Tag Archives: Antisemitism in Lithuania

Rabbi Elchonon Baron Adds Powerful Voice to International Appeals to ‘Working Group’ to Abandon Refurbishment of Hated Soviet Ruin and Restore the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery



DOCUMENTS | OPINION2023 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | THE “CPJCE” LONDON GRAVE TRADERS | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY AFFAIRSHUMAN RIGHTS

VILNIUS—Shortly before yesterday’s meeting in Vilnius of the Lithuanian prime minister’s Working Group (commission) on the fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramont in the Shnípishok district (today’s Snipiskes section of modern Vilnius), the commission’s members received the text of the rabbinic edict signed by four of the world’s greatest Lithuanian-tradition (Litvak, Litvish) heads of yeshivas around the world, making clear that no museum, memorial center or other functional building may ever be set up or operate on hallowed Jewish cemetery grounds.

Afterwards, the commission’s members, including those who had flown in from the United States, Israel and Britain, were wined and dined at elegant chancery events in the highest halls of Lithuanian government, in apparent hopes that the commission would go on to rubberstamp plans of the ultranationalist establishment and corrupt business interests alike to effectively destroy the cemetery by reconstructing a huge Soviet ruin in its center rather than lovingly restore the cemetery as a genuine treasure of Lithuania and the storied Litvak heritage. During these events, some members of the commission received an open letter from Rabbi Elchonon Baron, head of the Lithuanian-tradition Yeshiva Ahavas Torah Baranovich, based in Jerusalem, and himself a scion of Litvak royalty. His late father was the legendary Litvak head-of-yeshiva Rabbi Aryeh Leib Baron.

The text of Rabbi Elchonon Baron’s open letter follows.

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Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Rabbi Elchonon Baron, The 2023 'Working Group' on the Future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Rabbi Elchonon Baron Adds Powerful Voice to International Appeals to ‘Working Group’ to Abandon Refurbishment of Hated Soviet Ruin and Restore the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

A Masterclass in Orwellian Discourse: The Vilnius Cemetery Commission Minutes of 26 October 2023



OPINION | DOCUMENTS | 2023 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | THE “CPJCE” LONDON GRAVE TRADERSCEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY AFFAIRS | HUMAN RIGHTS

by Dovid Katz

This week’s release of the official minutes, in Lithuanian and in English, of the 26 October 2023 meeting of the current international “Working Group” (list of members) established to advise on the future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in the Shnípishok district, today’s Šnipiškės) contain some passages, in the view of this journal, worthy of George Orwell. Here are some samples from the official English language text (the entirety of which appears below, and is available in PDF format). Each quote in bold text is followed by some commentary.

“The objective is to honour and commemorate the centuries-long history of Lithuanian Jews and the Šnipiškės cemetery.”

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Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Documents, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, The 2023 'Working Group' on the Future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on A Masterclass in Orwellian Discourse: The Vilnius Cemetery Commission Minutes of 26 October 2023

For Vilnius’s 700 Year Celebrations, Antisemitic ‘Artists’ Launch Vicious New Holocaust-‘Justifying’ Souvenir



ANTISEMITISM  |  700 YEARS OF VILNIUS CELEBRATIONS  |  POLITICS OF MEMORY  |  DOUBLE GENOCIDE

VILNIUS—This commemorative envelope was purchased this morning, on Easter Sunday, on Pilies gatve, Vilnius’s historic Castle Street that has become the city’s center for souvenir stalls and shops. It is an older antisemitic envelope design seen many times before, picturing the Jews of Kaunas allegedly welcoming the Soviet army into town during World War II (i.e. blaming the Jews for the 1940 Soviet occupation as excuse for the genocide — the Lithuanian Holocaust — that followed a year later, wiping out some 96.4% of Lithuanian Jewry, with thousands murdered in  late June 1941 before the Germans even took over).

 

The caption “explains”  (in Lithuanian) that “on June 15, 1940, numerous crowds of Kaunas Jews welcome the occupying Red Army (archive photo)”. No mention of the vastly larger numbers of Lithuanians, Poles and Russians who turned out. No mention that this canard continues to be used to “explain” the Lithuanian Holocaust. No mention of the failure of the nation’s army to defend the country or the president’s fleeing the country. But plenty of room to link (in English) the antisemitic canard to the current 700 year Vilnius anniversary festivities. Are Western tourists presumed to be idiots?

