The United Nation’s Human Rights Committee in its 11 July 2012 report, issued in Geneva, included the following text concerning the Lithuanian government’s arguments regarding the legalization of public swastikas and the ongoing authorization of neo-Nazi parades:
Antisemitism & Bias
United Nations Human Rights Committee Notes Lithuanian Government’s Position on Public Swastikas and Authorized Neo-Nazi Parades
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, EU, Human Rights, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, News & Views, Symbology, United Nations, US State Department
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Dr. Jonathan Brent (Yivo), Jewish + Lithuania, neo-Nazi parades in Lithuania, swastikas in Lithuania, United Nations Committee on Huan Rights + Lithuania
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The Holocaust? It Happens to Everyone…
O P I N I O N
by Algis Davidavičius
The following is a translation by Geoff Vasil, approved by the author, of the original Lithuanian text that appeared on Anarchija.lt. The original title translates: “Notes of a Half-Russian (3) [or, via word play: Inscriptions from the Cellar]: The Holocaust? It Happens to Everyone.”
Algis Davidavičius
Lately I can barely think about Lithuania, my own society, without seeing the image of the “chronic patient” with all of his “diseases.” A society which is healthy, where the absolute majority of people making it up feel warm encouragement to fulfill themselves constructively and actively, to find a meaningful place in that society for their own lives…
Where is this society? How would it look? Or is this only last year’s Marxist dream? What is “health?”
Most likely all societies are sick in their own way, but I live in my society, or with it (to speak more precisely). If I may be frank, I am not really concerned with the health or opportunities of Israeli society as I am part of Lithuania’s. What the hell is going on with us?
Posted in Algis Davidavičius, Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Algis (Algirdas) Davidavicius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jewish + Lithuania
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On the Recent Amateur Treatments of the Role of the Provisional Government of 1941 in the Mass Media
O P I N I O N
by Shimon Alperovich
Authorized translation from Lithuanian by Geoff Vasil of the 26 June 2012 statement issued by Dr. Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavičius), chairperson of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. Posted on the community’s website at: http://www.lzb.lt/en/home/691-recent.html. According to sources in the community, Dr. Alperovich wrote this in response to an article on Delfi.lt by Vidmantas Valiušaitis called “Why are Historians Afraid of the Facts?” (Lithuanian text here), and when Delfi allegedly declined to publish Dr. Alperovich’s response, the community placed it on its own webpage and elsewhere.
Recently there has been an increasing number of internet articles by amateur, non-professional authors without training in history expressing approval for the actions of the 1941 Provisional Government of Lithuania toward the Jews of Lithuania, without regard for the antisemitic actions of that government in the context of the mass murder of the Jews of Lithuania already underway at that time.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community earlier provided an assessment of the Lithuanian Activist Front and the Provisional Government.
It is saddening that the authors of these texts choose to ignore the conclusions of professional historians as well as the findings of the special commission established by decree of former president Valdas Adamkus and operating under the Lithuanian government, which clearly and categorically judges the actions of the LAF and PG thus:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014), Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Dr. Shimon Alperovich (Simas Alperavicius), Jewish Community of Lithuania, Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), Provisional Government (PG) of Lihtuania in 1941
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Lithuanian Newspaper Accuses Kaunas Rector of Misleading Parliament about Whether He Knew in Advance of VMU’s Planned Conference To Honor Wartime Nazi Puppet Prime Minister
Reporter Andrius Makauskas, in a substantial article in yesterday’s online edition of the respected daily Lietuvos žinios (Lžionios.lt, “Lithuanian News” which is not to be confused with the antisemitic, ultranationalist Vakaro žinios, “Evening News”), makes the sensational claim that the rector of Kaunas’s Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) was untruthful when he told parliament last week that he and his university had not been given advance notice of plans to use VMU premises for a 19 May 2012 “memorial conference” honoring the 1941 Nazi puppet “prime minister” Juozas Ambrazevičius (later Brazaitis).
The 1941 Nazi-puppet prime minister had signed orders for “all means” against the Jews (though asking for a halt to “public executions”), for setting up a concentration camp, and for herding “all of the Jews of Kaunas” into a ghetto within four weeks (English here).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, News & Views, US State Department, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
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Joint Statement by the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum on the Ceremonies for the Reburial of Juozas Brazaitis (Ambrazevičius)
The following statement, drafted by the head of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, appeared today on the community’s website, and is republished here with permission. Presumably it will appear also on the website of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum. [Update of 15 September 2012: it has not thus far appeared on the museum’s website.]
