In an article published today on Delfi.lt, Eglė Samoškaitė investigates state funding for fascist organizations, including those that lead or participate in neo-Nazi marches. A full English translation is here.
Antisemitism & Bias
Lithuanian Government Agencies Provide Financial Support to Fascist Youth Organizations
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Vilnius
Comments Off on Lithuanian Government Agencies Provide Financial Support to Fascist Youth Organizations
A ‘Documentary Film’ Tries to Establish the Legend of the ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’
O P I N I O N
by Milan Chersonski
Milan Chersonski at the Lithuanian Parliament. From 1979 to 1999 Chersonski directed the Yiddish Amateur Theater in Vilnius, Lithuania. He worked in various capacities at the quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper Jerusalem of Lithuania, publication of The Jewish Community of Lithuania, from its founding in 1989 until the paper was closed in 2011. He was its editor-in-chief from 1999 to 2011. He is now a senior analyst at DefendingHistory.com and contributes to various publications.
On September 28th 2010, the Parliament of Lithuania announced that 2011 would be the Year of Commemoration of Battles for Freedom and Great Losses. This mysterious name of some sort of anniversary appeared exactly a week after the same year, 2011, was declared the Year of Commemorating the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews. The Jewish Community of Lithuania reacted without delay to the ‘dual track’, apartheidized commemorations.
Now which “battles for freedom” are they talking about in the resolution? What sort of great losses? The resolution does not say specifically. Yes, Lithuanians valiantly rebelled for freedom in 1794, and in 1831, as well as in 1863, and then there were serious demonstrations on behalf of freedom in 1904-1905, and then there were the battles from 1918 to 1920 for the independence and borders of the newly founded state.
But it is impossible to understand exactly which events and which dates they now had in mind from the text of Lithuanian parliamentary resolution no. XI-1038 of September 28th 2010. And this is probably no accident, as shown by the subsequent actions of the Lithuanian government and leading organizations here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Arts, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Film, History, Kazys Škirpa, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Comments Off on A ‘Documentary Film’ Tries to Establish the Legend of the ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’
Genocide Center Official Defends Suspects in April Hoisting of Hitler’s Flag over Vilnius
Ričardas Čekutis, the ‘chief specialist’ at the state-sponsored Genocide Research Center who was one of the leaders of last March’s neo-Nazi march in central Vilnius, and is also a leader of the ultranationalist ‘Lithuanian National Center’, denied that any of the LNC’s members who were arrested on 22 July had any involvement in the hoisting of Nazi flags on a hill overlooking central Vilnius on Hitler’s birthday on 20 April.
Speaking to Baltic News Service, Mr Čekutis confirmed that initially two of the Lithuanian National Center’s members were detained by police on Friday morning 22 July on suspicion of involvement in the April incident.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, News & Views, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Genocide Research Center, Genocide Research Centre Vilnius, Ricardas Cekutis
Comments Off on Genocide Center Official Defends Suspects in April Hoisting of Hitler’s Flag over Vilnius
Authorities Cover Up Desecration of Lithuania’s Largest Holocaust Mass-Murder Site
Over the weekend, foreign visitors discovered offensive desecrations at Ponár (Paneriai), the mass murder site of 100,000 people during the Holocaust, among them 70,000 Jews of the Vilna region.
One major monument was spray painted with a swastika and the Russian for ‘Hitler was right’, all in red. It was signed ‘Solomon’, the pseudonym of a ubiquitous graffiti artist who had not been known previously for antisemitic attempts, leading to suspicion that use of the name could be a decoy. It was likewise widely thought that the use of Russian rather than Lithuanian was a decoy, as well as a likely slight directed at the country’s tiny Jewish community, which antisemitic attacks frequently accuse of disloyalty.
