C O M M E N T
[updated 17 Feb] The following “SAVE THE DATE GALA DINNER” announcement was recently posted on the Telfed Online website [update: page taken down; similar text is at the ILCCI site of the organizing “Israel-Lithuania”]:
Author Archives: Defending History
Holocaust Survivors to Demonstrate outside Tel Aviv ‘Sellout Gala’ Slated for March 5th
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Citizenship, Double Games, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Joseph Melamed, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, South Africa
Tagged Audronius Azubalis, Holocaust in Lithuania, Israel-Africa Chamber of Commerce, Israel-Lithuania Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Lithuania South Africa Israel, Lithuanian Embassy in Tel Aviv, Telfed Online
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The Lingering Legacy of Nazism
O P I N I O N
by Milan Chersonski
Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij), longtime editor (1999-2011) of Jerusalem of Lithuania, quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, was previously (1979-1999) director of the Yiddish Folk Theater of Lithuania, which in Soviet times was the USSR’s only Yiddish amateur theater company. The views he expresses in DefendingHistory.com are as always his own. Authorized translation from the Russian original by DefendingHistory.com.
The twentieth of January 2012 made it precisely seventy years from the day when a conference of ministries and agencies of Hitler’s Germany was held at the Marlier Villa by Lake Wannsee. It went down in history as the Wannsee Conference. Nazi officials in a business-like manner in ice blood, discussed the problems of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, the euphemism for genocide of the Jews in Europe.
Fulfillment of the Wannsee Conference decisions, which became directives, continued until the last days of the Nazi state. Not even the approach of the Red Army in the east or the successful landing of the anti-Hitler coalition in the west resulted in German leaders abandoning the project to annihilate the Jewish people. In the face of a string of crushing defeats, acute shortages of transport, ammunition, fuel and even food, the Nazis went on sending Jews to their death with a maniacal consistency.
But it would be a very serious mistake to think that the Wannsee Conference directives per se played the main role in the Final Solution of the Jewish Question here in Lithuania. In this part of the world the Nazis and their many accomplices had been quick to rob and massacre the majority of the Jewish population by December 1941. Before the Wannsee Conference.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, History, Human Rights, Kaunas, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius
Tagged 2008 Prague Declaration, Azubalis + Holocaust, Azubalis + Jews, Holocaust in Lithuania, The 70 Years Declaration, Wannsee Declaration
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A Hidden Monument in Vilnius — Hopelessly Invisible?
In response to several requests from the United States, DefendingHistory.com this week asked three colleagues who found themselves in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, to try to see the “Flame of Hope” monument, by sculptor Leonardo Nierman, in memory of the victims of the Lithuanian Holocaust, located in the heart of the Old Town, in a yard that was in the Vilna Ghetto between September 1941 and the ghetto’s liquidation three years later.
Posted in Arts, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Exotic Jewish Tourism, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Shelly Rybak Pearson
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Lithuanian Parliamentarian Vytenis Andriukaitis, Signatory of 70 Years Declaration, Replies to Foreign Minister, Cites ‘Moustache’ Remark and the Implications of ‘Double Genocide’
O P I N I O N
by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis
The following is an authorized translation from the Lithuanian text published on Delfi.lt on 9 February 2012. It is a reply to the foreign minister’s article published a week earlier (English translation here).
Honorable A. Ažubalis, Did You Pull Such an Understanding of History out of Thin Air?
by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lithuanian Parliament
Honorable minister, looking at the headline of your public statement, I hoped at least that you would apologize for the position expressed earlier that “it is impossible to find any difference between Hitler and Stalin except in their moustaches (Hitler’s was smaller).” I agree with the position expressed by Dennis MacShane, member of the British House of Commons, that such jokes by foreign minister Audronius Ažubalis are inappropriate in discussing the mass murder of six million Jews.
SEE ALSO:
ANDRIUKAITIS SECTION
In your public statement, you again place two signed declarations in opposition to one another. One of them — the “only true one” — the “Declaration on European Conscience and Communism” signed in Prague in 2008, maintains that the precondition for a unified Europe is a unified view of history and the ability to condemn the last century’s crimes against humanity. The second, the Seventy Years Declaration — the declaration referred to as if it were a crime and condemned by you —was adopted marking the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee conference, a declaration which rejects attempts to trivialize the atrocities of the Jewish genocide.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom, Vytenis Andriukaitis
Tagged Audronius Azubalis + Holocaust, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, The 70 Years Declaration, Vytenis Andriukaitis
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Seventy Years Declaration Joins the European Conversation
The Seventy Years Declaration
Solemnly commemorates the Holocaust and reaffirms human rights of all people. Opposes the Prague Declaration and ‘Double Genocide’ politics. Rejects glorification of the Waffen SS of Estonia and Latvia and the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF).
