VILNIUS — Observers of the sometimes eerie human rights scene here thought they had seen it all, or most of it, but an elected parliamentarian’s latest stunt was seen as a new setback for Lithuania’s image even by conservatives on social issues.
Author Archives: Defending History
Lithuanian MP’s Gay-Bashing Hits New Low of Adolescent Unseemliness and Social Immaturity
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged Gay Rights in Lithuania, human rights in Lithuania, LGBT rights in Lithuania, Lithuanian Gay League (LGL)
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“Baltic Times” Does It Again: A Page of Hate Calling for Expulsion of a Million Legal Residents in Latvia
O P I N I O N / M E D I A W A T C H
Last May, this journal reported on a full page of racial hate directed at Latvia’s “Russians” (a cover term for Russian-speakers of a multitude of backgrounds). It had appeared in the Baltic Times, under cover of the responsibility-shirking label “Advertisement.” Heaven help us all if the word advertisement can in European Union and NATO countries cover for spreads of hate and incitement to violation of human rights. In this case, the demand is for the veritable expulsion of a million peaceful, legal residents of a member state of these international alliances, both of which are based on the shared commitment to uphold the human rights of all.
Rather than repeat the commentary offered at the page’s earlier appearance, we refer back to it here on the occasion of its reappearance in this month’s Baltic Times (dated 31 October — 27 November 2013), that occupies all of page 5 in the main news (!) section.
Posted in Human Rights, Latvia, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Russian Speakers' Personal Status
Tagged Baltic Times, human rights (Latvia), Russian speakers in Latvia
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If Israel Can Honor the USSR’s Unquestionable Role in Bringing Down Hitler, Why Can’t France and the European Union?
O P I N I O N
by Didier Bertin
From the very beginning, the source of our problems is to be found in an inaccurate narrative of World War II that is rather widespread here in France. This can be explained in part by France’s position as a de facto ally of the Axis at first, starting from the time of Petain’s surrender to Hitler’s forces in 1940. It was rather late in the war that a substantial segment of society in the country per se (as opposed to the heroic resisters who had joined the Allies outside surrendered France’s borders) became a stalwart ally of the United States and Great Britain, at a time when that was by a confluence of circumstances most convenient for all three countries.
Posted in Didier Bertin, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, France, History, Israel, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Didier Bertin, Double Genocide, Role of Red Army in defeating Hitler and Nazi Germany
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Antisemitism Denial — An English Intellectual Speciality
A German translation of this article appeared in Die Presse (Vienna) on 7 November 2013. The original English text appears here with the author’s permission. Dr. Denis MacShane, a former British MP and Foreign Office minister writes widely on European politics. His Globalising Hatred: The New Antisemitism (Weidenfeld and Nicolson) appeared in 2008. See also Defending History’s Denis MacShane section.
O P I N I O N
by Denis MacShane
England has the most provincial intellectual class in Europe. Very few professors (unless they are foreign language teachers or specialists in say French or Italian history) will speak and read a foreign language fluently. They do not pick up Le Monde, Der Spiegel or El Pais and wait, sometime for years, for a translation of a key work published in a European language to appear in London.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Denis MacShane, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom
Tagged antisemitism in the UK, Balfour Declaration, Cambon Declaration, Denis MacShane, Double Genocide
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Professor Pinchos Fridberg on the Higher Arithmetic of the Lithuanian Holocaust
Камушек на «могилу» бабушки, дедушки, родных со стороны матери
Понар (Paneriai), 23 сентября 2013 года, 11 : 35
Высшая арифметика истории Холокоста в Литве
Пинхос Фридберг
Posted in In Russian, Lithuania, Pinchos Fridberg
Tagged Arturas Račas, Defending History, Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jonas Okmanas, Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuanian collaborators in the Holocaust, Pinchos Fridberg, Vilma Juozevičiūtė
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Chersonski Replies to Aleksandravičius on the 2012 Kaunas Reburial of the 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister
O P I N I O N
by Milan Chersonski
Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij) was for a dozen years (1999-2011) editor-in-chief of Jerusalem of Lithuania, the official quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. He was previously (1979-1999) director of the Yiddish Folk Theater of Lithuania. The views he expresses in Defending History are his own. Photo: Milan Chersonski (image © Jurgita Kunigiškytė). Milan Chersonski section.