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Vilnius | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on For Vilnius’s 700 Year Celebrations, Antisemitic ‘Artists’ Launch Vicious New Holocaust-‘Justifying’ Souvenir

Vilnius Court’s May 10th Verdict Illustrates “Insidious and Tragic” Role of CPJCE and AJC in Lithuania



VILNIUS—Readers are familiar with an English summary of the Vilnius District Court’s 10 May decision paving the way for a massive national convention center and annex to rise in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Shnípishok, in today’s Šnipiškės district), surrounded by thousands of extant graves on all four sides. Moreover, the entire text of the Lithuanian original is posted for inspection.

Jump to verdict’s excerpts referencing the CPJCE (and AJC)

What may be lost from the summary, and to those unable to read Lithuanian or to access a translation, is the “insidious and tragic” — and in any case central — role played by London’s “CPJCE” (the Orwellian name is “Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe), whose “Aaronite-Satmar” rabbis have been caught on Wikileaks demanding large sums for their “supervisions” (and in effect, permissions) for effectively selling rights to old Jewish cemeteries on ground zero of the Holocaust. The effects of the genocide include the dearth of viable communities of descendants of the buried who would in the course of things guard the dignity of their ancestors’ burial places (see: 2009 Wikileaks cable confirming secret payments; 2015 reports by JTA and the Jerusalem Post; the “Serious Incident Report” to UK’s Charities Commission. See also last December’s “Day of Shame”). Incidentally, the opposing (“Zalmanite”) branch of Satmar hasidism has boldly condemned the desecration of the old Vilna cemetery in a statement signed by the grandrabbi himself.

From the infamous 2015 video to the present court decision, Defending History has been providing a detailed record of at least the publicly knowable aspects of the group’s shameful role in the Vilna scandal, scoffing and belittling the voices of virtually all Litvak (Lithuanian tradition) rabbis internationally (see DH’s section on the CPJCE (plus the classic video) on the broader Vilna cemetery dispute, and summary pages of the international opposition and more recent developments).

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Posted in American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, CPJCE (London), Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Vilnius Court’s May 10th Verdict Illustrates “Insidious and Tragic” Role of CPJCE and AJC in Lithuania

Chief Rabbi of South Africa Calls on Lithuania’s Leaders to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Jewish Cemetery



OPINION  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  | INTERNATIONAL PETITION  |  USCPAHA | CPJCE  |  ADMAS KODESH

JOHANNESBURG—The Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, today added his voice to the international Litvak and wider opposition to state-sponsored desecration of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt in the form of a national convention center surrounded by Jewish graves going back half a millennium in Vilna, the city once known as Jerusalem of Lithuania. The office of the chief rabbinate made public his letter to Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda and prime minister Saulius Skvernelis.

A PDF of his letter is available here, and follows below. Please use handles in the upper left-hand corner to turn pages.


Chief Rabbi of South Africa on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), South Africa | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Chief Rabbi of South Africa Calls on Lithuania’s Leaders to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Jewish Cemetery

Why Does Lithuania’s Military Academy Disseminate Antisemitic Sentiments?



OPINION  |  ANTISEMITISM  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

I agree that the name of this piece is quite shocking. To see what I am talking about, it suffices to look through just one publication, published by the General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania in cooperation with the “Versmė” publishing house. The academy is itself named for an alleged Holocaust collaborator (See my 2013 article), but that is not the topic of today’s piece, save that yet again it turns out that “state agencies just naming something” for a Holocaust collaborator is not seldom itself an ominous portent of institutional and state-sponsored racism. Indeed, the state Military Academy named for one alleged collaborator actually published an antisemitic tome by another, Jonas Noreika, who of course went on to active collaboration with the Holocaust.

Here are several excerpts from this 2016 publication brought out by the Academy that recently made it to foreign book purchasers, that would be universally recognized as antisemitic. The first refers to folks from the different regions of Lithuanians, naturally ignoring that they were for many centuries home to people of diverse origins, religions, nationalities (indeed, the Yiddish language has the term Zámeter for a person from the first named region):

Samogitians, Aukštaitians, Dzūkians, and Klaipėdians!

Your future is full of prosperity and wealth! We must know it well! Because it will depend only on us if we are going to benefit from this prosperity ourselves or give it away to Jews, Germans, and other foreigners that keep invading Lithuania! They see that the highest standard of living in the whole world is going to be here! Indeed! It will not be us migrating to other countries, but others coming to us to earn heaps of money!

Most of the auctioned off farms are bought by Jews! They feel and perhaps know that, in three years’ time or even sooner, that land will be worth tenfold! Indeed!”