On May 19 and 20 of this year rites to re-inter Juozas Brazaitis (Ambarazevčius), the head of the Provisional Government of Lithuania, and commemorations and events in connection with this will take place in Kaunas.
Every person has the right to leave this world maintaining their inherited traditions and religious convictions. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum do not protest and are not expressing dissatisfaction over the return of the mortal remains of Juozas Brazaitis (Ambarazevčius) to Lithuania.
Nonetheless, we are deeply hurt because of the ceremonies and events surrounding the reburial ceremony of this controversial political figure. This figure is connected with the actions of the puppet Provisional Government of Lithuania and with the calls by the Lithuanian Activist Front for inciting the mass murder of Jews which led to the execution of barbaric “justice” by the mob.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Events, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
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Archbishop Adds his Blessing to the Nazi Collaborator being Reburied with Full Honors
Many usually admiring readers of Bernardinai.lt were shocked today by an article by Archbishop S. Tamkevičius which contains the following paragraph (here in translation), and which was not followed by any editor’s comment.
“This month Juozas Brazaitis-Ambrazevičius, the former prime minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania who worked for the anti-Nazi underground during the German occupation and after the war actively made the case for Lithuanian independence in the world, returns from America to Lithuania. His contributions to Lithuania are enourmous. But he didn’t just love Lithuania, he also loved God. Having chosen for himself in his youth friends who were sincerely faithful young people, and taking active part in the activities of the Futurists, he matured into a profoundly faithful man and for his entire life was consistently faithful to the principles of Christianity and nationalism. Professor Juozas Brazaitis is a living example of how much faith gives to a person who adheres to it consistently.”
The “return to Lithuania” refers to the flying over and reburying with full honors, at the culmination of four days of commemorative festivities, of the “prime minister” of the 1941 Nazi puppet “Provisional Government” in Kaunas which oversaw the onset of the Lithuanian Holocaust at the hands of its associated LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front), and then during the first weeks of Nazi genocide between late June and early August 1941. There was no public statement of regret from Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis) during his subsequent decades in the United States, where he died in 1974.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Day of Shame (May 19th) Can Still be Averted at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas
DefendingHistory.com sincerely hopes that professors, students, and local and international friends and admirers of Vytautas Magnus University, one of the finest in the Baltics, will make their voices heard respectfully asking for the cancellation of this misconceived event, which is causing so much pain to Holocaust survivors and the remnant Jewish community.
Program of the Memorial Conference at Vytautas Magnus University (Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas) in Kaunas
to honor the “prime minister” of the 1941 Nazi puppet “Provisional Government” that oversaw the onset of the Lithuanian Holocaust by the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and the Nazi invaders. Indeed, his name appears atop the 30 June 1941 order for a concentration camp for Jews to be built, and the 7 July 1941 order for a ghetto to be set up to incarcerate the Jews of Kaunas.
Coverage to date includes DefendingHistory.com, Milan Chersonski, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Haaretz. The original program in Lithuanian of the conference and related festivities in Vilnius and Kaunas is available here. It is also posted on the website of the Genocide Center. An English translation of the four day program is available here.
Memorial Conference: “The Academic, Educational, Resistance and Political Activity of Juozas Brazaitis”
Catholic Theology Faculty Hall, Vytautas Magnus University, Gimnazijos 7, Kaunas
Saturday 19 May 2012
11 AM:
Opening Ceremony:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Vytautas Magnus UIniversity + antisemitism, Vytautas Magnus University + Jewish Studies, Vytautas Magnus University + Lithuanian Holocaust, Vytauto Didzjiojo universitetas
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“Moderate Litvak” Status is Conferred by his Highness, the Norwegian Property Magnate cum Editor-in-Chief of Vilnius
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Getty Images
Thought experiment: Imagine an African American in the city of Columbia, South Carolina, being called an extremist or fanatic for peacefully expressing the opinion that it is offensive for the Confederate flag to be hoisted on the grounds of the state capitol building. Imagine him or her being called extremist or fanatic for failing to be grateful that the flag was, after much protest, moved from atop the dome to the mere grounds of the capitol and its design slightly changed to conform to the Confederate Battle Flag (as a “concession”).