Lithuania’s foreign minister’s “moustache response” came within minutes of SYD’s release.
———
TEXT AND LIST OF FOUNDING SIGNATORIES
PRESENTED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
UPDATE: DOCUMENTARY FILM RELEASED
SYD TEXT IN BELARUSIAN; ENGLISH; FRENCH; GERMAN; LITHUANIAN; POLISH; RUSSIAN; SPANISH; YIDDISH; LIST OF UK SIGNATORIES; LITHUANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ATTACKS SIGNATORIES WITHIN MINUTES
MEDIA COVERAGE
———
Danny Ben-Moshe launches SYD in the Jerusalem Post. SYD published. Lithuanian Foreign Minister responds in minutes with infamous “moustache comparison” of Hitler and Stalin, later attacks Lithuanian parliamentarians who signed. UK MP Denis MacShane congratulates the Lithuanian Eight who signed. Vytenis Andriukaitis, signatory of nation’s Declaration of Independence, replies to FM. Roger Cohen in the New York Times. Gang-up on Lithuanian radio panel. AJ, Forward, Haaretz, JC.
British parliamentarian tells Lithuanian signatories of the 70 Years Declaration:
DefendingHistory.com congratulates the Lithuanian parliamentarians among the founding 70 signatories of the Seventy Years Declaration for their courage, integrity, love of all their country’s peoples, and genuine commitment to European values:
Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, MP
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, EU
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German Politicians Repudiate EU’s Rep in Afghanistan, who Calls Hitler’s Rule ‘Respite from Communism’
by Frank Brendle (Berlin)
The German Government has repudiated the trivialization of Nazi regime by the ambassador of the European Union in Afghanistan, Vygaudas Ušackas, a former foreign minister of Lithuania. In a 6 December Wall Street Journal article, Ušackas called Nazi rule in Lithuania “a few years’ respite from the Communists.” An apology was called for by Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office, and a debate ensued.
Posted in EU, Frank Brendle, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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The Lingering Legacy of Nazism
М Н Е Н И Е
Милан Херсонский
У НАЦИЗМА НЕ ДОЛЖНО БЫТЬ БУДУЩЕГО
20 января нынешнего 2012-го года исполнилось 70 лет с того дня, когда в 1942-м году на вилле Марлир близ озера Ванзее состоялась конференция представителей министерств и ветвей власти гитлеровской Германии, которая вошла в мировую историю по названию озера – Ванзейская конференция. Это было совещание нацистских чиновников, которые деловито и хладнокровно обсуждали вопросы реализации «окончательного решения еврейского вопроса», то есть полного истребления евреев в Европе.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, Human Rights, In Russian, Lithuania, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Olga Zabludoff’s Petition to Stop the March 11th Neo-Nazi March in Vilnius
The following is the text of the petition created by Olga Zabludoff today on Change.org.
Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States: Ban Neo-Nazis from Desecrating the Dignity of Lithuania’s Independence Day
This petition was delivered to:
- Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States
- Ambassador Zygimantas Pavilionis
Petition by
- Olga Zabludoff
- Washington, DC
For the fifth time in the past five years a neo-Nazi parade (this year with a permit enabling a maximum of 2,000 participants) will march through the heart of Vilnius on March 11, Independence Day, one of the proudest and most significant days for the people of Lithuania. The neo-Nazi theme will be “Homeland.” Their display, if permitted by the government, will be taken by extremists throughout the region and Europe as a stamp of growing approval of neo-Nazi activities and a signal that the murder of about 95% of Lithuania’s Jewry during the Holocaust, largely by local collaborators, is taken lightly by today’s government.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Vilnius
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Seventy Years Declaration Joins the European Conversation on 20 January 2012
The Seventy Years Declaration
Solemnly commemorates the Holocaust and reaffirms human rights of all people. Opposes the Prague Declaration and ‘Double Genocide’ politics. Rejects glorification of the Waffen SS of Estonia and Latvia and the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF).
Lithuania’s foreign minister’s “moustache response” came within minutes of SYD’s release.
———
TEXT AND LIST OF FOUNDING SIGNATORIES
PRESENTED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
UPDATE: DOCUMENTARY FILM RELEASED
SYD TEXT IN BELARUSIAN; ENGLISH; FRENCH; GERMAN; LITHUANIAN; POLISH; RUSSIAN; SPANISH; YIDDISH; LIST OF UK SIGNATORIES; LITHUANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ATTACKS SIGNATORIES WITHIN MINUTES
MEDIA COVERAGE
———
Danny Ben-Moshe launches SYD in the Jerusalem Post. SYD published. Lithuanian Foreign Minister responds in minutes with infamous “moustache comparison” of Hitler and Stalin, later attacks Lithuanian parliamentarians who signed. UK MP Denis MacShane congratulates the Lithuanian Eight who signed. Vytenis Andriukaitis, signatory of nation’s Declaration of Independence, replies to FM. Roger Cohen in the New York Times. Gang-up on Lithuanian radio panel. AJ, Forward, Haaretz, JC.