- ‘Hitler was right’ (in Russian)
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Comments Off on Authorities Cover Up Desecration of Lithuania’s Largest Holocaust Mass-Murder Site
On sale in Warsaw souvenir shops
An image of one of the items on sale at mainstream souvenir shops in Warsaw, photographed today. Image courtesy of Didier Bertin; more images on his page here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias
Tagged antisemitism Eastern Europe, antisemitism Poland
Comments Off on On sale in Warsaw souvenir shops
Leading News Portal Delfi.lt publishes article by Genocide Center ‘specialist’ who was one of the leaders of the recent Neo-Nazi march
Ričardas Čekutis, ‘specialist’ at the state-sponsored Genocide Center in central Vilnius (center, with megaphone) was one of the leaders of the neo-Nazi march on March 11th. Photo: Anarchija.lt.
Lithuania’s mainstream news portal, Delfi.lt, today published an article (English here) by Ričardas Čekutis, a ‘chief specialist’ at the state-sponsored Genocide Center in central Vilnius. Mr Čekutis was one of the leaders of the neo-Nazi march held on the Lithuanian capital’s main boulevard on March 11th, with a permit from city authorities and the participation of a member of parliament. Eyewitness report here. Afterwards, he embarked on a public antisemitic campaign, in addition to defending the neo-Nazi march in an earlier Delfi.lt article. He proudly displayed a homophobic symbol when he ran for office in municipal elections.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Vilnius, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Antisemitism Lithuania, Center for Research on Genocide Victims, Genocide Center, Genocide Center Vilnius, Genocide Research Center Vilnius, Gruto parkas, Ricardas Cekutis, Vilnius
Comments Off on Leading News Portal Delfi.lt publishes article by Genocide Center ‘specialist’ who was one of the leaders of the recent Neo-Nazi march
Cartoon of The Jew and The Gay Holding Up (Controlling) the World is Back in Town
The infamous cartoon of The Jew and The Gay holding up the world was featured in Respublika and other mass circulation newspapers in Lithuania in 2004, and again from 2009. See our reports here, here and here. It came back to the newspaper today.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Media Watch, News & Views
Comments Off on Cartoon of The Jew and The Gay Holding Up (Controlling) the World is Back in Town
Eyewitness Account of the Screening of ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’
by [NAME WITHHELD ON REQUEST]
The premiere of the Lithuanian-language film Pavergtųjų sukilimas, or Uprising of the Enslaved, was held in Vilnius in the early evening of 22 June 2011, timed to coincide with the anniversary of what is commonly called the “June Uprising”.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Film, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Comments Off on Eyewitness Account of the Screening of ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’
The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine
O P I N I O N
by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (Berlin)
On 8 June 2011, the internet journal Maidan announced that “on 30 July [2011] at 11 AM exactly a flash mob will read the Act of Renewal of the Ukrainian State simultaneously in seven places in Kiev”. The “flash mob” in Kiev will be commemorating the 70th anniversary of the proclamation of the Ukrainian state by the leading OUN-B politician Iaroslav Stets’ko, who in the evening of 30 June 1941 read out the “Act of Proclamation of a Ukrainian State” during a meeting in the hall of the Prosvita Society in the market place in L’viv, the center of western Ukraine.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bandera, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, G. Rossoliński-Liebe, History, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged Act of 30 June 1941, G. Rossoliński-Liebe, Iaroslav Stets’ko, OUN-B, Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian nationalism
Comments Off on The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine
Was the OSCE’s (ODIHR) ‘High Level Meeting on Confronting Antisemitism’ another East European Whitewash?
The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) today released its report on the ‘OSCE High Level Meeting on Confronting Antisemitism in Public Discourse’ that was held in Prague on 23 and 24 March 2011 under the auspices of its ODIHR department (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights). The full report is available here (alternate link here).
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, News & Views, The OSCE, US State Dept Manipulated?
Tagged Antisemitism in Eastern Europe, Confronting Antisemitism, Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish policy, ODIHR, ODIHR antisemitism, OSCE antisemitism, OSCE High Level Meeting, OSCE ODIHR, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
Comments Off on Was the OSCE’s (ODIHR) ‘High Level Meeting on Confronting Antisemitism’ another East European Whitewash?
