Author Archives: Defending History

The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine



O P I N I O N

by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (Berlin)

On 8 June 2011, the internet journal Maidan announced that “on 30 July [2011] at 11 AM exactly a flash mob will read the Act of Renewal of the Ukrainian State simultaneously in seven places in Kiev”.  The “flash mob” in Kiev will be commemorating the 70th anniversary of the proclamation of the Ukrainian state by the leading OUN-B politician Iaroslav Stets’ko, who in the evening of 30 June 1941 read out the “Act of Proclamation of a Ukrainian State” during a meeting in the hall of the Prosvita Society in the market place in L’viv, the center of western Ukraine.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bandera, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, G. Rossoliński-Liebe, History, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine

Litvaks and their Descendants Issue Public Letter Calling for Change in Lithuanian Government’s Holocaust Policies


 


Text of the public letter follows. Queries may be sent to Professor Danny Ben-Moshe at: Danny.Ben-Moshe@vu.edu.au.  UPDATES: Covered by JTA and the Jewish Chronicle.


We the undersigned Litvaks — Jews of Lithuanian origin and their direct and immediate descendants — hereby express:

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dov Levin (1925 - 2016), Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Lord Janner of Braunstone, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, The Great SLS About-Face | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yad Vashem, Causing Pain to Survivors with Participation in Lith. Parliament Conference Lauding Collaborators, Withdraws at Last Moment (after Defending History’s Plea)


UPDATE 1: On 27 June 2011 at 3:31 PM (Vilnius time), the Israeli Embassy in Riga (responsible for Lithuania as well as Latvia) emailed DefendingHistory.com to say that Yad Vashem’s participation in the event has been cancelled. This was confirmed in a further email from Yad Vashem at 3:56 PM. In Vilnius, however, the name of Yad Vashem and its designated representative continue to appear on programs and brochures, giving the impression that the event enjoys the formal participation of Yad Vashem. See our public query to Yad Vashem.

UPDATE 2: See Defending History’s eyewitness reports of Day 1 and Day 2 of the conference.

According to a conference program posted on the website of the Lithuanian Parliament, Yad Vashem is the only Jewish institution sending a representative to the latest conference mounted by the Lithuanian government in its campaign to downgrade the Holocaust and whitewash the Lithuanian Holocaust’s first murderers (the L.A.F. and other fascist groups), often by glorifying them as ‘freedom fighters’. The printed brochure for the conference, to be held on 29 and 30 June 2011, announces the event as a joint project of the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas) and the deeply antisemitic Genocide Research Center. One of the Center’s top ‘specialists’ participated in the recent neo-Nazi parade and went on to launch a public antisemitic campaign. He was neither removed from his post nor publicly reprimanded, as the season’s conferences plow ahead full steam.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Museums, News & Views, Yad Vashem and Lithuania | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Yad Vashem, Causing Pain to Survivors with Participation in Lith. Parliament Conference Lauding Collaborators, Withdraws at Last Moment (after Defending History’s Plea)

Monash University’s ‘Aftermath’ Conference concluded in Melbourne


The international conference Aftermath: The Politics of Memory concluded this evening with a final keynote speech by Shoah Foundation director and Beth Shalom founder Dr. Stephen Smith who made repeated reference to the growing problem of Holocaust Obfuscation. His central point was the need for the history of the Holocaust to sensitize humanity, and indeed, western governments, to the need to care in real time about any subsequent genocide.

One of the conference’s dramatic moments came when Professor Konrad Kwiet (Macquarie University, Sydney and resident historian at the Sydney Jewish Museum) asked to come to the podium to announce his public resignation from the Lithuanian government sponsored International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithaunia.

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Posted in Australia, Konrad Kwiet, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Monash University’s ‘Aftermath’ Conference concluded in Melbourne

DefendingHistory.com announces Media Chronicle of Opposition to the 2008 ‘Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism’


DefendingHistory.com has announced the free availability of a frequently updated resource page that provides links for select major expressions of opposition to the 2008 Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.  The page is available here or by visiting:

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Myth, Violence, Genocide



O P I N I O N

by Christopher Hale

There are a number of books about the ‘foreign divisions of the Third Reich’. Most seem to be written for military history buffs and those fascinated by uniforms and arcane details of military insignia. Some are downright sinister. The series of books written by Richard Landwehr, an American ‘historian’ associated with the far right, are overtly favourable and have titles like ‘Lions of Flanders’, ‘Steadfast Hussars’ and ‘Nordic Warriors’.  His Wiki entry includes the following rationale:

