[last update]
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see also: BOOKS SECTION
Author Archives: Defending History
Books in the Debate (a DefendingHistory.com selection)
Posted in Books, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Rūta Vanagaitė
Tagged Alexander Gendler (Khurbn), Dan Rabinowitz, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jonas Noreika, Leyb Koniuchowsky & Jonathan Boyarin, Nazi's Grnddaughter, Ruta Vanagaite & Christoph Dieckmann, Ruta Vanagaite + Efraim Zuroff, Saulius Suziedelis, Silvia Foti
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Autopsy of the Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. Or: How to Subtly Rewrite History
BOOKS | BOOKS IN THE DEBATE | LITHUANIA
REVIEW ARTICLE
by Roland Binet (De Panne, Belgium)
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Human feelings are now as candles without wick burning from inside.
(from a poem by Avrom Sutzkever, a tribute to Yiddish teacher Yankev Gershtein who perished in the Vilna Ghetto on September 27, 1942 (quote from Rudashevski’s Diary)
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Professor emeritus Saulius Sužiedėlis of Millersville University of Pennsylvania begins this major new book by characterizing its long and productive journey. “This study is the result of years of interaction with historians, journalists, and writers from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the United States, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Israel. Inspiration and encouragement emerged from discussions among the eleven-member Sub-Commission on Nazi Crimes, part of the Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania” (p. vii). Sužiedėlis’s opus on the Jews in Lithuania and their almost complete disappearance during the war years is a meticulously researched, coherently chronicled and impressively documented opus, tackling many themes, issues and problems with a staggering abundance of facts, figures, quotes, opinions, and anecdotes. Chunks of it read almost like an autopsy report on places and massacres rather than on an individual’s remains. I find it overall to be an exceptional, very well written and truly necessary contribution.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Books, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Roland Binet
Tagged Andrius Kulikauskas, Crisis War and the Holocaust, Efraim Zuroff, Evaldas Balciunas, Holocaust in Lithuania, International Commission for the Evaluation, Milan Chersonski, Omer Bartov, Prague Declaration, Red-Brown Commission, Roland Binet, Saulius Berzinis, Saulius Suziedelis, Seventy Years Declaration, Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavicius), Yitzhak Arad
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Summer 2025 Developments for the Future of the 500 Year Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO THE NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
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Lithuania’s prime minister announces:
National conference center will rise in center of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
First responses on 23 July 2025: Defending History’s statement, and Rabbi Elchonon Baron’s public letter to the prime minister. Reversing years of alleged collusion with the political and commercial forces opposing restoration of the cemetery, both the AJC’s Andrew Baker and the LJC’S Faina Kukliansky issue clear statements of protest.
Other protests from recent years, including: Rabbi S.J. Feffer; proclamation by Litvak heads of yeshiva rabbis Moshe Hillel Hirsch of Slobodka, Reuven Feinstein of New York, Osher Eliyahu Kalmanowitz of Mirrer Yeshiva, New York; Elya Baer Wachtfogel, Zichron Moshe, South Fallsburg, New York.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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Defending History Issues and Projects (Autumn 2025)
NOTE: Please come visit and look through DefendingHistory.com (recent reports here). Please consider supporting these causes. Thank you.
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ISSUES
Note: Ordering not in order of importance. Weighting of specific issues in is in the heart of the beholder and depends very much on individual interests and priorities.
Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Jewish issues in Lithuania (2025)
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The Defending History Community’s Statement on Putin’s Barbaric War on Ukraine (and the Free World)
[PERIODIC REAFFIRMATION FOLLOWING THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF THE WAR’S LAUNCH] — STATEMENT ORIGINALLY ISSUED ON 25 FEB. 2022]
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Renewing our call of 25 Feb. 2022:
The Defending History community joins in calling for immediate restoration of peace and security for all the people of Ukraine, condemning unequivocally the savage and medievally barbaric invasion — and rain of death and destruction with mass murder and terrorization of a peaceful civilian population — by the neighboring big power, the Russian Federation, led by our century’s most dangerous and deranged warmonger dictator. Ukraine’s victory will be the victory of the free and democratic world everywhere, as will the fall of the Putinist regime of dictatorship, brutality, invasion, and mass murder of civilians.
