Editor’s note: Professor Pinchos Fridberg today released for publication the following email exchange. His most recent publication on the issue at hand is “Lithuania paying with its image for an official’s ambitions” which has appeared in Russian (English translation here; background).
Author Archives: Defending History
Correspondence on a Forthcoming Event in Vilnius
Translation into English of Professor Pinchos Fridberg’s Article of 9 April 2013
The following, for readers’ reference, is a translation of Professor Pinchos Fridberg’s article that appeared in Russian in Zman.com (on 9 April 2013). It was reprinted in Obzor and Shofar7.
Lithuania is Paying with its Image for an Official’s Ambitions
Who’s Afraid of Defending History Dot Com?
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
It is gratifying that numerous scholars from different parts of the world, and indeed of differing opinions on the contentious issues that lie at the heart of Defending History, have on occasion found it a useful resource for data and views on various topics, including the Double Genocide movement, the Prague Declaration (2008), the Seventy Years Declaration (2012), the politics of memory, Holocaust Obfuscation, glorification of Holocaust perpetrators (and attempted criminalization of resistance heroes), East European antisemitism, racism, homophobia, and Litvak identity theft (more on contents and quick intro page).
Mystery of the Eight-Pointed Western Litvak (Zámeter) Symbol on Jewish Gravestones
by Dovid Katz
On expeditions and on culture and history tours, we have on a number of occasions come across unusual Jewish gravestones (in Yiddish — matséyves), so far invariably on the territory of western Lithuania (and on occasion, in bordering Latvia) that is the land known in Litvak culture as Zámet (a Jewish person therefrom is a Zámeter, f. Zámeterin or deep Litvak Zámeterke).
In broad terms, it corresponds to historic Samogitia (Lithuanian Žemaitija). However, the specific cultural and linguistic borders relevant to Litvak culture and Yiddish dialectology often make for a unique Litvak geocultural configuration. For a general Yiddish orientation on the (pre-Holocaust) linguistic situation, see e.g. the maps for ‘ear’ and ‘dove’ vs ‘deaf’ in the in-progress Language Atlas of Lithuanian Yiddish.
Lithuania Propaganda Agency is On The Road Again
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
This opinion piece and eyewitness report by Geoff Vasil relates to the July 10th event in honor of the Red-Brown Commission held at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library. See related reports on the library’s instrumentalization as a PR platform for the Commission and the more or less contemporaneous announcement of the Commission’s resumed activities, in the absence of apologies to Yitzhak Arad, Pinchos Fridberg, and the other accused Holocaust survivors.

Attendees at the July 10, 2013 event to honor the “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania” were treated to speeches and plentiful Katz-bashing by (from right) Ronaldas Račinskas, Saulius Sužiedėlis and Ilya Lempertas.
Tourists Shocked at Monuments and Street Names for Holocaust Collaborators
Increasing numbers of summer tourists, in the spirit of “dark tourism” (and, in an EU/NATO country, a spirit of incredulity) are seeking out street names, public plaques, university lecture halls and other monuments to both collaborators and actual perpetrators of the Lithuanian Holocaust.
Some find the following sections helpful to locating specific sites:
(1) Anthology of street names and honors for killers and collaborators in Lithuania.
(2) Section on events and memorials for collaborators and perpetrators in various parts of Eastern Europe.
Peres in Vilnius July-August 2013 Summary Coverage
Israel’s President Shimon Peres Welcomed in Lithuania
THE QUESTION: Did he remember in private at least to mention the fate of Litvaks (mostly Israeli citizens), in their late 80s to 90s, being “sent to hell” as “suspected criminals for posterity” on the basis of antisemitic governmental kangaroo pronouncements designed to invert the narrative of the Lithuanian Holocaust? Two of them, Yitzhak Arad and Joseph Melamed, are heroes of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. Survivors correspond with president’s office.
Open Letter to Evaldas Gustas, new Minister for the Economy in Lithuania
O P I N I O N
SAMPLE IMAGES
Background:
Original 2 May 2013 report; Person identified by the media submits 13 May 2013 complaint to the Press Commission [draft English translation], citing Anarchija.lt, Balsas.lt, KaunoŽinios.lt, Lrytas.lt as well as DefendingHistory.com. He does not deny the identification but disputes the characterization of his work as in harmony with neo-Nazism.
23 July update: Zeppelinus greets Baltic Pride with a new hate image.
Dear Mr. Gustas,
Congratulations on your recent appointment as Economy Minister. May your tenure be blessed with success, wisdom and good fortune for all of Lithuania’s citizens.
