Defending History

21 June 2021

Vol. XII, No. 4306

Documents

Authorized English Version of Cemetery Edict by Doyen of Litvak Rabbis

Posted on 6 July 2020 by Defending History

CHRISTIAN-JEWISH ISSUES | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION

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VILNIUS—As reported on 21 February, the rabbi considered the world’s senior authority among the rabbinate in the Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) tradition, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, issued a major edict concerning the fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in today’s Šnipiškės district). Thanks to a request by Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas of Vilnius, and the assistance of Dov-Ber and Chaya Fried of New York City, the rabbinical court in Bnei Brak, Israel, has issued an authorized and notarized English translation of the original, written in rabbinic Hebrew. The English text is available as PDF, and below (please use handles at upper left to turn pages).

Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Documents, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Comments Off

Do the Bones of Old Vilna Jewry Still Lie at Piramónt Cemetery?

Posted on 5 May 2020 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | HUMAN RIGHTS | DOCUMENTS

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VILNIUS—A recent social media campaign has been spreading the message that there are no longer human remains at the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt, in today’s Šnipiškės section of modern Vilnius, the capital of democratic EU and NATO member Lithuania. Of course within the Jewish faith the sanctity of Jewish cemeteries remains in situ despite earth disruptions. “There is no such thing as a former Jewish cemetery,” Lithuania’s last chief rabbi, Chaim Burshtein, pointed out, before being fired in 2015 for expressing his opposition to “the convention center in the cemetery.”

Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Documents, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory | Tagged Arieh Klein, Jewish cemetery at Piramont (Snipiskes, Vilnius Jewish cemetery | Comments Off

Revealed: The “Secret Vilna Cemetery Agreement” of Dec. 2019

Posted on 8 March 2020 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY |OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION

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VILNIUS—On 19 December 2019, Defending History reported on the “Day of Shame” in this city, when representatives of the discredited “CPJCE” rabbis in London, a Haifa geotechnical specialist in tow, and the head of the state-sponsored “official” Jewish community together allegedly “morally sold out” the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery to Turto Bankas, a Lithuanian government state agency for development as a convention center where people would cheer, clap, sing, dance, drink at bars and flush toilets surrounded by thousands of Jewish graves on all four sides, including some of the greatest Jewish scholars of the last five hundred years. The international opposition to the “convention center in the cemetery” has been massive. It is a human rights issue in so far as such fates do not await cemeteries of the religious or ethnic majority.

Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Comments Off

Some Orders Issued by Jonas Noreika during the Destruction of Lithuania’s Jewish Citizens

Posted on 13 January 2019 by Defending History

COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | HISTORY | DOCUMENTS

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VILNIUS—As the date (15 January) nears of what some have dubbed the Holocaust trial of the 21st century, an increasing number of observers request more information on the alleged Holocaust collaborator at the center of it all, Jonas Noreika (1910–1947). His case was brought to the English-reading world by Defending History’s Evaldas Balčiūnas in 2012 (as part of a series on Holocaust collaborators who are glorified with state funding). Mr. Balčiūnas was “rewarded” with years of legal harassment from police and prosecutors over his objections to state honors for Holocaust collaborators (see the Balciunas section, scroll down to May 2014 for start of the legal proceedings; while enjoying a modern freewheeling democracy on nearly all issues, Lithuania’s residents have run into troubles when challenging state policy on the Holocaust.).

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Documents, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Comments Off

Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery: Geotechnical Expert Group’s Press Release of Sept. 2008 is “Back in Circulation”

Posted on 12 January 2019 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION

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VILNIUS—At the request of Defending History staff, several news outlets here have located and released the original 3 September 2008 press release issued by Arieh Klein, head of the Experts Group appointed to conduct geophysical and other surveys of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in today’s Šnipiškės district of Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital) to determine the boundaries of the extant cemetery underground. This was always a public document intended for the media, marked as a “press release” in accompanying emails. It is available as PDF.

The document reveals that both “new green buildings” (the King Mindaugas Buildings) that were featured in this century’s first major dispute over this cemetery, are within the boundaries of the cemetery, as are, naturally, the banks, chic cafes and restaurants, apartments and other amenities and offices on the premises.

But to this day, the buildings’ operators dismiss the geotechnical findings as “slander”. Something to remember when you next visit this part of Vilnius!

It is separately documented that truckloads of earth were clandestinely removed (and their location never disclosed), and that the builders’ and their government associates’ “bags of tricks” back then included setting up international committees with prestigious “Useful Jewish Idiots” — or UJIs — as local Jews refer informally to foreign Jewish dignitaries and professors who become part of the PR machine that is alleged to cover and deflect from various aspects of the Jewish news here. The full text of the press release follows.

Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Comments Off

Dr. Kulikauskas Issues Call to Lithuanian Society to Join Together in Dealing with Legacy of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika

Posted on 18 December 2018 by Defending History

OPINION | HISTORY | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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VILNIUS—Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas today released an appeal, in the Lithuanian language, that calls on fellow Lithuanian citizens to come together in opposing the ongoing national glorification of Holocaust collaborator J. Noreika in a spirit of historic integrity that would also lead to the inevitable conclusion that the controversial historical personage was in effect a Holocaust criminal. For some background on recent developments in the Noreika saga, set to culminate in a historic trial here in the Lithuanian capital on 15 January, see recent articles in DH’s Collaborators Glorified section.

The trial scheduled for 15 Jan. 2019. Sample Noreika document.

The Noreika case was first brought to the attention of the English speaking world by DH’s correspondent Evaldas Balčiūnas in 2012, as part of his series on “national heroes” who were Holocaust collaborators. As a result of those articles, Mr. Balčiūnas was subjected to years of prosecutorial harassment (scroll down to 2014 in his DH section). More recently, the 2018 bold article by Noreika’s granddaughter, American author and educator Silvia Foti in Salon resulted in New York Times coverage last September, that itself followed up on the paper’s March 2018 article on Holocaust related issues in Lithuania.

Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Tagged Andrius Kulikauskas, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jonas Noreika | Comments Off

Vilnius and Three Other Lithuanian Jewish Communities Call for New Democratic Elections

Posted on 23 March 2018 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—Baltic News Service (BNS) carried today the text of a public statement issued by the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC), joined by the Jewish communities of Klaipėda, Šiauliai, and Ukmergė (known in Jewish history as Meml, Shavl and Vilkomir, respectively). For its readers’ information, Defending History is providing a translation below. Please note that in the event of any query arising, the Lithuanian text alone is authoritative; items in square brackets [] have been added in the translation for clarity.

Readers wishing to look at the background are invited to our tracking section, Lithuania’s Jewish Community Issues. As our readers know, the Defending History community tends to see in the sad events of recent years the ominous hand of manipulation of a small but creative and proud Jewish community, by way of restitution monies that, some believe, are being channeled in ways that are not according to the democratic wishes of the members of the nation’s Jewish community. During last year’s election campaign, the rules were changed mid-campaign to disenfranchise the Jewish community’s living members via a new system based on a handful of organization chiefs, one of whom lives in Brussels. In one of the saga’s lowpoints, picking up on local antisemitic tropes, the official, government-sponsored community, where various ex-government or political officials and/or their children occupy some of the major positions, accused the actual Vilnius Jewish Community of being Russian speakers who pretend to be Jews, leading to international media coverage.

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Translation of Text from BNS, 23 March 2017:

Posted in Documents, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius) | Comments Off

Chief Rabbi of Western Wall and and Holy Sites in Israel Calls on Lithuania’s President to Cancel Convention Center Project at Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 6 March 2018 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CPJCE

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JERUSALEM—The 1 February 2018 letter of Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites in Israel to the president of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė, was released here today for publication. In it, the world-renowned rabbi who heads the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, pleads with the president of Lithuania to “cancel this plan to make this site a convention center.” He reminds her of the tens of thousands of Jews buried at the old Piramónt cemetery of Vilna, now in the Šnipiškės district of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. His letter follows the 7 January 2018 letter from the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Lau, and the pleas of virtually all the world’s leading rabbis of Litvak heritage (and many others) over recent years, in addition to many people of good faith of all backgrounds.

Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory | Tagged Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, Piramont (Snipiskes), Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Vilnius Jewish cemetery, Western Wall Heritage Foundation | Comments Off

Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) Issues Historic Statement Calling for Free Democratic Elections for Lithuania’s Jews

Posted on 28 December 2017 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) today issued the following authoritative English language text of its statement following the Vilnius District Court’s decision of 21 December 2017 (earlier versions appeared in Lithuanian and Russian). The following is the text as it appeared today on the VJC’s Facebook page. Since the court ruling there have been media reports in Defending History, JTA, Times of Israel, Forward, and various other outlets.

Posted in Documents, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, Vilnius District Court, Vilnius Jewish community | Comments Off

Vilnius District Court Nullifies LJC Head’s Spring 2017 “Election”

Posted on 21 December 2017 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—In her ruling issued earlier today, Vilnius District Court Judge Rima Bražinskienė, following up on her crucial 29 May 2017 judgment, confirmed the illegality of last April’s mid-campaign rule change by the board of the “Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community” which effectively disenfranchised the 2,200 members of the Vilnius Jewish community (as well as the Jewish people in the other. smaller communities) by replacing the long-standing proportional voting system with an oligarchic system giving one vote to each board member (most of whom have allegedly received professional, promotional or financial benefits from the funds of the “Good Will Foundation” that finances the community). As a result, the capacity of the Holocaust-remnant Jewish community of Lithuania to democratically choose its leadership was in one tragic fell swoop annulled in favor of a system that gave that authority to a roomful of wannabe-oligarchs, some of whom hold two or three votes each. The large corpus of protests include last summer’s letter from twenty of the elected members of the Vilnius Jewish Community’s council and a more recent article by Professor Josifas Parasonis.

