photo courtesy Bogna Eliza Pawlisz
Author Archives: Defending History
Jewish & non-Jewish Yiddishists, and Judaic Studies Enthusiasts, March Together in Warsaw to Protest the Fascist March
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Yiddish Affairs
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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.
Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Paneriai, Ponar, Ponary), Revolving poster at Ponar/Ponary/Paneriai
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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.]
Posted in Dovid Katz, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, News & Views, Opinion, United Kingdom, UŽGAVĖNĖS (SHROVETIDE)
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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
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Poland, Yiddish Affairs
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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]
Posted in Lithuania, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
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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.
Posted in Ambassador Steinar Gil, Christian-Jewish Issues, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Michael & Fausta Maass, News & Views, Norway, Politics of Memory, Use and Abuse of Sugihara
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Rachel Margolis turns 89
marks the 89th birthday of Dr Rachel Margolis (see also here and here).
אַ ליכטיקן געבאָרנטאָג טייערסטע רחל
Happy Birthday dear Rachel!
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Human Rights, News & Views
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U.K. Ambassador Simon Butt Visits tbe Vilna Yiddish Reading Circle, Offers Moral Support
The British ambassador to Lithuania, HE Simon Butt, today visited Professor Dovid Katz’s Vilna Yiddish Reading Circle, an advanced Yiddish- in-Yiddish institution that Prof. Katz initiated in September 1999. As guest of honor, Ambassador Butt, who listened to participants reading from the works of Yiddish authors with interest, was invited to say a few words. He told the assembled hat he deeply understands their concerns over resurgent antisemitism, ultranationalism, Holocaust revisionism and the attempted defamation of Jewish partisan heroes. He made it clear that “he is on the case” and gave reasons for hope and optimism.
Front row, from left: Prof. Dovid Katz (standing); Dr. Shimon Alperovich, chairman of the Jewish Community of Lithuania,, Ambassador Simon Butt, and Prof. Izaraelis Lempertas (Israel Lempert). Standing at right at the back if Carole Lemee, a university lecturer from France visiting in Lithuania.
Posted in Ambassador Simon Butt, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, United Kingdom, Yiddish Affairs
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On the “Occupation Museum” in Riga
This page is contributed by Roland Binet (Belgium). © Roland Binet
See also his 10 November 2010 article in Le Monde. English translation here.
Open Letter to the President of the European Commission
Mr JOSÉ MANUEL BARROSO, ON THE “OCCUPATION MUSEUM” OF RIGA IN LATVIA
Mr President,
Dear Mr Barroso,
I recently visited the “Occupation Museum” in Riga/Latvia where I had the opportunity to see your picture — taken during your visit of that museum in 2008 — displayed on one wall of the entrance hall.
That museum prides itself on having thus welcomed a number of well-known symbolic personalities. Your persona grata is all the more important now that the EU has become an unavoidable partner in the world and, furthermore, now that Latvia has become a full member state of the European Union.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, History, Latvia, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet
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Lithuania’s Foreign Minister tells of Jewish Conspiracy during Discussion on Dual Citizenship
At a 13 October parliamentary meeting of the right-wing faction that 
governs Lithuania, the country’s Foreign Minister, Audronius Ažubalis, began a discussion of proposals to again permit dual citizenship by saying that ‘everyone knows’ who is pushing the bill in parliament. Pressed for details, he went on to explain that the culprits are foreign Jews of Litvak origin (i.e. the same precise group being targeted for PR by his Foreign Ministry for its Fake Litvak Forum).
Slipping deeper into classic antisemitic canards, the foreign minister went on to propose that ‘they’ are doing this in order to reap financial benefits by way of property restitution that depends upon citizenship under the country’s citizenship laws that racially favor ethnic Lithuanians.
The main news report of the incident by a highly respected journalist, in the country’s main daily, Lietuvos rytas is headlined:
FOREIGN AFFAIRS STRATEGIST SEES JEWISH CONSPIRACY
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Citizenship, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, News & Views
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Green House Reopens in Vilnius; Kostanian is the Star
The Green House, as the Holocaust exhibit of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum of Lithuania is internationally known, was formally relaunched today in Vilnius after a closure of several months for renovations, technical upgrading of a number of exhibits and the addition of video screens and other facilities.
Rachel Kostanian (left) and Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky celebrate at the Green House’s Relaunch. Photo: Sebastian Pammer.
In a massive show of support for Rachel Kostanian, its beloved guardian and director since its inception over two decades ago, the diplomatic corps came out in force, including the ambassadors of Austria, France, Germany, Japan, Norway, UK and chargés d’affaires or consuls of Bulgaria, the Netherlands and the United States. There was a sense of relief that Ms Kostanian and her staff had succeeded to preserve not only the vast majority of images, texts and topics from the venerated old exhibit, but also its key message of straight-talking Holocaust studies that stays clear of the obfuscating discourse of ‘artificial balances, mitigations and excuses’ that runs rampant in this part of Europe.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Events, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Rachel Kostanian, The Green House
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Jewish Community of Lithuania Writes to Lithuania’s President After Foreign Minister’s Antisemitic Tirade
[AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION OF THE LITHUANIAN ORIGINAL]
This letter was approved unanimously at a meeting of the board of directors of the Lithuanian Jewish Community on October 14, 2010, in which 21 board members participated.
