Retired Vilnius University lecturer Irena Tumavičiūtė, whose 29 January 2008 article in the antisemitic newspaper Lietuvos aidas is credited with egging on right-wing parliamentarians and prosecutors to ‘go for’ Holocaust Survivors Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky and Dr Rachel Margolis, has published a new article on the Holocaust, concentrating on Auschwitz, in the popular mainstream magazine Veidas. It appeared in the magazine’s January 10th issue.
Author Archives: Defending History
Tumavičiūtė Strikes Again, in — Veidas
Posted in Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Media Watch, News & Views
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Lithuania and Tolerance
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
2010 was an astonishing year for human rights in Lithuania. Toward the beginning of 2010 there were public demonstrations in the capital by self-designated patriotic youth, decked out in various paramilitary costumes, in plain clothes bearing variations on swastikas and wearing white arm bands. These Lithuanian neo-Nazis marched across the main streets and squares in Vilnius on independence day (March 11th), made a showing to protest against a silent march of people from the main square to a cemetery to honor the dead on Soviet Victory Day (May 9th), and most spectacularly managed to outnumber 10 to 1 Lithuania’s first gay pride march (May 8th) with a violent mob throwing objects, hurtling insults and proudly waving flags with pseudo-swastikas behind police lines. The gay pride march almost didn’t happen, as it hadn’t many years in a row, because of bureaucratic impedance from the Vilnius municipality over issuing a permit and from law enforcement and the parliament. The neo-Nazi marches, on the other hand, had support from within parliament, MPs who personally asked for, and got, permits from the city for a march. Several MPs also came to the anti-gay pride protest with bullhorns, stormed police barriers and generally foamed at the mouth, caught on camera.
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Geoff Vasil, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Opinion
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Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) Prewar Proclamations on Plans for their Jewish Fellow-Citizens of Lithuania
What did the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) put in writing concerning its intentions for fellow citizens who were Jews in the days and weeks before the German invaders took actual control of various locations within Lithuania?
These excerpts are all from the translations from Lithuanian in the English edition of Joseph Levinson’s The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania (Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum of Lithuania: Vilnius 2006). The full texts (or much larger excerpts) appear in the chapter Documents Speak available here as PDF by permission of Joseph Levinson.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Documents, History, Joseph Levinson, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs
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When Past is Not Even Past
O P I N I O N
by Mikhail Iossel
This comment is a response to the statement recently published by the Lithuanian Human Rights Association (LHRA).
What’s genuinely sad, with regard to the pathetic document in question — among other things of similar revealing character, to be sure — is the realization that none of those self-sufficient, accomplished, educated, and supposedly respectable people, the LHRA leadership, are likely to exist in a vacuum. They are surrounded by the concentric circles of friends, colleagues, students… fellow human-rights (!) activists — presumably, at least to some significant extent, sharing their views on those vile and treacherous, kinless-cosmopolite Jews’ international conspiracy to humiliate Lithuania by, you know, constantly guilt-tripping and browbeating the poor little innocent freedom-loving country into remembering and finishing the unpleasant business of accounting for this one, admittedly unfortunate, event of past long gone.
Posted in Mikhail Iossel, Opinion
Tagged human rights in Lithuania, LHRA (Vilnius), Mikhail Iossel, Mikhail Iossel + Vilnius, SLS (Summer Literary Seminars)
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When a ‘Human Rights Association’ accepts and repeats the antisemitic canards in town
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
“Also, it has been started to require the sentence of the citizens of the Jewish nationality ― Yitzhak Arad, Fania Brantsovsky and Rachel Margolis, as these citizens (former Soviet guerrillas) have organized the massive slaughter of civilians in Kaniūkai Village, Lithuania (killing 38 civilians) on 29 January 1944. Attention should be paid to the fact that the very Y. Arad has departed to Israel.” — from the statement just published by the Lithuanian Human Rights Association (LHRA), signed by ten of its leading experts and approved by its committee.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Israel, News & Views, Opinion, Užgavėnės, UŽGAVĖNĖS (SHROVETIDE)
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Six Countries Try to ‘Slip in’ Double Genocide in the ‘Stockholm Programme’; European Commission says ‘No’
Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry had announced on 14 December 2010 that it was the initiator of a new demand from six East European countries ― Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania — to Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, that Double Genocide sentiments, and support for effective criminalization of the view that the Holocaust was a unique genocide, be incorporated in the new Stockholm Programme before the end of 2010. Less than a week earlier, Lithuania’s president took the same demand with her to a meeting in Brussels.