Posted in News & Views, Ukraine
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Rabbi Elchonon Baron Warns Lithuanian Gov. that ‘Blessings’ Will Not Come to the Country from Construction of Conference Center in Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO THE NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
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Rabbi Elchonon Baron speaking to Lithuanian media at the Vilnius Jewish Community’s protest at the cemetery last year. DH Photo: William Adan Pahl.
VILNIUS—Rapidly following upon the announcement today by Lithuania’s prime minister that he is ordering revival of the project to remodel a hated Soviet ruin in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery into a new national conference center, the office of Rabbi Elchonon Baron, president of JHL (Jewish Heritage in Lita), released his letter to the prime minister in both Lithuanian and English. They appear just below in PDF format.
During a protest at the cemetery coordinated with the Vilnius Jewish Community last summer, Rabbi Baron gave a powerful interview to Lithuania media (video), which was however not included in the evening news coverage (see report). Defending History’s reaction to the prime minister’s statement appeared earlier today.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rabbi Elchonon Baron, Vilnius
Tagged Piramont cemetery Vilnius, Rabbi Elchonon Baron, Vilnius Jewish cemetery Snipiskes
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Lithuania’s Prime Minister Throws Out Gov’s Own ‘Working Group’ Proposals. Announces Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery will Become a National Convention Center
OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO THE NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
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VILNIUS—The following is the text of Defending History’s emailed letter to readers today concerning news of the Lithuanian prime minister’s statement announcing that the derelict Soviet building in the middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, instead of being torn down to make way for the cemetery’s loving restoration would be restored and rebuilt to become Vilnius’s new national convention center. There was, for all intents and purposes, no mention of the recent “Working Group” and its non-starter recommendation for it to become a museum. The Defending History community will continue to pursue peaceful and appropriate public-discourse means to defend the dignity of the thousands of Vilna Jews buried there over half a millennium of Litvak history.
[UPDATES: See also Rabbi Elchonon Baron’s rapid reply to prime minister; Vilnius mayor’s complaint that he wasn’t informed, noting he is studying alternative site near the Seimas.]
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Dear Readers
Lithuania’s Prime Minister has just announced full reversion to the convention center project in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that would prove so damaging and tragic for Lithuania’s standing in the world. The many thousands of Vilna citizens buried there have no local descendants to defend their graves because of the Holocaust. Moreover, the unique hand of East European antisemitism is in play (and an antisemitic party lamentably forms part of the PM’s coalition). The simple tests: (a) all other hated Soviet monstrosities are (rightfully!) dismantled; and (b) this would never happen to a five hundred year old city center cemetery of the ethnic/religious majority in the country. Both EU and US congressional law clearly designate the sacrosanct rights of minority cemeteries internationally.
Posted in 2023-2024 'Working Group' on the Future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, 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), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius
Tagged Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewishi cemetery
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International Opposition to ‘New’ Proposals for Conference-Memorial Complex, with Seating Capacity for Thousands — in the Middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
[last update]
BACKGROUND:
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT
EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER |
2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY
LIST OF MEMBERS WHOSE MORAL CAPITULATION (ALL BUT THE NOBLE PROFESSOR SID LEIMAN) WILL FOREVER BE IN THE HISTORY
MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO THE NEW MUSEUM/MEMORIAL PROJECT
CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES
HUMAN RIGHTS (INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF THE DECEASED TO BE LEFT IN PEACE IN BURIAL GROUNDS PURCHASED IN PERPETUITY)
CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
See Note below
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Videos Online
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Written statements:
Rabbi Elchonon Baron
Ruta Bloshtein
Rabbi S. J. Feffer
Bernard Fryshman
Dovid Katz
Andrius Kulikauskas
Sid Leiman
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged American Jewish Committee (AJC), Conference of European Rabbis (CER), Good Will Foundation (GWF), human rights & cemeteries, Jewish cemetery at Piramont (Snipiskes/Shnipishok), Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC), Old Vilnius (Vilna) Jewish cemetery
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2025 Plans for new ‘Collegium’ (and Seimas Law) to Glorify Holocaust’s June 1941 LAF Killers of their Jewish Neighbors
[LAST UPDATE. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 19 MARCH 2025]
A Vilnius professor, a former foreign minister, and group of Conservative (Homeland Union) parliamentarians announce ‘collegium’ to glorify 1941 LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front / ‘White-Armbander’ ) Hitlerists who murdered their neighbors — effectively ‘initiating on the ground’ the Lithuanian Holocaust
25 June 2025 update: Member of the Seimas proposes law to legitimize the “declaration of independence” of the LAF and Hitler’s puppet “provisional government” by an act of parliament (reports in Lrytas.lt, 15mins.lt, and BNS). Also: publication of statement by former energy minister claiming that without the genocidal, local-Holocaust-initiating LAF there would be no 11 March 1990…. DH’s take? Classic instances of ultranationalist politicians working to turn perpetrators into heroes, smearing the actual history as “Soviet” though it is the proven Western narrative.
