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Author Archives: Defending History
Distorted Nationalist History in Ukraine
Posted in Bandera, Collaborators Glorified, Free Speech & Democracy, G. Rossoliński-Liebe, History, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged Christopher Hale, glorification of Nazi collaborators in Ukraine, Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, ONU, OUP, Stepan Bandera
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Roma: Presumption of Guilt
O P I N I O N
by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė
Vilma Fiokla Kiurė (photo: Benediktas Januševičius)
The first international congress of Roma was held on April 8, 1971 in Oprington, England. In 1990, the date was designated International Roma Day.
On this day Roma celebrate and hold concerts, but also remember the most tragic eras in the history of the Roma: persecution by the Nazis and their collaborators in World War II and the resulting genocide of the Roma people. On this day the Vilnius Roma community floats wreaths of flowers on the Neris River in remembrance of their compatriots.
Roma who survived the Second World War, ethnic cleansing and genocide remember that the Nazi soldiers and their local police collaborators used simple external recognition to persecute the Roma. At that time the Roma were still wanderers, and it was a rare member of the community who had identification documents. Few had relationships with sedentary residents, making physical resemblance to the typical Roma the main indicator of ethnicity, in many cases guaranteeing death.
Posted in Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Roma, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė
Tagged "Gypsies" in Lithuania, International Roma Day, Roma / Romani / Gypsy Human Rights, Roma + Lithuania, Vilma Fiokla Kiure
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Respublika “Slightly” Edits Efraim Zuroff’s Obituary for Shimon Alperovich
M E D I A W A T C H
Vitas Tomkus’s daily tabloid, Respublika has, alongside its sister title, Vakaro Žinios (Evening News, also owned by Tomkus) in many views inflicted tangible damage upon Lithuania and its image. The papers leave a long trail of racist, antisemitic, and homophobic invective, not seldom in sensationalistic formats that mirror the 1930s.
The most notorious instance was perhaps the 2004 front page featuring the unseemly cartoon of the The Jew and The Gay holding up a globe under the headline “Who runs the world?” recycled (and again, on page 1), in 2009. Vakaro Žinios (Evening News) even featured a sickening photo montage of the then head of the Jewish community Dr. Shimon Alperovich, and a Soviet-era abacus, with text suggesting the Jews were conspiring to defraud the Lithuanian people. More recently, a front page was devoted to a local rabbi with a headline about Jews not having to pay taxes. The word Žydai (Jews) alone was in massive size type, as on numerous occasions, e.g. when the paper accused “The Jews” of plotting to steal the building housing the Culture Ministry. It is almost all out of a dark satire.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Efraim Zuroff, Media Watch, News & Views, Obituaries, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Respublika, Simon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavicius), Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office, Vakaro zinios, Vytis Tomkus
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Is the Vilnius Police Criminal Division Harassing a Veteran Holocaust Researcher?
VILNIUS—Defending History confirmed today that renowned documentary film maker and Holocaust researcher Saulius Beržinis, founding director of the Independent Holocaust Archive of Lithuania (IHAL), has been the latest recipient of a letter from police on account of his work documenting the alleged Nazi collaboration of various Lithuanian “1941 freedom fighters” who allegedly collaborated with the Nazi regime and in the murder of their civilian Jewish-citizen neighbors in the days, weeks and months following 22 June 1941. The letter demands he turn over a “list” of criminals which it was never his, nor the Archives’ intention, to produce or comment upon. Over the years, the Holocaust specialist has won the confidence of groups worldwide for his willingness to seek out and tell the unvarnished truth, among them the Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office.
The March 19th letter to IHAL’s director, letterheaded “Vilnius District Senior Police Commission, Vilnius City First Police Commission, Police Criminal Division” is reproduced below (followed by translation into English).
Saulius Beržinis has been collecting testimonies on the Holocaust for a quarter of a century. He is known internationally for his singular achievement of interviewing on camera actual admitted killers (some are in the film Lovely Faces of the Killers, 2002), and his extensive documentation work with survivors and witnesses. He has partnered over the years with BBC, The United States Holocaust Museum, the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum of Lithuania, Yad Vashem, and other international bodies, in addition to dozens of Holocaust survivors. His Holocaust documentaries include Farewell Jerusalem of Lithuania (1994), Yudel’s Unwritten Diary (2004), The Road to Treblinka (1997). Most recently, his film on the Holocaust in Jurbarkas (Yúrberik) became controversial for daring to name the killers of the town’s Jewish citizens in 1941 (see reviews by Milan Chersonski and Geoff Vasil).
