Monthly Archives: December 2015
Genocide Center Greets New Year’s 2016 With More Adulation of Holocaust Perpetrators
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide, Genocide Center (Vilnius), Human Rights, Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika
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When Both Law Enforcement and Politicians Cover Up Racism
HUMAN RIGHTS | RACISM | ROMA | OPINION
by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė
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Vilma Fiokla Kiurė
A Nigerian citizen was attacked with a knife and injured in Kaunas, Lithuania, earlier this month. Trying hard to avoid describing the assault as a racially motivated hate crime, law enforcement officials and the mainstream media alike explained that the incident was purely part of a private dispute. Strange to tell, reading through official statistics you would rapidly come to the conclusion that racist and xenopohobic crimes in Lithuania stand at about zero. And, that neo-Nazi minded youth are “just patriotic.”
It is no great secret in this part of the world that law enforcement officials and some politicians like to beautify the statistics, or to terminate or redefine proceedings brought in respect of racial or xenophobic hatred. One example comes to mind from 2011, when MPs J. Narkevičius and E. Zingeris appealed to the General Prosecutor’s Office to do something about the neo-Nazi ideology espoused in the song “Diktatūra” by the group “Šalčininkų rajonas” (Šalčininkai District).
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Human Rights, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Roma, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė
Tagged Diktatūra, Human rights in Lihtuania, neo-Nazis in Lithuania, Racism in Lithuania, Roma in Lithuania, Šalčininkų rajonas, Vilma Fiokla Kiure
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Lithuanian Shtetl Malát (Molėtai) to be Commemorated in 2016
LITVAK AFFAIRS | EVENTS
by Tzvi-Hirsh (Gregory) Kritzer
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Iam making a documentary film about the Jewish history and legacy of Malát (now Molėtai), a small shtetl in Lithuania. The film will endeavor to cover the history, life and culture of the Maláter, the Jews of Malát, and also the genocide of the entire community carried out by the Nazis and their local collaborators. My father’s family was killed there together with about 1000 Malát Jews.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Malát (Molėtai), News & Views, Tzvi-Hirsh Kritzer
Tagged Gregory Kritzer, Holocaust in Lithuania, Malat (Lithuania), Malater Benevolent Association, Moletai (Lithuania), Tzvi Kritzer
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Is Lithuania’s President Distancing Herself from Prime Minister’s “Religious Zeal” for the “Convention Center in the Old Jewish Cemetery”?
PIRAMÓNT | PAPER TRAIL | OPPOSITION | CEMETERIES
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NEW YORK—In response to his 20 Nov. 2015 letter that has been described by some who have seen it as “powerful,” New York businessman Berel Fried, an Orthodox Jewish scholar and descendant of many people buried at the old Piramónt Jewish cemetery in Vilnius received a reply this week from the office of Lithuania’s president, Dalia Grybauskaitė. Her reply, dated 18 Dec. 2015, was released today by Mr. Fried’s office in New York City. Mr. Fried has been a frequent visitor to Vilnius and Kaunas for many years and is a celebrated guest reader of the Torah when he visits the Choral Synagogue on Pylimo Street in Vilnius.
Posted in Berel Fried, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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Lithuania’s Liveliest Cemetery
OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | PAPER TRAIL | OPPOSITION | CEMETERIES
by Dovid Katz
Editor’s note: Reprint from The Times of Israel, where this op-ed appeared on 13 December 2015.
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Back in 2009, a rancorous dispute over the old Vilna Jewish cemetery was ostensibly solved. Two new buildings, despite worldwide protests, would be allowed to remain, and in return, no more land would be pilfered from the cemetery at Piramónt, in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The burial ground goes back to the late fifteenth century, at least. After the Holocaust, with virtually no descendants left to worry about, Soviet authorities helped themselves to the gravestones for use in building projects, but left many thousands of graves intact. A galaxy of eminent European rabbinic scholars and authors were buried there. But once the 2009 “Peace of Piramónt” was brokered (with help from Western embassies here), emotions cooled as all sides got on with their lives.