Real Heroes and Supposed Heroes
Who Protested and Why?
In May 2012 solemn funeral events were held in Kaunas: the ashes of the interim prime minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania (hereinafter PG) Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis were transferred from the state of Connecticut in the United States, where he was buried in 1974, to Kaunas, the former temporary capital of Lithuania. There the ashes were reburied.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, Media Watch, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged 1941 Provisional Government of Lithuania, Egidijus Aleksandravicius, Egidijus Aleksandravicius + Holocaust, Egidijus Aleksandravicius + Sugihara Foundation, Holocaust in Lithuania, Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Lithuania Activist Front (LAF), Milan Chersonski, Milan Chersonskij, Valdas Bartusavičius, Vytautas Magnus University
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Efraim Zuroff Critiques Vilnius Genocide Center’s Latest Attempt to Massage Figures (and Ethics) of Local Holocaust Perpetrators
In a statement issued in Jerusalem today, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff noted two major flaws in a recent report issued by the state-sponsored Genocide Center in Vilnius, Lithuania. The report’s key findings, presented by the Center’s Dr. Alfredas Rukšėnas, were published by the Lithuanian news portal Delfi on 25 October 2013 (English translation available in Defending History).
According to Dr. Zuroff:
“The findings of the report, as presented by the coordinator of this project, are clearly part of a systematic attempt by the Lithuanian government to minimize the role of ethnic Lithuanians in the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust. Based on the records in our archives, I can unequivocally state, that the figure of 2,055 Lithuanians whose direct and indirect participation in Holocaust crimes was confirmed by this study, is a gross underestimate of the number of Lithuanians complicit in Shoah crimes, designed to deflect blame from local collaborators and hide the extensive scope of Lithuanian involvement in the mass murder of Jews, both in Lithuania and outside her borders.
“Also highly objectionable is the assertion by Dr. Rukšėnas that those Lithuanians who indeed murdered Jews really had no choice but to do so, having received orders to commit murder from their superiors. Besides the fact that in many cases, these superiors were themselves Lithuanians, such arguments have been consistently and unequivocally rejected by courts all over the world, starting with the Nuremberg Trials.”
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Efraim Zuroff, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Genocide Research Center in Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania
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Summary Coverage of Berlin Event on Jewish Vilna and the Vilna Ghetto
One-Sided Vilna Ghetto Roadshow in Berlin?
(27-29 Oct)
CINDERELLA NOT INVITED TO THE BALL? Her 92nd birthday was 28 Oct, in the middle of the conference.
Dr. Rachel Margolis, Vilna native, Vilna Ghetto survivor, heroic resistance fighter against the Nazis, co-founder of the Green House Holocaust museum in Vilnius, who rediscovered and published long lost diary of eyewitness to the Ponár massacres, defamed by Lithuanian state prosecutors, is not on the list of speakers in Berlin.
FROM RECENT YEARS: CHEN IVRI APTER, GORDON BROWN, US CONGRESSMEN,LORD JANNER. BACKGROUND. FACT SHEET. RACHEL ON VIDEO. THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS.
Meanwhile, in Rehovot, Rachel Margolis prepared to celebrate her 92nd birthday (Monday 28 Oct). PHOTO: HADAS PARUSHContinue reading
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Germany, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Germany + Holocaust
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Dr. Efraim Zuroff’s Speech at the Annual Memorial for Lithuanian Holocaust Victims
O P I N I O N
by Efraim Zuroff
Authorized English translation of Dr. Zuroff’s speech at the annual commemoration event held by the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, received from the Israel Office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Hebrew original is here.
Good evening,
Attorney Yosef Melamed asked me to update you regarding the recent events which have taken place since the last memorial event a year ago, concerning the attempts by the Lithuanian government to distort the history of the Holocaust and to minimize or deny the participation of many Lithuanians in the murder of Jews, not only in Lithuania but also beyond its borders.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Efraim Zuroff, Events, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Alfredas Rukšėnas, Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Efraim Zuroff, Emanuel Zingeris, Genocide Center Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Joseph Melamed, Milan Chersonski, Pinchos Fridberg, Rachel Kostanian
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Riga, Roots and Reflections
M E M O I R S / O P I N I O N
by Monica Lowenberg
In 2011, I made my first journey to Riga, the capital city of Latvia.