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on Juozas Lukša, EU, Film, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Saulius Beržinis, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika
Tagged Democracy in Lithuania, Freedom of speech in the Baltics, human rights in Lithuania, Independent Holocaust Archive of Lithuania, Saulius Berzinis
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Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Statement on the Death of Lithuanian Jewish Community Leader Dr. Shimon Alperovich
JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office issued this statement today in the wake of the passing of Dr. Shimon Alperovich, the former Chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish community (PDF here):
Wiesenthal Center Mourns the Passing Today of Courageous Leader of Lithuanian Jewish Community
“It is with great sorrow that we learned of the passing last night of Dr. Shimon Alperovich, the venerable leader for many years of the Lithuanian Jewish community. Dr. Alperovich displayed great courage and fortitude in leading the renewed Lithuanian Jewish community and fought bravely against the ongoing efforts to minimize local participation in Nazi crimes and the promotion of the canard of equivalency between Nazi and Communist atrocities.
Posted in Efraim Zuroff, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
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Footprints of Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas in the Mass Murder of the Jews of Druskininkai
O P I N I O N
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
Adolfas Ramanauskas Vanagas was a well-known post-war partisan commander. Here’s what the Center for the Study of the Genocide of the Residents of Lithuania has to say about him on their website:
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on Adolfas Ramanauskas (Vanagas), Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Evaldas Balčiūnas, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, New Britain, Connecticut: Plans to Glorify Alleged Nazi Collaborator?, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Adolfas Ramanauskas Vanagas, Arunas Bubnys, Evaldas Balciunas, Genocide Center Vilnius, Nazi collaborators glorified, Ramanauskas + Druskininkai Ghetto, Ramanauskas + Holocaust, Ruta Vanagaite
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Beloved Leader of Lithuanian Jewry, Simon Alperovich, Dies at 85
Dr. Shimon Alperovich
(Simonas Alperavičius)
11 Oct. 1928 — 27 March 2014
ד″ר שמעון אַלפּעראָוויטש ז″ל
Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
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Studies on Nazi Collaboration in Ukraine and Current Attempts to Glorify the Collaborators
Recent Publications by Dr. Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (Berlin):
2011: “The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine” in Defending History, 25 June 2011.
Posted in Bandera, Canada, Collaborators Glorified, G. Rossoliński-Liebe, History, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged G. Rossoliński-Liebe, Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, Holocaust in Ukraine, Stepan Bandera, UPA and OUN (Ukraine)
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British Board of Deputies Includes Effort Against Prague Declaration in New 2014 Manifesto
LONDON—In its just published A Jewish Manifesto: The 2014 European Elections, the British Board of Deputies has included a statement rejecting the attempts of recent years to downgrade the Holocaust. Section 3.3, entitled “Holocaust Revisionism” appears on page 10 of the online version of the Jewish Manifesto.
The Manifesto notes the “alarm among many Jewish communities” caused by the 2008 Prague Declaration, the de-facto central document of the Double Genocide movement, and calls on MEPs to “challenge their European colleagues on these narratives that seek to downplay or minimize the Holocaust.” The Prague Declaration sports the word “same” five times referring to Nazi and Soviet crimes, effectively claiming there were two equal genocide-causing regimes and thereby writing the Holocaust out of history as unique event, without denying a single death.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Documents, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform", United Kingdom
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Lithuanian Constitutional Court Further Enables “Double Genocide”
The Lithuanian Constitutional Court has made public its findings, dated March 18, 2014, on the constitutionality of revising the meaning of the crime of “genocide” to include Soviet counterinsurgency operations in post-World War II Lithuania aimed at destroying a relatively small group of Lithuanian partisans fighting the Soviet government.
In its March 17, 2014 accompanying press release the court first claimed there is some “discretion” by states in the definition of genocide, and then claimed for Lithuania the right to completely redefine the term to include actions aimed against “social and political groups.” The court said the post-war Lithuanian partisans constituted a sort of political elite and that the targeting of elites in society “influences” the entire nation.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Yivo Conference: Unresolved History
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
This comment on the event “Unresolved History: Jews and Lithuanians After the Holocaust,” held February 14, 2014 in New York City is based on the videotape of the event that Yivo has posted on its website. Readers may also wish to see Olga Zabludoff’s articles before and after the event, and the comments accruing during last month’s discussion in New York’s Algemeiner.Com. Geoff Vasil has covered a number of state-sponsored Holocaust events over the years, including one featuring some of the same participants last summer in Vilnius. Defending History’s openly critical views of the “red-brown commission” are available in the section dedicated to various of the debates in recent years. The commission’s own website is here.
On February 14, 2014, a small panel spoke at YIVO world headquarters in NYC. There weren’t many people in the audience, to judge from the crowd sounds, and at least one panelist wasn’t there. It had been delayed a day earlier when a massive ice storm hit the city and temperatures plummeted. Tomas Venclova wasn’t able to make it because of the weather and poor health.
