Tag Archives: history disputes in US foreign policy

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Section on US State Department policy

Selected readings on the shifts in US policy from 2009

YIVO manipulated?  Bloomington-Borns?  SLS Sutzkever Prize?  “US Commission for Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad (USCPAHA)”


2017

23 February 2017.  Brooklyn Daily Eagle: ‘Jewish leaders fight to preserve Lithuanian cemetery’ by Paula Katinas.

23 February 2017.  5 Towns Jewish Times: ‘A grave matter in Vilna’ by Larry Gordon.

 

21 February 2017.  JP Updates: ‘Jewish leaders meet with Lithuanian Ambassador to preserve threatened ancient cemetery’.

20 February 2017.  Defending History: ‘A year and one month since US Commission on Heritage Abroad (USCPAHA) “reported to Satmar Rebba”.

16 February 2017.  Five Towns Jewish Times: ‘Murdered a second time’ by Larry Gordon.

12 February 2017. Defending History: ‘When the picture and the headline tell opposite stories’ by Dovid Katz.

8 February 2017.  Defending History reprint from Ami: ‘Professor Shnayer Leiman’s letter to the editor of “Ami”.

 

18 January 2017.  AmiLiving: ‘Guardian of the cemetery’ by Riva Pomerantz.  Second copy (article only, without introductory pages).

17 January 2017.  Defending History: ‘CPJCE’S American Affiliate Calls 34,000 Petition Signers “Evil People”’.

15 January 2017. Algemeiner.com: ‘Protesting Lithuania’s plans to build a convention center over a Jewish cemetery’ by Pini Dunner.

14 January 2017.  Aish.com: ‘Uncovering Jewish history in Vilna’ by Yvette Alt Miller.

12 January 2017.  Jewish Journal: ‘Dancing on Jewish graves in Vilna’ by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein.

9 January 2017.  Tablet: ‘Lithuania is building a convention center over Vilna’s Jewish cemetery. Here’s how you can protest’ by Yair Rosenberg.

8 January 2017.  Matzav.com: ‘Old Jewish Cemetery of Vilna to be turned into new convention center’ by Shnayer Leiman.

 

2016

 

10 August 2016.  GenealogyBlog: [comment to article posted by Leland Meitzler] by Dovid Katz.

8 August 2016.  Defending History: [updated version of] ‘But who is against the National Congress Center in the old Vilna Jewish cemetery?’

 

2 July 2016.  Yated Ne’eman: ‘Now we know’ by Dr. Bernard Fryshman. Photomechanical reprint by Defending History. As PDFDigital reprint.

2 July 2016.  Defending History: ‘NY professor exposes rabbis — and the US federal agency — that enable Lithuanian government’s sham new “convention center in the old Jewish cemetery”’.

15 July 2016.  Defending History: ‘Asra Kadisha on Vilna Cemetery: From proud Powerhouse of historic truth to silent mouse?’.

2015

15 June 2015.  Algemeiner.com: ‘Jewish rights group opposes European funding for convention center on site of Lithuanian Jewish cemetery’ by Eliezer Sherman.

14 June 2015.  Defending History: ‘EU asked to pump 13 million euros ($14.5 million) into entertainment complex on Vilnius’s oldest Jewish cemetery’. Have foreign rabbis, U.S. Jewish figures and a U.S. government organization been “roped into the plot”?’

1 June 2015.  Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art and Monuments: ‘Lithuania: First meeting of the Commission for the Issues Concerning the Jewish History and Culture’ by Samuel Gruber.

28 May 2015.  Hamodia: ‘Outcry over renewed threats to Vilna cemetery’ by Rafael Hoffman.

27 May 2015.  JewishVoiceNY.com: ‘Threats to Vilnius Jewish cemetery recur’.

26 May 2015.  Yoreh Deya [blog]: ‘A charlatan returned to the scene of the crime’ by Rabbi Eliyahu Caufman [in Hebrew: Hanokhel khazar limekom hapesha].

20 May 2015.  Algemeiner.com: ‘Twin reports document desecration at Lithuanian Jewish gravesites’.

27 May 2015.  Huffington Post.com: ‘Note to Ukraine: Time to reconsider your historic role models’ by Nikolas Kozloff’.

21 May 2015.  New Republic: ‘Ukraine makes amnesia the law of the land. Poroshenko wants his nation to forget its role in Nazi atrocities’ by Jochen Hellbeck

21 May 2015.  Consortiumnews.com: ‘Obama’s strategic shift’ by Robert Parry.

11 May 2015.  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM): ‘Statement on Ukrainian legislation on historical research and debate.

1 May 2015.  Defending History: ‘Twelve issues in the preservation of Lithuania’s material Jewish heritage (2015)’ by Dovid Katz..

27 April 2015.  Foreign Policy: ‘Dear Ukraine: Please don’t shoot yourself in the foot. A controversial new law sends the wrong signals about the past and threatens free speech’ by Josh Cohen.

17 April 2015.  ConsortiumNews.com: ‘How Ukraine commemorates the Holocaust’ by Robert Parry.

13 April 2015.  The Nation: ‘Will Ukraine’s new anti-Communist law usher in a free speech dark age?’ by Alec Luhn.  As PDF.

