The following is a translation of the Lithuanian-language statement released today by the central offices of the Social Democratic Party in Vilnius:
Monthly Archives: January 2012
Press Release Issued by the Social Democratic Party in Lithuania
Olga Zabludoff’s Debate in VilNews (October 2011 — January 2012)
O P I N I O N
by Olga Zabludoff
Note: The following six articles, spanning the period October 2011 through January 2012, were published in VilNews in the course of a discussion. Each article is followed by the link to the original VilNews publication to enable readers to follow both sides of the argument (if Comments are included — many sides of the argument) in the original place of publication.
1. Mr. Januta Twists Facts and Figures to Suit his Arguments
Mr. Januta’s article goes right to the heart of the problem: the tendency of critics like him to accuse others of being misinformed and of misstating facts. Indeed it is Mr. Januta who twists facts and figures to suit his arguments. Even when his facts are “correct,” they are simply half-truths.
For example: Yes, there is a Holocaust Museum in Vilnius, but to compare the pitiful little hidden building (the Green House) with the state-of-the-art Museum of Genocide located on a major street is like comparing a mouse to an elephant.
UK MP Denis MacShane’s January 24th 2012 Letter to Lithuanian MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis
The following letter, from UK MP Dr. Denis MacShane, was received today by the office of Lithuanian parliament member Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis:
Dr. Shimon Alperovich, Chairman of Lithuanian Jewish Community, Blasts “Double Genocide” on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Dr. Shimon Alperovich spoke out on the fashionable — and deeply disturbing — “Double Genocide” theory of World War II at the annual 27 January Holocaust Remembrance Day program held at the Jewish Community of Lithuania’s Vilnius headquarters at Pylimo Street 4.
Video, by Defending History, of Dr. Alperovich’s remarks, delivered in Lithuanian, is available on YouTube.
Antony Polonsky Returns to Brandeis ‘Knighted’ by Lithuanian President’s Cross of the Officer of the Order — for helping the Baltic State’s Holocaust PR Campaign
C O M M E N T
VILNIUS—Professor Antony Polonsky of Brandeis University, one of the world’s most accomplished scholars of Polish-Jewish history and the long time editor of the seminal Polish Jewish history series Polin, was at the Lithuanian president’s palace today to receive from her excellency the prestigious Cross of the Officer of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. The award, pinned on his chest by President Dalia Grybauskaitė, was not for a lifetime of sterling work on Polish Jewish history, but it seemed, for several years’ staunch and perhaps somewhat naive loyalty to the public relations program of the current government of Lithuania, organized by the local Holocaust revisionism elite’s alleged top handler of “important foreign Jews,” Prof. S.arunas Liekis. The presidential press release, reported in English by Baltic News Service (BNS), put it this way:
UK MP Denis MacShane Rushes to Defense of Lithuanian Parliamentarians who Signed Seventy Years Declaration; Slams Foreign Minister’s Hitler-Stalin ‘Joke’
The following press statement was issued today by the office of UK MP Denis MacShane concerning the response of the Lithuanian foreign minister to the news that eight Lithuanian parliamentarians had signed the Seventy Years Declaration.
News Release 25 Jan. 2012
On the eve of National Holocaust Day, former Europe Minister Denis MacShane MP has written to Lithuanian MPs and MEPs who defied their political establishment to sign a statement on the Holocaust which attacks attempts to devalue the Nazi extermination of Jews by claiming it is no worse than the crimes committed by communists.
The Seventy Years Declaration was issued on 20 January 2012 by seventy European Union parliamentarians (MPs and MEPs) concerned about the return of antisemitism as an issue in contemporary politics. In January 1942, Nazi officials met at a conference at Lake Wannsee close to Berlin to plan the industrially organized extermination of European Jewry.
In recent years, European right-wing politicians have sought to gain acceptance for their view that the suffering under communist rule was the same as the Nazi extermination of Jews. This so-called “double genocide” thesis has been criticized by campaigners against modern antisemitism as leading to a devaluation of the unique specific Jew-hating roots of the Holocaust.
Now social democratic MPs and MEPs in Lithuania who signed this declaration have been attacked by government officials. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister went so far as to say there was no difference between Hitler and Stalin except the length of their moustache.Continue reading
The Waffen-SS as Freedom Fighters
O P I N I O N
by Per Anders Rudling
Despised and ostracized, the Swedish community of Waffen-SS volunteers long gathered in secret on April 14, “The Day of the Fallen,” for obscure ritualistic annual gatherings at a cemetery in a Stockholm suburb.[1]
Since the 1990s, the rituals have not needed to be clandestine: the few, now very elderly survivors now head to Sinimäe, Estonia, where they feel they are now getting the honor to which they are entitled. Here, Swedish, Norwegian, Austrian, German and other Waffen-SS veterans from Western Europe meet up with their Estonian comrades.[2] The annual gatherings include those who volunteered for ideological reasons, and who are today actively passing on the experiences to a new generation of neo-Nazis.