The Road from Prague to Stockholm (via Vilnius?)
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Hungary, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Latvia, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Double Genocide, Prague Declaration, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, Prague Process
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An Orwellian Description of the Drive to Revise History in the Direction of Double Genocide
Extract (from original posting by François Guesnet, Corob Reader in Jewish History, University College London) from the description of the (foregone?) conclusions of the “No Simples Stories” conference on 6-10 February 2011:
Posted in Documents, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom
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Estonia’s Absence on last Red-Brown Letter Explained by ‘Blizzard’
The foreign minister of Lithuania explained to reporters today the absence of Estonia’s name on the 14 December letter to Viviane Reding of the European Commission, asking for Double Genocide language and sentiment to be inserted into the Stockholm Programme, a move since rejected by the Commission. This journal was among those speculating on a possible change in Estonia’s policy.
But today, the Lithuanian foreign minister, Audronius Ažubalis, explained to reporters that his Estonian counterpart ‘only arrived, because of the blizzard, after the other signatures had been signed, and wished to correct the text. But we didn’t have an opportunity’.
It remains for Estonia to clarify matters.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, EU, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Polish Embassy Releases English Text of Ambassador’s Letter
The Polish Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, today released to DefendingHistory.com the authorized English text of the letter which Ambassador Janusz Skolimowski had published in Veidas, on 26 November 2010, in relation to the Stankeras Affair and Holocaust Denial more generally; it was issued one day after the letter from seven European ambassadors to Lithuania’s leaders.
The English text of Ambassador Skolimowski’s letter is posted here.
It is hoped that release of the Polish ambassador’s letter will make it easier for release to be authorized of the seven other ambassadors’ letter, of 25 November, 2010, as recently proposed in the Commons by MP Denis MacShane.
Posted in EU, News & Views, Poland
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Speculation on Estonia’s Position
This journal notes with satisfaction that the government of Estonia did not sign the 14 December 2010 letter from six East European ambassadors in support of inserting ‘Double Genocide’ language into EU’s new Stockholm Programme. The six are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.
For opponents of the new Far Right’s revisionist history of World War II, it was also a welcome surprise that Estonia’s ambassador to Lithuania did sign the 25 Nov 2010 letter from seven European ambassadors protesting antisemitism in Lithuania and ‘spurious efforts’ to equalize Nazi and Soviet crimes. British parliamentarian Denis MacShane has asked for that letter to made public.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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‘Prague Declaration’ Supporters Inserting ‘Double Genocide’ in the EU’s ‘Stockholm Programme’
According to a December 14th posting on the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry’s website, (reported also on Isria.com and elsewhere), Lithuania’s foreign minister is taking the lead in the latest initiative to insert ‘Double Genocide’ into European Union law and policy, which on this occasion includes his colleagues from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, and Romania. Other media reports here.
It becomes ever more difficult for observers of East European minority rights and Holocaust history issues to keep up, as the Holocaust Obfuscation undertones of the Prague Declaration are gradually infiltrated into the Stockholm Programme. In both cases, observers discern New Accession EU governments’ efforts to insinuate one or another incarnation of ‘Double Genocide’ (in Eurospeak: ‘equal evaluation of totalitarian regimes’) into general European Union consciousness.
Posted in EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Hungary, Latvia, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Does the Road from Prague to Stockholm Go Through Vilnius?
Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry announced on 14 December 2010 that it was the initiator of a new demand from six East European countries ― Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania — to Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, that Double Genocide sentiments, and support for effective criminalization of the view that the Holocaust was a unique genocide, be incorporated in the new Stockholm Programme before the end of 2010. Less than a week earlier, Lithuania’s president took the same demand with her to a meeting in Brussels.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, The Czech Republic
Tagged Double Genocide, Holocaust Politics in the EU, Matthew Newman (EU), Montero Report, Stockholm Programme
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Interview from the Pits of Paneriai, or, We Are Weighing Death
O P I N I O N
by Sergejus Kanovičius
Very recently I looked at the Delfi.lt webpage and could barely hold back the tears watching one of the episodes of Mission Siberia (http://tv.delfi.lt/video/ST5zL0DJ) which aired this year, an interview with Lithuanians who have lived [in Siberia] eight decades now, unable to speak Lithuanian and explaining why they who have lived their entire lives in Siberia see no sense nor opportunity to return to Lithuania…I was saddened because of the tragedy of their lives, but at the same time I was glad that they are alive and healthy.