A few months before, I had been tracked down by two distant cousins on a genealogy site, quite out of the blue. I remember the strange feeling I had when one of them asked me if I felt “Latvian.” Latvian? German Christian, German Jewish, British, yes — but Latvian Jewish? No.
Posted in Latvia, Memoirs, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Kingdom
Tagged Holocaust in Latvia, Holocaust in the Baltics, Monica Lowenberg, Paul Lovenbergs, Riga Ghetto
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Efraim Zuroff’s Speech at the 28 October 2013 Annual Memorial Program of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel [in Hebrew]
דבריו של ד″ר אפרים זורוף באזכרה השנתית לקורבנות השואה בליטא
כ″ה חשון תשע″ד 28/10/2013
ערב טוב לכולם,
עו″ד יוסף מלמד בקש ממני לעדכן אותכם לגבי האירועים שהתרחשו מאז האזכרה האחרונה לפני שנה בנסיונות של ממשלת ליטא לעוות את ההסטוריה של השואה, וכמו כן גם למזער או להעלים את השתתפותם של ליטאים כל כך רבים ברצח יהודים בליטא, אבל גם מחוץ לגבולותיה.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Efraim Zuroff, Israel, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Efraim Zuroff + Lithuania, Holocaust in Lithuania, October 28th Holocaust memorial (Kaunas/Kovno Great Action)
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Genocide Center in Vilnius Responds to the List of Alleged Holocaust Perpetrators Published by the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel
Editor’s note: The following is an English translation by Geoff Vasil of an article that appeared on Delfi.lt on October 25, 2013. The images that appeared with the original Lithuanian text are not reproduced here.
In 1999, The Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel published Crime and Punishment, compiled after many years of work, by its chairman, Tel Aviv attorney Joseph Melamed, a native of Kovno (Kaunas), Holocaust survivor and veteran of the Jewish partisan resistance in Lithuania and of the Israeli War of Independence. In the late 1990s, Mr. Melamed wrote repeatedly to Lithuanian prosecutors, explaining that some Holocaust perpetrators and witnesses were still alive and investigations could be pursued.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Debates on Juozas Lukša, History, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Holocaust in Lithuania
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The “Humanity” of the Rewriters of History
O P I N I O N
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
An abstract, sometimes called a summary, is a short explanation of the salient parts of an article or book. Abstracts are useful for surveying a large body of literature on a given topic, and aid in selecting specific works for a fuller reading. This selection very much depends on the honesty of the person doing the selecting.
I am interested in Holocaust research. I use the internet and search engines, and often they point to the webpage of the Lithuanian government sponsored Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania, known for short as the Genocide Center. Its own website has many summaries for this topic. These abstracts often have a strange tone.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Evaldas Balciunas, Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania, Genocide Centre in Vilnius, Kražiai (Krozh), Nemakščiai (Namoksht, Nemoksht), Vidukle
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Survey on Levels of Prejudice Among Lithuanian Military Brass and Troops
Delfi.lt reports that the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense has received the results from a study they undertook to gauge prejudice among leadership and troops as compared to Lithuanian society at large.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views
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Questions and Answers on the Holocaust-Gulag “Competitive Martyrology”
O P I N I O N
by Michael Shafir (Cluj-Napoca, Romania)
1. Approximately when did the drive to equate the Holocaust and the sufferings endured by people under Communist regimes start?