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Jonas Žemaitis, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Why Does Lithuania’s Military Academy Disseminate Antisemitic Sentiments?

Vilnius City Council Finally Decides to Change Name of Škirpa Street



Vilnius City Council Finally Decides to Change Name of Škirpa Street

Vote is  20 to 16

Defending History brought the issue to the international community in 2010

See Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas’s classic 2015 Defending History paper on Škirpa; Vilnius City Council efforts by Mark Harold

Report by JTA

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, History, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Vilnius City Council Finally Decides to Change Name of Škirpa Street

Real or Rigged ‘International Conference on Fascism and Antisemitism’ in Vilnius on 9 November?



OPINION  | HUMAN RIGHTS  |  ANTISEMITISM  |  VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE

VILNIUS—Yet again, a conference here in the Lithuanian capital dedicated to combating fascism and antisemitism is announced, without there having been a public call for papers, without a single speaker from among those who actually combat fascism and antisemitism in the country, with nobody from the democratically elected Vilnius Jewish community (not even the long-time editor of Jerusalem of Lithuania who has exposed and combated antisemitism for decades). No Holocaust survivors. None of the nationally relevant questions of the day can be found on the conference program. As ever, outstanding academic personalities from abroad are recruited to lend the gravitas and provide serious papers on an array of topics (which they admirably do), as long as these have little directly to do with the actual contemporary issues here in Lithuania (but the conference introduction by Prof. Dovilė Budrytė does indeed touch on some of the issues, which seem, however, to be largely absent from the actual conference program). The last such event, in 2015, resulted in the Norwegian Embassy withdrawing support and launching an inquiry on behalf of the EEA (European Economic Area) funders of that event.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Real or Rigged ‘International Conference on Fascism and Antisemitism’ in Vilnius on 9 November?

Head of Lithuanian Jewish Community Calls on Mayor of Vilnius to Remove Plaque Honoring a Holocaust Collaborator



VILNIUS—Jewish Community chairperson Faina Kukliansky, a prominent lawyer here in the Lithuanian capital, today released on the community’s official website the text of her letter to the mayor of Vilnius calling for the removal of a plaque honoring the notorious Holocaust collaborator Jonas Noreika. The letter follows her bold speech at the 23 September Ponár (Paneriai) memorial which likewise called on government officials to remove honors for Holocaust perpetrators, citing three prominent collaborators by name.

There was immediate speculation on which human rights, Jewish and Israeli organizations, here and internationally, would react with rapid public expressions of support for the chairperson’s letter. The charismatic young mayor of Vilnius has a colorful record on Jewish issues, which Defending History has been following for years, starting with his earlier stint as justice minister.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", EU, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Head of Lithuanian Jewish Community Calls on Mayor of Vilnius to Remove Plaque Honoring a Holocaust Collaborator

Wiesenthal Center Calls on Kaunas Mayor to End Abuse of “Seventh Fort”; Pressure Builds on Vilnius Mayor’s Jewish Politics



JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office today issued a press release (text below), including a quote from its director, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, calling on Visvaldas Matijošaitis, the mayor of Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania’s second city, to ban weddings and other celebrations from the now privatized parts of the historic Seventh Fort, where thousands of Kaunas Jews were humiliated, tortured and murdered starting with the first week of the Lithuanian Holocaust in late June 1941.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Efraim Zuroff, Human Rights, Kaunas, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Wiesenthal Center Calls on Kaunas Mayor to End Abuse of “Seventh Fort”; Pressure Builds on Vilnius Mayor’s Jewish Politics

Lithuanian Philosopher Writes to Archbishop Grušas



CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  | EVENTS  |  BOLD CITIZENS SPEAK OUT

by Andrius Kulikauskas

Editor’s note: The author provides here his own synopsis (with explanatory comments for Defending History readers) of his Lithuanian essay that appeared in Veidas on 5 May 2016. It is in effect an open letter from a Lithuanian citizen to Archbishop Gintaras Grušas on the occasion of the “Jubilee Year of Mercy” events scheduled this week under the title “National Congress of Mercy.”

