Some highly respected international scholars have been persuaded to participate in a film which some leaders of Holocaust Survivor organizations around the world fear will be a cover-up for the main ‘accomplishment’ of the LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front) and related fascist groups, and their local supporters. These groups, often identified by white armbands and known as white armbanders, had started to carry out murder, molestation and pillage of Jewish neighbors in dozens of locations even before the arrival of German Nazi forces in late June 1941. Many of the same killers went on to serve voluntarily as shooters in the annihilation of most of Lithuanian Jewry in the second half of 1941.
Author Archives: Defending History
Uncanny Darkness: Impressions of a Public Debate in Vilnius
O P I N I O N
by Algirdas Davidavičius
Algirdas Davidavičius, author of the text formerly published here [an essay and memoir on the December 8th 2010 Holocaust discussion held at the Misterija cafe on Totoriu Street in Vilnius, previously announced on Facebook and elsewhere as a public event] hereby apologizes to Mr Arūnas Brazauskas for inaccurately representing his opinion, and, under legal threat, has [on 16 December 2010] removed the text from DefendingHistory.com.
The author of the removed text also hopes to take and publish in the foreseeable future an interview with Mr Brazauskas on a number of questions mentioned in the formerly published text, and urges Mr Brazauskas to express his opinions more clearly and unequivocally.
- Algirdas Davidavičius
- Vilnius
- 16 December 2010
Pro-Fascists Stage Demo for Stankeras of Vilnius — in Budapest
by Mihály Kálmán (Budapest)
Special to DefendingHistory.com
A demonstration was mounted Saturday, 4 December 2010 in Budapest, in support of Petras Stankeras, the recently resigned ‘specialist’ at Lithuania’s Interior Ministry who called the Holocaust ‘a legend’ and the Nuremberg Trials ‘a farce’ (details here). Protesters gathered in front of the Lithuanian Embassy in Budapest.
US Embassy’s ‘Secret’ Holocaust Conference is ‘Fiasco’
The Survivor community and its supporters, Holocaust studies and commemoration circles, and numerous members of the Lithuanian Jewish community felt betrayed by the largely secret Holocaust education conference organized by the US embassy in Vilnius from 29 November to 3 December 2010, in close cooperation with local state-sponsored ‘Double Genocide’ proponents. The event included excellent individual scholars and educators, both from Lithuania and abroad, alongside notoriously obfuscationist local institutions, including the ‘Red-Brown Commission’ and the Genocide Research Center.
The American embassy’s conference in Vilnius was the subject of comment in The Tablet (US), and in the London Guardian (by Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz).
Prime Minister’s Advisor Demands a Correction — From One Fine Word to Another…
Letter from Arkadijus Vinokuras
Vilnius, 29 November 2010
Dear Editor,
I do appreciate your apology. As you have said, notwithstanding differences of opinion, the facts cannot and must not be twisted deliberately nor by mistake. I see no possibility but to suspect that translators of my text deliberately twisted my words, by improper translation changing the meaning of some passages. This is not acceptable.
It is also not correct to present my person (as it is in the translation) as a government official. It is wrong. I am the public advisor to the Prime Minister of Lithuania on the issue of Compensation of Religious Jewish Property. A public advisor is not on the payroll of the state. The public consultant’s responsibility first of all is to defend the public interest.
Ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden protest Antisemitism in Lithuania; Red-Equals-Brown Movement is Noted
BNS reported today that the Vilnius-based ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, France, Finland, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have written in no uncertain terms to the president and other major officials of Lithuania to express concern over the growing manifestations of antisemitism.
Two of the signatories confirmed privately to Defending History that the initiative had come from British ambassador HE Simon Butt, who also drafted the letter. Ambassador Butt had in 2008 organized a letter in moral support of Dr. Rachel Margolis, a walk through the Vilna Ghetto with Ms. Fania Brantsovsky, and had, together with other senior Western diplomats stationed in Vilnius, visited the decaying Jewish partisan fort in the forest.