5 April 2015.  HNN History News Network: ‘What standards should be applied when deciding to accept funds?’ by Tarik Cyril Amar and Per Anders Rudling.

4 April 2015.  Defending History: ‘US sinks into further involvement with pro-Nazi elements in Ukraine’.

3 April 2015.  Defending History: ‘Associated Press reports on US plan to train fascist “Azov” battalion in Ukraine.

31 March 2015.  Washington Post: ‘US forces to hold exercises in Ukraine’ by Associated Press.  In Stars and Stripes.

31 March 2015.  ‘US forces to hold exercises in Ukraine’ by Associated Press.

22 March 2015.  BBC News: ‘Europe far-right parties meet in St. Petersburg, Russia’.

22 March 2015.  CBS News: ‘Far-right politicians come to Russia to support Putin’ by the Associated Press.

19 March 2015.  Mi Zdes: Correspondence between Vilnius Holocaust survivor Pinchos Fridberg and Yico director Jonathan Brent in Russian translation.  InEnglish (in DH); reprint in Operation Last Chance (Simon Wiesenthal Center).  InYiddish.

16 March 2015.  Washington Post: ‘Latvian march honors veterans who fought alongside Nazis’ by Associated Press.

16 March 2015.  Wall Street Journal: ‘Latvia march remembers veterans who fought alongside Nazis’ by Juris Kaza.

2 March 2015.  Defending History: ‘Translation of a Yiddish correspondence: the Vilna Holocaust survivor and the director of Yivo’ by Pinchos Fridberg; Jonathan Brent.

2 March 2015.  Pinchos Fridberg’s Youtube: ‘Prof. Pinchos Fridberg’s Feb. 2015 appeal to Yivo’s director in Yiddish’ by Pinchos Fridberg.

1 March 2015.  Yiddish Forward: ‘Letter from a Vilna Jew to Yivo’s director, and his reply’ [by Pinchos Fridberg and Jonaccccc Yiddish].

1 March 2015.  The Times of Israel: ‘In Lithuania, Yiddish teacher unlikely bulwark against far right’ by Cnaan Lifshiz.

24 February 2015.  JTA: ‘In Lithuania, Yiddish teacher becomes unlikely bulwark against far right’ by Cnaan Lifshiz.

23 February 2015.  The Jerusalem Report: ‘The Epitome of Evil. Bettina Stangneth’s research has corrected Hannah Arendt’s harmful assessments of the nature of Nazi criminality’ by Efraim Zuroff.

18 February 2015.  Defending History:  ‘A Russian observer replies to recent feast of an American Daily Beast’ by Alex Nosovich.

8 February 2015.  The Daily Beast: ‘Anti-Nazi group secretly helping Kremlin rebuild Russian Empire’ by James Kirchick.

 

24 January 2015.  Foreign Policy Journal: ‘The US and Ukraine: Dumb and dumber’ by William Blum.

22 January 2015.  Jewish Chronicle: ‘”Double Genocide” has become the deadliest form of denial’ by Dovid Katz  [original version appeared in DH on 22 January 2015.

6 January 2015.  Truth-out.org: ‘Are there Nazis in Ukraine A visit to Lviv’ by Joshua Tartakovsky.


 

2014

28 November 2014.  The Times of Israel: ‘Ukraine bonanza for upgraded Holocaust denial’ by Dovid Katz.

28 November 2014.  Global Research: ‘Ukraine and the UN resolution against “the glorification of Nazism”: The US vote at the UN is “Holocaust Denial” – Here’s why’ by George Eliason.

26 November 2014.  JP Updates: ‘UN resolution against Nazism embroiled in Russia-Ukraine antisemitism charges’ by Boruch Shubert.

25 November 2014.  Jerusalem Post: ‘Russian-Ukrainian spat over anti-Semitism reaches the UN’ by Sam Sokol.

23 November 2014.  Defending History: ‘Text of US Rep. John Conyers’ proposed amendment restricting aid to pro-Nazi forces in Ukraine’.

18 November 2014.  AlterNet: ‘How the Israel lobby protected Ukrainian neo-Nazis’ by Max Blumenthal.

13 November 2014Spiegel Online: ‘Interview with Henry Kissinger: ‘Do we achieve world order through chaos or insight?’ [interview of Henry Kissinger by Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Erich Follath].

12 November 2014.  ConsortiumNews.com: ‘When Henry Kissinger makes sense’ by Robert Parry.

10 November 2014.  Defending History: ‘Defending History brings results: Yivo to honor Arad (at fundraising banquet)’.

9 November 2014.  ‘Timothy Snyder does it again’ by Daniel Lazare.

30 October 2014.  Associated Press / ABC News: ‘Latvian musical on Nazi collaborator stirs anger’ by Rayyan Sabet-Parry.

27 October 2014.  Sun Sentinel / Florida Jewish Journal: ‘Film defends Holocaust history’ by Shani McManus.

26 October 2014.  Jerusalem Post: ‘Holocaust perpetrators on the dole in the US?’ by Efraim Zuroff.

26 October 2014Twitter: ‘Ukraine’s #1 neo-Nazi Dmitry Yarosh (Pravy Sektor) wins seat in single-mandate district in east’ by Mark Ames.