Three Years Later: Neither Charged nor Cleared
marked three years to the day since police in Vilnius came looking for Holocaust Survivors Dr Rachel Margolis (born 1921, at right of photo) and Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (born 1922) in a ‘war crimes investigation’ that has still not been publicly closed.
Both women were incarcerated in the Vilna Ghetto from 1941 to 1943. Both lost their entire families to the barbarity of the Nazis and their local collaborators. They both escaped, on different days in September 1943, to join up with the anti-Nazi partisans in the forests of Lithuania. The underground forest fort, a half-hour’s drive from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, where Fania lived with another hundred or so Jewish escapees of the Vilna Ghetto, is being allowed to sink into the ground and disappear from history’s view.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Events, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Fania Brancovskaja, Fania Brantsovsky, Fanja Brancovskaja, Lithuanian Human Rights Association, Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lithuanian prosecutors, Prague Declaration, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, Prague Process, Rachel Margolis, Vilna Ghetto, Yitzhak Arad
Comments Off on Three Years Later: Neither Charged nor Cleared
Genocide Research Center’s ‘Chief Public Relations Specialist’ Steps Up Antisemitic Campaign
Ričardas Čekutis, the Chief Public Relations Specialist at the state-funded Genocide Research Center who was a leader of the March 11th 2011 neo-Nazi march on the main boulevard of the Lithuanian capital, and was formerly a top parliamentary aide to a Liberal (!) MP, gave a further ‘charming interview’ on April 24th to Diena.lt.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, Vilnius
Tagged Emanuelis Zingeris, Genocide Center Vilnius, Genocide Centre Vilnius, Prague Declaration, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, Prague Process
Comments Off on Genocide Research Center’s ‘Chief Public Relations Specialist’ Steps Up Antisemitic Campaign
Neo-Nazis Amok in Lithuania; Arrests at ‘Straight Zero’
In apparent homage to the April 20th birthday of Adolf Hitler, neo-Nazis hoisted Nazi flags high over the heart of Vilnius atop the former Labor Palace building on Tauro Hill. Details here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, News & Views
Comments Off on Neo-Nazis Amok in Lithuania; Arrests at ‘Straight Zero’
Kevin Hamilton, Canada’s Chargé d’affaires in Vilnius, Stands Up Against Far-Right Slander
Kevin Hamilton, Canada's Chargé d'affaires in Vilnius
Kevin Hamilton, Canada’s chargé d’affaires at its embassy in Vilnius, published a bold letter today in the daily Respublika, in response to a typically homophobic article in the popular newspaper. The original article (published 25 March), in the spirit of contemporary East European far-right discourse, tried to intentionally confuse Equal Rights for sexual minorities with pedophilia, and to give the impression that Canada supports the latter too.