Posted in Opinion, Sergey Kanovich
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Only in Eastern Europe: Convicted Nazi War Criminal, 96, is the Plaintiff
Judge Viktor Vadasz dismissed the case against the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office director, Dr Efraim Zuroff, some ten minutes after its 8:30 AM start at the District Court of Pest at 25 Marko utca. Defending History.com was in court (with ATV and Hetek).
The Faith Church of Hungary, led by Pastor Sándor Németh, a major figure in the battle against antisemitism and Holocaust revisionism in the region, supported Dr Zuroff steadfastly throughout the saga. The hearing was also attended by representatives of the Novi Sad Municipal Assembly along with the former president of the Novi Sad Jewish community, Dr Ana Frenkel, who represented the community at the hearing. Novi Sad, Serbia, is the site of the murder of many of the victims of the alleged Nazi war criminal who brought this case.
Posted in Events, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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MP Denis MacShane Calls for Release of 7 Ambassadors’ Letter on Antisemitism and the ‘Double Genocide’ movement in Lithuania
The following exchange between human rights advocate MP Denis MacShane and the government’s Minister for Europe, David Lidington, was reported today in the House of Commons:
Mr MacShane:To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish the letter of 25 November 2010 sent by the UK and other ambassadors in Lithuania concerning the growing manifestations of anti-Semitism in Lithuania. [29665]
Mr Lidington:It has not been the practice of successive Governments to publish letters sent by diplomats in a confidential capacity. It is important for the effective conduct of international relations for diplomacy to be able to take place on a confidential basis where necessary.
The letter referred to was reported in this journal on 25 November 2010.
Posted in Ambassador Simon Butt, Denis MacShane, Estonia, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom
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On 1941, the Jews, and Us
O P I N I O N
by Nida Vasiliauskaitė
I read Kęstutis Girnius’s and Leonidas Donskis’s essays on this more than once and can’t get rid of some strange impressions. Even if I pretended that I knew nothing about the Provisional Government, the LAF and that historical period in general, and my only source of information were these two texts addressed to each other, they would suffice to start to make clear some things not just about the past, but also about its intimate connection with the present. How this is being talked about here and now is not less important than that (and the things connected with that) which actually happened.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuania, Nida Vasiliauskaitė, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Where is that Line?
O P I N I O N
by Leonidas Donskis
An unattributed piece that just appeared in the weekly magazine Veidas (it turned out the author does actually exist and even works at the Lithuanian Interior Ministry), intended to discuss the Nuremberg trial, and has become a new delimiter in our political life and public space. For the first time since the restoration of independence in 1990, the Holocaust has been publicly and openly denied in Lithuania (see here).
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Leonidas Donskis, Opinion
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Jewish and Holocaust Polemics Flare up in Vilnius
There has been a two-pronged assault today in the mainstream mass media in Lithuania on the tiny but vibrant Jewish Community of Lithuania. The community has been busy in recent days with concluding Chanukah festivities and moving on one day later to a photography contest for young people. The judges include some of the top Lithuanian art photographers, and the event, popular on Facebook, features Jewish and Lithuanian photography lovers enjoying themselves together in harmony.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, News & Views, Yitzhak Arad
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Lithuanian Jewish Community Counters Disinformation Campaign
The Jewish Community of Lithuania today issued a statement, a full translation of which follows:
On November 15, 2010, the Russian Federation news website Komsomolskaya Pravda posted an article by Nijole Stablingyste called ‘Lithuanian history textbooks: distorted facts and animosity towards Russia’ which contains the inaccurate information that the book The Power of Historical Truth [Istorijos tiesos jėga] was launched at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. The same information was repeated on November 17 on the webpage Zepelinus under the title ‘Why is a Breakthrough on the Stereotype of the Lithuanian Judeo-Bolshevik Being Insinuated?’
Posted in News & Views
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