Event Summary and Links to Coverage:
Defending History’s Team of 12 Monitors & Protests Kaunas Independence Day Neo-Nazi March on Feb. 16th
Lithuanian Jewish Community Issues Statement on Feb. 20th
MARCH FEATURED LONG SERIES OF FASCIST-STYLE TAUNTS OF LIETUVA LIETUVIAMS (“LITHUANIA FOR [ETHNIC] LITHUANIANS”) ALONG WITH SWASTIKAS, OTHER FASCIST SYMBOLS AND A HUGE BANNER OF THE 1941 NAZI PUPPET PM WHO COLLABORATED IN THE DESTRUCTION OF HIS CITY’S CITIZENS WHO WERE JEWISH. MAYOR’S OFFICE GAVE PERMITS FOR CITY CENTER TRAVESTY ON NATION’S INDEPENDENCE DAY.
ZERO PUBLIC REACTION FROM GOV. OFFICIALS OR DOMESTIC HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS. THE WIESENTHAL CENTER, DEFENDING HISTORY AND THE COUNTRY’S JEWISH COMMUNITY TO DATE THE ONLY PUBLIC VOICES.
Monitoring team was a project of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office in partnership with the Vilnius-based Defending History team.
Dozen protesters (vs. a march of up to 500) included five members of Lithuanian Jewish community (in private capacity), but no sign of any Bagels or other funded antisemitism (or human rights) monitors.
AFTER THE EVENT: JTA; Newsru.com; 15min.lt; Alfa.lt; Balsas.lt; Delfi.lt; Enlacejudío.com; EuropaUniversal; Faktai.lt; FB; Forward; ICEJ; Info.smi; Interfax; International Business Times; Israel Nachrichten; Jerusalem Post; JP (2); Jewish Community of Lithuania; Kauno diena; Lrt.lt; Lrytas.lt; Obzor; Newsru.co.il; News02elf; Radiojai.com.ar; RT; Shalom Life; Simon Wiesenthal Center; Strategic Culture Foundation; Times of Israel (French edition); Vilniaus diena; Ztis.cz.
RUN-UP TO THE EVENT: i24; Defending History (+ DH correspondence with mayor’s office; + SWC’s letter to the mayor).
PHOTO COLLECTIONS: Julius Norwilla; 15min.lt; Delfi.lt; Facebook; Kauno diena; Lrytas.lt; Vilniaus diena.
VIDEOS: Lrytas.tv; Lrt.lt.
NEO-NAZI & FAR-RIGHT REACTION: DavidDuke.com; Daily Slave.com; LDiena.lt; LtNacionalistas; Nationalist Youth Union; J. Panka; Stormfront; Vyrud.livejournal; Zeppelinus 1 + Zeppelinus 2 + Zeppelinus 3. But who is Zeppelinus?
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Images from the 16 February 2015 march in central Kaunas that went ahead with full authorization from the mayor’s office and municipality. Images: DefendingHistory.com.
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Baltic Nazi-Glorifying Marching Season Underway
COME JOIN US IN KAUNAS, MONDAY 16 FEB. at 1 PM (1300), AT RAMYBĖS PARK, TO MONITOR, SILENTLY PROTEST, & REMEMBER THE CITY’S MORE THAN 30,000 MURDERED JEWISH CITIZENS.
WIESENTHAL CENTER’S EFRAIM ZUROFF FLYING IN TO MONITOR EVENT AND LEAD PEACEFUL PROTEST; HIS LETTER TO KAUNAS MAYOR; OBZOR; DELFI.LT; KAUNO DIENA; ALKAS.LT
DH’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH KAUNAS MAYOR’S OFFICE. FOR THE RECORD:ISRAELI HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS’ LETTER OF 2013.
Presidents, Mayors, Cardinals, Professors, Editors —
“A splendid opportunity for Baltic leaders to just speak up”
Efraim Zuroff’s op-ed on all four marches calls on Brussels to take a stand
CITY-CENTER NEO-NAZI MARCHES THAT GLORIFY WARTIME HITLER COLLABORATORS NOW SCHEDULED FOR ALL THREE BALTIC STATES; ESTONIAN & LITHUANIAN EVENTS ARE ON NATIONS’ INDEPENDENCE DAY HOLIDAYS
ESTONIA: TALLINN, FEBRUARY 24TH
LATVIA: RIGA, MARCH 16TH
LITHUANIA: KAUNAS, FEB. 16TH AND VILNIUS, MARCH 11TH
Eyewitness accounts of previous years’ marches
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Can Things Be Different This Year?
WILL LITHUANIA’S LEADERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST GRANTING MAJOR CITY CENTERS ON INDEPENDENCE DAYS TO NEO-NAZI MARCHES THAT ADULATE 1941 HOLOCAUST COLLABORATORS?
WILL “BAGEL SHOP” AND OTHER FUNDED MONITORS ISSUE A MORALLY CLEAR STATEMENT? A MEMBER OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY SPEAKS OUT; HIS EARLIER VIDEOTAPED INTERVIEW IN RICHARD BLOOM’S DOCUMENTARY.
Annual marches (since 2008) slated for Kaunas on February 16th and Vilnius on March 11th. For years, one of neo-Nazi march’s main organizers was a high official at the “Genocide Center” …
Last year’s events in Kaunas and Vilnius included swastikas, fascist and white-power symbols and huge banners glorifying the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister who signed papers confirming the transfer of his city’s Jews to a death camp and ghetto
“BUT THE VAST MAJORITY OF LITHUANIA’S PEOPLE DO NOT WANT CHERISHED NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE DAYS HIJACKED BY THE NEO-NAZIS IN MAJOR CITY CENTERS. A TIME TO SPEAK UP?”
Very Sad for Kaunas…
The city’s prestigious university, Vytautas Magnus University, continues tohost a shrine (bas-relief and lecture hall name) to the 1941 Nazi puppet who collaborated in sending his fellow citizens of Jewish ethnicity to a death camp and the Kovno Ghetto. What message does this send to today’s students? To the neo-Nazi marchers who carry banners of the same “hero”?
INTERNATIONAL PETITIONS: KRYSTYNA ANNA STEIGER & MONICA LOWENBERG
The victims of the Lithuanian Holocaust were also citizens of Lithuania. Does the mayor of Kaunas really want his city center on independence day to be shamed by glorification of the perpetrators and collaborators?
The 95-96% of Lithuanian Jewry murdered in the Holocaust were Lithuanian citizens. Those who lived in the independent Republic of Lithuania celebrated the February 16th independence day with the same love and fervor as their fellow citizens.
Below, a 1928 image of the Jewish community of Darbėnai (Yiddish: Dorbyán) celebrating, with a large sign in Lithuanian and Hebrew (upon which is mounted the national emblem) the tenth anniversary of independence on February 16th. What message does it send in 2015 for a city-center Kaunas march on the day to feature a huge banner glorifying the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister who signed papers ordering the 30,000 Jews of his city to be incarcerated in a ghetto? What message does it send when national leaders and human-rights NGOs keep silent?
