Author Archives: Defending History

Did “Maceva” Inform the German Soldiers About the Jewish Partisan Fort Abutting the New Panzer Brigade’s Training Grounds in Lithuania?

Posted on 18 August 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | MEDIA WATCH | LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EUROPE | HISTORY | BLAMING THE VICTIMS | GERMANY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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OPINION

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VILNIUS—Appreciation is due to the Lithuanian NGO “Maceva” and the German Army’s new Panzer Brigade in Lithuania (Panzerbrigade 45, Litautenbrigade) for their new joint effort to clean and maintain old Jewish gravestones in Lithuania, as reported, inter alia, on Facebook. This is a noble endeavor.

It is a laudable activity for both “Maceva” and for the German soldiers. Cleaning pre-Holocaust gravestones of a people of whom none exist anymore in those places is in itself a valuable indirect lesson in the meaning of “genocide” on the ground rather than just in the realm of academic and political debate of the day.

But there is a catch.

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Posted in Germany, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Did “Maceva” Inform the German Soldiers About the Jewish Partisan Fort Abutting the New Panzer Brigade’s Training Grounds in Lithuania?

Ruta Bloshtein Launches New Petition to Stop Modernist Office Build that would Irreversibly Ruin Vilna’s Great Synagogue Square

Posted on 17 August 2026 by Defending History

GREAT SYNAGOGUE SAGA | OLD CEMETERY SAGA | RESTITUTION AWRY | LJC | AJC | GWF | USCPAHA

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VILNIUS—Ruta Bloshtein, a prominent member of Vilnius’s small Orthodox Jewish community, today launched a new petition via Change.org asking that the posh modernist office building planned by the “Good Will Foundation” and its state-sponsored “Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community” be moved away from right on top of the remnants of the Great Synagogue, to a venue where it would not serve to irrevocably ruin the majesty and sanctity of the remnants of the Great Synagogue and its square. Many of these remnants were revealed for the first time this summer thanks to archaeological excavations that were sponsored by the same foundation as prelude to its own building project. Follow the saga in Defending History.

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Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf) | Tagged , | Comments Off on Ruta Bloshtein Launches New Petition to Stop Modernist Office Build that would Irreversibly Ruin Vilna’s Great Synagogue Square

Issues of the Day (Summer 2026)

Posted on 15 August 2026 by Defending History

[LAST UPDATE]
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Welcome! Please come and visit DefendingHistory.com. Recent reports here. Or, review our 18 year history history by scrolling to the end of our dated posts and work your way up. Our 2026-2027 cultural projects are listed below.

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1  Preserving Eastern Europe’s last Jewish anti-Nazi resistance fort in the forest:

The German Army’s 45th Brigade comes to Lithuania as part of NATO, and ends up right next door to the rapidly sinking remnants of East Europe’s last Jewish anti-Nazi Jewish partisan fort in the forest. Will Germany publicly show respect to this last authentic relic of Jewish resistance? Cherish, preserve, protect, restore it? Take advantage of the magnificent opportunity for education for thousands of soldiers destined for “next door to the Jewish fort in the forest” that late Jewish partisan veteran Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (1922-2024) showed to thousands of visitors? Or will their arrival accelerate the fort’s disappearance as they “clean old Jewish cemeteries” elsewhere in elaborate PR stunts (with rabbis flown in from Berlin to sidetrack Vilnius’s rabbis) to fix this new “Jewish problem”? Fania’s last wish and legacy. Video of Fania showing us the fort in 2007. Updates to spring 2026. Defending History’s section on the fort. Note: The problem is not Germany’s “wishes in principle” but the failure to politely stand up to far-right ultranationalist Lithuanian state “history agencies” that oppose the Jewish partisan fort’s survival on the face of Lithuania.