Image01

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Lithuanian Philosopher Writes to Archbishop Grušas

Neo-Nazi Alleged to Work in Lithuanian Economy Ministry Didn’t Like DH’s Report on Vilnius Conference



VILNIUS—The pseudonymous neo-Nazi blogger “Zeppelinus,” long alleged to be the alias of a high official in the Ministry of the Economy (DH still awaits a reply to our open letter of 2013 to the relevant minister), is notorious for his racist, antisemitic, and homophobic images that continue to needlessly damage Lithuania’s good name (sampling at end of article). This web journal’s editor has long been one of his many photoshop and  photofake targets, naturally a source of pride for any and all within Vilnius’s bona fide human rights community. As some Lithuanian human rights activists put it, “If you didn’t make it into Zeppelinus’s sicko gallery, you’re not really doing enough for human rights in this country.”

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Racism | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Neo-Nazi Alleged to Work in Lithuanian Economy Ministry Didn’t Like DH’s Report on Vilnius Conference

Another “Conference on Antisemitism” in Lithuania



Human Rights  /  Antisemitism  /  Opinion

by Defending History Staff

The well-organized conference “Antisemitism, Radicalization and Violent Extremism”  was held on 30 September 2015 at Vilnius’s Novotel Hotel by the Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HMRI) with partners (see program). It will go down in history as one of the most remarkable capers yet in the fraught local “Dead Jew Business,” as it is increasingly becoming known. The biggest shock of the day was that one of the three keynote morning session speakers was Swedish-born Lithuania-resident filmmaker Jonas Ohman, known in town for his (far right style) glorification of postwar resistance fighters — one of the most painful issues of Baltic antisemitism in the twenty-first century — without the slightest mention of the alleged Holocaust perpetrator background of the precise figures glorified.

But the film maker chosen for the morning session manages at the same time to also be a (far left style) Israel baiter, whose current “humanitarian project” is a petition asking the mayor of Vilnius to sack a Jewish (Israeli-Lithuanian) advisor on the basis of social media “silly photos” that become bacteriologically antisemitic when recycled in his own petition, and beyond, in its recontextualized, politically charged incarnation. Far from doing the same to counter officials and advisors with neo-Nazi links, he boasted in his talk (amateur video) of his links to Right Sector and other Ukrainian groups that adulate wartime Holocaust perpetrators. When he was trashing Israel, the Israeli ambassador to Lithuania, Amir Maimon, sitting in the hall, boldly called out a question: “Are you rewriting the history?” (at time code 13:31).

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, History, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Norway, Opinion, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Another “Conference on Antisemitism” in Lithuania

“The Naked Truth” on Lithuanian Television



O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

The national Lithuanian television channel Lietuvos rytas TV recently (on May 4) broadcast a show by veteran talk-show host Rūta Grinevičiūtė (surname recently changed to Janutienė) called Nuoga Tiesa, “Naked Truth,” which posed the question, “Do you want the Jews to return again [sic] to Lithuania?” Viewers were invited to call in and/or vote by special telephone lines for Yes and No with a one euro toll per call. For that and a number of other reasons the entire program had something of the macabre about it, and although some of the guests made some important points, all of them seemed to miss certain glaring details which would have been the center of attention in the West.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Geoff Vasil, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai), Rūta Vanagaitė | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on “The Naked Truth” on Lithuanian Television

Purveyor of Racist, Misogynist, Antisemitic, Homophobic, Nazist “Art” is Alleged to Work in Lithuania’s Economy Ministry



VILNIUS—Defending History has still had no reply to its open letter of August 2013 to the Minister of the Economy, asking him to look into multiple media reports that the pseudonymous “Zeppelinus,” Lithuania’s best-known purveyor of hate-popart on the internet is indeed a senior civil servant in his own ministry. The issue came to the fore once again in recent weeks with his “appeal” to the head of the Jewish community, and his latest production following a recent controversial conference (conference report).

The following are samples of his “art” in the service of racism, misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism alongside glorification of Nazism. Samples can readily be found for other prejudices, including anti-Polish and anti-Russian hate. Hopefully human rights organizations will continue to counter such materials, first and foremost by establishing, in partnership with law enforcement, the identity of the purveyor of the hate materials, and the answer to the question about alleged continued high employment in a government ministry. An earlier smaller sampling with full translation is available here. Full disclosure: This journal’s editor has on occasion been a target of Mr. Zeppelinus, too.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, UŽGAVĖNĖS (SHROVETIDE), Women's Rights | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Purveyor of Racist, Misogynist, Antisemitic, Homophobic, Nazist “Art” is Alleged to Work in Lithuania’s Economy Ministry

KR Slade: My Dream of When the Witch is Found



P O E T R Y

Editor’s note:  Defending History is proud to launch its new poetry section with Ken Slade’s My Dream of When the Witch is Found (© KR Slade 2010-2014). KR Slade is an author/journalist, educator, and English-language text editor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He repatriated to his family’s native Lithuania in 2004. Graphics, from the public domain, are added, intending to illustrate the message, and do not reflect on such original artist’s context or intentions.


