Collaborators Glorified

Thinking About Those Anniversaries of 2011. . .

Posted on 25 April 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Milan Chersonski

On 21 September 2010, that year’s annual commemorative event was held in the forest of Ponár (Paneriai) at the monument to the seventy thousand Jews who were murdered there and whose remains were then burned at the site. Shortly before the ceremony’s conclusion it was announced that the Seimas (Lithuanian parliament) had decided to declare the year 2011 the “Year of Commemorating Lithuanian Residents who Became Victims of Holocaust.” The parliament’s move came as a complete surprise to the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC). The country’s Jewish community had appealed neither to the president of Lithuania nor to the parliament with any such request.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Use and Abuse of Sugihara | Comments Off

The History of Three “Lithuanian Freedom Army” (LFA) Colonels Who Served the Nazis

Posted on 28 April 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

I will begin with a recent document I found while collecting information about the Lithuanian Freedom Army (LFA), an organization formed during World War II which present-day historians are attempting to portray as an organizer of the anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet resistance in Lithuania.

On 31 October 2002, President Valdas Adamkus issued decree no. 1965 titled “On Promoting Volunteer Soldiers to the Rank of Colonel” which gave the rank of colonel to three “members of the armed resistance: volunteer soldiers and soldiers of Lithuania’s pre-war military,” namely, Tauras military district chief Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas (posthumously); Vytautas military district chief Vincas Kaulinis-Miškinis (posthumously); and Vytis military district chief Jonas Krištaponis (also posthumously). Five years later the president noticed he had made a mistake regarding one surname and on 5 January 2007, issued decree no. 1K-849 to correct the mistake, replacing Jonas Krištaponis with Juozas Krikštaponis (aka Krištaponis).

Regarding the anti-Soviet resistance, there really isn’t any argument: most of the LFA fighters heroically fought against the occupiers and died in that struggle.

Regarding the anti-Nazi resistance, however, many doubts are raised. These doubts arise because of the LFA’s position on the mass murder of Jews.

Posted in Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Collaborators Glorified, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Evaldas Balčiūnas, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania | Comments Off

“Prime Minister” of Lithuania’s 1941 Nazi Puppet Government to be Glorified, Re-interred and Subject of a Commemorative Conference at Vytautas Magnus University

Posted on 3 May 2012 by Defending History

VILNIUS—In a move causing anguish and an aura of disbelief among Holocaust survivors and their families, and Lithuania’s small Jewish community, the remains of a major 1941 collaborator of Nazi rule will be re-interred this month with full honors during a series of events designed to honor him, and by extension, wider institutionalized local Nazi collaboration.

Lithuanian media, including BNS, Bernardinai.lt, Kauno diena and 15min.lt have reported that the remains of Juozas Brazaitis (Ambrazevičius), who died in the United States in 1974, will be re-interred from Putnam, Connecticut, to the Church of the Resurrection in Kaunas this month. En route, he will be honored in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in a ceremony slated for 17 May. In a statement, Andrius Kupčinskas, the mayor of Kaunas, said: “Every head of state must be honored by the state.”

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged Glorifying Holocaust Collaborators, Holocaust in Lithuania, Juozas Brazaitis, Lithuanian Activist Front, Vilnius Yiddish Institute | Comments Off

ИСПРАВЛЯЮТ ПРОШЛОЕ

Posted on 7 May 2012 by Defending History

М Н Е Н И Е

Милан Херсонский

2-го мая 2012-го года СМИ Литвы сообщили: мэр Каунаса Андрюс Купчинскас, руководящий специально созданной рабочей группой, заявил, что прах бывшего в 1941-ом году председателем Временного правительства Литвы Юозаса Амбразявичюса-Бразайтиса (далее – Ю.Амбразявичюс), , будет доставлен в Литву из США, где в 1974-м году он был похоронен в штате Коннектикут.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, In Russian, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

“Correcting the Past”

Posted on 8 May 2012 by Defending History

OPINION

by Milan Chersonski

On 2 May 2012, the Lithuanian mass media reported that the mayor of Kaunas, Andrius Kupčinskas, in his capacity as chief of a special working group, announced that the remains of Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, chairman of the Lithuanian Provisional Government in 1941, who was buried in Connecticut in 1974, will be transported to Lithuania for a reburial with full honors.

MORE COVERAGE HERE

Kupčinskas said that the remains of Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis will be brought to Vilnius Airport on 17 May 2012, honored in the capital, and then solemnly escorted to the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kaunas and placed into a columbarium in the church yard. Lithuanian Government officials have confirmed the announcement.

It was not however reported precisely who took the decision or precisely why the decision to rebury Ambrazevičius’s remains was taken. These are not the remains of an ordinary citizen. He was the leader of Lithuania’s 1941 Provisional Government (PG). Transporting his remains to the motherland is a state act, which carries with it the implication of immortalizing the memory of a historical figure in the solemn chronicles of the nation.