Maritta Tkalec breaks the taboo on covering the issue in her article in Berliner Zeitung (16 June 2026, DH’s report). Solveig Grothe’s coverage in Der Spiegel  (print edition) reflects her visit to the site, speaking to all sides in Lithuania, and eliciting from both the Genocide Center and the Ministry of Culture their “plans” for the Jewish partisan fort’s future (18 June 2026, DH’s report).

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Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Tagged | Comments Off on Issues of the Day (Summer 2026)

Sariel Rosenberg, Chief Judge (Av Beis-Din) of Bnei Brak Rabbinic Court, Issues New Ruling on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 14 August 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | COMMENT BY ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS, SID LEIMAN, JULIUS NORWILLA, DOVID KATZ | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The Hebrew rabbinic ruling signed on 4 August 2026 by Rabbi Sariel Rosenberg, Chief Rabbinic Judge (Av Beis Din) of the Beis Din Tzedek, in Bnei Brak, Israel, was released for publication today by Jewish Heritage in Lita. The release came in the form of one PDF of the original Hebrew text, alongside another of the rabbinical court’s authorized English translation. This is the rabbinical court considered the highest, or one of the highest Orthodox rabbinical courts serving the international Litvish (Lithuanian tradition) sector of modern Haredi Jewish law and practice worldwide.

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Comments Off on Sariel Rosenberg, Chief Judge (Av Beis-Din) of Bnei Brak Rabbinic Court, Issues New Ruling on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Vilnius’s Newfound Gem in the Old Town: The ‘Greyse Shul’ (Great Synagogue) and ‘Vilner Shúlheyf’ (Great Synagogue Square)

Posted on 13 August 2026 by Defending History

GREAT SYNAGOGUE SAGA | OLD CEMETERY SAGA | RESTITUTION AWRY | LJC | AJC | GWF | USCPAHA

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OPINION

by Dovid Katz

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Sometimes even the misnamed “Good Will Foundation” (GWF), a failed quango that has squandered millions on its own small circle of friends and family does a public good born of private designs. Even while wholly excluding the bona fide secular and democratic Vilnius Jewish Community and the thirty-two year old continuous-on-site religious community, in short—the actual Jewish people of Lithuania. An investment in major archaeology at the Great Synagogue of Vilna site was wise. But was it to restore something truly huge in Lithuanian history for the benefit of Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish culture, and the people of Vilnius? Or was the idea here to “acquire some prime real estate, do some archaeology and ship off the artefacts to some museum”—and then go and use the most prestigious site in the seven-hundred year history of Jewish Vilna (Yiddish Vílne) for a posh new executive office building for GWF’s leaders themselves, built in modernist Scandinavian style? If the leaked photos of the plans are any guide, it fits into the grace of Vilnius’s Old Town like, as we used to say in New York, a shammes in a pickle factory.

UPDATE

Please consider signing Ruta Bloshtein’s new petition.

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Posted in Dovid Katz, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf) | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Vilnius’s Newfound Gem in the Old Town: The ‘Greyse Shul’ (Great Synagogue) and ‘Vilner Shúlheyf’ (Great Synagogue Square)

Converging Signs of a New Antisemitic Cauldron in Eastern Europe?

Posted on 7 August 2026 by Defending History

ANTISEMITISM

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OPINION

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by Dovid Katz

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VILNIUS—It is never easy to determine with precision the point at which a bigot with a fancy degree should cease to be regarded as a fringer best ignored, and when the moment has arrived for a public alert. In that spirit of frank uncertainty, we offer a PDF of today’s email blast by a veteran mass-mailer whose geopolitical musings from Kaunas—he holds a master’s degree from Vytautas Magnus University—reflect a conspiracy theory about the war in Ukraine that has circulated since its onset, and is ridiculous enough for people far from the current European war zone to laugh off.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, EU, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Žemaitaitis Affair | Comments Off on Converging Signs of a New Antisemitic Cauldron in Eastern Europe?