21 October 2014.  Russia Insider: ‘Ukraine’s descent into fascism and how the West turns a blind eye’ by Vladimir Golstein.

7 October 2014.  Matzav.com: ‘Concern voiced over Jewish cemetery in Vilnius’ by Matzav.com Newscenter.

7 October 2014.  Defending History: ‘Henke’s legend’ by Shloyme Gilinsky.

3 October 2014.  Forward: ‘Yivo hopes to digitize Lithuania archives — But where is the cash?’ by Paul Berger.

1 October 2014.  Associated Press: ‘APNewsBreak: Nazi hunter pushes for new probe’ by David Rising.

23 September 2014.  Jewish Chronicle: ‘Nazi truth that West refuses  to recognize’ by Michael Goldfarb.

23 September 2014.  Defending History: ‘Usable memory of Holocaust victims: NY Yivo announces campaign for five and a quarter million dollars for new “Vilna Project”‘ by Dovid Katz.

Fall 2014.  Jewish Review of Books: ‘What we talk about when we talk about Stepan Bandera: a rejoinder to Dovid Katz’ by Konstanty Gebert.

Fall 2014.  Jewish Review of Books: ‘Poland is not Ukraine: A response to Konstanty Gebert’s “The Ukrainian question”’ by Dovid Katz.

9 September 2014.  The Hill: ‘Video shows Ukrainian soldiers wearing Nazi symbols’ by Rebecca Shabad.

9 September 2014.  JacobinMag.com: ‘Timothy Snyder’s lies’ by David Lazare.

9 September 2014.  NBC News: ‘German TV shows Nazi symbols on helmets of Ukraine soldiers’ by Andy Eckhardt.

6 September 2014.  Defending History: ‘Five years of Defending History dot com’ by Dovid Katz.

16 August 2014.  ConsortiumNews.com: ‘The hushed-up Hitler factor in Ukraine’ by Dovid Katz.  Republished in The Global Realm; in David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

16 August 2014.  Antiwar.com: ‘Mass killing in East Ukraine and the failure of liberal intellectuals’ by Joshua Tartakovsky.

11 August 2014.  The Telegraph. ‘Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists’ by Tom Parfitt.

28 July 2014.  Politics.hu: ‘US warms against rehabilitation of reputation of antisemitic figures’ by MTI.

26 July 2014.  Jewish Currents: ‘The Neocons and Holocaust revisionism in Eastern Europe’ by Dovid Katz. Part II.

22 July 2014.  Jewish Currents: ‘The Neocons and Holocaust revisionism in Eastern Europe’ by Dovid Katz.

17 July 2014.  Defending History: ‘Prof. Olegas Poliakovas, longtime member of Vilnius University’s Senate, speaks out on new Yiddish positions’.

15 July 2014.  The Nation: ‘Kiev’s atrocities and the silence of the hawks’ by Stephen F. Cohen.

22 June 2014.  Defending History: ‘Freewheeling deconstruction of Max Weinreich. Sensationalization in the weakened field of Yiddish [with reference to the abuse of Yiddish in Eastern Europe as cover for far-right Holocaust obfuscation and Double Genocide politics; in Yiddish].

19 June 2014.  Yivo: announces 2015 conference in partnership with potentially (ultra)nationalist and Holocaust-revisionist history institutions in Vilnius, Lithuania. No mention of survivors or their families among the organizers.

11 June 2014.  The Times of Israel: ‘Holocaust distortion: from the Baltics and Europe to the US Congress’ by Clemens Heni.

10 June 2014.  The Times of Israel: ‘Getting it wrong on Ukraine’ by Dovid Katz.

6 June 2014.  Defending History: ‘Double Genocide snuck into the US Congress?’

26 May 2014.  Defending History [with image from the Congressional Report]: ‘”Double Genocide” language accepted by the US Congress on 21 May 2014’.

23 May 2014.  Politics.HU: ‘US senators, congressmen ask Orbán to reconsider WW2 occupation monument’ by MTI.

22 May 2014.  Defending History: ‘DH staff writer Evaldas Balčiūnas is investigated by Lithuanian police’.

22 May 2014.  Defending History: ‘Statement of staff writer Evaldas Balčiūnas on summons from police’ by Evaldas Balčiūnas.

19 May 2014.  Defending History: ‘Ukraine: Slowly but surely, Western media raising the taboo question.

19 May 2014.  History News Network (HNN): ‘Why the revival of nationalist myths in Ukraine should alarm us’ by Tarik Cyril Amar and Per Anders Rudling.

24 March 2014.  Tablet: ‘Supporting Ukraine means opposing antisemitic nationalism now, not later’ by Tarik Cyril Amar, Omer Bartov and Per Anders Rudling.

22 March 2014.  Defending History: ‘YIVO conference — unresolved history’ by Geoff Vasil.

19 March 2014.  International Business Times: ‘Ukraine: Svoboda party building close relations with Germany’s neo-Nazi NPD party’ by Jack Moore.