Moreover, the force of his letter compelled Respublika to issue a rare (if rather half-hearted) retraction, printed in the form of a reply underneath his letter. For a sampling of Respublika’s homophobia and antisemitism, see an image of their 2009 front page caricature of The Jew and The Gay holding up the world (here), and, the way in which the editor handled criticism of that effort (here).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Canada, Human Rights, News & Views
Comments Off on Kevin Hamilton, Canada’s Chargé d’affaires in Vilnius, Stands Up Against Far-Right Slander
Delfi.lt publishes (pseudonymous) defense of neo-Nazi youth
Delfi.lt, Lithuania’s principal internet news portal, publishes on its website pseudonymously signed long comments in the format of proper news and opinion pieces. Such items, sometimes bereft of any actual author’s name (and responsibility), are thereby given the higher status of signed articles that carry the aura of an editor’s hand or editorial approval, in contrast to the free-for-all characteristic of numbered comments or talkbacks added at the end of a proper article. In other words, such items ascend to higher respectability, irrespective of Delfi.lt’s disclaimer confirming that opinion pieces represent only the writer’s views.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views
Comments Off on Delfi.lt publishes (pseudonymous) defense of neo-Nazi youth
Genocide Center Official defends neo-Nazi march
A high official of the Genocide Research Center, Ričardas Čekutis, today published an article defending the recent neo-Nazi march in central Vilnius. Lithuania’s major daily, Lietuvos rytas, had identified him ten days ago as one of the key participants and organizers of the 1000-strong March 11th 2011 neo-Nazi march that proceeded through the center of Vilnius on the country’s Independence Day, with the participation of a member of parliament, and a permit from the municipality of Vilnius. The Jewish Community of Lithuania has protested the march on its own website (English translation here).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Vilnius, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Comments Off on Genocide Center Official defends neo-Nazi march
595 Bold Lithuanian Citizens Condemn 2011 Neo-Nazi Independence Day March in Central Vilnius
Five hundred and ninety-five Lithuanian citizens today published their public letter to the president, the parliament and the government of Lithuania, and to the Vilnius City Council. The letter condemns the ‘march of the extreme right and the spread of hatred in public’. The document appears on the Demos website in English (an earlier Lithuanian version appeared on Peticijos.lt here).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Free Speech & Democracy, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Vilnius
Comments Off on 595 Bold Lithuanian Citizens Condemn 2011 Neo-Nazi Independence Day March in Central Vilnius
Neo-Nazis March in Central Vilnius on Lithuania’s Independence Day (with government permission and police escorts)
- EYEWITNESS REPORT
- by Sebastian Pammer
- PHOTOS BY SEBASTIAN PAMMER
From the internet site www.tautos-balsas.lt I learned that the march of Lithuanian nationalists would start today at 4 PM (1600 hours) at Cathedral Square in the very heart of Vilnius, where the city’s central boulevard, Gedimino Prospect, begins its ascent toward the nation’s Parliament at its other end.
Kazimieras Uoka, at right, a member of the Lithuanian parliament from the Conservative party in power, was one of the leaders of the massive neo-Nazi march on the capital’s main boulevard on the country’s Independence Day.
I was shocked to see that one of the march’s leaders was a member of parliament from the ruling Homeland Union faction of the Conservative alliance in power (whose prominent Jewish member actually signed the Prague Declaration in 2008!). MP Kazimieras Uoka was marching at the very front. In 2010 Uoka’s pro-neo-Nazi activities were in evidence more than once. He had taken out the permit for last year’s Nazi march (Leonidas Donskis’s comment on that here) and then in May, he jumped the barricades to disrupt the wholly peaceful Gay Pride parade in Vilnius.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Comments Off on Neo-Nazis March in Central Vilnius on Lithuania’s Independence Day (with government permission and police escorts)
Two Conferences in Late March: Red-Brown Brigades and — on Antisemitism. . .
According to a 17 January 2011 report on The Baltic Course, the foreign ministers of the Czech Republic and of Lithuania agreed to ‘continue cooperating with an aim to properly evaluate at the EU level the crimes of totalitarian regimes’ (Obfuspeak for the red-brown movement in the European Parliament) as well as ‘the agenda of Lithuania’s chairmanship [of the OSCE] and plans for the conference on antisemitism, which is co-organized by Lithuania and the Czech Republic in Prague’.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views
Comments Off on Two Conferences in Late March: Red-Brown Brigades and — on Antisemitism. . .
Vilnius Municipality’s Response to Wiesenthal Center’s Comments on Planned Neo-Nazi Parade on March 11th
The Vilnius city administration (municipality) said today that it had ‘no intention of responding to the statement’ issued by the Simon Wiesenthal Center on 17 February condemning its decision to provide a permit for yet another city-center Neo-Nazi parade in the capital on the occasion of its March 11th Independence Day.
The statement, issued by Dr Efraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office quotes Dr Zuroff as follows:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, Vilnius
Comments Off on Vilnius Municipality’s Response to Wiesenthal Center’s Comments on Planned Neo-Nazi Parade on March 11th