  • My   Dream   of

  • When   the   Witch   is   Found

  • by KR Slade

  • I was out in the village,
  • far from any town;
  • visiting some new-found family;
  • figuring cousins, from uncles and aunts.

  • an old farm
  • To the children, speaking English;
  • they delighted in the sound.
  • I listened to the olders,
  • explaining me Lithuanian.
  • Ah, the beauty of the countryside,
  • far away from my still-new Vilnius;
  • in the village, ‘away from it all’;
  • all of us Lithuanian:  ‘pure’ and ‘ethnic’.
  • Sampling the goodies, the delicacies:
  • homemade, unknown in any city,
  • found only on the farms.
  • Sipping home-made ‘beverage’,
  • in front of the very earthen-stove
  • where it had been cooked and distilled.
  • When suddenly, the door was thrown open,
  • the Father appeared:  He white-as-a-ghost.
  • He slammed the door shut,
  • braced himself against;
  • as if to defend entry by a bear.
  • He announced, he shouted,
  • “There’s a witch in the barn !!!”
  • an old-barn
  • Everyone, ‘cept me, repeated,
  • “There’s a witch in the barn !?!?”
  • “Yes, I saw her come up from the floor,
  • from the place underneath,
  • where we keep the food.
  • She floated up, looked right at me;
  • and showed me she was so nasty !”
  • Lithuanian witch
  • “She must be a Jew.
  • Not many, any more;
  • but, still, there can always be.
  • She looked like a Jew;
  • I remember hearing how they look.
  • Or, maybe a Polish;
  • there’s still many of them.
  • Or, perhaps a Russian;
  • some have not yet left.
  • Likely a Soviet, too;
  • still could be around.
  • Could be a Ukrainian,
  • or a Belorussian;
  • I remember seeing some of them,
  • maybe one or two, that looked like that.
  • Probably not a Prussian,
  • they’re extinct by now.
  • Then again, you never can tell.
  • A witch is a witch is a witch.
  • Still, I think it’s probably a Jew.”
  • Everyone else asked, “What shall we do ?”
  • Lithuanian witches
  • The Father said to his eldest daughter,
  • “Sprinkle some salt on every window ledge.”
  • And, he said to his eldest son,
  • “Sprinkle some salt below the door;
  • and, in front of the chimney, too.”
  • “Salt stops witches from entering.”
  • And, to his wife he said,
  • “Light the candle in front of His holy picture,
  • and, in front of Her old-icon, too.
  • I’ll put the round rock on the eating table,
  • and hang above the bent oak-twig.
  • You never can tell, which will be best;
  • best to have all, you never can know.”
  • Now, since we live in modern times,
  • there was even more to do.
  • All mobile phones were gathered,
  • everyone assigned a task.
  • Call the family:  all the family,
  • all the family everywhere, no-matter where.
  • Call all the neighbours, too.
  • When the Old Man called his member-of-parliament,
  • I thought that I might be back in Canada.
  • However, no laughing matter here;
  • he also called his European MP.
  • searching witches
  • I helped myself to some more brew,
  • gathered two of the youngest kids,
  • and began a story from a picture book.
  • Even the nasty dog, who likes no one,
  • crawled carefully from its corner,
  • came to us, and sat at my feet.
  • He looked up at us; he now fearing all.
  • The modern gadgets having been used,
  • we then consolidated to the older ways.
  • Time to sing some songs:  the old songs.
  • Yes, there were songs, from long-time past;
  • that had meanings to these same problems,
  • as well as some good hidden-meanings.
  • Witches do not like the old songs;
  • everyone knows that fact.
  • We all fell asleep, eventually.
  • The rising sun made the first-one-awake
  • arouse us all to our continuing vigil.
  • I got ready to take the bus back to Vilnius.
  • Before I could leave,
  • the crowds began to arrive.
  • Relatives from near and far;
  • all the neighbours, too.
  • Even the member-of-parliament.
  • After much discussion, and
  • better theatre than found in Vilnius,
  • the decision had been taken.
  • ‘Must burn-down the barn !’
  • ‘That’s where the witch lives . . . ’
  • No matter that’s also where the food was stored.
  • Everyone would contribute more food; and
  • already plans were making for the new barn.
  • As I waited at the road, for the bus to come,
  • I could see the blaze first smoke, then burst.
  • And, the dance around the coming ruin:
  • so the witch would not escape.
  • Barn_burning
  • As I paid my ticket price to the driver,
  • he said, “Found a witch there, yes ?
  • They found one yesterday, just up the road.
  • Those Jews are still everywhere.”
  • All Rights Reserved: 2010                   kenmunications <a t> gmail.com