To the President of the Republic of Lithuania
Ms. Dalia Grybauskaitė
15 October 2010
Your Excellency,
The Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes to express its great concern concerning the thoughts expressed by the foreign minister of the Republic of Lithuania, A. Ažubalis, which sow discord between Lithuanians and Jews.
Reports have appeared in the mass media that A. Ažubalis said that “Everyone knows very well” by whom this law (Lithuanian dual citizenship) is most needed, and explained that Jews of Lithuanian origin are the main force pushing this law to the forefront. Moreover, the politician hinted that they probably expect to regain property here more easily in this manner.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Games, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Audronius Azubalis, Foreign Minister of Lithuania, Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavicius)
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Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Believes a Jewish Conspiracy to be Pushing Proposals for Allowing Dual Citizenship
A sensational front-page story in today’s Lietuvos rytas, Lithuania’s main national daily, reports that the foreign minister, Audronius Ažubalis, told his ruling party colleagues at a meeting that ‘the new law [regarding possibilities for dual citizenship] was being pushed by Jews who seek citizenship on order to press compensation claims against the state’.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Citizenship, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, News & Views
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Lithuanian Parliament’s ‘Dualism’ Strikes Again
Readers recall that the Lithuanian parliament’s 21 September proclamation of 2011 as the ‘Year of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania’ (text here) was mysteriously reincarnated one week later, on 28 September, as the ‘Year of Commemoration of the Defense of Freedom and of Great Losses’ (text here) with accompanying press explanations restricting the 1941 aspect to Soviet deportations to Siberia and no mention of the Holocaust among the ‘great losses’ (text here).
The text and press releases gave rise to fears that plans were still underway to sanitize, revise and glorify the memory of the 1941 LAF and Provisional Government collaborators of the Nazis. This painful subject was dealt with in a recent statement from the Jewish Community of Lithuania.
The ensuing History Apartheid, as this journal called it (2011 dedicated to one thing for foreigners and Jews and another for the country itself, in effect) led to a letter to the chair of the Seimas from the head of Lithuania’s tiny but proud Jewish community (text here).
A check today of the official website of Lithuanian parliament (the Seimas) added a further curious aspect to the parliamentarians’ thinking. The English version of the website explains that 2011 has been proclaimed as the ‘Year of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania’.
The corresponding sentence on the home page of the Lithuanian version of the official Seimas website indicates however that 2011 is the designated ‘Year of Commemoration of the Defense of Freedom and of Great Losses’.
One Western diplomat who requested anonymity commented to this journal: ‘You see, if you live long enough, you live to see everything’.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Humor (Of Sorts), Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Media Watch, ministries, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Sensational Libel Trial Opens in Budapest
Some would say it could only happen in Eastern Europe. A ninety-six year old convicted war criminal is the plaintiff in a case concerning his Holocaust era crimes. The unlikely libel suit filed by a Hungarian Nazi collaborator, Sandor Kepiro, 96, against the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Dr Efraim Zuroff, opened in Budapest on Friday, 8 October 2010, to a packed courtroom.
Kepiro last year admitted on BBC Television that he had rounded up residents but denied he knew they would be killed. He was convicted of involvement in the infamous 1942 Novi Sad massacre of Jews, Roma and Serbs, first by a 1944 Budapest tribunal, then again in 1946. This second conviction was in absentia; Kepiro had fled to Austria where he lived from 1945 to 1948, when he made his way to Argentina, where he lived until 1996.
Hungary’s pro-Jewish Christian evangelical Faith Church came out in force to support Dr Zuroff, who earlier this year was honored by the president of Croatia.
The irony of the situation was that his seemingly preposterous legal action for the first time ever enabled Dr Zuroff to directly question a suspected Holocaust perpetrator in a court of law. It also highlighted what seemed to many an absurd black comedy: a legal system that isn’t prosecuting a Nazi war criminal allows him to sue for libel. The proceedings were adjourned until 16 December.
Photo: The man in the brown coat is Sandor Kepiro. Signs read: ‘War crimes never expire’. Courtesy ATV Hungary / Andras Patkai. Coverage on Hungary’s ATV (here, here, here). Jerusalem Post report here. Video of ATV interview with Efraim Zuroff here. TV news report here. Makor Rishon report (Hebrew) here. 13 Oct JTA report here.
Posted in Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Dr Shimon Alperovich turns 82
Dr Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavičius), chairman of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, turned 82. Notwithstanding his age and various health issues, he continues to provide proud, courageous, vigorous and independent leadership for the Jewish community at a time when various government agencies continue to pursue painfully disingenuous policies on a range of Jewish issues, including Holocaust history, antisemitism and restitution. His series of public statements (some produced in translation on the Bold Citizens page) have made the Lithuanian Jewish community a de facto champion of the battle for tolerance, multiculturalism and historic forthrightness throughout the region. Happy Birthday! Photo: Sebastian Pammer.
