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.
Free Speech & Democracy
Delfi.lt publishes (pseudonymous) defense of neo-Nazi youth
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views
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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
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Reply to Rokas Grajauskas: Condemnation of Communism Does Not Require Submission to Double Genocide, Holocaust Obfuscation, or the Recent Deterioration in Civil Society and Free Speech in Lithuania
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
NOTE: This reply to the Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review paper by Rokas Grajauskas first appeared on the website of LFPR (direct link here).
[UPDATE of 1 March 2013]: The journal refused to publish a reply, but after an intervention from Prof. MEP Leonidas Donskis it was uploaded on the journal’s website for a time, and then removed.]
◊
Rokas Grajauskas cites me in his recent article on these pages as invoking the notion Holocaust Obfuscation (a term I proposed at a London seminar in February 2008, then formally in 2009) to refer to “the efforts of the post-Communist countries to revive the memory of Stalin’s crimes.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The web journal I edit, DefendingHistory.com, although dedicated primarily to the battle against trivialization of the Holocaust and the concomitant racism and antisemitism of the new Far Right in Eastern Europe, contains a page on Soviet crimes, where I wholeheartedly embrace such Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly resolutions as 1096 (1996) and 1481 (2006), which wisely and rightly condemn Soviet crimes. It is vital that the full extent of these crimes be documented, the victims honored, the subject properly taught in international curricula, museums and memorializing institutions established, and justice pursued to the full extent of law. It is every bit as vital that Western commitment to Baltic security and independence remain unwavering, what with a huge unpredictable neighbor “with a certain past” (and unclear future) situated to the immediate east.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Hungary, Lithuania, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated?
Tagged Double Genocide, Double Genocide + Communism, Dovid Katz Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review, Holocaust Obfuscation, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review, origin of the term Holocaust Obfuscation, Prague Declaration, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, Prague Process, Rokas Grajauskas, Rokas Grajauskas + Jewish issues
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‘Today on the Street, Tomorrow in Parliament’ is neo-Nazi Rallying Cry in Kaunas
Neo-Nazi marchers in Kaunas today, Lithuania’s February 16th Indendence Day celebration, carried a banner reading (in translation): ‘Today in the Street, Tomorrow in Parliament’. The reference was both to the general goal of the movement, and in reference to a neo-Nazi employed as an assistant to a prominent member of parliament (the Seimas), herself formerly the head of the antisemitic Genocide Center, who has announced his own candidacy in forthcoming municipal elections.
'Today on the Street, Tomorrow in Parliament' reads this sign displayed during the neo-Nazi march in Kaunas on 16 February 2011. Photo by N. Povilaitis (Lrytas.lt).
By apparent agreement with authorities, the marchers brandished swasticals rather than classical swastikas.
Report and images on Lrytas.lt.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Kaunas, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views
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MEP Donskis challenges attacks on European Parliament’s queries on Lithuanian Parliament’s homophobic legislation
In a new essay, published in Lithuanian on 2 February , and in English on 7 February 2011, MEP Professor Leonidas Donskis takes to task Lithuanian commentators and politicians who have attacked the European Parliament for daring to criticize proposed new homophobic legislation making its way through the Lithuanian Parliament. He also takes note of the unfortunate role of state security services in realms they should have nothing to do with in an EU democracy, while bemoaning their total lack of concern with politicians and their top advisors who flirt openly with neo-Nazi ideology and policies. He writes: ‘Perhaps it is time to worry about the stench from the rising tide of fascist ideas and interpretations of history in our political life and media instead.’ Full text here.
Posted in EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Leonidas Donskis, LGBTQ Equal Rights
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Who Got Stupid, the European Parliament or Us?
O P I N I O N
by Leonidas Donskis
The European Parliament recently reacted by way of a resolution to a piece of draft legislation by a member of the parliament of the Republic of Lithuania, Petras Gražulis. If enacted, his legislation would have de jure expelled from public life homosexual citizens in the country. Since then, several comments have already rung out in our public space in Lithuania, whose essence, despite differences in levels of nuance, is similar: that the European Parliament is allegedly interfering too minutely and grandly in the affairs of the Republic of Lithuania; that it is allegedly violating the principle of subsidiarity; that it is applying double standards because it was so careful in commenting upon the sins of France in the sphere of human rights but ruthlessly attacks the new member states, first and foremost Lithuania.