We address you on the advent of your tenure on a human rights matter rather than an economic question. We feel certain you would agree that there is a demonstrable correlation between the long-term successful economies of the world and free and open democratic societies that reject all forms of state-supported fascism, racism, antisemitism, homophobia and other forms of hate and exclusionism directed at segments of the population.
An Important Book by Lithuania’s Health Minister, Totally Ignored by the Lithuanian Media. Why?
B O O K S
by Geoff Vasil
See also: Andriukaitis’s 2012 reply to the foreign minister; on the floor of parliament; Andriukaitis section

Vytenis Povilas Andrukaitis, health minister of Lithuania. Photo: DefendingHistory.com
Vytenis Andriukaitis is a veteran politician. If you haven’t been following Lithuanian politics since 1990, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of him, and even if you have, there’s a fair chance you didn’t notice him amid the various cults of personality which have dominated the political scene since about 1990.
The reason for that is fairly simple: Andriukaitis has never cultivated or even tolerated a cult of personality to grow up around him. From the very first days of Lithuanian independence, a freedom movement with which Andriukaitis was intimately involved, he has stubbornly clung to the idea of multiparty parliamentary democracy, largely by his own tenacity reviving the pre-World War II Lithuanian Social Democratic Party.
Defending History Honors
BOLD CITIZENS WHO STAND UP FOR HISTORIC DIGNITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN LITHUANIA (AND ANYWHERE!)
When they’re afraid to publish in Balbíreshok, just bring it here…
Olga Zabludoff’s Open Letter to South African Litvaks, too hot for the South African Jewish Report, now appears here
VIDEO: RACHEL KOSTANIAN GOES ON THE RECORD ABOUT “DOUBLE GENOCIDE”
VILNIUS HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR PROF. PINCHOS FRIDBERG’S NEW ATTEMPT TO CORRECT AN ERROR; BACKGROUND
LITHUANIA TRIBUNE: SERGEJUS KANOVIČIUS EXPOSES DIVERGENT TEXTS (ENGLISH VS LITHUANIAN) IN STATE ARCHIVE’S NEW VILNA GHETTO EXHIBIT
MONICA LOWENBERG’S PETITION IS RENEWED ON EVE OF 23 SEPTEMBER
DOES IT GIVE A THRILL TO TRAMPLE OLD JEWISH GRAVESTONES ON THE WAY TO CHURCH?
Professor Karen Sutton’s Essential Book on the Lithuanian Holocaust
RECENT BOOKS:
David Bankier’s Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania. Efraim Zuroff’s review.
Grant Arthur Gochin’s Malice, Murder, and Manipulation: One Man’s Quest for Truth.
Keith Morgan’s Ruta’s Closet. Interview with the author.
Books Reviewed. Film and Theatre. Video and Radio.
Holocaust Survivors Protest Red-Brown Commission’s Vilnius Relaunch
Commission’s renewal comes with new defamation of Dr. Yitzhak Arad, former director of Yad Vashem. major scholar, and Holocaust survivor
DANNY BEN-MOSHE IN JERUSALEM REPORT
ON JEWISH COMMUNITY’S SITE. IN RUSSIAN: DH; LZB; Obzor.lt; Reporter; Shofar7.com
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Yitzhak Arad’s paper covering the Commission’s role, government obfuscation of the Holocaust and the history of the Holocaust in Lithuanian sources
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Commission’s website features the Prague Declaration and promotes Double Genocide; its chairman urged his country to adopt PD. Website defames Vilnius Holocaust survivor Prof. Pinchos Fridberg for having corrected an error. Still no public condemnation of the defamation of its own founding member Yitzhak Arad (or of Dr. Rachel Margolis and Joseph Melamed)
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND COMMENT BY HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS
PAGE, CRITIQUES AND SECTION ON THE COMMISSION. Recent PR event in Vilnius
Renewed Red-Brown Commission, funded by government, has members from the Genocide Center, the parliamentary state security committee, scholars who have tried to mitigate the Nazi loyalties and Holocaust collaboration of the 1941 Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and Provisional Government, and, shockingly for Holocaust survivors (and under political pressure) — Yad Vashem
Resignations from the Commission (& associated bodies) on principle include Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Sir Martin Gilbert, Professor Gershon Greenberg, Professor Konrad Kwiet, Prof. Dov Levin
Commission Executive Director gives a very different spiel to Lithuanian audiences…
Are the Commission’s academic members aware of the body’s entanglement in the political imbroglio over demands for Russian compensation? Is the East European Holocaust being instrumentalized in a contemporary geopolitical context?
De-Obfuscating a Complicated Story into its Simple Core:
2013: Bernard Dichek in The Jerusalem Report. 2012: Efraim Zuroff in Haaretz. 2011: Danny Ben-Moshe’s film Rewriting History. 2010: Wendy Robbins on BBC World Service. 2010: Ricky Ben-David in the Jerusalem Post. 2010: Dovid Katz in the Guardian. 2009: Rafael Aaren in Haaretz. 2008: Arne Bengtsson in Baltic Worlds.