18 March 2014.  Foreign Policy: ‘Yes, there are bad guys in the Ukrainian government. It’s time for a frank conversation about some of the unsavory characters in Kiev’ by Andrew Foxall and Oren Kessler.

18 March 2014.  Reuters: Insight. In Ukraine, nationalists gain influence — and scrutiny’ by By Sabina Zawadzki, Mark Hosenball and Stephen Grey.

14 March 2014.  OpEdNews.com: ‘US fueled rise of Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, McCain stands with party leader on stage’ by Ralph Lopez.

13 March 2014.  Los Angeles Times: ‘Ukraine’s threat from within: Neofascists are as much a menace to Ukraine as Putin’s actions in Crimea’ by Robert English.

11 March 2014.  Huffington Post: ‘The neo-Nazi question in Ukraine’ by Michael Hughes.

10 March 2014.  Huffington Post: ‘Putin, Ukraine and antisemitism: it’s real’ by Richard Brodsky.

10 March 2014.  Counterpunch: ‘Ukraine: The sovereignty argument, and the real problem of fascism [“Going into the woods to fight Jewry and other filth…”]’ by Gary Leupp.

7 March 2014.  GlobalNews: ‘Blind eye turned to influence of far-right in Ukrainian crisis: critics’ by Bruce Livesey.

5 March 2014.  History News Network: ‘Ukraine’s toxic history of fascism and ethnic cleansing’ by Robert Thurston.

4 March 2014.  International New York Times: ‘What Putin really wants’ by Ruslan Pukhov [see final paragraph].

3 March 2014.  Politico.com: ‘Blitzer, Amanpour spar on CNN’ by Hadas Gold.

3 March 2014.  Counterpunch: ‘The rise of the quasi-fascists. The dark side of the Ukraine revolt’ by Conn Hallinan.

3 March 2014.  Defending History: ‘Out on Ellis Street in San Francisco’.

1 March 2014.  The Daily Beast: ‘Can Ukraine control its far right ultranationalists?’.

25 February 2014.  Salon: ‘Is the US backing neo-Nazis in Ukraine?’ by Max Blumenthal.

20 February 2014.  OpenDemocracy.net: ‘Ukraine: the view from the west’ by David Marples.

13 February 2014.  Algemeiner Journal: ‘YIVO, Lithuania and lies about the Holocaust’ by Olga Zabludoff. [reprinted in Defending History, 16 Feb. 2014].

10 February 2014.  YouTube: Posting of Rachel Kostanian’s 3 Feb. interview recalling the 2009/2010 shift in the American Embassy’s / State Department’s view of the Green House Holocaust museum in Vilnius.

9 February 2014.  Tablet: Efraim Zuroff’s comment on a Yivo event, to be held 13 Feb. 2014.

26 January 2014.  Forward: ‘Holocaust historian returns Hungarian honor over “whitewashing” of Shoah’ by JTA.

10 January 2014.  New York Times editorial: ‘Why Nazi hunting remains crucial’.

10 January 2014.  Tablet: ‘Plan to open another Holocaust museum in Budapest faces criticism — from Jews’ by Ruth Ellen Gruber.

9 January 2014.  Time: ‘Meet the Nazi hunter: Israel’s Efraim Zuroff helps German court case’ by Simon Shuster.

Jump to:   2007   2008   2009   2010   2011   2012   2013


2013

19 December 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘World Union of Progressive Judaism “fully endorses” the Seventy Years Declaration (SYD)’.

19 December 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Yiddish roulette? One resigns in Bloomington, another rides in from Buffalo’.

16 December 2013.  4 News: ‘Protests continue in the Ukrainian capital after an endorsement from US Senator John McCain’.

12 December 2013.  Office of Congressman Hakeem S. Jeffries: Letter to the Ukrainian ambassador in the United States.

6 December 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office releases 2007 correspondence with LA board chief of Vilnius Yiddish Institute’.

13 November 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Red-Brown Commission member Liekis takes Katz-bashing campaign to Litvak culture fest in Philadelphia: LA next?’

August 2013UCSJ statement on the Ukrainian Svoboda party.

22 August 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Red-Brown Commission’s PR roadshow heads for Philadelphia PA gig on November 10th’.

14 August 2013.  Malice, Murder, and Manipulation: One man’s quest for truth by Grant Arthur Gochin.

19 July 2013.  Lithuania Tribune: ‘Lithuania welcomes US proposal to declare August 23 Black Ribbon Day’.

19 July 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘EHU Center for German Studies’ “Colloquium Vilnense 2013″ is short on “the second opinion” when it comes to the Holocaust’ by Dovid Katz.

19 July 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘A library with an agenda?’

18 July 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Holocaust survivors from Lithuania issue statement on Sutzkever events in Vilnius on poet’s 2013 centenary’.

June 2013.  Standpoint: ‘Spurning old truths’ by Michael Pinto-Duschinsky [review of Marci Shore’s The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe].

16 June 2013.  Haaretz: ‘Shock lingers after Nazi leader found in US’ by Associated Press.

May 2013.  [advance proof only] Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs: ‘Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Intermarium: The Land between the Black and Baltic Seas’ reviewed by Dovid Katz.