Posted in EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Leonidas Donskis, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Opinion
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Lithuania and Tolerance
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
2010 was an astonishing year for human rights in Lithuania. Toward the beginning of 2010 there were public demonstrations in the capital by self-designated patriotic youth, decked out in various paramilitary costumes, in plain clothes bearing variations on swastikas and wearing white arm bands. These Lithuanian neo-Nazis marched across the main streets and squares in Vilnius on independence day (March 11th), made a showing to protest against a silent march of people from the main square to a cemetery to honor the dead on Soviet Victory Day (May 9th), and most spectacularly managed to outnumber 10 to 1 Lithuania’s first gay pride march (May 8th) with a violent mob throwing objects, hurtling insults and proudly waving flags with pseudo-swastikas behind police lines. The gay pride march almost didn’t happen, as it hadn’t many years in a row, because of bureaucratic impedance from the Vilnius municipality over issuing a permit and from law enforcement and the parliament. The neo-Nazi marches, on the other hand, had support from within parliament, MPs who personally asked for, and got, permits from the city for a march. Several MPs also came to the anti-gay pride protest with bullhorns, stormed police barriers and generally foamed at the mouth, caught on camera.
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Geoff Vasil, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Opinion
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When a ‘Human Rights Association’ accepts and repeats the antisemitic canards in town
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
“Also, it has been started to require the sentence of the citizens of the Jewish nationality ― Yitzhak Arad, Fania Brantsovsky and Rachel Margolis, as these citizens (former Soviet guerrillas) have organized the massive slaughter of civilians in Kaniūkai Village, Lithuania (killing 38 civilians) on 29 January 1944. Attention should be paid to the fact that the very Y. Arad has departed to Israel.” — from the statement just published by the Lithuanian Human Rights Association (LHRA), signed by ten of its leading experts and approved by its committee.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Israel, News & Views, Opinion, Užgavėnės, UŽGAVĖNĖS (SHROVETIDE)
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MP Denis MacShane Calls for Release of 7 Ambassadors’ Letter on Antisemitism and the ‘Double Genocide’ movement in Lithuania
The following exchange between human rights advocate MP Denis MacShane and the government’s Minister for Europe, David Lidington, was reported today in the House of Commons:
Mr MacShane:To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish the letter of 25 November 2010 sent by the UK and other ambassadors in Lithuania concerning the growing manifestations of anti-Semitism in Lithuania. [29665]
Mr Lidington:It has not been the practice of successive Governments to publish letters sent by diplomats in a confidential capacity. It is important for the effective conduct of international relations for diplomacy to be able to take place on a confidential basis where necessary.
The letter referred to was reported in this journal on 25 November 2010.
Posted in Ambassador Simon Butt, Denis MacShane, Estonia, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom
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Where is that Line?
O P I N I O N
by Leonidas Donskis
An unattributed piece that just appeared in the weekly magazine Veidas (it turned out the author does actually exist and even works at the Lithuanian Interior Ministry), intended to discuss the Nuremberg trial, and has become a new delimiter in our political life and public space. For the first time since the restoration of independence in 1990, the Holocaust has been publicly and openly denied in Lithuania (see here).
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Leonidas Donskis, Opinion
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Uncanny Darkness: Impressions of a Public Debate in Vilnius
O P I N I O N
by Algirdas Davidavičius
Algirdas Davidavičius, author of the text formerly published here [an essay and memoir on the December 8th 2010 Holocaust discussion held at the Misterija cafe on Totoriu Street in Vilnius, previously announced on Facebook and elsewhere as a public event] hereby apologizes to Mr Arūnas Brazauskas for inaccurately representing his opinion, and, under legal threat, has [on 16 December 2010] removed the text from DefendingHistory.com.
The author of the removed text also hopes to take and publish in the foreseeable future an interview with Mr Brazauskas on a number of questions mentioned in the formerly published text, and urges Mr Brazauskas to express his opinions more clearly and unequivocally.