Survivors, Scholars and Public Figures Speak Out:
See: Yitzhak Arad ◊ Yehuda Bauer ◊ Danny Ben-Moshe ◊ Gordon Brown ◊ Abraham Cooper ◊ Pinchos Fridberg ◊ Sir Martin Gilbert ◊ Clemens Heni ◊ John Mann ◊ Jonathan Freedland ◊ Lord Janner ◊ Leigh Phillips ◊ Leyzer Ran Family ◊ Tessa Rajak ◊ Heidemarie Uhl ◊ Efraim Zuroff ◊ More voices of Holocaust Survivors
AS
“Double Genocide” Lands in the United States of America
BY STEALTH BOMBER OUT OF THE EAST, UNDER THE RADAR
One of the demands of the 2008 Prague Declaration is “approved” by the US
Are US officials aware of the 2012 Seventy Years Declaration response?
What is “Double Genocide”?
Holocaust Survivors from Lithuania Propose a Simple Honesty Test for Gala Sutzkever Events in Vilnius
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SEE ALSO:
TRANSLATION PRIZE SAGA; OPINIONS OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS; THE PATTERN OF DOUBLE GAMES; 2012 SLSer SADDENED THAT MILAN CHERSONSKI WAS DROPPED FROM FACULTY. WAS HIS MESSAGE UNACCEPTABLE? SEE MILAN CHERSONSKI SECTION.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA: REWRITING HISTORY COMING ON WEEKEND OF 3-4 AUGUST 2013
UK: GLASGOW, LEEDS, LIVERPOOL, LONDON, MANCHESTER, NEWCASTLE IN JULY 2013
A DOZEN SYNAGOGUES SCREEN DANNY BEN-MOSHE’S REWRITING HISTORY
United Synagogue of Great Britain Signs the Seventy Years Declaration
Film’s website ◊ Reviews ◊ Seventy Years Declaration (SYD) ◊ SYD debates ◊ SYD text ◊ in European languages ◊ Danny Ben-Moshe
A European Battle for Memory — and for Human Rights
The Debate in: Australia, Canada, EU, Israel, South Africa, UK, USA
London screenings of the documentary film Rewriting History
Litvak tourism, exotic tourism and dark tourism
Racism, antisemitism and homophobia in high places: Zeppelinus is key official at the Economy Ministry; Doesn’t like our editor…
Antisemitism and Honors for Holocaust collaborators
Red-Brown Commission blues
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Evaldas Balčiūnas on Holocaust perpetrators made into “heroes”
Milan Chersonski on young Lithuanian anti-fascists who speak up against the glorification of Holocaust perpetrators
Aleksanders Feigmanis on an unmarked Holocaust grave in Riga
Leena Hietanen on Germany’s president who is getting into bed with Estonian Holocaust revisionists
Dovid Katz in Hope not Hate on glorification of Nazi war criminals by an EU/NATO government and the same country’s neo-Nazis
Geoff Vasil on sophisticated attempts to sanitize Holocaust perpetrators
Lina Žigelytė on the neo-Nazis’ hatred of feminists
Efraim Zuroff in The Times of Israel on a Latvian celebration of the anniversary of… the 1941 Nazi invasion
Explore Defending History
What it’s all abut. Articles. Authors. Countries. Sections. Opinion. Books. Film. Litvak Culture, Litvak Studies (& map). Litvak Tourism (Dark Tourism too). Lithuanian Holocaust Studies (& map with shtetl list). Human Rights & LGBT issues. Antisemitism. Local citizens who stand up. More
ISSUES INCLUDE: “Double Genocide” & “Red-Brown Commission”; “Prague Declaration” (response: Seventy Years Declaration); “heroization” of collaborators; accusations against survivors; criminalization of debate; More
German and Estonian Presidents in Photo-op at “Double Genocide” Shrine in Tallinn
LEENA HIETANEN REPORTS FROM TALLINN
Tallinn photo-op with red-brown backdrop: Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves (left) with German president Joachim Gauck (Postimees—Erik Peinar). The modernist sculptural salute to red-brown equivalence, in the heart of an EU capital, showcases the curious supposed equality of the perpetrators and the liberators of Auschwitz. More red-brown iconography here.
A Vilnius Library with an Agenda?
Wyman Brent’s prophecy fulfilled?
Official invitation of the “Vilnius Jewish Public Library” to recent event glorifying the “Red-Brown Commission” without a single critic of the commission included in the panel. Geoff Vasil’s eyewitness report. The evening of elite Red-Brown Commission worship featured two top Commission operatives.