31 May 2013.  Huffington Post: ‘Truth wins’ by Edward Jacobs.

28 April 2013.  American Jewish University: ‘Rewriting History: When heroes are killers, truth becomes the enemy’.

28 April 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Rewriting History on the Road in the USA’.

18 April 2013.  Jay Ipson: Screening of Rewriting History at the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, Virginia.

16 April 2013.  George Washington University: Screening of Rewriting History followed by panel discussion.

8 April 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Charles Adès Fishman adds voice, on Yom Hashoah, to Sutzkever Prize fracas’ by Charles Adès Fishman.

7 April 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Peter Thabit Jones issues open letter on Sutzkever Translation Prize’ by Peter Thabit Jones.

5 April 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Arthur Dobrin’s open letter to Ed Hirsch’ by Arthur Dobrin.

1 March 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Background reading on the shift in US foreign policy on Holocaust Denial from c. 2009’.

27 January 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘US researcher [Dr. C. Beresniova] is persuaded that the problem in Lithuania is called “Zuroff and Katz”…’ by Dovid Katz.

24 January 2013.  The Algemeiner: ‘Did Quentin Tarantino promote antisemitic ideology?’ by Clemens Heni.

12 January 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Sutzkever translation prize: American poets in discourse on “being a judge in a Judenrat circumstance”‘.

3 January 2013.  San Diego Jewish World: ‘Right-wing and left-wing trojan horses’ by Clemens Heni.

1 January 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘New Year’s Call on the US State Department to reject politics of Holocaust denial’.

Jump to:   2007   2008   2009   2010   2011   2012   2013   2014


2012

6 December 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘An open letter to Ed Hirsch’ by Dovid Katz.

1 November 2012.  Baltimore Jewish Times: ‘The real truth’  by Efraim Zuroff [letter to the editor in response to Simone Ellin’s review of Ellen Cassedy’s book We are Here].

29 October 2o12.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Self-induced confusion’  [review of Ellen Cassedy’s We Are Here. Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust] by Olga Zabludoff.

21 October 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Open letter in support of Per Anders Rudling’.

18 October 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘The disquieting 2010-2012 record of the American embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania’.

14 October 2012.  The Times of Israel: ‘Pardoning Nazism, in the name of Lithuanian-Jewish relations’ by Efraim Zuroff.

12 October 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Ukrainian ultranationalists sponsor lecture tour across North American universities’  by Per Anders Rudling.

25 September 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Three US congressmen write to the prime minister of Lithuania concerning the reburial with full honors of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister’.

25 August 2012.  VilNews.com: ‘Harley Felstein, chair and founder of the Sunflower Project in USA, hits back’ [plus comments].

30 July 2012.  Forward: ‘Is he beacon for the Jews of Lithuania? Activist Harley Felstein leaves trail of critics and question’  by Paul Berger.

21 May 2012.  Algemeiner Journal: ‘An open letter to Yale history professor Timothy Snyder’ by Dovid Katz.

17 May 2012.  Huffington Post: ‘Holocaust denial: Assaults on collective memory becloud Europe’s future’  by Abraham Cooper.

30 April 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Rebinowitz-Dorf campaign for Lithuanian embassy and “fake Litvaks” backfires bigtime’.

24 April 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Baltic “double genocide” discourse slips into naive American Jewish articles on Lithuania’ by Dovid Katz.

23 April 2012.  Baltimore Sun: ‘Lithuania tries to whitewash its role in the Holocaust’ by Olga Zabludoff.

17 April 2012.  Gatestone Institute: ‘U.S. sends anti-Israel advisor to antisemitic Sweden’ by Soeren Kern.  [third and fourth paragraphs from the end deal with Baltic Holocaust issues and the US’s Envoy for Combating Antisemitism]

15 April 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Lithuanian Foreign Ministry manipulated Chicago Litvaks’.

13 April 2012.  VilNews.com: ‘First-time event in Chicago this Sunday, April 15, to address lingering issues affecting Lithuanian-Jewish relations’ [+ comments]As HTM here.

24 March 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Lithuania’s embassy in Washington recruiting “useful academics” for discredited “red-brown” commission’.

10 March 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Once again, moral abdication at the American Embassy in Vilnius?’

5 February 2012.  Washington DC author Olga Zabludoff launches petition to the Lithuanian ambassador to the US asking his government to ban the March 11th neo-Nazi march from the streets of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.

Jump to:   2007   2008   2009   2010   2011   2012   2013   2014


2011

12 December 2011.  The Jewish Reporter: ‘Hanukkah party at Lithuanian embassy’ [cosponsored by Harley Felstein’s “Jewish Lithuanian Heritage Project” and attended by a high official of the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC].

25 November 2011. Algemeiner Journal: ‘Hannah Rosenthal does it again’ by Dovid Katz.

May 2011.  Unconfirmed report. An official of SLS (Summer Literary Seminars) Lithuania reports to DefendingHistory.com that the US embassy in Vilnius, apparently under pressure from somewhere, indicates it will provide a financial grant to the 2011 summer session on condition that Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, is dropped from the program.