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Posted in History, Latvia, Opinion, Ukraine | Comments Off on Myth, Violence, Genocide

On Snyder’s Conceptualization of the Final Solution ‘in the Bloodlands’


 


O P I N I O N

by Rachel Croucher

I have read and re-read the chapter entitled “Final Solution” in Timothy Snyder’s major new book, Bloodlands (Basic Books 2010), in an attempt to garner further insight into events surrounding the genocide of the Jews in Eastern Europe for a dissertation on contemporary Holocaust remembrance precisely in the countries of these so-called Bloodlands, and with emphasis upon Lithuania. I had hoped that the chapter would expand my knowledge on the specifics of and motivations for the disturbingly high levels of local participation in the actual mass-murdering (far beyond just collaboration) in these countries.

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Can Timothy Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’ be Appropriated by East European Nationalists?



O P I N I O N

by Per Rudling

The great strength of Professor Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands (Basic Books, 2010) is that it contextualizes the violent 1930s and 1940s in Eastern Europe.

FOR MORE SEE DEFENDING HISTORY’S PAGE ON RESPONSES TO TIMOTHY SNYDER

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Posted in Books, History, News & Views, Opinion, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Tagged | Comments Off on Can Timothy Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’ be Appropriated by East European Nationalists?

‘Prague Process’ Crowd, with Lithuanian Jewish politician for cover (as usual), now proceeding with plans to ‘overhaul European history textbooks’ for Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation


The Prague Declaration proponents in European Parliamentary circles, having renamed their movement the ‘Prague Process’, are triumphantly reporting on their latest initiative to bring to fruition yet another of the movement’s stated objectives: to overhaul all the history textbooks in Europe to reflect the supposed ‘equality’ of Nazi and Soviet crimes, in other words to continue with the far right’s revision-of-history project to downgrade the Holocaust in the course of Double Genocide ideology.

As ever, the group is able at critical moments to wheel out Lithuania’s right-wing Jewish MP, Emanuelis Zingeris, himself a signatory of the Prague Declaration, who publicly resigned from his country’s Jewish community many years ago, but continues to run the ‘Jewish track’ of a complicated double-game policy that has led, in 2011, to the absurdity of a year to remember the Holocaust as well as a year to commemorate some of its local perpetrators who are glorified as ‘anti-Soviet heroes’ (see here, here and here).

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List of Lithuanian Government’s ‘Fake Litvaks’ is Leaked to the Media


This journal reported on 6 September 2010 on an elaborate plot by the Lithuanian government’s ‘Jewish manipulation department’, as the informal grouping is known in Vilnius diplomatic circles, to usurp (some would say ‘hijack’) the ethnonym Litvak and abuse it to cover for — and facilitate — the state’s policies on Double Genocide and antisemitism with ‘Jewish’ projects.

Did any of the ‘Fake Litvaks’ actually sign the 2011 public letter protesting the capital’s neo-Nazi march?

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Posted in Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, News & Views, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf), What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Comments Off on List of Lithuanian Government’s ‘Fake Litvaks’ is Leaked to the Media

Canada Chronicle



Apologies! This page has moved here (https://defendinghistory.com/canada)

See also:

Canada section


Posted in Canada, News & Views | Comments Off on Canada Chronicle

Kepiro Trial Continues in Budapest


The new Budapest trial of the twice-convicted Hungarian Nazi war criminal Sandor Kepiro continued in Budapest today, when the court determined that the 97 year old was perectly competent mentally to continue. To avoid unduly taxing the defendant’s energy, authorities decided for sessions of forty-minutes each rather than the customary three consecutive hours.

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1000 Neo-Nazi Marchers Fill Central Vilnius on Lithuania’s Independence Day; They are Addressed by Two Members of Parliament


Marcher sports a designer swastika on her handbag at the March 11th 2012 neo-Nazi march on Gedimino Prospect in the heart of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.