The professor. Official announcement on website of the Seimas. Article citing former foreign minister. Article explaining that a new Seimas law will mandate spending on far-right history revisionism to smear the historic narrative (the Western narrative, the Holocaust history narrative) as Kremlin-inspired (!) while glorifying the killers of thousands of innocent Jewish neighbors. Far from helping the name of today’s free and democratic Lithuania, this Seimas proposal brings self-inflicted damage of the worst sort — glorifying the perpetrators of the early days and weeks of the Lithuanian Holocaust.
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OUR TAKE
Leonidas Donskis answers Prof. Girnius from the grave:
‘When will the truth finally set us free?’
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NOW IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Updates to the New German Brigade Near the World War II Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania
EUROPE’S ONLY SURVIVING JEWISH PARTISAN FORT
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VILNIUS—There have been two new developments in the saga of Germany’s Forty-Fifth Armoured Brigade, to be established in the forests adjacent to the remains of Europe’s last Jewish partisan fort, where around one hundred escapes from the Vilna Ghetto lived and fought the Nazis and their local collaborators during the Holocaust. See report.
The 20 June updates:
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort
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Mid June 2025 Events in Vilnius
EVENTS | VILNIUS
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On Yivo’s 100th:
Dr. Jonathan Brent, director of Yivo, speaking on Yivo’s 100th anniversary at National Picture Gallery Tuesday 17 June at 3 PM.
Professor David E. Fishman (JTS), speaking on Yivo during the war years at the National Library’s Judaic Studies Center Tuesday 17 June at 5 PM. Registration.
Posted in Events, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Boris Maftsir, Crisis, Dr. Jonathan Brent, Prof. David E. Fishman, Prof. Saulius Suziedelis, War and the Holocaust in Lithuania, Yivo
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Bravo to Vilnius Jewish Community for Standing Up for Democracy & Continuity of Jewish Life in Lithuania
OPINION | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | LITVAK AFFAIRS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | AJC MISADVENTURES IN LITHUANIA
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OPINION
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VILNIUS—The following is an edited and updated version of Dovid Katz’s post on Facebook today in reaction to the statement posted today by the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) on its website and on Facebook. An English translation of the statement appears in Defending History.
[Updates: See also the media report in Alfa.lt; the statement posted by Jewish Heritage Lita (JHL) on its website; Defending History’s newly compiled section, Lithuania: a Textbook Case of East European Restitution for Lost Jewish Assets Abused to Dismantle and Diminish a Vibrant Jewish Community, which includes contributions over the years by Ruta Bloshtein, Alexander Chernov, Pinchos Fridberg, Simon Gurevich, Leon Kaplan, Arkady Kurliandchik, Zecharya Olickij, Josif Parasonis, the late Jacob Pilansky, among others.]
BRAVO to our democratic Vilnius Jewish Community (which represents over 1,600 Jewish people in Vilnius, constituting the majority of today’s small Jewish community in Lithuania) for proudly standing up and speaking out on this week’s monkey elections at the corrupt “Lithuanian Jewish Community” (which is state-sponsored, via “restitution” no less, deriving from the property values of the annihilated prewar religious institutions). Their statement is on Facebook and their website.