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Day of Shame (May 19th) Can Still be Averted at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas

Posted on 11 May 2012 by Defending History

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 | Comments Off

Archbishop Adds his Blessing to the Nazi Collaborator being Reburied with Full Honors

Posted on 11 May 2012 by Defending History

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 | Comments Off

Joint Statement by the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum on the Ceremonies for the Reburial of Juozas Brazaitis (Ambrazevičius)

Posted on 14 May 2012 by Defending History

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) | Comments Off

MEP Donskis Condemns Events to Honor Holocaust Collaborator Ambrazevičius

Posted on 15 May 2012 by Defending History

MEP Leonidas Donskis

At 7:33 AM this morning Brussels time, European Parliament member Leonidas Donskis released a statement to DefendingHistory.com, reproduced in full below, forcefully condemning the series of events planned to honor the notorious Nazi collaborator Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis).

Professor Donskis, an internationally acclaimed philosopher and author, is a former professor at Vytautas Magnus University and former dean of its school of international affairs. His own writings have been in the forefront of causes championed by DefendingHistory.com, including the understanding that modern Lithuanian antisemitism is inextricably linked to Holocaust issues; his bold rejection of the criminalization of debate, and of the attempts by many of his academic and political colleagues to glorify his country’s 1941 Nazi collaborators, particularly those of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and Provisional Government (PG).

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Leonidas Donskis, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Text of the Letter from MEP Leonidas Donskis on the Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis Festivities

Posted on 15 May 2012 by Defending History

MEP Leonidas Donskis’s letter, in reply to Krystyna Anna Steiger, author of the international petition against the VMU event, was released today by the MEP for immediate publication in DefendingHistory.com (more background here).

The full text is as follows:

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, EU, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged Ambrazevicius (Brazaitis); VMU; VDU; Jewish + Lithuania, Leonidas Donskis | Comments Off

Parliament’s Public Relations Department Posts Revised Schedule of Events to Honor Nazi Collaborator “Prime Minister” Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis)

Posted on 16 May 2012 by Defending History

BNS (Baltic News Service) today published in full a statement issued by the Public Relations Department of the Parliament, and signed by member of parliament Professor Arimantas Dumčius. The statement contains an updated schedule of events in honor of the repatriation to Lithuania of the remains of Juozas Ambrazevičius, the “prime minister” of the 1941 Nazi puppet government in Kaunas. Background here, here, here; see also Aderet, Donskis, Zuroff and Krystyna Anna Steiger’s petition).

An earlier BNS report confirmed that the Lithuanian government is financing the transatlantic reburial and four days of events honoring the Nazi collaborator. Today’s press release from the parliament’s official Public Relations Department further underscores the deep government investment in glorification of the country’s 1941 Nazi collaborators.

But one of the scheduled events, a conference on Saturday 20 May, earlier slated for Vytautas Magnus University, is moved on this version to “venue to be announced” after a major scandal that included a letter from the rector of VMU to the nation’s parliament (the Seimas). Still, two VMU professors are among the speakers honoring Ambrazevičius.

Today’s parliamentary press release confirms that the reburial mass for the Nazi collaborator will be conducted by the archbishop metropolitan, Sigitas Tamkevičius, who recently published effusive praise for him in Bernardinai.lt, offering up a deeply revised biography, one that does not mention the onset of the Holocaust during the provisional government’s reign.

The documents signed by Ambrazevičius in his capacity as “prime minister” of the 1941 “provisional government” include the 27 June 1941 statement calling for all means against the Jews but asking that executions not be public; the 30 June 1941 order for a concentration camp for Jews to be set up; and the 7 July 1941 order for all the Jews of Kaunas to be forcibly relocated into a ghetto within four weeks (English here; extract here).

Extract of the Provisional Government order of 7 July 1941 including the signature of J. Ambrazevičius and the sentence “By German order a ghetto for Jews will be established in Vilijampolė, to which all the Jews of the city of Kaunas must be moved within four weeks.”

The following is a full translation of the BNS report containing the text submitted by MP Dumčius. The original Lithuanian text appears on the BNS site (as htm here).

Parliament Public Relations Department May 16, 2012, rsv@lrs.lt

Press Report May 16, 2012

Report by Member of Parilament Professor Arimantas Dumčius: Juozas Brazaitis-Ambrazevičius Will Be Reburied in Lithuania

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Genocide Center (Vilnius), News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Want to Honor the Head of the 1941 Nazi Puppet Government? Website Claims Seimas Will Provide Free Transportation

Posted on 17 May 2012 by Defending History

According to the right-wing Lithuanian website “Dešinioji Mintis,” you have until May 18th to register for free transportation, courtesy of the Chancellery of the Parliament in Vilnius, to the events in Kaunas scheduled for May 19th and 20th to honor the memory of the head of Nazi puppet “provisional government” (“PG”) of 1941. Specifically, you can attend the memorial conference on the 19th, and/or the re-interment ceremony on the 20th. There is specific reference to the offer being for the good of young people who are not “apathetic.” Contact information at the Lithuanian parliament (Seimas) is also provided.

