Lithuanian Government Invests in 2nd PR Conference at University College London, 17-18 Dec.
Another Graywash manipulation of a venerable Western institution? It happened once back in 2011. Open letter then issued was signed by the head of UCL’s Jewish Studies.
THE NEW PETITION
MONICA LOWENBERG LAUNCHES PUBLIC PETITION, BASED ON LETTER TO AMBASSADOR ASTA SKAISGIRYTĖ-LIAUŠKIENĖ (VETERAN OF 2009 BOOK FAIR FIASCO); UCL ALUMNUS PROTESTS TO PROVOST
After investing heavily in reburying with full honours and glorifying the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister (in May 2012), sectors of the Lithuanian government are investing in a second lavish London conference (in Dec. 2012) to cover up these policies with Jewish PR. Issues on the table include the ongoing glorification of local Holocaust perpetrators (most recently in a “peace park” in the capital), and support for the Prague Declaration of 2008, and other Double Genocide revisionist projects. Defending History has proposed constructive solutions to the issues at hand.
Glittering 2012 events in Vilnius and Kaunas to mark the reburial with full honours of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister who signed the German orders for all of Kovno (Kaunas) Jewry to be herded into a ghetto. He also signed orders for a concentration camp that was actually a torture and mass murder site (Seventh Fort, Kaunas).
Defending History salutes one of the conference’s participants, MEP Professor Leonidas Donskis on his bold and brave writings of 2012, including: his open letter and essay in DH concerning the state’s (and his old university’s) glorification of the 1941 Nazi puppet PM. Bravo, MEP Donskis!
In 2012, Lithuanian authorities again gave the green light for Independence Day neo-Nazi marches in the city centres of Vilnius and of Kaunas; continued investing in the glorification of local “patriots” who participated in murdering 95% of the country’s Jewish population, and are now pressing ahead full-speed with the “Double Genocide” Holocaust Obfuscation campaign in the European Union. There have been no efforts to repeal the 2010 legalization of public swastikas. In the 2012 marches, the “Lithuanian swastika” (see image at right), with extra lines, was again featured prominently. The UN’s Human Rights Committee has expressed concern. None of the defamed Holocaust Survivors accused of “war crimes” have received apologies.
Any gestures for Dr. Rachel Margolis? She is the 91 year old Holocaust Survivor targeted by Lithuanian prosecutors. Gordon Brown had the courage to speak up. What about the conference organizers?
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The Conference letterhead gives hints on who is supplying the funding, and who is being used to provide a facade of prestigious Western academic legitimacy for Holocaust Obfuscation…
Academic purpose: replacement of the “simple” “Jewish” narrative with (the “complicated”) Baltic far-right Holocaust Obfuscation model. The Holocaust is trivialized, Nazi and Soviet crimes proclaimed “equal” by law (2 years in prison for disagreeing), Jewish Communism blamed for all, and the Allied victory over Hitler and Nazi Germany reduced to an insignificant footnote.
Will the conference mention the actual debate of 2012?
State support for the Prague Declaration (2008) vs. the 2012 response, the Seventy Years Declaration, signed by 71 EU parliamentarians, including eight bold MPs and MEPs from Lithuania
Any voices for the works of Yitzhak Arad, Yehuda Bauer, David Bankier, Sir Martin Gilbert, Dov Levin, Karen Sutton, Liudas Truska, Efraim Zuroff and others? Methodical avoidance of the real issues and solutions in Lithuanian-Jewish relations, and bold Lithuanian voices of our times?
Defending History’s mini-ed:
“The majesty of history will prevail. Ruses by governments to buy her up will fail.”
In January 2012, the star speaker & “conference convenor” Prof. A. Polonsky, one of the world’s leading professors of Polish-Jewish history, was knighted by the president of Lithuania. But was it for his magnificent works on Polish-Jewish history, or for something else? Click here to find out more…
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TICKETS FOR SALE AT STERLING £12 + £1.37 “FEE”
“Seasoned wisdom” from one of the specialists being flown in from Queens, N.Y. for the conference. The motto of UCL Jewish Studies: “Loyal to our students! Loyal to our graduates!” Lithuanian embassy’s point man at UCL, the Corob Reader, Dr. Francois Guesnet, assures the JC that participants are “chosen for their expertise, not on whether they were critical or not of the government.” Also flying in: Yiddish-less director of the “Vilnius Yiddish Institute” (after all, it’s only Yiddish…).
- “Violence” is the conference euphemism for Holocaust, massacre, genocide. . .
THE GOOD NEWS
IN 2012, COURAGEOUS LITHUANIAN CITIZENS FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE STOOD UP LOUD AND CLEAR, MORE THAN EVER BEFORE, AGAINST ANTISEMITISM, STATE DISTORTION OF HISTORY, AND OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED RACISM
UPDATES: In response to criticisms on this page, the original conference program published in November 2012 has now been revised to include in the opening session the elected deputy chairperson of the Jewish Community of Lithuania and the most courageous Lithuanian-citizen scholar of our generation who has stood up boldly for historic truth: Professor (now MEP) Leonidas Donskis, who this year published (in Defending History) two powerful responses (an open letter followed by a major essay) protesting the government’s 2012 reburial of the Nazi puppet PM. Defending History is proud to host a Leonidas Donskis section.
This journal commends the London organizers on these (late) adjustments (albeit under pressure), while warning that the overall purposes continue undiminished: PR cover for the Double Genocide campaign in the European Union, cover for the glorification of local collaborators and perpetrators, and for the indefinite defamation of the heroic Holocaust survivors who joined the anti-Nazi resistance and are heroes of the free world.
Readers are invited to sign the international petition calling for removal of state-sponsored memorials for Holocaust killers and collaborators. More in Evaldas Balčiūnas’s section. Alas, Kaunas’s Vytautas Magnus University continues to feature a lecture hall and bas relief honouring the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister.
Hopefully, the conference will also call for removal of antisemitic exhibits from the state-sponsored Genocide Museum and state-supplied signs at Gruto Parkas, and of publicly antisemitic personnel at the Genocide Center.
LONDON FOG I (in 2011)