Previous event at “Jewish Library” included featured speaker from the antisemitic Genocide Center who the previous week (in the mainstream Lithuanian media) publicly belittled the Holocaust history of “Israeli [he means: Jewish] scholars” in his attempt to sanitize the LAF/PG 1941 killers of Lithuanian Jewry. English translation of his interview; Geoff Vasil replied in Defending History.
See section on the Library

But where were all these “Jewish culture loving dignitaries” when over a thousand neo-Nazis, some sporting swastikas, marched passed the library’s entrance on the nation’s independence day?
IS THE “JEWISH” LIBRARY STILL COURTING NAIVE FOREIGNERS AND ‘USEFUL JEWISH IDIOTS’ IN ZINGERIAN RED-BROWN CAMPAIGN?
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From the Red-Brown Commission’s website:
Commission’s executive director calls beloved Vilnius Holocaust survivor a “liar” on Commission’s website; Exec director’s performance in Riga; at Seimas (for a different audience…); in Rewriting History.
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Background on the “Red-Brown Commission”
Vilnius: Would a “Jewish Museum” Graywash the Holocaust?
RELATED: DARK TOURISM (FOCUSED ON THE ADULATION FOR HOLOCAUST COLLABORATORS THAT LEADS TO SANITIZATION AND GLORIFICATION); WHAT WERE THE INTENTIONS OF THE LITHUANIAN ACTIVIST FRONT (LAF) BEFORE WAR BROKE OUT? MORE. 2011 EVENTS TO HONOR THEM…
SEE ARTICLES BY EVALDAS BALCIUNAS AND MILAN CHERSONSKI
The Fate of an Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that is Part of Now
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
This comment first appeared in The Times of Israel on 22 May 2013.
One of the predictable consequences of genocide is the spectacle of old cemeteries without relatives or descendants of the buried to care for the gravestones or the site. Some stones will fall, some will sink, and then some will just be taken as usable components for the foundations of houses, the ballast of roads or the walls of a basketball court.
Estonian Pro-Fascists Celebrate Country’s 1944 Waffen SS Legion
This year’s summer celebration of Estonia’s Hitler-allied Waffen SS was held as scheduled, in the Sinimae hills of eastern Estonia last Saturday, the 27th of July. Images and reports were carried by Postimees and other media.

Source: Postimees
Jerusalem of Lithuania
Tribute to Milan Chersonski: a dozen years as editor of Lithuania’s last Jewish newspaper
VIDEO TRIBUTE HERE
Zeppelinus
Revival of Antisemitism in Europe
O P I N I O N
by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud/Belgium)
One would have thought that after the destruction of millions of Jews during the war and the creation of Israel, that antisemitism would have disappeared forever from Europe, the harsh and bloody lessons of the Holocaust having been learned. Yet, now, almost seventy years later, antisemitism is still an important factor to be reckoned with, both in Eastern and Western Europe.
Zeppelinus, Unmasked as Official at Lithuania’s Ministry for the Economy, Posts New Gay-Hate Image to “Welcome” Baltic Pride Week
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
The leading neo-Nazi blogger in Lithuania, “Zeppelinus,” who was unmasked several months ago by a number of publications as a high official at the Ministry for the Economy and chairman of the nation’s Tripartite Commission, did not deny the identification.
Instead, quite incredibly, he complained to the press commission against those who would dare deem to be unacceptable his hateful racist, antisemitic, homophobic and pro-fascist productions.
Free Speech and Holocaust Remembrance in the Eastern European Union
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
NOTE: This was written in response to “Foreign countries use far-right operations to undermine Lithuania’s image” published on June 7, 2013, on the Lithuania Tribune website.
Initially the editor-in-chief of the Lithuania Tribune agreed to publish the following reply in the Lithuania Tribune, but then changed his mind and finally refused, only informing the author a month later…
A Library with an Agenda? Bringing American Naifs On Board the Ultranationalists’ Baltic Holocaust Distortion Train?
SUMMARY COVERAGE OF “VILNIUS JEWISH PUBLIC LIBRARY” EVENTS TO 19 JULY 2013:
Wyman Brent’s prophecy fulfilled?
EHU Center for German Studies: “Colloquium Vilnense 2013” is Short on “The Second Opinion” when it comes to The Holocaust
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Colleagues at the prestigious European Humanities University in Vilnius (EHU, also known as the Belarusian Humanities University, in exile here in Vilnius) have passed on the public poster for this year’s series of seminars under the title Colloquium vilnense 2013, running from May to November 2013. The A3 size poster is reproduced (much reduced) at the bottom of this page in two halves.