Imagine if a snow-white editor of a web journal singled out for David Duke style praise “Moderate African Americans” who just say “Thank you” when a pathetic morsel of PR is offered up by local authorities in the face of mounting international opprobrium.
There would be public outrage at the racism.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Dovid Katz, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Racism, South Africa, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf), VilNews.com, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like?
Tagged Aage Myhre, Holocaust in Lithuania, Norwegian property magnates in Vilnius, VilNews.com
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Neo-Nazi Youth Organization is Admitted into National “Lithuanian Council of Youth Organizations” (a recipient of European Union “Structural Funds”)
The Union of Lithuanian Nationalist Youth (ULNY), one of the organizers of the annual neo-Nazi march in the center of Vilnius on the nation’s independence day, has been made a member of the Lithuanian Council of Youth Organizations, a body that is a recipient of European Union structural funds as well as Lithuanian government funding.
Media reports confirm that at the national conference last weekend, there were no votes against granting the ULNY full membership in the nationwide umbrella organization of accredited youth groups eligible for state funding. The vote was 19 in favor, zero against with seven abstentions.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, EU, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania
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News Box on Winter 2011-12 Antisemitic Outrages in Lithuania (to 21 April 2012)
Lithuanian Government, Human Rights Monitors, Antisemitism Envoys, Western Embassies Fail to React to Outrages
1: Neo-Nazi marches on national holidays in the city centers of Kaunas (16 February 2012) and Vilnius (11 March 2012). Both with state-issued permits and both addressed by members of parliament.
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2: Front page of mass circulation newspaper on ‘The Jews’ being tax cheats with large image of a local rabbi (21 December 2011). REPORT HERE.
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But the Simon Wiesenthal Center rapidly reacted to both. See here and here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Human Rights, News & Views
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Glorification of Local Holocaust Perpetrators in Lithuania
Note: This page, last updated on 18 April 2012, covers some of the more recent and/or still-standing state-sponsored events and memorials honoring the LAF and other Holocaust perpetrators as “heroes” of Lithuania.
See also the COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED section
♦
SPRING-SUMMER 2012 UPDATE:
Vilnius: In an EU capital, in 2011, state-sponsored adulation of the local collaborators and participants in the Holocaust; key event is addressed by a former head of state, on the 70th anniversary of Hitler’s invasion
PARLIAMENT-SUPPORTED DOCUMENTARY FILM GLORIFIES 1941 ‘LITHUANIAN ACTIVIST FRONT’ (LAF) FASCIST MURDERERS & COLLABORATIONIST PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT (PG) ON 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OUTBREAK OF THE LITHUANIAN HOLOCAUST
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania
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MP Vytenis Andriukaitis: Open Letter to Genocide Center “Chief Specialist” Ričardas Čekutis
O P I N I O N
by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis
Authorized translation from the Lithuanian original that appeared on Balsas.lt on 5 April 2012.
Yesterday, April 4, my colleague Petras Auštrevičius sent me a fragment of some internet correspondence between you, Ričardas Čekutis, and Morta Vidūnaitė. You, commenting upon the conversation, expressed this thought:
“But a nationalist [or “ethnic”] state, Morta, is one where government, i.e., sovereignty, belongs to the [ethnic] nation, which is what is written in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania. Not to some sort of ‘citizens’ but to the [ethnic] Lithuanian people. This is also the principle of the supremacy of national law over all transnational formations, such as the EU, into which we were shoved through deceit and forgeries.
“In a nationalist [ethnic] state, for example, characters such as Auštrevičius, Andriukaitis and Karosas would be shot without hesitation, and that would be right, for treason. Well, you’ll see, very soon…”
I wouldn’t want to argue with your thought that they would shoot us, because an opinion is an opinion. But this sentence that “well, you will see, very soon,” understood rather clearly from the context that we will see some shootings has a very different meaning. But more about that a bit later.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages, Vytenis Andriukaitis
Tagged Genocide Center Vilnius, neo-Nazis Lithuania, Ricardas Cekutis, Vytenis Andiukaitis
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Box Coverage to 29 March 2012: Murder Threat in Vilnius
Three MPs File Petition with Prosecutors
after a “chief specialist” at the state-sponsored Genocide Center in Vilnius, himself a co-organizer of neo-Nazi marches, threatens the MPs by name (on Facebook) for their championing tolerance, inclusiveness and equality of all citizens.
