | Comments Off on ‘That Awful Summer’ — Conference at Efrata College in Jerusalem

Owning a Massacre: ‘Ukraine’s Katyn’

Posted on 28 November 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Ivan Katchanovski

 

Preface

Ukrainska pravda, Dzerkalo tyzhnia, Zaxid.net, Den, Gazeta.ua, Glavred, and UNIAN, which all devote either special sections or many publications to such historical issues as newly uncovered World War II era mass graves, refused to publish a Ukrainian-language version of the following Open Democracy article on the misrepresentation of the Nazi mass execution of Jews in Volodymyr-Volynskyi as a Soviet massacre of Poles. The Ukrainian service of Radio Liberty published a Ukrainian version of my article in the op-ed section of their website. However, the article was removed from their website without any explanation a few hours after its online publication. My email to the director and the webmaster of the Ukrainian service of the Radio Liberty got no response. In contrast, a report claiming that the victims uncovered in Volodymyr-Volynskyi were Poles executed by the Soviet secret police remains on the website of this radio station funded by the US government.

Introduction

Such historical issues as Stalin’s policies of mass murder and activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), attract a great deal of the media coverage in contemporary Ukraine. However, the media reporting on these issues is often politically biased, and it even involves a self-imposed censorship concerning the involvement of the OUN and the UPA in Nazi genocide.

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Posted in History, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Comments Off on Owning a Massacre: ‘Ukraine’s Katyn’

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 "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Australia, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rachel Croucher | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How the Zingeris-Račinskas Red-Brown Commission “Gently” Pushed Along the Conversion of Holocaust Studies into Double Genocide Studies

The Brand New Holocaust CUBICLE in the BASEMENT of the City Center GENOCIDE Museum in Vilnius

Posted on 21 November 2011 by Defending History

Photos by Richard Schofield (© R. Schofield).  Text by Dovid Katz. From a visit on 18 November 2011.

Which is worse?

A Genocide Museum on ground zero of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe that does not mention the Holocaust,

Or

One that, more than a year after being exposed in this journal in the summer of 2010, and a confluence of international pressures, has added, in October 2011, a single solitary cell in the basement, unannounced on the main floor, that distorts the Lithuanian Holocaust and actually glorifies (as ‘rebels’) the local killers who unleashed the Holocaust in the country, while failing to mention their Holocaust role in an exhibit on the Holocaust?

You decide. . .   

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Exotic Jewish Tourism, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai), Symbology, The Green House, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Comments Off on The Brand New Holocaust CUBICLE in the BASEMENT of the City Center GENOCIDE Museum in Vilnius

Strasti za Banderoju (‘Bandera Passion’)

Posted on 20 November 2011 by Defending History

 

B O O K S  /  O P I N I O N

by Franziska Bruder

The 2010 anthology Strasti za Banderoju (Bandera  Passion, alternate translations include Bandera Ecstasy or Bandera-mania), edited by Tarik Syril Amar, Ihor Balyns’kyi and Iaroslav Hrytsak, assembles key contributions to three debates conducted in the years 2009-2010 around the person of Stepan Bandera, leader of the main wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

The first debate, staged on an Internet platform in L’viv in 2009, was occasioned by Bandera’s 100th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his assassination. It was followed in 2010 by another round triggered by then-Ukrainian president Viktor Iushchenko’s decision to convey upon Bandera the title Hero of Ukraine.  The editors divided that second round into two parts: the debate conducted in Ukraine and the debate conducted in North America.

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Posted in Bandera, Books, Canada, Franziska Bruder, History, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Comments Off on Strasti za Banderoju (‘Bandera Passion’)

A Conference for Tolerance Day

Posted on 17 November 2011 by Defending History

 

O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

On Wednesday, November 16th 2011, the Tolerance Center in Vilnius hosted a conference called: Tolerance and Totalitarianism. Challenges to Freedom.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Events, Geoff Vasil, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Conference for Tolerance Day

Algirdas Paleckis Speaks Out at a Vilnius Conference that Obfuscates Antisemitism and Racism

Posted on 16 November 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Algirdas Paleckis

 

Note: Translation of Algirdas Paleckis’s comments from the floor at the conference “Tolerance and Totalitarianism: Challenges to Freedom” held on 16 November 2011 in Vilnius. The comments were contributed following the session on “Antisemitism, xenophobia, racism, discrimination. Totalitarian temptations  and new trials of tolerance.”
The videotape from which this translation was made is available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odd44ZP-hk0. 
See also coverage of the conference by Geoff Vasil and Dovid Katz, and the editor’s comment on prosecutors’ campaign against Mr. Paleckis.