In the middle of the 2017 election campaign, when a certain conflict-of-interest passport lawyer saw that her opponent was winning, the rules were changed mid-campaign to disenfranchise the living Jewish people of Lithuania and replace them with kangaroo “associations” comprising entities themselves receiving monies and/or other benefits from the same restitution.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Dovid Katz, Lithuania, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged American Jewish Committee (AJC), B'nai B'rith International, Conference on American Zionist Movement (AZM), Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Dovid Katz, Faina Kukliansky, Geros valios fondas, Good Will Foundation (Lithuania), Jewish life in Lithuania, Lieuvos zydu bendruomene, Lithuanian Jewish Community, National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry, Vilniaus zydu bendruomene, Vilnius Jewish community, World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), World ORT
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Vilnius Jewish Community Issues Public Statement on Sham Elections of Restitution-fueled ‘Official’ Jewish Community
OPINION | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY ISSUES | LITVAK AFFAIRS | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | AJC MISADVENTURES IN LITHUANIA
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VILNIUS—The following is an English translation of the statement posted today by the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) on its website and on Facebook.
Among reports and reactions: in Alfa.lt; the statement posted by Jewish Heritage Lita (JHL); Dovid Katz’s post on n Facebook and in Defending History; Defending History’s newly compiled section, Lithuania: a Textbook Case of East European Restitution for Lost Jewish Assets Abused to Dismantle and Diminish a Vibrant Jewish Community, which includes contributions over the years by Ruta Bloshtein, Alexander Chernov, Pinchos Fridberg, Simon Gurevich, Leon Kaplan, Arkady Kurliandchik, Zecharya Olickij, Josif Parasonis, the late Jacob Pilansky, among others.]
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Statement of the Vilnius Jewish Community
The Vilnius Jewish Community announces that it will not participate in the reporting and election meeting of the Lithuanian Jewish Community to be held on June 6 of this year.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Lithuania, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Vilnius
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Chris Heath’s ‘No Road Leading Back’ on Ponar and on How we Remember the Holocaust
BOOKS | PONAR | LITHUANIA
BOOK REVIEW
by Roland Binet (De Panne, Belgium)
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In 2016, Chris Heath read an item in the New York Times about a tunnel that had been discovered “at a Holocaust killing site”. It was referring to
Ponar near Vilna (Yiddish Ponár, Polish Ponary, today’s Paneriai outside Vilnius, capital city of Lithuania). It is around ten kilometers (six miles) southwest of Vilnius city center. This caught his attention and he decided to write a book about this heroic feat. The main title is borrowed from two lines that Shmerke Kaczerginski had written in his poem “Shtiler, Shtiler” (Quieter, quieter) that was put to music and sung in the Vilna Ghetto.
Ponar: 100,000 persons killed by bullets from summer 1941 to spring of 1944, about 70% of them Jews including women, children, and the elderly.
Ponar: List of twelve escapees from Ponar who survived (April 1944): Josef Bielic, Abraham Blazer, Yitzhak Dogin, Yuli Farber, Shlomo Gol, David Kantorovich, Zalman Matzkin, Lejzer Owsiejczyk, Konstantin Potanin, Motke Zeidel, Adam Zinger, Peter Zinin
Posted in Books, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Poland, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai), Roland Binet
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Rašella Galinienė, Head of the Jewish Community of Shavl (Šiauliai, Lithuania) Protests an Inappropriate Memorial Plonked on a Holocaust Mass Grave
OPINION | CEMETERIES | COMMUNITY COMMEMORATION | LITHUANIA | LITVAK AFFAIRS | HUMAN RIGHTS
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Rašella Galinienė, elected head of the Jewish Community of Shavl (Šiauliai) speaks out to protest insensitive desecration of a Holocaust mass grave site where Jews of Yánishok (Joniškis) were massacred. Photo: Shavl Jewish Community.
Rašella Galinienė, elected head of the Jewish Community of Shavl (Šiauliai, northern Lithuania) has led a public call for removal of a series of sculptures erected by a nearby local government authority directly atop the actual graves, in the forest, of hundreds of murdered Jews of the shtetl Yánishok (or Yáneshik, today’s Joniškis). The issue has been reported on prominently in Lithuanian media, including on LRT TV, and the LRT news portal (where mechanical translation to English captures nearly all the text accurately). The media reports dwell on issues of permits, permissions, consultations and the difference of opinion between the Shavl community and the local authorities in the district where the forest mass grave is situated. They report accurately, that the late and long standing beloved leader of the Shavl community, Sania Kerbl (Kerbelis, 1963–2024) expressed — in concord with Jewish tradition and law of thousands of years standing — his staunch opposition to anything being constructed or erected on cemeteries and burial sites.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, Jewish Community of Shavl (Siauliai), Jewish mass graves in Lithuania, Joniskis, Rašella Galinienė, Sania Kerbel (Kerbelis), Yáneshik (Joniskis), Yánishok (Joniskis)
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Germany’s New Brigade in Lithuania (‘Panzerbrigade 45’): Right Near Remnants of the Last Anti-Nazi Jewish Partisan Fort in Europe
[LAST UPDATE (SEE AT END): 20 JUNE 2025]
LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EASTERN EUROPE | POLITICS OF MEMORY | GERMANY | FANIA YOCHELES BRANTSOVSKY | LITVAK AFFAIRS
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OPINION
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VILNIUS—International media has reported in detail on last week’s military ceremonies in Vilnius celebrating the permanent installation of thousands of German soldiers as part of NATO forces in Lithuania, southernmost of the three Baltic republics. The new entity is “Germany’s 45th Armoured Brigade” (Panzerbrigade 45) that is also known as the “Lithuania Brigade”.