1 April 2011.  ‘Ambassador’s opening remarks at VPU’s conference on Nazi and Soviet history teaching’ on the Embassy of the United States, Vilnius, Lithuania website.

Jump to:   2007   2008   2009   2010   2011   2012   2013   2014


2010

21 December 2010.‘Why is the US silent on “double genocide”? While European countries have condemned the new Holocaust revisionism in the Baltics, America shows no moral leadership’ in the Guardian (by Dovid Katz).

3 December 2010‘Conference call. The Lithuanian sponsors of a Holocaust education program have a dark history of their own’ in Tablet Magazine (by Dovid Katz)Extract on History News Network.

29 November 2010‘US must take a tougher line on Baltic revisionism’ in the Guardian (by Efraim Zuroff).

21 November 2010The Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel releases to the media its 16 Sept 2010 letter to the US embassy in Lithuania.

16 November 2010. BNS reports that Lithuania’s foreign minister reports that Hillary Clinton thanked him for restitution bill progress.  [Details on restitution bill here].

November 2010. [Discussion in response to Barry Rubin’s article] in Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs (by Jan Grabowski, Juliana Geran Pilon, Dovid Katz, John S. Micgiel).

27-28 September 2010.  The Lithuanian Foreign Minister visited City College (27 Sept) and Yivo (28 Sept), announcing at both venues that the Lithuanian parliament had decided to dedicate 2011 to remembrance of Holocaust victims. Hours after his departure, the same parliament issued a new decree dedicating 2011 to the country’s ‘great losses’ except the Holocaust, leading to a spirited pubilc letter from the tiny but proud Jewish Community of Lithuania. Several weeks later, the foreign minister made apparently antisemitic accusations at a meeting of his party in the country’s parliament, again eliciting a statement from the Jewish Community.


20 September 2010. Douglas Davidson, the US State Department’s Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, and Anne Hall, Deputy Head of Mission at the American Embassy in Vilnius, listen as Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (left)  tells about life in the Vilna Ghetto. The window in the upper right hand corner of the photo (in a yard on Strashun Street, now Zemaitijos gatve) was part of the tiny apartment where she and her family lived in overcrowded conditions (the flat had 18 officially registered Vilna Ghetto residents as well as a number of unregistered residents).


16 August 2010. ‘Human Rights — and Holocaust Obfuscation — in the Baltic States’  [unpublished letter to the editor of the New York Times, in response to Clifford J. Levy’s report] on HITB (by Dovid Katz).

15 August 2010. ‘West Palm woman battles Lithuania to give public access to Holocaust statue’  in the Palm Beach Post (by John Lantigua).

11 July 2010. ‘Distortions of Holocaust history in Lithuania today’ (by Michael Cohen, UCLA).

3 May 2010. ‘Rosenthal lays off Lithuania. Antisemitism envoy accused of obfuscating Holocaust obfuscation’ in Tablet Magazine (by Marc Tracy).

2 May 2010. ‘No tolerance for false history’ in the Jerusalem Post (by Efraim Zuroff).


28 April 2010.  President Obama’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Hannah S. Rosenthal, visited the Jewish Partisan Fort, guided by its one surviving veteran in Lithuania, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, librarian of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute. The visit was coordinated by the U.S. Embassy’s Timothy O’Connor, and included this journal’s editor, who provided translation for Ms Brantsovsky. During the excursion, Ms Rosenthal expressed the hope that the Lithuanian government would take action to preserve the site as one that is vital to Holocaust education and the honoring of Jewish resistance against Nazi tyranny.


27 April 2010. Learning from the past, looking toward the future’, lecture at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas (by United States Special Envoy Hannah Rosenthal).

26 April 2010. ‘US antisemitism envoy welcomes Lithuania’s antisemitism efforts’ on BNS.

15 April 2010. ‘Lithuania in the international media: from CIA prisons to the extermination of Jews’ on Delfi.lt (by Mindaugas Jackevicius). English translation.

3 April 2010. ‘The threat of Baltic ultranationalism. The EU is wrong to ignore the resurgence of neofascism in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — It threatens European democracy’ in the Guardian (by Efraim Zuroff). In Estonian. In Lithuanian.

11 March 2010. ‘ADL calls on new Ukrainian president to withdraw “Hero” title bestowed by predecessor on Nazi collaborators’ on ADL.org.

24 February 2010. ‘Q & A with Dovid Katz in the (Connecticut) Jewish Ledger’ (by Cindy Mindell). PDF.

12 February 2010. The Nation: ‘The hero of the Orange Revolution poisons Ukraine’ by Mark Ames.


26 January 2010. ‘Dropping International Holocaust Memorial Day would be world’s final insult to survivors; would spur new wave of antisemitism’ on www.Wiesenthal.com (by Abraham Cooper).

“And how exactly, for example, would such ‘joint commemorations’ unfold in Lithuania? A moment of silence for Jewish citizens butchered by the Nazis and their local collaborators, followed by a moment of silence for these victimizers, later turned into ‘victims of Communism?’ I urge Lithuania and other supporters of this drive to drop their campaign and instead preserve the memory of the Shoah and the unique suffering of its victims that is commemorated on Holocaust Memorial Day.