It is very difficult to pinpoint an exact date. In the West, a number of Sovietologists have long driven attention to the fact that the horrible crimes perpetuated by Stalin and his henchmen in East Central Europe deserved the attention and the opprobrium that Nazism met with after the Second World War. Due to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous book Gulag, these crimes soon began to be referred to under the synthetic name of that book. The collapse of the Communist regimes in the region in 1989 and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991 intensified that drive, which also found an impulse in the once popular (but later criticized) “totalitarian model.” That model was now revived, finding support particularly in the eastern part of Europe that had suffered under Soviet domination. Western historians were (and still are) quite divided over this issue. For example, Robert Conquest, who produced several important books on Stalinist crimes, was reluctant to place the Holocaust and the Gulag on the same footing. On the other hand, Stéphane Courtois, who edited and contributed to the Black Book of Communism, not only embraced the comparison, but insisted on
Posted in Croatia, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, Michael Shafir (1944-2022), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Nations
Tagged Double Genocide, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust Obfuscation, Michael Shafir, Nazi and Soviet crimes, Prague Declaration (2008)
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A Musical Tribute to the Rumbula Victims
M U S I C / O P I N I O N
by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium)
SOUND TRACKS OF THE AUTHOR’S COMPOSITIONS:
Rumbula
Threnody
Posted in Arts, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, Music, News & Views, Opinion, Roland Binet
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Former BNS Chief Artūras Račas Lets Loose Again on Fridberg, Kanovičius, Pancerovas, Zuroff…
The following is a translation of an October 2, 2013 piece published by former Baltic News Service chief Artūras Račas on his blog. For context, see some of Mr. Račas’s previous work on Holocaust related issues, e.g. his comments on state investigations of Holocaust survivors who became anti-Nazi partisans (2008) and on Prof. Pinchos Fridberg and Dr. Efraim Zuroff (2013); see also Prof. Fridberg’s reply.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Three Baltic Governments Sponsor “Round Table” at London U on 5 November: Will Nazi Collaborators be Glorified?
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
It is both right and laudable that University College London, the School of Slavonic and East European Studies and other partners are organizing a “Round Table Discussion: Anti-Soviet Resistance in the Baltic States” in central London, scheduled for 5 November 2013, 2 to 6:30 PM, with free admission for all (free tickets here; Facebook page here).
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom
Tagged anti-fascist + London, far right history revisionism London, Latvia Estonia + Holocaust history, Lithuania, SSEES, UCL
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Yehiel Zilberman’s Memoirs (excerpt)
M E M O I R S
by Yehiel Zilberman
Translated from Russian by Olga Gorelik
This is a chapter from the memoirs written by Yehiel Zilberman, translated from Russian by Olga Gorelik (© Yehiel Zilberman & Olga Gorelik). The chapter appears in Defending History by permission of the copyright holders, with thanks to the good offices of Victor Shifrin (Los Angeles).
Yehiel (Yekhíel) Zilberman was born in Lithuania in 1922. In 1940 he graduated from the H. N. Bialik Hebrew High School in Shavl (Šiauliai) and was admitted to the Institute of Commerce in the same city. In June of 1941, one year after Lithuania fell under Soviet rule, Yehiel along with his parents and brother Moshe (Mikhail) was exiled to the Altai Region in Russia where he lived until 1945. In 1949 he graduated with Honors from Gorky Industrial Institute and became a chemical engineer. Yehiel worked in both manufacturing and scientific research. In 1954 he received his PhD from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. In 1965 Dr. Zilberman received the title of Professor. From 1970 to 1990 he taught at Gorky Polytechnic Institute.
Dr. Yehiel Zilberman has been resident in Haifa, Israel, since 1990.
Posted in Documents, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Memoirs, News & Views
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust memoirs, Yehiel Zilberman
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Simon Malkes Speaks at the Lithuanian Parliament
The following is the text provided by the office of Simon Malkes (Paris) of the speech he delivered at a conference held at the Lithuanian parliament on 22 September 2013, as part of the series of events of the Fourth International Litvak Congress in Vilnius, Lithuania. Mr. Malkes, a Vilna native and survivor of the Vilna Ghetto, is president of the ORT school network.
Simon Malkes (right) speaks to an old friend on Gedimino Boulevard in central Vilnius, after his speech at a session of the Fourth International Litvak Congress held at the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas).
My name is Simon Malkes. I am a French citizen, living in Paris since 1952. I am a rare survivor, among the less than one percent of Vilna Jewry. I survived thanks to the German officer Karl Plagge who managed the HKP automobile works camp in Vilnius between 1941 and 1944. In 2005, I succeeded to obtain from Yad Vashem in Jerusalem the Righteous Among the Nations title, posthumously, for Karl Plagge.
Posted in France, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Simon Malkes
Tagged Fourth Litvak Congress, Jewish property + citizenship in Lithuania, Simon Malkes, Vilna Ghetto
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