RIGA—Text of the letter released today follows (background here).
To the President of the Republic of Latvia Mr. Berzins
Copy to: Minister for Environmental Protection and Regional Development Mr. Sprudzhs
Dear Mr. President:
Collaborators Glorified
Latvian Jewish Communities Send Protest Letter to Nation’s President over Opening of New Monument Glorifying the Waffen SS
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Latvia, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches
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Landsbergis Tries Yet Again to Fix Reputation of 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister
O P I N I O N / E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T
by Geoff Vasil
In the tradition of totalitarian societies, a certain segment of the Lithuanian political spectrum found it inconceivable there should be protests over the repatriation and reburial of Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, the Nazi puppet prime minister of Lithuania in 1941.
The reburial ceremonies took place earlier this year with state support and accompanying civil and church ceremonies.
DefendingHistory and a number of Lithuanian politicians, writers and public figures protested against the reburial, while many “formers”—foremost former Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus, who himself served under Nazi command in Lithuania in 1944—conspicuously attended the reburial in Kaunas.
Posted in Books, Collaborators Glorified, Geoff Vasil, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Holocaust “Humor” in Leading Estonian News Weekly “Eesti Ekspress”
Jerusalem—In a statement issued here today by the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center denounced in the strongest terms a fake ad which appeared in the “humor pages” of the Estonian news magazine Eesti Ekspress with a photograph of concentration camp inmates under the heading: “One, two, three: Dr. Mengele’s diet pills work miracles on you. There were no fatties in Buchenwald.”
According to Zuroff:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Efraim Zuroff, Estonia, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Yad Vashem Shocks Holocaust Survivors by Rejoining Lithuanian Government’s “Red-Brown Commission”
Holocaust survivors from Lithuania, and their families and advocates, are reporting feelings of “shock and betrayal” at “unbelievable reports” that Yad Vashem might again be lending legitimacy to the Lithuanian government sponsored “red-brown commission.” These accounts derive from a BNS (Baltic News Service) report today that appeared in various Lithuanian media, including Alfa.lt (full translation below), reporting that the president herself signed the decree today for substantial new state investment in the commission.
The Vilnius and Jerusalem rumor mills are equally putting out the word that there had been pressure from the Israeli foreign ministry, itself pressured by the Lithuanian foreign ministry for Holocaust-revising gestures in line with the current Baltic state policy often referred to as “Double Genocide.”
UPDATES: 29 Aug 2012; 31 Aug; 31 Aug(b); 31 Aug(c); 3 Sept; 3 Sept(b) [Holocaust survivors’ statement]; 3 Sept(c) [Survivors’ letter to head of Yad Vashem]; 3 Sept(d) [in English translation].
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, History, Israel, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem and Lithuania
Tagged Association of Lithuanian Jews, Emanuelis Zingeris, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Israeli Foreign Ministry + Lithuania, Joseph Melamed, Kestutis Girnius, Rachel Margolis, Red-Brown Commission, Ronaldas Racinskas, Sarunas Liekis, Yad Vashem + Lithuania, Yitzhak Arad
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When I Received a Response from the Genocide Center in Vilnius
O P I N I O N
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
When I wrote about three glorified Lithuanian Freedom Army colonels who had in fact been implicated in the Holocaust, I did not realize quite how deep-rooted the shameful worship of Nazi-era war criminals has become here in Lithuania. I used to think that a few mistakes had been made due to patriotic excesses. A year has passed since that article, and I no longer feel that this is just some irksome problem “still encountered now and then”…
Posted in Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Collaborators Glorified, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Free Speech & Democracy, History, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
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The Case that Broke the Heart of a Nazi-Hunter
O P I N I O N
by Efraim Zuroff
The following is a transcription of the text that appeared in today’s edition of The Australian.
At the end of next week, I will have spent 32 years as a “Nazi-hunter,” trying to facilitate the prosecution of those individuals who in the service of Nazi Germany or in alliance with its regime, engaged in the persecution and/or murder of innocent civilians categorized as “enemies” of the Third Reich. During that period, I have dealt with many dozens of cases of all sorts of criminals from many different nationalities and walks of life, from mass murderers to individuals who were charged with the murder of a single person.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Efraim Zuroff, History, Human Rights, Hungary, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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It’s Not Just About the New Tuskulėnai “Peace Park” in Vilnius
O P I N I O N
by Milan Chersonski
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. The views he expresses in DefendingHistory are his own. This is an authorized translation from the Russian original.
Photo: Milan Chersonski at this desk at the Jewish Community of Lithuania (image © 2012 Jurgita Kunigiškytė). Milan Chersonski section.