“The fallout from the failure to deal honestly with the past has already manifested. Most emerging post-Soviet era democracies have refused to try their Nazi War criminals. Worse still, in the case of Lithuania, authorities have sought to prosecute heroic Jewish former Soviet partisans, including Dr. Yitzhak Arad, the revered former Chairman of Yad Vashem. Such outrageous moves embolden those who identify Jews with Communism, by equating Communism with Nazism, they are saying; in effect that everyone is guilty of genocide.

“I was in the audience at the annual Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem last month, when the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usacksas did say that the condemnation of Stalinism ‘should never be applied to diminish the moral and political lessons of the Holocaust,’ but frankly that is indeed the game plan. And I fear that if Lithuania doesn’t soon halt his government’s active support to relativize the Nazi Holocaust and degrade its uniqueness, the next Global Forum will have to deal with the inevitable anti-Semitic fallout, intended or otherwise — from this outrageous campaign.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper (Associate Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center)


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2009

30 December 2009. ‘Don’t let the Holocaust be written out of history’  in the  (Washington) Jewish Week (by Dovid Katz).


3 December 2009 United States congressmen Shelley Berkley, Howard Berman (chairman, House Foreign Affairs Committee), Paul Hodes, James Moran, and Robert Wexler (chairman, House Subcommittee on Europe) protest the Lithuanian government’s defamation and persecution of Holocaust Survivors Dr Rachel Margolis and Ms Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky


22 August 2009.  Vilnius reception in honor of Professor Sara Ginaite of Toronto, veteran of the anti-Nazi resistance, who defied prosecutors’ threats to visit her native Lithuania. In a show of support, the United States Embassy’s political officer Tim O’Connor joined the group honoring Prof. Ginaite, as did the Lithuanian foreign ministry’s Jolanda Kriskovieciene. Photo from left: Tim O’Connor, Faina Kukliansky, Sara Ginaite,  Dovid Katz, Jolanda Kriskovieciene.


3 July 2009. Elements of the ‘Prague Declaration’ (ambiguous ‘double genocide language’) inserted into the OSCE’s ‘Vilnius Declaration’ of 3 July 2009 [see p. 48, points 3 and 10]. [Unfortunately, the United States voted for the resolution. It has in fact separate ‘nice’ language on the Holocaust, which can however not obviate the document’s legitimization of the Holocaust Obfuscation movement and its underlying belief in Double Genocide.]

30 July 2009Abraham H. Foxman, national director of ADL in the United States, sends a letter of support to Professor Dovid Katz.


18 June 2009‘Lithuania: Tme to save Jewish partisan fortin Rudininkai’ on Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art and Monuments (by Samuel D. Gruber).

“As an historian, preservationist and a Jew I think is essential that these remains be protected and preserved. It is not a preposterous goal. Already large sums are being allocated for the preservation of sites of the ‘Forest Brothers’ (many of whom were ex-fascist collaborators and ‘Jew-shooters’ who fled into the forests in 1944 to escape the Soviet advance). This fact should encourage the preservation of this site, too, but in fact the possibility of preserving this site, and teaching its history, aggravates and even enrages those in Lithuania who continue to celebrate the pro-Nazi participants and policies of the war years. Today’s government, while in no way complicit, would rather the whole thing go away. Most likely, like an insurance provider facing a malpractice suit, there are many who are just sitting back and waiting for Faina Brantsovksy to pass away, and her memories to follow.

“It would be so much better to celebrate Fania’s life, struggle, survival and accomplishments and protect and preserve the Rudininkai Forest fort in her honor, and in the memory of those who lived and fought from there. I call on the Lithuanian government, which has done so much to preserve the memory of Ghetto Jews at the memorials at Panerai (Ponary) and Kaunus’s Ninth Fort, to step forward to protect this simple site, too. I call on the international community, which has done much to assist in the conservation of Auschwitz and the building of memorials at Mauthausen, Belzec, Rumbula, and most recently the Labor Camps of Estonia, and so many other places, to step forward to assist this effort, too.

“The International Survey of Jewish Monuments is ready to act as facilitator for this project, in the right circumstances. If funds are available, ISJM will assist in putting together an international conservation and interpretation team to work with local professionals and authorities for the long-term protection and preservation of the Rudininkai Forest fort.”

Samuel D. Gruber (Jewish Art and Monuments)


16 April 2009. Letter to Dr Rachel Margolis from the National Director of ADL.


9 April 2009. Keene State College honors Dr. Rachel Margolis.


7 April 2009. Letter to Dr Rachel Margolis from the chairman, president and executive director of NCSJ.


15 March 2009. Holocaust Council of Metro West issues a Woman of Valor award to Dr Rachel Margolis.

The award was presented to Dr Margolis by Professor Israel Bartal at an event held at Tel Aviv’s Leivick House on 19 June 2009. She expressed her gratitude to the American group during her speech. Photo: Leyzer Burko.


13 March 2009. ‘Lithuania must stand up against antisemitism’ in the Jewish Standard (by Abraham Foxman).

26 January 2009. ‘Muddling the Holocaust in Lithuania’ on History News Network (by Professor Steven S. Lawson).

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2008

November 2008. ‘Analyzing Lithuanian antisemitism. The “Double Genocide” theory refuses to quit’ in Jewish Currents (by Geoff Vasil [Vasiliauskas]); alternate link.