British parliamentarian tells Lithuanian signatories of the 70 Years Declaration:
DefendingHistory.com congratulates the Lithuanian parliamentarians among the founding 70 signatories of the Seventy Years Declaration for their courage, integrity, love of all their country’s peoples, and genuine commitment to European values:
Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, MP
Posted in Boxes
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Social Democrats Stood Up
Boldly defying the right wing government’s Holocaust politics, a number of leading Lithuanian Social Democrats have stood up with courage. Six MPs and two MEPs signed the SYD. They were attacked by the current foreign minister in his “moustache reply” and an article (and in a “cooked” radio panel).
MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, the SD foreign affairs spokesman, replied robustly. UK MP Denis MacShane sent personal letters to each of the signatories. Then, two Social Democratic MPs issued a statement in the Seimas protesting the state’s honoring of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister.
MP Andriukaitis challenged the foreign minister on the floor of the Seimas.
OTHER BOLD CITIZENS SPEAK OUT
Posted in Boxes
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Press Release Issued by the Social Democratic Party in Lithuania
The following is a translation of the Lithuanian-language statement released today by the central offices of the Social Democratic Party in Vilnius:
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vytenis Andriukaitis
Tagged Denis MacShane, Holocaust in Lithuania, Seventy Years Declaration, Vytenis Andriukaitis
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Olga Zabludoff’s Debate in VilNews (October 2011 — January 2012)
O P I N I O N
by Olga Zabludoff
Note: The following six articles, spanning the period October 2011 through January 2012, were published in VilNews in the course of a discussion. Each article is followed by the link to the original VilNews publication to enable readers to follow both sides of the argument (if Comments are included — many sides of the argument) in the original place of publication.
1. Mr. Januta Twists Facts and Figures to Suit his Arguments
Mr. Januta’s article goes right to the heart of the problem: the tendency of critics like him to accuse others of being misinformed and of misstating facts. Indeed it is Mr. Januta who twists facts and figures to suit his arguments. Even when his facts are “correct,” they are simply half-truths.
For example: Yes, there is a Holocaust Museum in Vilnius, but to compare the pitiful little hidden building (the Green House) with the state-of-the-art Museum of Genocide located on a major street is like comparing a mouse to an elephant.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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UK MP Denis MacShane’s January 24th 2012 Letter to Lithuanian MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis
The following letter, from UK MP Dr. Denis MacShane, was received today by the office of Lithuanian parliament member Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis:
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Denis MacShane, News & Views, Opinion, United Kingdom, Vytenis Andriukaitis
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Dr. Shimon Alperovich, Chairman of Lithuanian Jewish Community, Blasts “Double Genocide” on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Dr. Shimon Alperovich spoke out on the fashionable — and deeply disturbing — “Double Genocide” theory of World War II at the annual 27 January Holocaust Remembrance Day program held at the Jewish Community of Lithuania’s Vilnius headquarters at Pylimo Street 4.
Video, by Defending History, of Dr. Alperovich’s remarks, delivered in Lithuanian, is available on YouTube.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
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Antony Polonsky Returns to Brandeis ‘Knighted’ by Lithuanian President’s Cross of the Officer of the Order — for helping the Baltic State’s Holocaust PR Campaign
C O M M E N T
With the president: Professor Antony Polonsky wearing the Cross of the Officer of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. Photo: Džoja Barysaitė
VILNIUS—Professor Antony Polonsky of Brandeis University, one of the world’s most accomplished scholars of Polish-Jewish history and the long time editor of the seminal Polish Jewish history series Polin, was at the Lithuanian president’s palace today to receive from her excellency the prestigious Cross of the Officer of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. The award, pinned on his chest by President Dalia Grybauskaitė, was not for a lifetime of sterling work on Polish Jewish history, but it seemed, for several years’ staunch and perhaps somewhat naive loyalty to the public relations program of the current government of Lithuania, organized by the local Holocaust revisionism elite’s alleged top handler of “important foreign Jews,” Prof. S.arunas Liekis. The presidential press release, reported in English by Baltic News Service (BNS), put it this way:
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Poland, Politics of Memory, Symbology, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis
Tagged Antony Polonsky, Antony Polonsky + Lithuania, definition of genocide, Holocaust in Lithuania, Polonsky + Cross of the Officer of the Order for Merits to Lithuania, Polonsky + Margolis, prosecution of Holocaust survivors by Lithuanian prosecutors, Rachel Margolis, Sarunas Liekis
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UK MP Denis MacShane Rushes to Defense of Lithuanian Parliamentarians who Signed Seventy Years Declaration; Slams Foreign Minister’s Hitler-Stalin ‘Joke’
The following press statement was issued today by the office of UK MP Denis MacShane concerning the response of the Lithuanian foreign minister to the news that eight Lithuanian parliamentarians had signed the Seventy Years Declaration.
