Defending History reported earlier on the attempt to restore a monument in Obeliai (Abél in Yiddish), a town in northeastern Lithuania, not far from the Latvian border.
It is an unpleasant story and one that is still developing. Although seven decades have passed since the mass murder of the Jews of Abél, some people think that everyone has forgotten who carried out that mass murder.
Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij) was for a dozen years (1999-2011) editor-in-chief of Jerusalem of Lithuania, the official quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. He was previously (1979-1999) director of the Yiddish Folk Theater of Lithuania. The views he expresses in Defending History are his own. Photo: Milan Chersonski (image © Jurgita Kunigiškytė). Milan Chersonski section.
In May 2012 solemn funeral events were held in Kaunas: the ashes of the interim prime minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania (hereinafter PG) Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis were transferred from the state of Connecticut in the United States, where he was buried in 1974, to Kaunas, the former temporary capital of Lithuania. There the ashes were reburied.
It is both right and laudable that University College London, the School of Slavonic and East European Studies and other partners are organizing a “Round Table Discussion: Anti-Soviet Resistance in the Baltic States” in central London, scheduled for 5 November 2013, 2 to 6:30 PM, with free admission for all (free tickets here; Facebook page here).
As I watch the news of tourists excluded from national parks in America, as Federal Government is shutdown, I recall my visit to Washington DC’s famous National Mall, when I was recently in the city for a screening of Rewriting History.
I viewed several memorials of inspiring individuals: Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. People who said no to hate and tried to foster positive political change. Physically I was in the American capital, but in the midst of Rewriting History screenings, my head was in an East European space, and this was the prism through which I saw many of the city’s magnificent exhibits. One memorial resonated with me more than any other: The Martin Luther King Memorial.
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NOTE: This article was submitted to the South African Jewish Report last spring. It never appeared and is therefore posted here for information and in the spirit of the ongoing discussion. It is again poignantly relevant in view of the South African contingent to be courted by government officials at the Fourth International Litvak Congress to be held in Vilnius later this month.
I have just returned from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The newly launched special exhibition, “Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration and Complicity in the Holocaust,” left me feeling drained. It’s not that I learned anything I didn’t already know. It’s just that the message, delivered in marquee-style displays, old photographs, video footage from the period, and recent oral testimonies, juxtaposed to create the sensation that I had been there — a victim.
“But what do we learn that resembles what we have seen? We have barely begun to understand the killing fields of Lithuania. . . .” writes Edward Rothstein in his review of the new exhibition (“Bystanders, Not So Innocent,” April 25, 2013, New York Times).
Increasing numbers of summer tourists, in the spirit of “dark tourism” (and, in an EU/NATO country, a spirit of incredulity) are seeking out street names, public plaques, university lecture halls and other monuments to both collaborators and actual perpetrators of the Lithuanian Holocaust.
Some find the following sections helpful to locating specific sites:
(1) Anthology of street names and honors for killers and collaborators in Lithuania.
(2) Section on events and memorials for collaborators and perpetrators in various parts of Eastern Europe.
This year’s summer celebration of Estonia’s Hitler-allied Waffen SS was held as scheduled, in the Sinimae hills of eastern Estonia last Saturday, the 27th of July. Images and reports were carried by Postimees and other media.
Source: Postimees
A recent visit to Vilnius’s “Jewish Museum — Tolerance Center” has revealed a shocking panel purporting to convey the “facts” of June 23rd 1941, the darkest date in Lithuanian Jewish history. It is the date on which the Holocaust in Lithuania began. No need, incidentally, to take our word for it. Ask any Lithuanian Jew, of any generation, current abode or political persuasion: When did the Holocaust in your country start?
JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center today denounced the commemoration of the “liberation” of the Latvian city of Limbazi, sponsored by the Visu Latvija political party, a member of the ruling coalition in the nation’s parliament in Riga.
In an interview posted on the Delfi website on June 21, 2013, Lithuanian government historian Arūnas Bubnys, head of department for the Orwellian- or even Kafkaesque-sounding Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania, once again lent support to the pro-Nazi Lithuanian Quisling government that seized power on June 23, 1941.
The interview, titled “Lithuanian Historian: June Uprising was Rehabilitation for Shameful Surrender to Soviets,” is available here. An English translation is provided here.
What follows is my commentary on that interview.
Authorized translation from the Russian by Ludmila Makedonskaya (New York)
In accordance with the law of the Republic of Lithuania for days of commemoration, June 23rd has been declared a national memorial day. It is the day of the 1941 June Uprising. As known, the extermination of the Lithuanian Jewish minority began on the same day as this “uprising.”
В соответствии с законом о памятных днях Литовской Республики, 23-е июня провозглашено национальной памятной датой – днём Июньского восстания 1941-го года. Как известно, уничтожение Еврейской общины Литвы началось в тот же день, что и восстание. Continue reading
Milan Chersonski reads his paper at the Riga conference, 27 May 2013
The following is the authorized English version of the paper read by Milan Chersonski in Riga on 27 May 2013 at the Second International Conference on Holocaust Museums and Memorial Places in Post-Communist Countries.
Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij), longtime editor (1999-2011) of Jerusalem of Lithuania, quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, was previously (1979-1999) director of the Yiddish Folk Theater of Lithuania, which in Soviet times was the USSR’s only Yiddish amateur theater company.
See also the Milan Chersonski section of Defending History.
In Eastern European countries occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II there was a phenomenon called “collaborationism”: the cooperation of individuals and organizations with the Nazi occupation regime. In the modern historiography of these countries, events of that fateful time are often presented not by historians, but primarily by right-wing or extreme right-wing politicians, who continue today to convince the public that the collaboration was in fact nothing but a form of struggle for independence, and a kind of resistance to the Nazi regime.
Sometimes this approach to the evaluation of historical events is called whitewashing. The purpose of this manipulative activity is clear: to absolve the erstwhile Nazi collaborators and pro-Nazi national organizations from the responsibility for the crimes against humanity committed during the Nazi occupation, and their countries from responsibility for Nazi crimes.
— Summary of news to date:
International Petition Tops 750 Mark; Progress Seen, as Organizers of Kaunas “Religious Heritage” Conference Reported to Seek Alternatve Venue; Vytautas Magnus University Continues to Honor City’s 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister who Presided over Initiation of the Lithuanian Holocaust
The modern Republic of Lithuania has been creating a cult of the partisans. Statues are built to memorialize them. There are commemorative plaques and streets are named after them, as well as schools. One of the most prominent to be hallowed by the cult is Jonas Žemaitis, also called Vytautas, Luke, Matthew, the Silent and general as well as president. His biography is a tapestry of events and adventures. One could write an adventure novel about them, except that… Žemaitis isn’t necessarily a hero.
UPDATES:
Edward Jacobs in the Huffington Post (31 May 2013)
More materials (including videos of the entire conference) posted by conference organizers; videos also on YouTube (12 June 2013)
SEE ALSO: Milan Chersonski’s Riga conference paper (27 May) “Rehabilitation of the Past as a Tool of Modern Politics” (authorized English translation). Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij) edited the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper Jerusalem of Lithuania from 1999 to the paper’s demise in 2010-2011. See our Milan Chersonski section. His publications in Defending History represent his own views.RELATED:
Critiques of the commission
DH section on the commission
RIGA—The following is the authorized text, in the original Russian, of Milan Chersonski’s paper delivered today at the international conference on Holocaust Commemoration and Memorials in Post-Communist Countries. See also: Milan Chersonski section.