September 2008. ‘Investigating Jewish partisans in Lithuania: the protest of a veteran Jewish partisan’ in Jewish Currents (by Professor Sara Ginaite).

“Prosecutors can easily turn into agents of injustice if they begin campaigns on ethnic or political grounds that have little to do with the work of identifying specific crimes and seeking to bring to a fair trial their alleged perpetrators. I invite the general prosecutor to put everything into its rightful context and not pursue a policy that appears to be based on ethnic targeting. The first step is to stop and ask: Why now, in 2008, schedule the pre-trial investigation of the circumstances of the event in Koniuchy, instead of examining the murder of 74,500 Lithuanian citizens during Soviet rule — and, yes, into the issue of who took part in the murder of two hundred thousand Jewish citizens of Lithuania during the Holocaust? Any request for bringing to justice the Nazi war criminals and the Soviet oppressors and killers is described as ‘too late.’ Strangely, however, it has just become not too late to use the Lithuanian justice system to discredit those who fought against the Nazis.

“How can one not be humiliated by this selective justice, which is, in practice, directed exclusively toward the few surviving Jewish partisans? Investigation of the Koniuchy case is not justice. It is a manipulation of justice, with the goal of forming a negative image of the Jewish partisans and of Holocaust survivors generally.

“A state prosecutor need not allow himself to become the instrument of some Lithuanian factions who support the idea of collective guilt and collective responsibility. But it looks as if the prosecutor has surrendered to pressure and has begun this useless investigation knowing perfectly well that he is not going to charge any concrete person with any concrete alleged crime.”

Professor Sara Ginaite


25 August 2008. Letter to Dr Rachel Margolis from nine NATO embassies in Vilnius.

21 August 2008. ‘In search of Jewish Vilna’  on JTA (by Rokhl Kafrissen).

20 August 2008. ‘Capital of culture or injustice?’ in the Jewish Week (by Mark Weitzman, director of government affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center USA).

19 August 2008. Open Letter from students and faculty of the summer program in Yiddish language and literature at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute at Vilnius University (text by Elliott Palevsky, director of the  cultural program).

15 August 2008. ‘Rokhl Margolis, 86, cannot visit her hometown Vilna because she fought against the Nazis’ [in Yiddish] in the Algemeyner Zhurnal (by Dovid Katz). Part II.

14 August 2008. ‘From hero to harassed: Lithuania’s campaign against Holocaust survivors’ in the Cleveland Jewish News (by Budd Margolis and Marjorie Margolis).


1 August 2008. United States congressmen Howard Berman, Paul Hodes and Robert Wexler protest the actions of the Lithuanian government.


25 July 2008. ‘Will the world remain silent as a new and more cunning form of Holocaust Denial comes before — the European Parliament?’ [in Yiddish] in the Algemeyner Zhurnal (by Dovid Katz). Part II.

20 July 2008. ‘Lithuania’s new Jewish concerns’ in the Washington Times (by Dan Mariaschin, executive vice president, B’nai B’rith International).

11 July 2008. ‘Lithuania has earned its place in Europe’ in the Forward (by Andrius Bruzga, ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania).

For the first time, a Lithuanian official explained in a formal letter for publication his government’s Double Genocide policy to an American Jewish readership. The letter came after shockwaves were spreading that one country in the world, Lithuania, was attempting to prosecute Holocaust Survivors who escaped certain death to join the anti-Nazi resistance.

“We are in Europe, and we share Europe’s history and destiny — with all the complexity that may entail. As a member of the European Union, Lithuania condemns both disastrous totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, Nazism and communism. All those who committed crimes against innocent civilians must face justice: Nazi collaborators, Soviet partisans, KGB interrogators, etc. There is no other way to repair the broken social fabric and heal the wounds.

“With time, we will rebuild Lithuania and restore the well-being and dignity of our people — of all the peoples who once lived in Lithuania. Vilnius rightly deserves the title of the European Capital of Culture and is proud to have it.”

Audrius Bruzga, Ambassador of Lithuania to the US

26 June 2008. ‘Europe’s shameful honoring of Vilnius’  in the Forward (by Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs at the American Jewish Committee).

11 June 2008. ‘Persecution of former Jewish partisans in Lithuania’ on Vilna Stories (by Dr Michael Good).


30 April 2008. The Embassy of the United States in Lithuania issues a certificate of appreciation, signed by Ambassador John A. Cloud, to Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky; presented by political officer Joseph Boski at a luncheon organized by the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.

US Embassy’s political officer Joseph Boski presents the ambassador’s award to Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky in Vilnius, 30 April 2008


15 April 2008. ‘The Holocaust and contemporary antisemitism in Lithuania’ on Deborah Lipstadt’s Blog (by Deborah Lipstadt).

3 April 2008. Resolution of the [US] Board of Directors of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.

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2007

30 November 2007‘Master US diplomat in Vilnius: Joe Boski’ in Algemeyner Zhurnal (by Dovid Katz). II.

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