Please Email Lithuania’s PM and Vilnius Mayor to Defend Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 6 August 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | COMMENT BY ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS, SID LEIMAN, JULIUS NORWILLA, DOVID KATZ | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

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VILNIUS—Lithuania’s newly appointed Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius and Vilnius’s Mayor Valdas Benkunskas will be meeting in mid-August to discuss the fate of Vilnius’s oldest Jewish Cemetery and the Soviet Palace which continues to desecrate it.

LITHUANIAN TEXT

Gerbkime kapines (Respect Cemeteries), an informal fellowship led by Ruta Bloshtein, Arkadij Kurliandchik, Artūras Imbrasas, Edmundas Kulikauskas and Andrius Kulikauskas, urges defenders of the Cemetery to write emails to these officials. We include below their addresses and a sample letter.

Lithuania’s Parliament, Seimas, will in its Autumn session further deliberate a bill to revive the Soviet Palace as a convention center, desecrating the Cemetery for decades to come, now in the name of independent Lithuania, a member of the European Union and NATO.

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Please Email Lithuania’s PM and Vilnius Mayor to Defend Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

The Magic Wand for Making Holocaust Perpetrators into Heroes in Lithuania — While Jewish Resistance Heroes become ‘Enemies of The State’ …

Posted on 8 July 2026 by Defending History

LITHUANIA | POLITICS OF MEMORY | BLAMING VICTIMS | GLORIFYING PERPETRATORS | LAST REMNANT OF JEWISH PARTISAN RESISTANCE IN THE FORESTS OF LITHUANIA | HISTORY

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OPINION

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by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

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  • “Soviet rule has disappeared. The Jews are left behind as fair game.”
  • Entry of July 7, 1941. From  Surviving the Holocaust: Kovno Ghetto Diary, by Avraham Tory.
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In the late sixties while working in a small company in Brussels my Jewish boss who had been “geschmuggelt’’ out of the ghetto in Lvov (former Lemberg, now Lviv, Ukraine) in a truck, before it was liquidated in 1942, had repeatedly told me that after his escape he had repeatedly tried to join with partisan groups in the area, mostly Polish or Ukrainian. Had they known that he was Jewish, he would have been killed outright. His luck was that he could pass himself off as a Pole as he spoke the language well. He had been fifteen years old at the time. I remembered these words recently on the occasion of the scandal that has erupted these past months regarding the Jewish Partisan Fort in the Rūdninkai Forest (Yiddish; Rudnitsker vald) which is now in danger of being erased due to the presence in that zone of the new German NATO Panzer Brigade (Litauenbrigade).

EFFECTS OF THE LITHUANIAN GOVERNMENT’S ‘MAGIC WAND’? Left: Public monument to Holocaust collaborator Juozas Krikštaponis (photo: Seimas). Right: One of the collapsing bunkers at Lithuania’s only relic of the Jewish anti-Nazi resistance that sits next door to Germany’s new Panzer brigade and may soon disappear (photo: DefendingHistory.com).

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Collaborators Glorified, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Magic Wand for Making Holocaust Perpetrators into Heroes in Lithuania — While Jewish Resistance Heroes become ‘Enemies of The State’ …

Session on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Culture for Peace Conference in Washington

Posted on 30 June 2026 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | COMMENT BY ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS, SID LEIMAN, JULIUS NORWILLA, DOVID KATZ | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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A video of the discussion on the fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at the 10 June 2026 Culture for Peace Conference in Washington DC follows (shared from Youtube). The full title of the conference was: “Pathways to Peace. Addressing critical challenges facing Western institutions.” A full conference program is posted on the website of the Culture for Peace Institute.

 

 

 

Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Session on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Culture for Peace Conference in Washington

Averting an imminent grave error on the ruins of the Great Vilna Synagogue. Finding a happy, ethical solution.