Is this really how the nation’s parliament wants to educate the country’s youth?

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

International Christian Embassy Directors in Lithuania Speak Out on the Glorification of Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis

Posted on 17 May 2012 by Defending History

Michael and Fausta Maass, directors of the Lithuania section of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) issued the following statement today.

Michael and Fausta Maass, directors of the Lithuania section of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ)

“The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, Lithuanian section, calls upon the Lithuanian government and parliament, the Kaunas mayor’s office, the Church of the Resurrection in Kaunas, and other possibly participating entities involved in the ceremonies honoring Juozas Ambrazavičius-Brazaitis, to cancel any and all such ceremonies.

Ambrazevičius, the “provisional government” of 1941 which he led, and the closely associated Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) were complicit in the murders of many thousands of Lithuanian Jews before and during the German occupation of Lithuania.

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Michael & Fausta Maass, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Fausta Maass, International Christian Assembly Jerusalem (ICAJ), Michael Maass | Comments Off

Lithuania’s Prime Minister and Culture Minister Personally Signed off on €8,700 (US $11,000) Expenditure to Honor Wartime Fascist Leader

Posted on 18 May 2012 by Defending History

Members of Lithuania’s small and fragile remnant Jewish community were left in shock as word was spreading that quite secretively, the country’s prime minister and culture minister personally signed off this past March on the 30,000 litas allotment for the expenses of reburying and honoring the wartime fascist leader, Juozas Ambrazevičius (later Brazaitis). Ambrazevičius, as the Nazi puppet “prime minister” during the first weeks of the war in 1941, signed the orders confirming “all means” against Jews (though calling for public executions to halt), for a concentration camp for Lithuania’s Jews, and for the herding of all of Kaunas’s Jews into a ghetto within four weeks (English translation here).

The Lithuanian Jewish Community, in partnership with the Vilna Gaon Jewish museum, has issued a statement of protest against government sponsorship of the events.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated? | Comments Off

Statement in the Lithuanian Parliament by MPs Vytenis Andriukaitis and Algirdas Sysas

Posted on 19 May 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis and Algirdas Sysas

The following is a translation of the statement submitted to the Lithuanian parliament (the Seimas) on 17 May 2012 by MPs Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis and Algirdas Sysas. The original is available here.

MPs Andriukaitis and Sysas in the Seimas (foreground). Photo courtesy Image Archive of the Seimas.

Several days ago we received an invitation to a ceremony for the reburial of the remains of Juozas Brazaitis Ambrazevičius (1903–1974) in the churchyard of the Kaunas Church of the Resurrection of Christ. A booklet was included with the invitation recounting the life and deeds of Juozas Brazaitis Ambrazevičius. It included his academic and pedagogical activity and his participation in the anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet resistance. It also presented an excerpt from a letter by Joshua Eilberg, chairman of the Immigration, Citizenship and International Law Sub-Committee of the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives, saying that an investigation into the Juozas Brazaitis Ambrazevičius’s collaboration with the Nazis during World War II had been stopped.

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vytenis Andriukaitis | Comments Off

Tim Snyder, in Vilnius, Comments Publicly on the Reburial and Glorification of 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister

Posted on 19 May 2012 by Defending History

It seemed to many Vilnius observers this week that Yale historian Professor Timothy Snyder and Yivo director Mr. Jonathan Brent were both “brought” to Lithuania for various events that would, without their foreknowledge, coincide with the week of the Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis glorification ceremonies financed by the Lithuanian government. These ceremonies have now attracted considerable international criticism (see page one).

It was hoped by some in high places, it is alleged, that their presece would deflect international attention from the honoring of the Nazi puppet prime minister (it didn’t), and that their own fabled reluctance to criticize the Lithuanian government unambiguously would in its own way add legitimacy to the controversial events (it won’t).

Background:

Yivo’s temporary moral decline

Far Right’s abuse of Professor Snyder’s Bloodlands

Though neither of the two Foreign Ministry Chosen, both painfully controversial among Holocaust survivors and their families, would issue during their stay in Vilnius a public statement on the series of state-sponsored events to honor a Nazi collaborator, Professor Snyder did answer a question about the reburial in a public interview carried by 15min.lt. The question and answer are as follows:

— There is a controversy in Lithuania surrounding the reburial of Juozas Brazaitis, leader of the provisional government, with the support of the government. Do you think it’s a right thing to do?