Can you imagine a European Union / NATO government investing millions in setting up a “Peace Park” in its beautiful capital city, in memory of people buried at the site of the park, when hundreds of them were Nazi collaborators who eagerly supported the annihilation of the Jewish population of their country?
Earlier this month, VilNews.com prominently published an article by Vincas Karnila, presented as the Introduction to a series called “The Mass Graves in Tuskulėnai.” It is a panegyric to the employees of the Museum of Genocide in Vilnius and the Center for the Study of Genocide and Resistance for their tireless efforts to establish the Tuskulėnai Peace Park. Readers are informed that six articles will follow. [Update: Subsequent articles in Karnila’s series can be found in www.VilNews.com.]
We know from official sources that Soviet KGB victims were buried at Tuskulėnai from 1944 to 1947.
Karnila tells us:
Posted in "Tuskulėnai Peace Park", Arts, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Exotic Jewish Tourism, History, Lithuania, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), Museums, Opinion, Politics of Memory, VilNews.com, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Genocide Center of Lithuania, Tuskulenai Peace Park, VilNews.com, Vincas Karnila
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НЕ ТОЛЬКО О ТУСКУЛЕНАЙСКОМ ПАРКЕ ПОКОЯ
МНЕНИЕ
Милан Херсонский
Можно ли представить себе правительство европейской страны, члена ЕС и
НАТО, которое в своей прекрасной столице инвестирует миллионы на
создание «Парка тишины» в память о похороненых там людях, если сотни
из них были пособниками нацистов и активно участвовали в уничтожении
еврейского населения своей страны?
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, In Russian, Media Watch, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, VilNews.com
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Why was a Lithuanian Holocaust Perpetrator who also Murdered Belarusians Given State Honors? Open Letter to the Lithuanian Ambassador to Belarus
O P I N I O N
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
I was surprised to learn that Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė appointed you ambassador to Belarus. She said Belarus is an important partner for Lithuania with many ties between our countries, and that cooperation should be on an equal footing, constructive and mutually beneficial. I invite you to think about whether you really are able to do this job, or whether you won’t make international relations worse because of certain matters of the past.
Let me remind you of one such thing. On 31 October 2002, you and then-president Valdas Adamkus signed presidential decree no. 1965 posthumously promoting Juozas Krikštaponis (Krištaponis) to the rank of colonel. The decree mistakenly gave his first name as Jonas, a mistake corrected in presidential decree 1K-849 issued by President Adamkus on 5 January 2007.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Evaldas Balčiūnas, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Jewish + Lithuania
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The Steve Felder – Olga Zabludoff Debate (in SAJR, May-July 2012)
1: Lithuania – a Past Not Forgotten
by Steve Felder
Given the Lithuanian heritage of the overwhelming majority of South African Jews, it is somewhat surprising that seemingly few have visited modern-day Lithuania. Bucking the trend, I visited during March with a small yet prominent delegation of Jewish business executives, on a “mission” arranged by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the largest Jewish humanitarian and welfare organization in the world.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Citizenship, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, South Africa
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Reburial as a Means for the Rewriting of History
O P I N I O N
by Milan Chersonski
At Taxpayer Expense
Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis), 1903 — 1974
Memorial funeral events, dedicated to the moving of Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis’s ashes, were held in Kaunas for a week and a half from May 17th to 27th. He was the acting prime minister of the summer 1941 Provisional Government of Lithuania (PG); his ashes were moved to the former provisional Lithuanian capital, Kaunas.
His ashes were delivered by airplane from the distant state of Connecticut to the current Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, and then escorted with honors to Kaunas, where the ashes, originally buried in 1974, were re-buried, this time with full state honors.
Apparently, those who initiated the reburial were pursuing three goals of importance to them:
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Lithuania, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Symbology, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Jewish + Lithuania
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Another “Resistance Hero” or — War Criminal who Selected Jews for Mass Murder?
O P I N I O N
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
Konstantinas Liuberskis–Žvainys is a figure with a curious biography.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Evaldas Balčiūnas, History, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged 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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Перезахоронение как способ переписать историю
МНЕНИЕ
Милан Херсонский
ЗА СЧЕТ НАЛОГОПЛАТЕЛЬЩИКОВ
Юозас Амбразайтис-Бразявичюс (1903- 1974)
В Каунасе полторы недели, с 17-го по 27-ое мая продолжались поминально-погребальные мероприятия, посвященные перемещению праха Юозаса Амбразявичюса-Бразайтиса, бывшего временного премьер-министра Временного правительства Литвы (ВПЛ) в бывшую временную литовскую столицу Каунас.