- Algirdas Davidavičius
- Vilnius
- 16 December 2010
Posted in Algis Davidavičius, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Opinion
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‘Jerusalem of Lithuania’ Editor Blasts Red-Brown Jailtime Law
Milan Chersonski, editor of the quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) Jerusalem of Lithuania, official publication of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, has published a bold new essay, History: Education or Modern Politics.
The author opposes the Lithuanian government’s attempt to monopolize and dictate the ultranationalist version of history by effectively criminalizing the opinion that the Holocaust was the one genocide that occurred in the country in the twentieth century.
The law passed by the Lithuanian parliament and signed by the president last June, and which came into effect in July 2010, imposes jail sentences of up to two years for those who might dissent.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Director of Yiddish Institute heading to Kazakhstan to Promote Freedom of Expression for Journalists
OR:
YIDDISH BORAT, HAVING SAVED FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN LITHUANIA, HEADS FOR KAZAKHSTAN TO EDUCATE THE OSCE. HE ‘CLEANSED’ HIS ‘YIDDISH INSTITUTE’ OF YIDDISH FOR 11 MONTHS OF THE YEAR. . .
Sarunas Liekis, director of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute has been appointed by Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to an elite team of experts who were sent to a Review Conference in Warsaw (30 Sept — 8 Oct), in preparation for a second Review Conference in Vienna (18-26 Oct), and a third in Astana, Kazakhstan (26-28 Nov). These are all in preparation for a much larger OSCE summit scheduled for Kazakhstan that will follow on 1-2 December in Astana, that nation’s capital.
A prime theme of the OSCE summit, which marks Lithuania’s accession to the chairmanship of OSCE, is media freedom and safety of journalists.
Details were released on 5 October by the Ministry (more here), which also put on its website this photo of the team preparing for the series of foreign trips culminating in the OSCE summit.
Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: ‘The True Taste of Yiddish Language and Literature — and Litvak Culture’
This journal sincerely hopes the VYI’s director, Professor Sarunas Liekis, will report to the OSCE on the failure of Lithuanian prosecutors to abandon the lamentable investigation into his own institute’s librarian, 88 year old Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, who has, along with other Holocaust Survivors, been the victim of an ultranationalist state-sponsored campaign of defamation. Details here. These are grave violations of human rights that were duly brought to the attention of the OSCE in December 2009.
The role of the press has been vital in these sad events.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, The OSCE, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Director of Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Liekis + Jews, Liekis + judaicvilnius.com, Liekis + Kazakhstan, Liekis + Litvaks, Liekis + Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Liekis + Yiddish, Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, OSCE ON ANTISEMITISM, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius Yiddish Institute + academic freedom, Vilnius Yiddish Institute + freedom of the press, Vilnius Yiddish Summer Program, Yiddish Borat
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‘The Baltic Times’ Does it Again
The 2 September 2010 issue of the Baltic Times carried an unsigned editorial on the Opinion page that refers to Dr Efraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, and the author of Operation Last Chance [excerpt here], as someone who ‘plays Moscow’s political games’, in line with local far-right efforts to tar with a McCarthyist brush of alleged communism those who speak out against racism, antisemitism, and Holocaust revisionism.
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Media Watch, News & Views
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Mindaugas Peleckis interviews Dovid Katz
- O P I N I O N
- Questions from Mindaugas Peleckis and answers from Dovid Katz (Text of documents sent by email on 21 August 2010).
- [Update: This interview resulted in the article published in Čikagos aidas on 16 Dec 2010. The unabridged text was posted on this page on 23 Dec 2010, by agreement of the interviewer and the interviewee.]
1. I would like to talk to you about Jewish-Lithuanian relationships. You’ve published the wonderful book ‘Lithuanian Jewish Culture’, which sheds light on many things concerning Jewish life in Lithuania and around it. What do you think about when Lithuanians became, so to say, antisemitic? In the 19th and 20th centuries? Or earlier?
