• •Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius (Vílne); tourism advice
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• • Panevėžys (Pónevezh)
• • THE GREEN HOUSE
• • SUGIHARA HOUSE
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• • DARK TOURISM
• • IN YOUR POCKET
• • Communities in Belarus
• • Communites in Latvia
• • Riga’s Jewish museum
• • Riga’s Holocaust museum

• • Litvak Lands (map)
• • Place Names
• • Litvak Studies
• • Seven Kingdoms
• • Lithuanian Jewish Culture (excerpt)
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• • Intro to Sounds of Silence
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The Seventy Years Declaration

Solemnly commemorates the Holocaust and reaffirms human rights of all people. Opposes the Prague Declaration and ‘Double Genocide’ politics. Rejects glorification of the Waffen SS of Estonia and Latvia and the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF).

Lithuania’s foreign minister’s “moustache response” came within minutes of SYD’s release.

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TEXT AND LIST OF FOUNDING SIGNATORIES

PRESENTED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

UPDATE: DOCUMENTARY FILM RELEASED

SYD TEXT IN BELARUSIAN; ENGLISH; FRENCH;  GERMAN;  LITHUANIAN;  POLISH; RUSSIAN; SPANISH; YIDDISH; LIST OF UK SIGNATORIES;  LITHUANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ATTACKS SIGNATORIES WITHIN MINUTES

MEDIA COVERAGE

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Danny Ben-Moshe launches SYD in the Jerusalem Post. SYD published. Lithuanian Foreign Minister responds in minutes with infamous “moustache comparison” of Hitler and Stalin, later attacks Lithuanian parliamentarians who signed. UK MP Denis MacShane congratulates the Lithuanian Eight who signed. Vytenis Andriukaitis, signatory of nation’s Declaration of Independence, replies to FM. Roger Cohen in the New York Times. Gang-up on Lithuanian radio panel. AJ, Forward, Haaretz, JC.

British parliamentarian tells Lithuanian signatories of the 70 Years Declaration:

“I know it must be lonely to take a stand on such a controversial subject but wanted to write to you to say you are not alone and every decent British and European citizen stands with you.”

— UK MP Denis MacShane

DefendingHistory.com congratulates the Lithuanian parliamentarians among the founding 70 signatories of the Seventy Years Declaration for their courage, integrity, love of all their country’s peoples, and genuine commitment to European values:

Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, MP

Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, MEP

Justinas Karosas, MP

Justas Paleckis, MEP

Marija Aušrinė Pavilionienė, MP

Julius Sabatauskas, MP

Algirdas Sysas, MP

Birutė Vėsaitė, MP

Boldly defying the right wing government’s Holocaust politics, a number of leading Lithuanian Social Democrats have stood up with courage. Six MPs and two MEPs signed the SYD. They were attacked by the current foreign minister in his “moustache reply” and an article (and in a “cooked” radio panel).

MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, the SD foreign affairs spokesman, replied robustly. UK MP Denis MacShane sent personal letters to each of the signatories. Then, two Social Democratic MPs issued a statement in the Seimas protesting the state’s honoring of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister.

MP Andriukaitis challenged the foreign minister on the floor of the Seimas.

OTHER BOLD CITIZENS SPEAK OUT

90th Birthday of Dr. Rachel Margolis

Tel Aviv attorney Joe Melamed, head of the Association of Lithuanian Jews, celebrating Dr. Rachel Margolis’s 90th birthday in Rechovot

Left her safe haven with righteous Christians to join her family in the Vilna Ghetto. Joined the Jewish underground anti-Nazi resistance. Witness to creation of the Yiddish Partisan Hymn.

Escaped to join the partisans and fought valiantly against the Nazis in the forests of Lithuania. The only one in her family to survive the Holocaust.

Volunteered for the short-lived Jewish museum after the war.

Dedicated half a century to Biology at Vilnius University.

Helped establish the Green House Holocaust exhibit. Rediscovered, deciphered and published Kazimierz Sakowicz’s diary of Ponár. Author of a remarkable memoir. Beloved guide, lecturer and teacher on Jewish Vilna and the Holocaust.

Target of a campaign of defamation by Vilnius prosecutors, the “Lithuanian Human Rights Association” and other far-right Holocaust-revisionist elites.

