Author Archives: Defending History

Interview from the Pits of Paneriai, or, We Are Weighing Death

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in Opinion, Sergey Kanovich | Comments Off on Interview from the Pits of Paneriai, or, We Are Weighing Death

Only in Eastern Europe: Convicted Nazi War Criminal, 96, is the Plaintiff

Posted on 16 December 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in Events, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Only in Eastern Europe: Convicted Nazi War Criminal, 96, is the Plaintiff

MP Denis MacShane Calls for Release of 7 Ambassadors’ Letter on Antisemitism and the ‘Double Genocide’ movement in Lithuania

Posted on 13 December 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in Ambassador Simon Butt, Denis MacShane, Estonia, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom | Comments Off on MP Denis MacShane Calls for Release of 7 Ambassadors’ Letter on Antisemitism and the ‘Double Genocide’ movement in Lithuania

On 1941, the Jews, and Us

Posted on 13 December 2010 by Defending History

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. 

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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 | Comments Off on On 1941, the Jews, and Us

Where is that Line?

Posted on 11 December 2010 by Defending History

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).

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Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Leonidas Donskis, Opinion | Comments Off on Where is that Line?

Jewish and Holocaust Polemics Flare up in Vilnius

Posted on 10 December 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, News & Views, Yitzhak Arad | Comments Off on Jewish and Holocaust Polemics Flare up in Vilnius

Lithuanian Jewish Community Counters Disinformation Campaign

Posted on 10 December 2010 by Defending History

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?’

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Lithuanian Parliament and Genocide Research Center planning 2011 Film to Sanitize (and Glorify?) the ‘Rebels’ of 1941

Posted on 10 December 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in Arts, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Film, Legacy of 23 June 1941, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lithuanian Parliament and Genocide Research Center planning 2011 Film to Sanitize (and Glorify?) the ‘Rebels’ of 1941

Uncanny Darkness: Impressions of a Public Debate in Vilnius

Posted on 9 December 2010 by Defending History

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

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Posted in Algis Davidavičius, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Opinion | Comments Off on Uncanny Darkness: Impressions of a Public Debate in Vilnius

Pro-Fascists Stage Demo for Stankeras of Vilnius — in Budapest

Posted on 6 December 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Hungary, News & Views | Comments Off on Pro-Fascists Stage Demo for Stankeras of Vilnius — in Budapest

US Embassy’s ‘Secret’ Holocaust Conference is ‘Fiasco’

Posted on 6 December 2010 by Defending History

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).

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Lithuania, News & Views, United States, US State Department | Comments Off on US Embassy’s ‘Secret’ Holocaust Conference is ‘Fiasco’

Prime Minister’s Advisor Demands a Correction — From One Fine Word to Another…

Posted on 29 November 2010 by Defending History

 

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.

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Posted in Media Watch, News & Views | Comments Off on Prime Minister’s Advisor Demands a Correction — From One Fine Word to Another…

Ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden protest Antisemitism in Lithuania; Red-Equals-Brown Movement is Noted

Posted on 25 November 2010 by Defending History

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

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Ambassador Simon Butt, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, EU, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, France, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., News & Views, Norway, Poland, Politics of Memory, Swastikas in Lithuania, Sweden, Symbology, United Kingdom, United States | Comments Off on Ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden protest Antisemitism in Lithuania; Red-Equals-Brown Movement is Noted

Opposition to the 2008 ‘Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism’

Posted on 25 November 2010 by Defending History

This page has moved here. Thank you.

NEW URL:

https://defendinghistory.com/prague-declaration/opposition

Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, News & Views | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on 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’

Posted on 23 November 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Interior Ministry ‘Specialist’, writing in a Mainstream Publication, calls the Murder of Six Million Jews ‘a legend’

Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors ask U.S. Embassy in Vilnius to Clarify 64,000 Euro Holocaust Education Grant

Posted on 21 November 2010 by Defending History

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:

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Posted in Joseph Melamed, Lithuania, News & Views, United States, US State Department | Comments Off on Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors ask U.S. Embassy in Vilnius to Clarify 64,000 Euro Holocaust Education Grant

Shifting Dates for the ‘Public Meeting’ to ‘Overhaul’ European Textbooks for Red-Brown Equivalence

Posted on 17 November 2010 by Defending History

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.

For background see here & here.

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Shifting Dates for the ‘Public Meeting’ to ‘Overhaul’ European Textbooks for Red-Brown Equivalence

‘Jerusalem of Lithuania’ Editor Blasts Red-Brown Jailtime Law

Posted on 16 November 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on ‘Jerusalem of Lithuania’ Editor Blasts Red-Brown Jailtime Law

Revolving Posters at Ponár

Posted on 15 November 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Games, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Revolving Posters at Ponár

Revolving Posters at Ponar?

Posted on 15 November 2010 by Defending History

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.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Revolving Posters at Ponar?