 

Biographical Note

Ken-Russell Slade, B.S., M.Ed., M.R.E., J.D., was born in Providence, Rhode Island (USA), and was educated in Boston, Massachusetts (USA).  His paternal grandparents (and their families) were Lithuanian (from the Trakai — Kaunas region, notably Guronys, in Zasliai); “Slade” is a shortened and anglicized version of the family name:  “Sladkevičius”.  In January 2004, Ken arrived in Lithuania, from Quebec (city; Canada) where he had lived for 13 years.

More recently, he has retired as an attorney of trial law, in the courts of various US states and many USA federal jurisdictions, including practice as a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.  He is now engaged full-time in his life-long primary interest:  writing — usually about Lithuania — primarily about “social reality”; often text-editing (revising) English-language writings (original-language and translations); and, private teaching of English. Occasionally, he continues a life-long secondary interest: acting [i.e., stage, television, cinema; and voice recordings (e.g., narrations, voice-overs, radio, commercials)].

LinkedIn public profile: http://lt.linkedin.com/pub/ken-russell-slade/b/425/716  

Contact:  kenmunications <a t> gmail.com


Published in Defending History, 17 December 2014. URL: https://defendinghistory.com/?p=70118. Home page.

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Member of Lithuania’s Jewish Community Speaks Out on Neo-Nazi Parades, and Govt. Flowers at Monument to Hitler’s Soldiers



O P I N I O N

by Jacob Piliansky

Iam proud to be a Litvak, and I am proud to be a citizen of independent and democratic Lithuania. I very much enjoy walking in our city’s delightful Vingis Park, as well as downtown in the beautiful city center area.

 However, I feel suddenly both sad and shocked, when I see neo-Nazi parades with swastikas and other fascist symbols  along  Gedimino Boulevard on our independence day repeating the yelled chants of “Lithuania for [ethnic] Lithuanians.”

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Jacob Piliansky, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Symbology, Vilnius | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Member of Lithuania’s Jewish Community Speaks Out on Neo-Nazi Parades, and Govt. Flowers at Monument to Hitler’s Soldiers

Kaunas, Vilnius, Riga: Planned 2014 Neo-Nazi Marches (Summary Coverage to 26 Jan. 2014)



KaunasFebruary 16thVilniusMarch 11thRigaMarch 16th:

Will Lithuania’s President and Prime Minister Speak Out to Stop City-Centers on Independence Days Being Gifted to Neo-Nazis Again to Glorify the Holocaust’s Local Collaborators?

Last year, the president, prime minister and mayor failed to rise to the occasion of the neo-Nazi marches

Zabludoff’s Petition Nears the 3,000 Mark

First Stop — Kaunas on February 16th

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, EU, Events, Human Rights, Kaunas, Latvia, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Vilnius | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Kaunas, Vilnius, Riga: Planned 2014 Neo-Nazi Marches (Summary Coverage to 26 Jan. 2014)

Old Blood Libel Plaque Still Displayed, Without Comment, at Bernardinai Church in Vilnius



O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

 

WHERE THE BLOOD LIBEL STILL STANDS: Seventeenth century plaque commemorating a seven year old allegedly killed by 170 Jewish-inflicted wounds, on display at Bernardinai Church, Maironio Street 10 in Vilnius

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Dovid Katz, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Human Rights, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Old Blood Libel Plaque Still Displayed, Without Comment, at Bernardinai Church in Vilnius

Where You Have to Step on Old Jewish Gravestones to go to Church



C E M E T E R I E S    /    C H R I S T I A N – J E W I S H   R E L A T I O N S

by Dovid Katz

The following are translated (and edited) excerpts from a longer letter in Yiddish received from a survivor who has asked to remain anonymous, about the Jewish gravestones that form the steps going up to the Reformed Evangelical Church at Pylimo 18 in Vilnius.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, Dovid Katz, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Reformed Evangelical Church (Vilnius) | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Where You Have to Step on Old Jewish Gravestones to go to Church