“Civil” Discourse in Ukraine
O P I N I O N
by Jared McBride
I sent the following op-ed, “Euro 2012: Maydan of hate?” to the Kyiv Post in late December regarding the hate literature that is often sold on Maidan Nezalezhnosti. It was published on 21 December 2011. One can read the comments made on the Kyiv Post‘s website here (taken today from the Comments section following my op-ed).
In response to my op-ed I had my educational background questioned; I was deemed a supporter of Kaganovich, Tabachnyk, and Yanukovych in no particular order; I was given various history lessons that have nothing to do with the letter at hand (and nothing to do with history either); conspiracy theories were shared; and I was called names, not least “son of a bitch.” The last epithet was perhaps the most ironic bearing in mind that I am fortunate to have a mother who raised me to have enough dignity to not insult people on internet forums while hiding behind false names.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Berates his Country’s Parliamentarians who Signed ‘70 Years Declaration’; Says Hitler = Stalin Except for Length of their Moustaches
The foreign minister of Lithuania did not wait until the day was over.
“It is not possible to find differences between Hitler and Stalin except in their moustaches (Hitler’s was shorter).”
— The Foreign Minister of Lithuania, commenting upon the Seventy Years Declaration in the early hours of 20 January 2012, 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference
Unconfirmed Report: Yad Vashem asked to Shore Up Discredited Red-Brown Commission with Three (!) New Members
VILNIUS. Unconfirmed rumors were swirling in “Holocaust politics” circles this week about an alleged request by “very high officials” of the Lithuanian government to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem — through channels including both countries’ foreign ministries — to shore up the status of the widely discredited “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.” The commission is widely known as the “Red-Brown Commission.”
The Seventy Years Declaration in Dutch
20 januari 2012
De Zeventig Jaar-Declaratie
ter gelegenheid van het jubileum van de Definitieve Oplossing-conferentie bij Wannsee
Op deze zeventigste verjaardag van de formele adoptering door het nazieleiderschap van de ‘Definitieve Oplossing van het Joodse probleem’, wij, de ondertekenaars van dit document:
The Seventy Years Declaration in Ukrainian
Сімдесят років Декларації
З нагоди річниці конференції «Остаточного рішення»
З приводу сімдесятиріччя офіційного прийняття нацистською владою «Остаточного рішення єврейського питання», ми нижче підписуємо:
The Seventy Years Declaration (Yiddish Text)
די זיבעציק יאָריקע דעקלאַראַציע
צום יאָרטאָג פון דער „ענדלייזונג“ קאָנפערענץ אין וואַנזע
דעם 20טן יאַנואַר 2012 \ פינף און צוואַנציק טעג אין טבת תשע″ב
צו אָט דעם זיבעציקסטן יאָרטאָג פון דער פאָרמעלער אָננעמונג דורך דער נאַצישער אָנפירערשאַפט פון דער „ענדלייזונג פון דער יידישער פּראָבלעם“, טרעטן מיר די אונטערגעחתמעטע אַרויס, בכדי:
פאַרגעדענקען:
The Seventy Years Declaration in Spanish
Declaración de los Setenta Años
en el Aniversario de la Conferencia de Wannsee sobre la Solución Final
En este 70 aniversario de la adopción formal de la “Solución final del problema judío” por parte de los líderes nazis, nosotros, los abajo firmantes
The Seventy Years Declaration in Belarusian
20 студзеня 2012 года
Дэклярацыя да 70-х угодкаў Ванзэйскай канфэрэнцыі па “Канчатковым рашэньні”
The Seventy Years Declaration in Norwegian
Erklæring på 70-årsdagen
for Wannsee-konferansen om Den endelige løsning
På 70-årsdagen for naziledelsens formelle vedtak om ”Den endelige løsning på det jødiske problem” vil undertegnede
Minnes:
The Seventy Years Declaration
The Seventy Years Declaration
on the Anniversary of the Final Solution Conference at Wannsee
On this the 70th anniversary of the formal adoption by the Nazi leadership of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem” we the undersigned
Free Speech Reaffirmed by Vilnius Judge in Algirdas Paleckis Case
The Seventy Years Declaration
O P I N I O N
by Danny Ben-Moshe
This comment appeared today in the Jerusalem Post and is republished here with the author’s permission.
On January 20, 1942, the Nazi leadership gathered in a villa on the outskirts of Berlin and adopted the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” The Wannsee Conference, as this became known, from the suburb where the meeting was held, formalized the process that exterminated so much of European Jewry.
As we mark the seventieth anniversary of that 90-minute meeting in which fifteen people condemned millions to death, there are many crucial lessons to learn from the Holocaust. I wish to highlight two.
Firstly, the killing of a people begins not with violence, but through race-based hatred, progressing to institutionalized discrimination and only then culminating in murder. This is why antisemitism, racism and institutionalized discrimination must be addressed, for if left to fester the consequences can be tragic, severe and widespread.