Posted on 28 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE SAGA | TEXTBOOK CASE OF RESTITUTION GONE AWRY | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | THE LJC | THE AJC | THE GWF | USCPAHA

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OPINION

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by Dovid Katz

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I have argued that Jewish diaspora history comprises a permanent, central religious spine, a tree trunk if you will, characterized by “secular outbursts” that produce magnificent contributions both to Jewish and to world culture, arts and sciences. The recurring and harmonious patterning includes the great religious treasures remaining precious also to the secularists, be it the Bible, or a wall in Jerusalem or a synagogue in Prague. There has also been bidirectional cross-fertilization of achievements and their use, without either group wanting to usurp the other’s treasures, but rather to benefit from them. One of the outcomes is that great Jewish religious sites around the world, including synagogues and cemeteries, have become invaluable survivals of a rich and varied diaspora history that have a profound meaning for the non religious or not-so-religious — as well as for wider, multiculturalist non-Jewish society.

UPDATE

Please consider signing Ruta Bloshtein’s new petition.

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Averting an imminent grave error on the ruins of the Great Vilna Synagogue. Finding a happy, ethical solution.

Books in the Debate (a DefendingHistory.com selection)

Posted on 26 June 2026 by Defending History

[last update]

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see also: BOOKS SECTION

New: Prof. Karen Sutton’s review

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Not yet published:

Michael Shafir, Competitive Martyrdom [working title]. 

Draft manuscript of the book circulated to colleagues (for comments and criticism) before the author’s sudden death in 2022. See Defending History’s Michael Shafir section. It is hoped that Professor Shafir’s heirs will enable rapid publication of this major and indispensable work in the field.

2025

Saulius Sužiedėlis, Crisis, War, and the Holocaust in Lithuania

Reactions, reviews, and citations:

Roland Binet: Autopsy of the Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. Or: How to Subtly Rewrite History

Clemens Heni: Mit Kojak gegen die Rot=Braun-Ideologie

Karen L. Sutton: Review in Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs

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Posted in Books, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Rūta Vanagaitė | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Books in the Debate (a DefendingHistory.com selection)

Lithuania’s Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky Challenges WJRO (‘World Jewish Restitution Organization’) to Stop Enabling Travesties of State Sponsored GWF (‘Good Will Foundation’)

Posted on 25 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | LITVAK AFFAIRS | TEXTBOOK CASE OF FAILURE OF RESTITUTION FOR PLUNDERED PREWAR JEWISH ASSETS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | AJC MISADVENTURES IN LITHUANIA | CHABAD IN LITHUANIA

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VILNIUS—Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Chabad’s rabbi in Lithuania, who for thirty-two years has been the city’s only resident rabbi, today issued the following statement addressed to the president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO):

It is deeply painful that the restitution process in Lithuania has been flawed from the start.

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Chabad in Vilnius, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Vilnius | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky Challenges WJRO (‘World Jewish Restitution Organization’) to Stop Enabling Travesties of State Sponsored GWF (‘Good Will Foundation’)

Barbarossa Plus One: The 85th Anniversary of June 23rd 1941 in Lithuania

Posted on 23 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | LEGACY OF 23 JUNE 1941 | 2011 ATTEMPTS TO SANITIZE THE LAF  |  LAF’S INTENTIONS IN WRITING | ŠKIRPA’S PLANS | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | LITHUANIAN JEWISH AFFAIRS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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OPINION

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by Dovid Katz

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In the opinion of every Lithuanian Holocaust survivor interviewed, the magnificent six-century record of tolerance and enlightened coexistence, including the years of the successful interwar Lithuanian Republic, were in a single day, June 23rd 1941, replaced by the eruption of barbaric mass murder that is all too well documented. It is “Barbarossa Plus One” (the major killing started one day after Hitler’s invasion was launched, in survivors correct memory: the Monday after the Sunday). The far right’s history department, sometimes rewriting history on an industrial scale with support from certain state agencies (most infamously, the “Genocide Center”), has attempted to “fix” this by ignoring the facts and claiming that this was actually the LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front) leading an “uprising” which drove out the Soviet army and restored independence.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Legacy of 23 June 1941, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Barbarossa Plus One: The 85th Anniversary of June 23rd 1941 in Lithuania

Blaming the Victims: Documents from a 20 Year Campaign to Defame and Decommemorate the Anti-Nazi Jewish Partisans of Lithuania

Posted on 22 June 2026 by Defending History

LAST UPDATE
(originally published 21 Aug. 2010). See also (older, not updated) Responses page.