 

“Thank you very much. I should probably introduce myself. I’m Algirdas Paleckis, a  member of the newly-formed Lithuania Without Nazism and  chairman of the Socialist People’s Front.  It’s really encouraging that this conference is taking place, but  Lithuania Without Nazism as an association was founded because  of concerns about double standards.

“The fact is, the Lithuanian courts, the one in Klaipeda, recognized the  swastika as a symbol is a sort of pagan symbol, which can be displayed in public. We do not have a suitably clear reaction to this from our government.

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Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Algirdas Paleckis Speaks Out at a Vilnius Conference that Obfuscates Antisemitism and Racism

Yivo Director’s Statements on Legal Swastikas in Lithuania, Plus Some Facts

Posted on 16 November 2011 by Defending History

 [updated to May 2013]

 

“One of the most important statements in the article is that the swastika is banned by Lithuanian law, something that Katz and others have refused to acknowledge.”

— Jonathan Brent, Executive Director of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, in a 9 September 2o11 memo sent to members of his staff

———

“Fact: It is illegal to display the swastika in Lithuania today.”

— Jonathan Brent, Executive Director of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, in a 13 September 2o11 memo comprising the text of his proposed Public Yivo Statement, for which the support of Prof. Jeffrey Veidlinger (Bloomington) is claimed.

Chronology of events, including the United Nations Human Rights Committee statement of 2012, provided below…

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Antisemitism & Bias, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Symbology, United Nations, United States | Tagged | Comments Off on Yivo Director’s Statements on Legal Swastikas in Lithuania, Plus Some Facts

Yivo and Lithuania: Rolling summary coverage to 9 Nov 2011

Posted on 9 November 2011 by Defending History

Will Yivo Capitulate to East European ‘State Looting’ of its Archives in Vilnius? Provide Name as Cover for Holocaust Obfuscation & Antisemitism?Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), In the Era of Yivo's 100th, News & Views | Tagged | Comments Off on Yivo and Lithuania: Rolling summary coverage to 9 Nov 2011

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 of the print edition 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 appended below and is also available as PDF.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Games, Dovid Katz, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Open Debate, Open Society, and Secret Societies

Is it Science, or Football?

Posted on 4 November 2011 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  /  B O O K S

by Geoff Vasil (Vilnius)

A few friends asked me if I could attend a book presentation in Kaunas, since they couldn’t make it. The book is called Undigested Past: The Holocaust in Lithuania by Robert van Voren. It was published in English first as part of a series by the Rodopi publishing house on Eastern Europe. I’d never heard of van Voren, but people told me he was known for his books on psychiatric abuses in the Soviet Union. The poster for the event proclaimed boldly in Lithuanian that the conference’s official language would be English, which made me smirk, but an English-language version of the poster became available on the morning of the event.

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Posted in Events, Geoff Vasil, History, News & Views, Opinion | Comments Off on Is it Science, or Football?

Lithuania Assaults Holocaust Memory

Posted on 2 November 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Danny Ben-Moshe

NOTE: This op-ed appeared in today’s Jerusalem Post (and in the Jerusalem Report).

 

Recent developments suggest Holocaust remembrance has fallen by the wayside as a key element of Jewish Foreign Policy, at least as far as Lithuania is concerned.

Holocaust remembrance is a central plank of Jewish Foreign Policy (JFP), a term that encompasses how Israel and Diaspora organizations act on issues of common Jewish concern. The establishment of Yad Vashem in 1953 and the Eichmann trial in 1961 showed how central the memory of the Holocaust was to Israeli public and foreign policy.

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Danny Ben-Moshe, Double Games, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Israel, Joseph Melamed, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Lithuania Assaults Holocaust Memory

Tripletalk on the New ‘Looted Books Room’ at the National Library in Vilnius

Posted on 1 November 2011 by Defending History

Yivo’s director, one of the current Lithuanian government’s staunchest PR providers in the west (see here, here, here, here), recently told the English Forward that ‘he would continue to work with the Lithuanian government to reach a permanent settlement over the archive’, implying that the Yivo Board would be making its decision in due course.

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Posted in Books, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, News & Views | Comments Off on Tripletalk on the New ‘Looted Books Room’ at the National Library in Vilnius