“Spurious attempts are made to equate the uniquely evil genocide of the Jews with Soviet crimes against Lithuania, which, though great in magnitude, cannot be regarded as equivalent in either their intention or result.”
Excerpt from a letter to the president of Lithuania from the ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, 25 November 2010
Opposition to the 2008 ‘Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism’
Interior Ministry ‘Specialist’, writing in a Mainstream Publication, calls the Murder of Six Million Jews ‘a legend’
The mainstream Lithuanian magazine Veidas (Veidas.lt), a glossy publication available at every news stand in the country, published on its website on 14 November an article under the rubric of ‘History’ titled ‘The Nurnberg Military Court Tribunal: The Biggest Legal Farce in History’. Original here. Full English translation here.
Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors ask U.S. Embassy in Vilnius to Clarify 64,000 Euro Holocaust Education Grant

Joseph A. Melamed
The Tel-Aviv based Association of Lithuanian Jews, the world’s most active association of Holocaust Survivors from Lithuania and their progeny, today released to the media the letter which its chairman, Joseph A. Melamed, sent on 16 September 2010 to Anne E. Derse, America’s ambassador to Lithuania. Mr Melamed, a Tel Aviv attorney and former Israeli diplomat, told DefendingHistory.com that his office hopes to receive a reply “in the nearest future”. The full text of Mr Melamed’s 16 September letter:
Shifting Dates for the ‘Public Meeting’ to ‘Overhaul’ European Textbooks for Red-Brown Equivalence
November 16th 2010 has come and gone, but the ‘Public Meeting’ which the Red-equals-Brown lobby in the European Parliament announced extensively the old fashioned way — by disseminating a flyer that is not posted on the internet — seems to have been postponed. The flyer, echoing both the language and spirit of the Prague Declaration, called for overhaul of (all?) European Union textbooks ‘so that children and young people could learn and be warned about Communism and its crimes in the same way as they have been taught to assess the Nazi crimes’.
A sanitized formulation that is posted on the web, in a style uncharacteristic for Brussels exactitude, notes that the public meeting is ‘scheduled for November’ and makes reference to a group meeting held on 22 September.
An even more sanitized formulation announces the event for the 29th of March 2011, referring to a ‘group meeting’ held on 10 November.
‘Jerusalem of Lithuania’ Editor Blasts Red-Brown Jailtime Law
Milan Chersonski, editor of the quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) Jerusalem of Lithuania, official publication of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, has published a bold new essay, History: Education or Modern Politics.
The author opposes the Lithuanian government’s attempt to monopolize and dictate the ultranationalist version of history by effectively criminalizing the opinion that the Holocaust was the one genocide that occurred in the country in the twentieth century.
The law passed by the Lithuanian parliament and signed by the president last June, and which came into effect in July 2010, imposes jail sentences of up to two years for those who might dissent.
Revolving Posters at Ponár
Ponár (Polish Ponary, Lithuanian Paneriai) is the mass murder site outside Vilnius where around a hundred thousand civilians were murdered by the Nazi regime. Some 70,000 of them were the Jews of Vilna and its region.
Revolving Posters at Ponar?
Ponár (Polish Ponary, Lithuanian Paneriai) is the mass murder site outside Vilnius where around a hundred thousand civilians were murdered by the Nazi regime. Some 70,000 of them were the Jews of Vilna and its region.
Before the war the site was known as a bucolic holiday and picnic spot set in the forest. During the year-long Soviet rule in 1940-1941, large pits were dug for an oil storage facility. After the Nazi invasion the site was converted to a mass murder operation with the ready-dug pits serving as mass graves.
Jewish & non-Jewish Yiddishists, and Judaic Studies Enthusiasts, March Together in Warsaw to Protest the Fascist March
photo courtesy Bogna Eliza Pawlisz
Revolving Posters at Ponár
Ponár (Polish Ponary, Lithuanian Paneriai) is the mass murder site outside Vilnius where around a hundred thousand civilians were murdered by the Nazi regime. Some 70,000 of them were the Jews of Vilna and its region.