2006    2007    2008    2009    2010    2011   2012    2013    2014    2015    2016    2017   2024   2025   2026

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The campaign of defamation by Lithuanian state prosecutors and allied elites (particularly in the Genocide Center and the antisemitic right-wing press) has resulted in a number of cherished Holocaust Survivors being smeared as “war criminals” without a single charge ever having been leveled against anybody. Launched in 2006, the campaign, abusing tools such as “pre-trial investigations” and leaks to the media, have sought to brand as “war criminals” the heroes of the war against Hitler. It grew in 2011 with the addition of equally perverse  “libel charges,” launched with fanfare when Interpol (!) was sent to disturb in Tel Aviv the elected head of the last active group of Litvak Holocaust survivors in the world. Then, in 2013, the state’s “red-brown commission” defamed one of Vilnius’s last survivors on equally perverse grounds, all the while putting on “Holocaust events” for naive Western audiences, usually funded by the (unknowing) Lithuanian taxpayer, in venues  including London, New York, Toronto, and Vilnius.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Documents, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Blaming the Victims: Documents from a 20 Year Campaign to Defame and Decommemorate the Anti-Nazi Jewish Partisans of Lithuania

The Holocaust: A Schizoid Legacy?

Posted on 20 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | POLITICS OF MEMORY | BELGIUM | LITHUANIA

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by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

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In chapter five of his major book on the Holocaust in Lithuania published last year, Professor Saulius Sužiedėlis discusses theatrical productions that Jakob Gens had proposed to introduce into the Vilna Ghetto at the end of 1941. Here are some quotes: “Kruk reacted with disgust (…) Members of the Bund announced a boycott and leaflets were distributed stating “You don’t make theater in a graveyard”.

I do not share the opinion that theatre should not have been played in the ghettos. On the contrary, to me, the sometimes vivid cultural life in the ghettos under Nazi and collaborators’ rule, in all its hues and colors, had undoubtedly been a bonding link, a source of some kind of normalcy and hope for the persecuted Jews, and a necessary psychological rampart against fear, boredom, stress, anguish, that all inhabitants of these hells on earth had to go through during days, weeks, months, sometimes years, perpetually living in the mortal fear for one’s life perhaps extinguished from one moment to the next or after a lengthy walk to a killing pit, naked, alone, forlorn.

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Posted in Belgium, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The Holocaust: A Schizoid Legacy?

Der Spiegel’s Solveig Grothe Elicits Official Culture Ministry Position on Destruction of Lithuania’s Last Relic of Jewish Anti-Nazi Resistance

Posted on 19 June 2026 by Defending History

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OPINION

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by Dovid Katz

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VILNIUS—Solveig Grothe’s article in Germany’s weekly Der Spiegel, appeared today in the journal’s print edition, and yesterday, in a slightly longer version, in the online edition (alternate link; PDF of print edition). The piece resulted from months of research including onsite work in Vilnius, and at the forest fort, and seeking out statements for the record from all sides in the debate.

For some, the article’s greatest revelation will be the degree to which not only the state-sponsored Genocide Center, but also its prestigious Ministry of Culture, rushed to go on the record to trash the legacy — and the memory and possibility of commemoration — of the tiny handful of Lithuanian Jewish citizens who survived the Holocaust by joining up with the partisan anti-Nazi resistance in the forest.