Posted in News & Views, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
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Esther Goldberg Gilbert Continues to Honor Courage of Rachel Kostanian, Critiques Lithuania’s Policy of ‘Holocaust Downgrade’ and Ongoing ‘Investigations’ of Kostanian
◊
Esther Goldberg Gilbert, wife and partner to Sir Martin Gilbert and an accomplished Holocaust scholar in her own right, today published a second bold article in the Canadian Jewish News on Holocaust issues in Lithuania. The new piece, a follow-up to her first on the subject last month, became necessary, in the view of some observers, in light of a renewed campaign of harassment, degradation and attempted dismissals , against Ms. Kostanian, enabled and enacted out by the highest echelons of the parent museum’s government sponsored leadership, as well as the state’s “Double Genocide industry.” The new article is available as PDF, and herein:
2010Oct7EstherGoldberg (1)
Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Rachel Kostanian, The Green House
Tagged Esther Goldberg Gilbert, Green House (Vinius), Holocaust in Lithuania, Rachel Kostanian
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Director of Yiddish Institute heading to Kazakhstan to Promote Freedom of Expression for Journalists
OR:
YIDDISH BORAT, HAVING SAVED FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN LITHUANIA, HEADS FOR KAZAKHSTAN TO EDUCATE THE OSCE. HE ‘CLEANSED’ HIS ‘YIDDISH INSTITUTE’ OF YIDDISH FOR 11 MONTHS OF THE YEAR. . .
Sarunas Liekis, director of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute has been appointed by Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to an elite team of experts who were sent to a Review Conference in Warsaw (30 Sept — 8 Oct), in preparation for a second Review Conference in Vienna (18-26 Oct), and a third in Astana, Kazakhstan (26-28 Nov). These are all in preparation for a much larger OSCE summit scheduled for Kazakhstan that will follow on 1-2 December in Astana, that nation’s capital.
A prime theme of the OSCE summit, which marks Lithuania’s accession to the chairmanship of OSCE, is media freedom and safety of journalists.
Details were released on 5 October by the Ministry (more here), which also put on its website this photo of the team preparing for the series of foreign trips culminating in the OSCE summit.
Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: ‘The True Taste of Yiddish Language and Literature — and Litvak Culture’
This journal sincerely hopes the VYI’s director, Professor Sarunas Liekis, will report to the OSCE on the failure of Lithuanian prosecutors to abandon the lamentable investigation into his own institute’s librarian, 88 year old Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, who has, along with other Holocaust Survivors, been the victim of an ultranationalist state-sponsored campaign of defamation. Details here. These are grave violations of human rights that were duly brought to the attention of the OSCE in December 2009.
The role of the press has been vital in these sad events.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, The OSCE, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Director of Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Liekis + Jews, Liekis + judaicvilnius.com, Liekis + Kazakhstan, Liekis + Litvaks, Liekis + Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Liekis + Yiddish, Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, OSCE ON ANTISEMITISM, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius Yiddish Institute + academic freedom, Vilnius Yiddish Institute + freedom of the press, Vilnius Yiddish Summer Program, Yiddish Borat
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Jewish Community’s Alperovich Writes to Parliament, as Government’s ‘History Apartheid’ Becomes Official Policy
Dr Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavičius), chairman of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, has written to the chairperson of the Lithuanian parliament, MP Irena Degutienė, concerning the most recent travesty of the government’s ‘Jewish merry-go-round’, as one Western ambassador put it, off the record, during yesterday’s German National day event at Vilnius’s Old Town Hall.
At the September 21st commemorative ceremony at Ponar (Paneriai), the mass murder site of 100,000 civilians (70,000 of them Jewish), mostly at the hands of the Nazis’ fascist collaborators here, the government’s MP Emanuelis Zingeris (now head of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee), boasted of a parliamentary resolution to declare 2011 the year of Holocaust Remembrance in Lithuania.Continue reading
Posted in Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014), What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like?
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Gathering in the Forest to Remember the 8000 Jews of the Svintsyan Region
Some eighty people gathered at midday today, in an eerie mix of wind and autumn sun, at the forest mass grave memorial site just outside the town once known in Yiddish as Svintsyánke (or Nay-Svintsyán; now Lithuania’s 
Švenčioneliai, interwar Poland’s Nowo-Święciany). Such is the custom every year on the first Sunday in October, to remember the eight thousand Jewish civilians murdered there after a gruesome ten days of imprisonment, deprivation of basic human needs, and torture, in makeshift barracks here at the site, in October 1941. The eight thousand Jews were marched (with the lame and the old transported on wagons) from their hometowns in the area to the site on September 27th. They were all shot over a two-day period on the 7th and 8th of October 1941.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Poland, Svintsyán (Švenčionys)
Tagged Holocaust in Svencionys, Svintsyan, Svintsyánke
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