Before the war the site was known as a bucolic holiday and picnic spot set in the forest. During the year-long Soviet rule in 1940-1941, large pits were dug for an oil storage facility. After the Nazi invasion the site was converted to a mass murder operation with the ready-dug pits serving as mass graves.
The vast majority of the murderers were local nationalist volunteers organized by the Nazis for the purpose of annihilating the country’s Jewish population. The eyewitness account of Christian Polish journalist Kazimierz Sakowicz was brought out in an academic English edition by Yale University Press in 2005 (Ponary Diary).
The small museum at the site has generally won acclaim for providing authentic information in a very small space and modest means. The primary address in Lithuania for visitors and locals wishing to learn more about the site is the Green House in central Vilnius.
Mr Lidington is right, but there is more to it
O P I N I O N
[Note: A revised version of this comment appeared on Alfa.lt.]
by Dovid Katz
David Lidington, Britain’s Minister for Europe, has praised the recent Lithuanian parliament vote on a (lamentably ambiguous) draft of a bill to deal with restitution of looted Jewish communal property [Details here.] In his statement, he goes on to say: “Passage of the law will bring credit to Lithuania as it prepares to assume the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). I hope that the draft will now advance successfully through its remaining stages.” [The minister’s statement is reported here; it was triumphantly reported in the Lithuanian media.]
Warsaw Yiddish Circles Join Response to Neo-Nazi March
Under the leadership of Yidish lebt (‘Yiddish Lives’), a group uniting non-Jewish and Jewish enthusiasts and students of Yiddish language, literature and culture in Warsaw, a peaceful counter-demonstration is being planned in response to the neo-Nazi march slated to take place on November 11th, Polish Independence Day. More details here. Image of the Yiddish group’s poster:Continue reading
First Reading of Jewish Communal Property Restitution Bill passes the Lithuanian Parliament
The first reading of the long-delayed restitution bill dealing with Jewish communal property in Lithuania passed the Seimas (Lithuanian parliament) today. It will next be considered by the Committee on Legal Affairs on 21 December. There are diverse opinions regarding various aspects of the text of the law and accompanying documents.
Most seriously, experts say that the document contains no clear mention of the actual legal recipient, leading to fears (despite verbal assurances) that the project could in the future be diverted to the ‘Disneyland Vilna Ghetto Theme Park’ as per the wish of powerful forces in the government. That project is anathema to the Jewish community (see here and here).
When the bill was announced, the government’s official Jewish Affairs Advisor, Arkadijus Vinokuras, published a blistering attack on the Jewish Community of Lithuania’s presumed role as future recipient of restitution. Mr Vinokuras is a close ally of Conservative Party MP Emanuelis Zingeris. English translation here.
Reports on Alfa.lt; BNS; European Jewish Press; Ottawa Citizen; Reuters.
[updated 14 Nov 2010]
Sparse Turnout at Ninth Fort Holocaust Commemoration; Christian Leader Stirs the Assembled
According to historians, the largest slaughter of people in a single day in the history of the Baltic states occurred on the 29th of October 1941, when between nine and ten thousand Jews were gruesomely killed at the ‘Ninth Fort’ near Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, under Nazi German command. Highly motivated local forces carried out most of the killing and the associated humiliation and degradation of the victims. To mark the occasion there is a commemoration ceremony at the site held each year at midday on the last Sunday in October. This year it was held today, under a bright sun that warmed the clear chill of late fall in Lithuania.
Organized by the Jewish Community of Kaunas, and addressed by its leader, Gercas (Hershl) Žakas, this year’s event drew just over a hundred people, filling less than half the paved plaza near the memorial dais. Survivors present expressed concern for the future status of Ninth Fort remembrance here, and Holocaust commemoration more generally. The concern echoes various factors, including the gradual disappearance of survivors and witnesses, the shrinking of the vestigial Jewish community, and the shifting political trends.
Rachel Margolis turns 89
marks the 89th birthday of Dr Rachel Margolis (see also here and here).