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Posted in Germany, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Der Spiegel’s Solveig Grothe Elicits Official Culture Ministry Position on Destruction of Lithuania’s Last Relic of Jewish Anti-Nazi Resistance

Berliner Zeitung’s Maritta Tkalec Breaks (Weird) German Media Taboo on the Sinking Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Posted on 16 June 2026 by Defending History

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OPINION

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by Dovid Katz

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VILNIUS—Maritta Tkalec is to be congratulated on her fine article in today’s Berliner Zeitung (PDF; English; Lithuanian). It breaks the (weird) taboo in mainstream German media on the mystically powerful and rapidly sinking Jewish anti-Nazi partisan fort in a forest in Lithuania that — by the majesty of history or the hand of higher powers — has ended up just next door to the vast German Army 45th Brigade training grounds now under construction in the context of NATO.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Germany, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Berliner Zeitung’s Maritta Tkalec Breaks (Weird) German Media Taboo on the Sinking Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Respect Cemeteries Issues Brochure for Campaign to Inspire Seimas to Respect and Preserve the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 15 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The Respect Cemeteries group (Gerbkime kapines), based here in the Lithuanian capital, today released its new brochure with members of the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament, in mind. They will be voting this autumn on whether to (mis)invest substantial state assets in a national convention center or memorial complex in the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Shnípishok, today’s Šnipiškės in modern Vilnius) or, as Respect Cemeteries (and the Defending History community) hope, discard both plans in favor of the ethical solution (supported by tens of thousands internationally who have signed petitions) — restoration of the major Jewish cemetery in the historic Lithuanian lands. Thousands still lie buried there.

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Respect Cemeteries Issues Brochure for Campaign to Inspire Seimas to Respect and Preserve the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Seimas Committee Receives ‘Truly Many Letters’ Defending Jewish Cemetery, Postpones Deliberation to Autumn Session

Posted on 14 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

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VILNIUS—On June 10, 2026, in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Seimas Committee on Culture voted unanimously to postpone until the autumn session further deliberation of the bill “On the Further Utilization of the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace”. The Soviets built this palace in the middle of Vilnius’s oldest Jewish cemetery.

Screenshot from Seimas video. Upper left: LJC chair Faina Kukliansky, and then clockwise: committee Chair Kęstutis Vilkauskas; committee member Vytautas Grubliauskas; committee deputy chair Vytautas Juozapaitis; folk art curator Virginijus Jocys; Respect Cemeteries representative Edmundas Kulikauska; committee member Petras Dargis. Center: committee member Rima Baškienė

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Seimas Committee Receives ‘Truly Many Letters’ Defending Jewish Cemetery, Postpones Deliberation to Autumn Session

New Brussels Monument (‘An Echo in Time’): A Ruse to Bring Double Genocide Holocaust Revisionism to the Gates of the European Parliament?

Posted on 13 June 2026 by Defending History

 DOUBLE GENOCIDE | EU  | PRAGUE PLATFORM | PRAGUE DECLARATION | THE SEVENTY YEARS DECLARATION

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OPINION

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VILNIUS—The Double Genocide movement’s long-held wish of major legitimization at or near the European Parliament in Brussels via a huge monument effectively equalizing Nazi and Soviet crimes has come a step closer. This journal’s opinion has been consistent for some eighteen years, since these issues were forced on to the European Parliament’s agenda by some eastern member states (normally, in democratic alliances of sovereign states, it is understood that freedom of speech and thought includes healthy debates on history within each state). Our take: 1. Brussels needs a major new monument to the victims of Communism and its brutality, including mass murder and horrendous crimes against humanity. 2. Brussels does not need a mix-and-match monument for victims of Nazism and Communism together which is a ruse of the red-equals-brown (Double Genocide) revisionism movement, emanating from the East European far right, and seeking to downgrade (and relativize) the Holocaust, criminalize those who joined the anti-Nazi resistance, and glorify local killers in the east as freedom fighters (they were after all “anti-Communist”). The effects of “Double Genocide” pressure on various European museums has been manifest for years.

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