The Defending History community is a staunch supporter of the values and security needs of the European Union, NATO, the Western alliance of free and democratic nations, and has from day one condemned the medieval, barbaric February 2022 invasion and unleashing of mass death and destruction upon Ukraine by Putin’s Russian Federation forces. Our support includes reproducing a statement that has appeared for over a decade on p. 1 of DefendingHistory.com (right hand column). As stated there, adherence to the democratic values of the EU and the NATO alliance includes cherishing the free-speech right to criticize: efforts to rewrite Holocaust history by Eastern Europe’s ultranationalist far right; efforts to defame the victims, including Jewish partisans who fought valiantly against the Nazis; efforts to disseminate Double Genocide revisionism in the realm of Holocaust and World War II history; efforts to glorify Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators; efforts to curtail free speech by criminalizing or delegitimizing views that oppose these efforts.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Germany, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort
Tagged Birgit Kraemer, Chancellor Merz, Fania Brancovskaja, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, Germany's "Lithuania Brigade", Germany's 45th Armoured Brigade, Jewish partisans in Lithuania, Jewish partisans in Vilna, Mantautas Sulskis, NATO in Lithuania, Panzerbrigade 45, Rūdninkai Forest, Rūdninkai training ground, Rūdninkų giria, Rudnítsker vald
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Dovid Katz’s Lecture in Honor of Yivo’s 100th at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library (video)
YIDDISH AFFAIRS | YIVO
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VILNIUS—The Vilnius Jewish Public Library today posted its video of Dovid Katz’s lecture, “Yivo’s 100th: origins, dreams, successes, failures, conflicts, and — everlasting contributions” delivered at the library on 17 April 2025. It is available on youtube. Simultaneous translation into Lithuanian was provided by Judita Glauberzonaitė. The event was chaired by the library’s director Liana Jagniatinsky.
Posted in Dovid Katz, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Dovid Katz + YIVO, Yivo + Vilnius, Yivo's 100th anniversary
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Vilnius’s Resident Rabbi for Last 30 Years is Called ‘Mr. Krinsky’ in Latest Hate Piece from State-Restitution-fueled ‘Official’ Jewish Community
[2 May 2025 update at end of post]
OPINION | DOCUMENTS | LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY AFFAIRS | A STOLEN ELECTION | CHABAD IN VILNIUS | HUMAN RIGHTS
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OPINION
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VILNIUS—Even people who “thought they had seen everything” were taken aback a week ago, when without prior warning Vilnius’s only functioning synagogue was closed down on the occasion of the first seyder night of Passover, one of the most sacred Jewish calendar days of the year. The “explanation” did come shortly thereafter in the form of an official 13 April 2025 statement on the official website of the restitution fueled “Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania” (the “LJC” as is it is still known from the long time title “Lithuanian Jewish Community”, LZB in Lithuanian). That is the “community” that disenfranchised virtually all the remaining few thousand Jewish people in Lithuania, by changing the system of voting (in the middle of an election campaign season!) from choice by community members to that of “associations” mostly benefiting from restitution funds. This transpired during the allegedly rigged 2017 community elections. See also the contemporary JTA reports (here and here). The official community has received tens of millions of dollars from the government in restitution.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Chabad in Vilnius, Documents, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged American Jewish Committee + Lithuania, Faina Kukliansky, Geros valios fondas, Good Will Foundation, Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania, Passover 2025 in Vilnius, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Vilnius Jewish community
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