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EYEWITNESS REPORT & IMAGES

Posted in Boxes, Celebrations of Fascism, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius | Comments Off on 1000 Neo-Nazi Marchers Fill Central Vilnius on Lithuania’s Independence Day; They are Addressed by Two Members of Parliament

Courageous Achievements


Brussels — Valiant members of parliament and the European Parliament from Latvia, Lithuania and other East European Countries sign the Seventy Years Declaration

Kaunas — Daiva Čepauskaitė’s new play: ‘Day and Night’

Šiauliai — Evaldas Balčiūnas is translating the memoir of a Jewish woman partisan of the Vilna Ghetto

Vilnius — Social Democratic MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis boldly responds to the latest Holocaust-related article by the foreign minister of Lithuania

Vilnius — In the face of untoward pressure over many years, Rachel Kostanian has maintained steadfast historical accuracy in the Green House Holocaust department of the State Jewish Museum; Esther Goldberg’s reports I & II

Vilnius — Books and a documentary of lasting value produced by the House of Memory, led by Linas Vildžiūnas, Vaidotas Reivytis and others; projects curtailed by the government’s ‘red-brown establishment’ monopolizing resources

Vilnius — Saulius Beržinis’s Kopa Studios producing series of uniquely spin-free documentaries on the Holocaust

Riga — Rabbi Menachem Barkahan’s New Holocaust Museum

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Latvian President Blesses Waffen SS March in Riga; Council of Europe’s Racism Unit Condemns Event; 1500 Turn Out


The president of Latvia endorsed this year’s Waffen SS march, “bowing his head” to his nation’s Waffen SS.  Latvia’s ambassador to the UK defended the march.  Council of Europe condemns the event.  UK MP John Mann.  UK Parliament Early Day Motion 2866. 1500 Turn Out.

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A wreath for Holocaust survivors was covered by the Waffen SS logo by the event’s organizers. Two anti-Nazi activists exposed the wreath again for a short time, before they were removed by police.

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Foreign protesters included Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (Jerusalem), Joel Rubinfeld of the European Jewish Parliament (Brussels), Monica Lowenberg, creator of the anti-march international petition (London).

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EYEWITNESS REPORT & IMAGES.  2ND REPORT.  MEDIA COVERAGE.

Posted in Boxes, Celebrations of Fascism, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, Racism, Riga's Waffen SS Marches | Comments Off on Latvian President Blesses Waffen SS March in Riga; Council of Europe’s Racism Unit Condemns Event; 1500 Turn Out

Ukraine: Fascists, Collaborators, Perpetrators — Honored


DETAILS HERE

Posted in Boxes, Celebrations of Fascism | Comments Off on Ukraine: Fascists, Collaborators, Perpetrators — Honored

8-12 May 2011 Facebook Debate



O P I N I O N

FACEBOOK DISCUSSION AS ON 12 MAY 2011:

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Was the OSCE’s (ODIHR) ‘High Level Meeting on Confronting Antisemitism’ another East European Whitewash?


The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) today released its report on the ‘OSCE High Level Meeting on Confronting Antisemitism in Public Discourse’ that was held in Prague on 23 and 24 March 2011 under the auspices of its ODIHR department (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights). The full report is available here (alternate link here).

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, News & Views, The OSCE, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Was the OSCE’s (ODIHR) ‘High Level Meeting on Confronting Antisemitism’ another East European Whitewash?

Milan Chersonski on the ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar



O P I N I O N

by Milan Chersonski


МАРШ ЖИВЫХ. ВПЕЧАТЛЕНИЯ И РАЗМЫШЛЕНИЯ

В календаре памятных дат Государства Израиль есть День памяти Жертв нацизма и Героев сопротивления – Йом а-Шоа вэ а-Гвура. По европейскому календарю он приходится на 19 апреля – день начала восстания в Варшавском гетто в 1943г.. Почти месяц – дольше, чем польская армия, защищавшая страну от нацистов в 1939г., – истощенные голодом и болезнями, плохо вооруженные узники сражались против специально обученных нацистских формирований и их местных нацистских пособников.

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Posted in In Russian, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Comments Off on Milan Chersonski on the ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar

Estonian Nationalists say Holocaust ‘Pales’ by Comparison with Soviet Crimes; Delfi.lt produces its ‘Scorecard’ again


Estonian nationalists demonstrating outside Tallin’s Russian Embassy explained their view that ‘The Holocaust pales before the hundreds of thousands of people who were murdered by the Communists, the annihilation of dozens of ethnicities and the mass deportations!’

The BNS report carried by Delfi.lt (English translation here) which contains the quote also reproduced the image of the ‘red-brown scorecard’.

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Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status | Tagged | Comments Off on Estonian Nationalists say Holocaust ‘Pales’ by Comparison with Soviet Crimes; Delfi.lt produces its ‘Scorecard’ again