“I am going to choose my words very carefully here. I think before you rebury anyone, you should think very very hard and probably wait a very very long time because once you rebury somebody once, you can’t rebury them again.”

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States | Comments Off

Dramatic Confrontation on the Floor of the Lithuanian Parliament

Posted on 20 May 2012 by Defending History

DefendingHistory.com has been able to confirm the following exchange on the floor of the Seimas (Lithuanian parliament) on 17 May 2012. MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, the Social Democrats’ senior spokesperson for foreign affairs asked a question of the prime minister, Andrius Kubilius, and the foreign minister, Audronius Ažubalis, both from the ruling Conservative / Christian Democrats’ faction. It was answered by the foreign minister.

The following is a translation of the exchange.

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vytenis Andriukaitis | Comments Off

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

Posted on 21 May 2012 by Defending History

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, Genocide Center (Vilnius), News & Views, US State Dept Manipulated? | Comments Off

An Open Letter to Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder

Posted on 21 May 2012 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

NOTE: This is an authorized republication of today’s letter, which first appeared in the online Algemeiner Journal. [Update: It then appeared in the AJ’s print edition on 25 May, pp. 2, 4, 5.]

Dear Tim,

Greetings, and sorry we missed each other in Vilnius this time. I write in the context of our ongoing and respectful conversation, which started in the Guardian (thanks to Matt Seaton, and prominently including Efraim Zuroff) back in 2010 (I, II, III, IV); continuing through our meeting at Yale, the Aftermath Conference in Melbourne, Australia, in 2011 (thanks to Mark Baker, and with participation of Jan Gross and Patrick Desbois), and more recently, via my review of your book Bloodlands (along with Alexander Prusin’s The Lands Between), in East European Jewish Affairs.

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Books, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States, Yivo Manipulated? | Tagged Bloodlands, Efraim Zuroff, Jewish + Lithuania, Jonathan Brent, Mark Baker, Matt Seaton, Prague Declaration, Timothy Snyder, Yivo, Yivo Lithuania | Comments Off

Kaunas University History Professor on the Glorification of Nazi Puppet PM Ambrezevicius-Brazaitis

Posted on 21 May 2012 by Defending History

The following is a translation of today’s Lietuvos rytas publication of an interview with Vytautas Magnus University professor of history and director of its Émigré Studies Center Egidijus Aleksandravičius. The interview was conducted by Valdas Bartaševičius. In the interview’s final paragraph, the professor decries the university administrators who cancelled (under pressure) one of the festive events celebrating reburial of the Nazi puppet prime minister (who personally signed papers ordering the Jewish citizens of his city, Kaunas, into a ghetto, after others were massacred at the Seventh Fort), explaining (see final paragraph, below): “This wasn’t the academic community but a decision of the VMU administration which became frightened that they were going to get hit over the head with a club by the Jews.” The text of the interview as PDF (Lithuanian original in Lrytas.lt).

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Egidijus Aleksandravičius: “By Reburying Brazaitis, we Wanted to Show that the Lithuanian Drama hasn’t Yet Ended”

by Valdas Bartaševičius (Lietuvos rytas)

The mortal remains of the controversial head of the Lithuanian Provisional Government, Juozas Brazaitis, were flown from the United States to Lithuania and reburied Sunday in Kaunas.

The ceremony for the reburial of Brazaitis gave rise to protests by Jews who judge negatively the activities of the Provisional Government of 1941, which published antisemitic statements.

This led to the decision by Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) not to allow a conference on Brazaitis which had been planned there.

“Are Jews justified in being angered by the idea of honoring Brazaitis by reburying his remains in his homeland?” Lietuvos Rytas asked Egidijus Aleksandravičius, a VMU professor and director of the Émigré Studies Center.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged Holocaust collaborators glorified in Kaunas, Holocaust in Lithuania, Vhytautas Magnus University, VMU and Jewish issues | Comments Off

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Collaborators Glorified

O P I N I O N

by Milan Chersonski

O P I N I O N

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

М Н Е Н И Е

Милан Херсонский

OPINION

by Milan Chersonski

Program of the Memorial Conference at Vytautas Magnus University (Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas) in Kaunas

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

Press Report May 16, 2012

Report by Member of Parilament Professor Arimantas Dumčius: Juozas Brazaitis-Ambrazevičius Will Be Reburied in Lithuania

O P I N I O N

by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis and Algirdas Sysas

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

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Egidijus Aleksandravičius: “By Reburying Brazaitis, we Wanted to Show that the Lithuanian Drama hasn’t Yet Ended”

by Valdas Bartaševičius (Lietuvos rytas)

“Are Jews justified in being angered by the idea of honoring Brazaitis by reburying his remains in his homeland?” Lietuvos Rytas asked Egidijus Aleksandravičius, a VMU professor and director of the Émigré Studies Center.

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