Posted in Dovid Katz, Free Speech & Democracy, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Red-Brown Bill with Two Years of Jailtime for Disagreeing with Government’s Position is Signed into Law
A new law in effect criminalizing anti Double Genocide opinions has been passed by the Lithuanian parliament and signed into law by the president. Full text of the law. In English translation. The move followed adoption of a similar statute by Hungary’s new right-wing government.
See also:
DEMOCRACY & FREE SPEECH SECTION
———
UPDATES (TO SEPT. 2011):
The Jewish community’s 2010 response to the new law
Professor Leonidas Donskis’s response to the 2008 proposals
Comments by Dovid Katz in 2009 and 2011
The new law criminalizes debate on the Holocaust and World War II, imposing punishments that include prison sentences of up to two years for those who would argue that Soviet crimes in Lithuania did not constitute genocide (hence: upon those who would challenge the notion that ‘Soviet and Nazi crimes are equal’). The opposing view (e.g. of this website) holds that Soviet crimes in Lithuania were horrendous but did not constitute genocide (following Donskis 2009, Katz 2009 etc; see page on Soviet crimes and draft response to the Prague Declaration).
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Hungary, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Jail Time for Saying the Holocaust is Unique
On 29 June 2010, the Lithuanian Parliament criminalized the view that Soviet crimes in Lithuania do not rise to Genocide, in effect making belief in red-brown equivalence a matter of law.
The move followed adoption of a similar statute by Hungary’s new right-wing government.
The Lithuanian law’s framers explained earlier that establishing red-brown equality was the motive. Punishment maxes out at 2 Years in jail (original draft law was for 3 years). There is a new widespread reluctance to speak up freely in eastern EU democracies, even if nobody is charged or punished. Work of serious historians is crippled as dissenters lose their jobs.
There was no comment from the US embassy in Vilnius.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States
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Tepid Response from the Lithuanian Institute of History on the New Red-Brown Jailtime Law, plus: Will Judaic Studies Specialists Finally Speak up?
The Lithuanian Institute of History’s less than impressive response to the 15 June parliamentary amendment of the criminal code. BNS report.
Hopefully individual historians will respond rather more vigorously, especially those who specialize in Judaic and Holocaust studies, who risk further loss of credibility in the wake of continued silence.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Seimas Amends Criminal Code to Make Way for New Red-Brown Jailtime Law
The Lithuanian parliament amended the criminal code ‘to envisage criminal penalties for supporting, denying or downgrading crimes committed by the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany’ recommending ‘up to two years in prison’. The amendment’s initiator explained that the ‘changes were based on the European Union’s obligation to member-nations to take the necessary measures to ensure penalties for public support for genocide crimes’. BNS report.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Sir Martin Gilbert Writes to State Jewish Museum in Lithuania, Asking for Halt to Campaign Against Kostanian
The following is the text of an email sent by Sir Martin Gilbert to an official of Lithuania’s Jewish state museum in defense of Rachel Kostanian, the internationally acclaimed cofounder and longtime director of the Holocaust section of the state Jewish museum, long known as “The Green House” (it is housed in a green wooden house at Pamenkalnio 12, invisible from the street, and up a steep driveway). She is also an eminent author, creator of exhibits and catalogues, and Holocaust educator who has engated with thousands of loval and foreign visitors to the museum. At Sir Martin’s request, the name of the recipient, and of others mentioned in the letter, have been redacted to maintain confidences and avert unnecessary embarrassments. The alleged “mistake” referred to in the final paragraph refers to a powerful new Holocaust documentary film directed by Saulius Beržinis, which Rachel Kostanian enabled, helped to research and complete, and obtained the funding for from a prominent Litvak family in the United Kingdom. The film was apparently deemed unacceptable for its “excessive truth telling,” as one (non-Jewish) museum worker, speaking off the record, put it with some irony. It will presumably one day find its way to the public square one way or another.
Sir Martin Gilbert’s foreword to Rachel Kostanian’s book Spiritual Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Rachel Kostanian, Saulius Beržinis
Tagged Jewish Museum of Lithuania, Rachel Kostanian, Saulius Berzinis, Sir Martin Gilbert + Lithuania, The Green House (Vilnius)
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