Его прах доставили самолетом из далекого американского штата Коннектикут в нынешнюю литовскую столицу Вильнюс, затем с почетным эскортом препроводили в Каунас, где прах погребенного в 1974-м году Бразайтиса был заново погребен, на сей раз – с отданием государственных почестей.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, In Russian, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Reply to the Economist on Lithuania’s Recent Reburial of the 1941 Nazi Puppet “Prime Minister”
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
This is a slightly edited reprint of the comment posted today in reply to the article “Lithuania under the Nazis: Hero or Villain?” on the Economist’s online “Eastern Approaches” section, at: http://www.economist.com/comment/1472788#comment-1472788.
Many thanks to the Economist and its online Eastern Approaches section for highlighting this important issue that so many others have just swept under the rug. But frankly speaking, it does our Lithuanian friends no good to slant each report in the direction of sophisticated apologetics for the Lithuanian (and other regional) governments’ tragic veering to the far right on issues of historic integrity, human rights, freedom of speech, antisemitism, racism, gay rights, and perhaps above all, state-sponsored adulation of local Nazi war criminals and collaborators, and actual local mass murderers of the region’s Jewish population. It was, alas, a level of participation that resulted in the Baltics having the highest percentage of murder of its Jewish population in Holocaust-era Europe.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, EU, Human Rights, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, United Kingdom
Tagged Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, DefendingHistory.com, Edward Lucas, Jewish + Lithuania, Leonidas Donskis, Valdas Adamkus, Vytautas Landsbergis, Vytenis Andriukaitis
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A Heroic Narrative in Violation of Good Conscience
O P I N I O N
by Leonidas Donskis
The ceremonial reburial of the head of the Lithuanian Provisional Government (PG), Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, which recently took place, and the tension and details associated with it, said more about Lithuania today than all the news and commentary over the past twenty years put together.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Events, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuanian Holocaust, Lithuanian Jews
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Unelected 1941 Pro-Nazi Provisional Government of Lithuania Never Intended Good for Country
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
In May Lithuania celebrated the return of the ashes of the Nazi puppet prime minister of June, 1941, Juozas Ambrazevičius (who changed his surname to Brazaitis as a matter of convenience when he began using papers issued to one Brazaitis). The schizophrenic nature of the events were evident from the start, from the Kubilius government’s resolution allocating 30,000 litas in funding to celebrate the Lithuanian Nazi which, several items down the list, also allocated 3,000 litas for a project to “name the names,” to draw up a list of Lithuanian Holocaust victims, in conjunction with the Yad Vashem institution in Jerusalem.
The dissociative shell game continued when the government and state institutions sought to pawn off the events they financed on other institutions: the Catholic Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kaunas, and an “academic conference/commemoration” planned at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. After a scandal broke and former professor now MEP Leonidas Donskis published an eloquent protest on DH, the rector of VMU, who didn’t want the heat, told the Nazi celebrators to find another venue, one supplied by the Kaunas municipality, the chambers of the Kaunas city council. Then, in keeping with the theme of schizophrenia, VMU decided to allow another “academic conference” on university premises, initially with the exact same list of speakers as the banned event.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Free Speech & Democracy, Geoff Vasil, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated?
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Estonia’s 2012 “Valentine’s Day Law”
O P I N I O N
by Leena Hietanen and Petri Krohn
TALLINN―The rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators here in Estonia reached its climax on 14 February 2012, when the Estonian Parliament adopted a declaration sponsored by Defense Minister Mart Laar, in which all who took up arms against the Soviet Union were recognized as “freedom fighters.” The parliament’s statement included the following language, made to sound rather innocuous:
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Estonia, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Leena Hietanen, News & Views
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VMU in Kaunas Sinking Further into Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis Morass, as Historians Join Glorifiers for Yet Another Event
[Updates inserted in square brackets.] According to the website of Vytautas Magnus Univeristy, another event on Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, the Nazi puppet “prime minister” of Lithuania who presided over the onset of the genocide of Lithuanian Jewry, will be held tomorrow, 24 May 2012, in the same VMU building (at Donelaičio Street 52) which is reputed to house both a lecture hall (room no. 608) and a bas-relief honoring the wartime fascist. Tomorrow’s event has also been announced on Bernardinai.lt. [Editor’s note of 24 May 2012: Shortly after the appearance of this article, the VMU website program was withdrawn; a screen shot appears below toward the end of this article.]
It is only a week since Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) withdrew from hosting a conference to honor the memory of the wartime collaborator in circumstances that have led to substantial confusion and conflict.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Events, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute (VYI), Vytautas Magnus University (VMU)
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