Afraid to return to her beloved Vilna for one last visit. Lithuanian government refuses to reach out to her, while prosecutors repeat threats on kangaroo ‘war crimes investigation’ (most recently for the record in the 2012 documentary ‘Rewriting History’)

VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH RACHEL MARGOLIS: 1 and 2

MORE INFORMATION AND TRIBUTES:

RACHEL MARGOLIS FACT SHEET ♦ FORMER UK PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN ♦ 5 MEMBERS OF THE US CONGRESS ♦ ACADEMIC STUDIES PRESS ♦ KEENE STATE COLLEGE ♦ SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE ♦ LORD JANNER OF BRAUNSTONE ♦  LATE LITHUANIAN PRIME MINISTER ALGIRDAS BRAZAUSKAS ♦ ISRAELI AMBASSADOR CHEN IVRI APTER ♦ ADL DIRECTOR ABRAHAM FOXMAN ♦ NCSJ ♦ METRO WEST HOLOCAUST COUNCIL ♦ LEIVICK HOUSE TEL AVIV ♦ JEWISH CHRONICLE ♦ ALGEMEINER JOURNAL (& 2) ♦ RACHEL MARGOLIS.COM

OCTOBER 2012 UPDATE: VIDEO RELEASED OF THE LATE AMBASSADOR CHEN IVRI APTER’S 2009 SPEECH AT LEIVICK HOUSE, TEL AVIV

Coverage in DefendingHistory.com:

OVERVIEWS HERE & HERE;  7 MAY 2008;  19 JUNE 2009; 28 OCTOBER 2009;  27 JANUARY 2010;  28 OCTOBER 2010;  3 JANUARY 2011;  5 MAY 2011;  28 AUGUST 2011;  23 SEPTEMBER 2011.

New ‘Holocaust Room’ in the Cellar of Vilnius’s State Sponsored Genocide Museum Sanitizes the Local Fascists who Unleashed the Genocide of Lithuanian Jewry

 Culmination of a year of government events glorifying the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and other Hitlerist groups that initiated (and whose members became the backbone of) the annihilation of the country’s Jewish minority

LAF leaflets set out plans for genocide prior to the German invasion. Historians on the 1941 campaign of mass murder. Survivors testify. Map. Recent nationalist glorification. Now, the new Holocaust Room in the cellar of a major state museum in an EU capital has this to say:

Year to commemorate the perpetrators ran parallel with a year to commemorate the Holocaust, too; One in a series of ‘dual tracks’ to satisfy at once the antisemitic, Holocaust-revisionist Far Right and foreign Jewish groups

PR: ‘Fake Litvak’ initiatives (Identity Theft) & Double Games

 ♦

ANTISEMITIC EXHIBITS IN MAIN HALL OF GENOCIDE MUSEUM DISPLAYED AS BEFORE, WITH NO CURATORIAL COMMENT

 ♦

MEANWHILE, IN WASHINGTON DC, NEW JEWISH ‘SUNFLOWER’ GROUP MANIPULATED BY LITHUANIAN EMBASSY TO DISTORT AND TRIVIALIZE THE 1941 GENOCIDE OF THE JEWISH POPULATION AS ‘FREEDOM FROM THE SOVIETS’  AND — ‘AT THE PERIL OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY’; RESPONSE HERE.

Vilnius Prosecutors Launch Campaign against Another Holocaust Survivor, 86, this time via — Interpol!

Joe Melamed in his Tel Aviv office

At Lithuanian prosecutors’ demand, Israeli Interpol liaison officers speak with Mr. Melamed about the ‘accusations’

Report in Haaretz by Yossi Melman

Yad Vashem withdraws invitations to visiting minster and resident ambassador for Vilna Ghetto commemoration; Coverage in Haaretz by Yossi Melman; Associated Press (→ CBS News, Fox, MSNBC, Washington Post, YahooNews etc); JTA (→ WJC, JJ, Juedische.at, etc); Mishpacha

Three British MPs file Early Day Motion 2161 to protest the Lithuanian government’s action

DefendingHistory.com reports here and here

  Geoff Vasil in the Jewish Chronicle

Local Nazi Collaborators & Holocaust Perpetrators Honored in Parts of Eastern Europe

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IS THIS REALLY HOW THEY SHOULD NOW BE RECYCLED BY ‘NEW EUROPE’?

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Croatia

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Estonia

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Hungary

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Latvia

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Lithuania

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Romania

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Ukraine

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EFRAIM ZUROFF IN HAARETZ 

DefendingHistory.com section on the glorification of Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators in Eastern Europe

♦Vilnius book event for the Lithuanian edition is held at the Foreign Ministry with a disturbing speech by the director of the History Institute

♦East European nationalists are abusing the book

♦Select critiques of Bloodlands

Brussels — Valiant members of parliament and the European Parliament from Latvia, Lithuania and other East European Countries sign the Seventy Years Declaration

Select Debates, Essays, Broadcasts, Appreciation

Rewriting History (Marc Radomsky & Danny Ben-Moshe) challenges East European governments’ “Double Genocide” politics and the 2008 “Prague Declaration”

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The film highlights the 2012 arrival of the Seventy Years Declaration at the European Parliament, where it was received by EP president Martin Schulz

Promo on YouTube; Website; at Classic Cinemas; Facebook

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Reviews by the Critics