News Release 25 Jan. 2012
On the eve of National Holocaust Day, former Europe Minister Denis MacShane MP has written to Lithuanian MPs and MEPs who defied their political establishment to sign a statement on the Holocaust which attacks attempts to devalue the Nazi extermination of Jews by claiming it is no worse than the crimes committed by communists.
The Seventy Years Declaration was issued on 20 January 2012 by seventy European Union parliamentarians (MPs and MEPs) concerned about the return of antisemitism as an issue in contemporary politics. In January 1942, Nazi officials met at a conference at Lake Wannsee close to Berlin to plan the industrially organized extermination of European Jewry.
In recent years, European right-wing politicians have sought to gain acceptance for their view that the suffering under communist rule was the same as the Nazi extermination of Jews. This so-called “double genocide” thesis has been criticized by campaigners against modern antisemitism as leading to a devaluation of the unique specific Jew-hating roots of the Holocaust.
Now social democratic MPs and MEPs in Lithuania who signed this declaration have been attacked by government officials. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister went so far as to say there was no difference between Hitler and Stalin except the length of their moustache.Continue reading
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Antisemitism & Bias, Denis MacShane, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom, Vytenis Andriukaitis
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The Waffen-SS as Freedom Fighters
O P I N I O N
by Per Anders Rudling
Despised and ostracized, the Swedish community of Waffen-SS volunteers long gathered in secret on April 14, “The Day of the Fallen,” for obscure ritualistic annual gatherings at a cemetery in a Stockholm suburb.[1]
Since the 1990s, the rituals have not needed to be clandestine: the few, now very elderly survivors now head to Sinimäe, Estonia, where they feel they are now getting the honor to which they are entitled. Here, Swedish, Norwegian, Austrian, German and other Waffen-SS veterans from Western Europe meet up with their Estonian comrades.[2] The annual gatherings include those who volunteered for ideological reasons, and who are today actively passing on the experiences to a new generation of neo-Nazis.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Canada, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Estonia, Germany, History, Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Sweden
Tagged Per Anders Rudling
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“Civil” Discourse in Ukraine
O P I N I O N
by Jared McBride
I sent the following op-ed, “Euro 2012: Maydan of hate?” to the Kyiv Post in late December regarding the hate literature that is often sold on Maidan Nezalezhnosti. It was published on 21 December 2011. One can read the comments made on the Kyiv Post‘s website here (taken today from the Comments section following my op-ed).
In response to my op-ed I had my educational background questioned; I was deemed a supporter of Kaganovich, Tabachnyk, and Yanukovych in no particular order; I was given various history lessons that have nothing to do with the letter at hand (and nothing to do with history either); conspiracy theories were shared; and I was called names, not least “son of a bitch.” The last epithet was perhaps the most ironic bearing in mind that I am fortunate to have a mother who raised me to have enough dignity to not insult people on internet forums while hiding behind false names.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Ukraine
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Lithuanian Foreign Minister Berates his Country’s Parliamentarians who Signed ‘70 Years Declaration’; Says Hitler = Stalin Except for Length of their Moustaches
The foreign minister of Lithuania did not wait until the day was over.
“It is not possible to find differences between Hitler and Stalin except in their moustaches (Hitler’s was shorter).”
— The Foreign Minister of Lithuania, commenting upon the Seventy Years Declaration in the early hours of 20 January 2012, 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Algirdas Sysas, Audronius Azubalis, Azubalis Hitler Stalin moustache, Double Genocide + Lithuania, Dr. Jonathan Brent, Emanuelis Zingeris, Justinas Karosas, Last Monday in Tel Aviv, Paul Berger, Prague Declaration, Vygaudas Ušackas
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Unconfirmed Report: Yad Vashem asked to Shore Up Discredited Red-Brown Commission with Three (!) New Members
VILNIUS. Unconfirmed rumors were swirling in “Holocaust politics” circles this week about an alleged request by “very high officials” of the Lithuanian government to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem — through channels including both countries’ foreign ministries — to shore up the status of the widely discredited “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.” The commission is widely known as the “Red-Brown Commission.”
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Israel, News & Views, Yad Vashem and Lithuania
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