Posted in Events, Geoff Vasil, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, The Great SLS About-Face
Tagged Geoff Vasil, Jonathan Brent, Yivo Lithuania
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2014 Baltic Marching Season Concluded
Interface of Pro-Fascist Marches, Holocaust Revisionism, and Contemporary Racism
EFRAIM ZUROFF IN THE HUFFINGTON POST, JERUSALEM POST AND TABLET
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, EU, Latvia, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Vilnius
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Holocaust Survivor Stands Up Against Proposal to Close Down Russian Language Media in Lithuania
VILNIUS—Pinchos Fridberg, retired professor of physics and Defending History’s 2014 Person of the Year, has again stood up for human rights, going where some “human rights NGOs” seem to fear to tread.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Russian Speakers' Personal Status
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Double Genocide MEPs Sneak Revisionism into Parliamentarium Museum
The Double Genocide supporting website “Reconciliation of European Histories” boasted today that its core group of right-wing MEPs from Eastern Europe has succeeded in its demand to insert red-brown revisionism in depictions of the World War II and Holocaust era in the prestigious Parliamentarium Museum in the EU capital Brussels.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Double Genocide Movement
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Summary Coverage of March 16th 2014 Waffen SS Event in Riga
Over 1500 March in Central Riga’s Annual March 16th Waffen SS Fest
MEDIA LINKS
Liberty Monument and the heart of Riga are again gifted to the glorifiers of Hitler’s Waffen SS in Latvia.
Continue reading
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches
Tagged Latvian Legionnaires march, Waffen SS march in Riga (2014)
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Summary Coverage in Run-Up to the 16 March 2014 Waffen SS March in Riga
Riga, Sunday March 16th 2014:
Could Riga (now the EU’s “Capital of European Culture”) Really be Allowing Yet Another City-Center Waffen SS Celebration on March 16th?
JUST IN:
BRITISH MEP RICHARD HOWITT ISSUES STATEMENT
MINISTER FACES SACK; FOR FIRST TIME, GOV SAYS: STAY AWAY
BALTIC TIMES: AGAIN SPEWING OUT NATIONALIST PR AS “REPORTING”?
MONICA LOWENBERG’S “SPEAK NO EVIL” (video); PETITION NEARS 7000
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches
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British MEP Richard Howitt, European Parliament Spokesperson on Human Rights, Issues Statement on Riga Waffen SS March
Richard Howitt, British Labour Member of the European Parliament, and spokesperson for the European Parliament Human Rights Sub-Committee today issued the following text of his statement which will be read out in Riga this Sunday March 16th.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, EU, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Racism, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Kingdom
Tagged Holocaust in Latvia, Human Rights in the Baltics, Richard Howitt, UK Conservatives + Latvia, Waffen SS march in Riga
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For Seventh Year Running, Neo-Nazis and Ultranationalists Given Center of Vilnius on Independence Day
O P I N I O N / E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T
by Dovid Katz
Lithuania’s March 11th independence day is celebrated by the free world, not least by those who remember the incredible news that spread around the globe in March 1990, when Lithuania’s parliament (Seimas) voted 124 to zero to break away from the Soviet Union. The courage of the parliamentarians from a broad spectrum of parties and movements was stark; the country was still occupied by ominous Soviet forces (and blood would be spilled by Soviet forces’ violence less than a year later, in January 1991). The March 11th celebration has been anchored over the years by a record of achievement that includes the transition to democracy, the joining of the European Union and NATO, and the rapid integration with Western society, economy and mores.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius
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Run-up to the March 11th 2014 Neo-Nazi / Ultranationalist March in Central Vilnius
Vilnius, Tuesday March 11th 2014:
Neo-Nazis Announce March Through Old Town and City Center to Nation’s Parliament
Efraim Zuroff Will Lead Silent, Peaceful Remembrance as Protest
Colleagues of all backgrounds are invited to meet Dr. Zuroff, Holocaust historian, Nazi-hunter, author, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office. He will lead a silent, peaceful remembrance of the annihilated Jewish citizens of Vilnius and Lithuania, in protest against the neo-Nazi marchers and the continued granting of city center venues on independence day. Meeting on Tuesday, 11 March 2014, 3 PM at Old Town Hall (Rotušė) Square. First meeting at edge of square, on the corner of Stiklių and Didžioji outside Amatininkai Café, monitoring the march (itself scheduled for 4 PM) to its conclusion on Gedimino near the Seimas (parliament).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, EU, Events, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, United Nations, Vilnius
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Olga Zabludoff’s Comment on a February 2014 Yivo Symposium
The following 7 March 2014 comment by Olga Zabludoff on the video posted of the 14 February 2014 event at Yivo appears in the Comments section for her earlier article in the Algemeiner Journal, where readers can follow the entire discussion.
Many thanks to Yivo for posting the video of the discussion “Unresolved History: Jews and Lithuanians after the Holocaust.” In my opinion, the champion panelist was Leonidas Donskis who opened his heart with conviction and courage. As a Jewish Lithuanian his understanding of and sympathy for both Jews and Lithuanians have generated wise insights and pervasive truths. Among his magnitude of analytical comments to be applauded, Donskis explained that the Far Right in Lithuania has managed to get close to the center of power where they have been “mainstreamed” rather than marginalized. He also reflected on how difficult it is for Lithuanians who have decided to tell the truth. As a nation “we lack the political courage,” he remarked.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Events, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Politics of Memory, The Great SLS About-Face, United States
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