Two of the three threatened MPs are signatories of the Seventy Years Declaration
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MP VYTENIS POVILAS ANDRIUKAITIS SPEAKS OUT
MP ANDRIUKAITIS’S EARLIER REPLY TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER
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GEOFF VASIL COMMENTS
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, News & Views
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Some Psycho-Sexual Undercurrents of the Lithuanian Independence Day Nazi March
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
Back in 2008 a friend and I put subtitles to the march by Lithuanian neo-Nazis through the capital, Vilnius, on independence day, and put the video with subtitles up on YouTube. Back then there was almost zero mention of the march where openly fascist youth chanted slogans about attacking and killing Jews and Russians, and the de rigueur “Juden raus.” Following the YouTube posting and as news travelled around the world, certain Lithuanian media figures and politicians felt the need to at least say something. Not much, but something.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Geoff Vasil, Humor (Of Sorts), LGBTQ Equal Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius, Vilnius Jewish Public Library
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Will Intellectuals in Western Countries Continue their Silence on Latvia’s Glorification of Hitler’s Waffen SS?
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium)
RIGA—The day is a festive one despite the gray and low sky. Young pretty girls have bunches of roses which they soon distribute to elderly and solemn gentlemen arriving, row upon row in an interminable procession. Numerous national flags are held in a heraldic and staid way by young men forming a kind of double guard of honor.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Roland Binet
Tagged Holocaust in Latvia, Holocaust in the Baltics
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1500 Honor the Waffen SS at Riga’s Liberty Monument; Event is Praised by Latvia’s President, Condemned by Council of Europe’s Commission on Racism
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
RIGA—According to most estimates, there were around 1500 participants today in the city-center ceremony honoring the Waffen SS, about 1000 police, and about one hundred protesters who turned out in opposition to the event.
The ongoing campaign by some East European governments to repackage far-right ultranationalist politics and policies (with concomitant antisemitic, racist and Nazi-glorifying undertones) as a wholesome British-conservative-style “center right” has suffered a major blow. The battleground of ideas has in recent weeks shifted to the annual Waffen SS commemoration ceremony held at Liberty Monument, the symbolic heart of the capital of Latvia, with the blessing of some of the nation’s top leaders.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Racism, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Symbology
Tagged Holocaust in Latvia, Holocaust in the Baltics
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Over 1000 Neo-Nazis Fill Main Vilnius Boulevard on Lithuanian Independence Day
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T
by Dovid Katz
Ignoring international pleas (including over two thousand signatures on an online petition) for the withdrawing of permits for this year’s neo-Nazi march, Vilnius authorities mounted a major police presence to keep order during today’s event in the heart of the Lithuanian capital.
This marcher’s handbag featured a designer swastika
The modified SS skull and crossbones and the “Lithuanian swastika” (with added lines) were among the symbols featured in today’s march
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius, Vilnius Jewish Public Library
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Once Again, Moral Abdication at the American Embassy in Vilnius?
C O M M E N T
In contrast to its potent and convincing public response to neo-Nazi events in the center of Vilnius in earlier years, the current leadership of the American embassy in the Lithuanian capital has followed a pattern disturbing to many Americans, of failing to even mention what America’s values are in commenting in official communications on both a neo-Nazi march and a pro-tolerance march, both scheduled for tomorrow, Lithuania’s independence day.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, The OSCE, United States, US State Department
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March 11th is Not a Day to Glorify the Perpetrators
O P I N I O N
by Olga Zabludoff
When I learned that the municipality of Vilnius had again issued permits for a neo-Nazi march on Lithuania’s March 11th Independence Day, I was disturbed for more than one reason. Why would the government, which has been purporting its wish for reconciliation with its small Lithuanian Jewish community and Jews everywhere, sanction the resurrection of a Holocaust image? Why would the government, which has been purporting its wish to better its tarnished image with worldwide Jewry, accept and endorse the display of the LAF white armbands imprinted with the flaming swastika?
Most survivors of the Lithuanian Holocaust are more traumatized by memories of the white-armbanded Lithuanian Activist Front than by memories of Hitler’s Aryan henchmen. It was the local LAF murderers who began to butcher Jews who had been their neighbors — this even before their German Nazi masters/commanders came upon the scene. It was the LAF who unleashed the Holocaust in Lithuania. It was then that their slogan was born: “Lithuania for Lithuanians!” (Lietuva Lietuviams).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Free Speech & Democracy, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius
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