Future symbol for a capital city in the European Union? by VULOVAK / DefendingHistory.com
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, Citizenship, Double Games, Dovid Katz, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Tagged Beata Nemcova, Commission on Lithuanian-Jewish Heritage, CPJCE, Dovid Katz, Feinstein, Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, Jews in Lithuania, Kotler, Lithuanian-Jewish relations, Litvak Affairs, Piramont (Snipiskes), Snipiskes, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Soloveichik, Tomasz (Tomek) Wiśniewski, US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, Vilnius national convention center
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Documents Which Argue for Ethnic Cleansing (by Kazys Škirpa, Stasys Raštikis, Stasys Lozoraitis and Petras Klimas in 1940-1941 and by Birutė Teresė Burauskaitė in 2015)
O P I N I O N / H I S T O R Y
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2023 update: Readers experiencing difficulty accessing sources linked are referred to the archived version where original links are operative.
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by Andrius Kulikauskas
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As of October 28, 2015, the home page of the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania has a link to an authorative statement by General Director Birutė Teresė Burauskaitė about Kazys Škirpa. She responds to a request for information by the City of Kaunas, which has a street in Škirpa’s name. Škirpa was Lithuania’s representative in Berlin, the leader of the Lithuanian Activist Front, organizer of Lithuania’s anti-Soviet rebellion and Prime Minister of Lithuania’s Provisional Government in 1941. In bold letters she emphasizes:
Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Genocide Center (Vilnius), History, Human Rights, Kazys Škirpa, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion
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It’s Not Just About Old Jewish Cemeteries
O P I N I O N / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L / O P P O S I T I O N / C E M E T E R I E S
by Milan Chersonski
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Translated from the Russian by Ludmila Makedonskaya (Grodno); English version approved by the author, Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij), longtime editor (1999-2011) of Jerusalem of Lithuania, quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. He was previously (1979-1999) director of the Yiddish Folk Theater of Lithuania. The views he expresses in Defending History are his own. See also Milan Chersonski section. Photo © Jurgita Kunigiškytė.
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There were many festive occasions celebrated once Lithuania declared its independence in 1990. So many hopes and expectations were inspired by the sweet word freedom. Free-ee-dom! Laisvė! Had it ever been possible to even imagine beforehand, taking one example, that Lithuania would hold a celebration to honor Israeli Independence Day, dear to Jews all over the world? The new state organized a large event at the Palace of Culture of the Trade Unions in Vilnius in honor of a faraway state, which in Soviet times was mentioned only as “the aggressive state of Israel.”
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Jewish cemeteries Vilna, Milan Chersonski, Milan Chersonskij, Piramont Snipiskes cemetery, Snipiskes cemetery
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Why Would the “Genocide Center” in Vilnius Manipulate History and Glorify Murderers?
O P I N I O N / C O L L A B O R A T O R S G L O R I F I E D / G E N O C I D E C E N T E R
by Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė
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“I am a former Lithuanian soldier myself and have a personal remark to make. Nobody will ever force me to wear the uniform of another country’s armed forces, because I am a Lithuanian patriot. I will not wear the uniform of Russia or of Mozambique.”
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Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė
One of the main Lithuanian dailies Lietuvos žinios (Lithuanian News) reported in an article on 24 November 2015 that the council of the celebrated Sajūdis organization (famed for its role in resisting the USSR and helping to achieve Lithuanian independence), had now, in 2015, decided to apply to prosecutors to take legal action over an article that had appeared in the 13 October 2015 edition of Laisvas laikraštis (Free Newspaper).
Sajūdis “decided” that the author had violated the law because he mentioned that Lithuanian postwar militants Vytautas Žemaitis, Jonas Noreika (Vėtra), Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas and others might have been personally involved in Holocaust atrocities. [Editor’s note: See articles by Evaldas Balčiūnas on the alleged Holocaust involvement of Žemaitis, Noreika, and Baltūsis -Žvejas.]
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Free Speech & Democracy, Genocide Center (Vilnius), History, Human Rights, Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Sweden
Tagged Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Birute Burauskaite, Genocide Center Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust Obfuscation, Jonas Noreika, Jonas Öhman, Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė, Vytautas Žemaitis
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