JUMP TO UPDATES

The court action asking for relief was brought by the Vilnius Jewish Community as plaintiff. Its 21 member council was elected last May 24th in the largest Jewish electoral assembly in Lithuania this century with meticulous voting open to all community members. Today’s ruling includes the text:

Posted in Documents, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views | Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Geros valios fondas (Vilnius), Good Will Foundation (Vilnius), Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community, Lithuanian Jewish Community, WJRO, WJRO + Lithuania, World Jewish Restitution Organization | Comments Off

Rabinų deklaracija dėl senųjų Vilniaus Piramonto žydų kapinių (Šnipiškėse)

Posted on 9 November 2017 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES

Lietuvių kalba

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Neseniai, 5775 žydų kalendoriaus metų Avo mėnesį (2015 m. liepos 16-rugpjūčio 15), buvo hebrajiškai ir angliškai paskelbta rabinų deklaracija dėl senųjų žydų kapinių Vilniuje (tekstas buvo paskelbtas abiem kalbomis 2015 m. liepos 30 d. „Hamodia“ numeryje; liepos 29 d. „Hamodia“ tinklapyje ir liepos 30 d. defendinghistory.com buvo paskelbta apie šį dokumentą).

Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Vilniaus senosios žydų (Piramonto) kapinės Šnipiškėse | Tagged P{iramontas, Vilniaus žydų kapinės, Zydai lietuvoje, žydų kapinės Šnipiškėse | Comments Off

Text of Irish Ambassador Dónal Denham’s 2008 Speech at Brantsovsky Reception is Released for the Record

Posted on 20 October 2017 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | IRELAND | BLAMING THE VICTIMS?

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Nearly a decade after HE Dónal Denham’s 3 June 2008 historic reception for Fania Brantsovsky, a hero of the Holocaust-era anti-Nazi Jewish partisan resistance in Lithuania, held at the Irish Ambassador’s Residence in Vinius, the text of his speech has been released. It appears below. See our report on the June 2008 event. Historical note: Defending History believes it was the first time since collapse of the Soviet Union that Western embassies in one of the new democracies saw a need to honor a person who was being unjustly targeted by state prosecution services and other national elites. The American, Austrian, British, French, German, Norwegian and other embassies followed the Irish lead.

Posted in Documents, Ireland, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute | Comments Off

Summer’s Cool New Vilnius Poster to Save Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 7 July 2017 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE

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VILNIUS—For the first time in the history of modern Lithuania, a non-Jewish campaign initiative for a Jewish cause has seen its poster flood the streets of this city’s storied Old Town at the height of the summer tourist season. Conceived and produced by Julius Norwilla (Norvila), a former Protestant minister, using a quote from Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas, a Catholic philosopher, and based on an artistic visualization of a young Vilnius artist who supports the campaign, the poster is entitled “Vilnius Without its Ugliest Soviet Eyesore”. That is a reference to the hated ruin of the Soviet Sports Palace which stands in the middle of the old Vilna cemetery, where the city’s Jewish residents were buried in graves paid for by their families as freehold property, from the 15th to the 19th century. The poster makes reference to Vilnius native Ruta Bloshtein’s international petition, which is, at 40,000 signatures to date, arguably the largest Litvak initiative since the Holocaust. Members of Lithuania’s Jewish community who have spoken out to date include Moyshe Bairak, Ruta Bloshtein, Milan Chersonski, Pinchos Fridberg, Dovid Katz, and Josif Parasonis (more here). Current and recent rabbis in Vilnius who have taken a public stand include Chaim Burshtein, Shmuel Jacob Feffer, Kalev Krelin, and Sholom Ber Krinsky.

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Documents, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory | Tagged EU and old Jewish cemeteries, Frans Timmermans, Piramont Snipiskes cemetery, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish cemetery | Comments Off

Full Transcript of the “Fania Brantsovsky Witch Hunt Ceremony” on Lithuania’s Independence Day

Posted on 13 April 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | DOCUMENTS | BLAMING THE VICTIMS? | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | VILNIUS GENOCIDE CENTER | ANTISEMITISM | PRO-NAZI MARCHES | VILNIUS MARCHES

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VILNIUS—This year’s March 11th independence day march here last month was again granted the route of highest prestige, from Cathedral Square, up the whole of the capital’s main thoroughfare, Gedimino Boulevard, and ending at Parliament Square. Defending History’s eyewitness report recounted this year’s “detour” to the presidential palace for the bizarre ceremony of attacking Lithuania’s oldest Holocaust survivor, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Brancovskaja), 95 next month, one of the Jewish partisans subjected to defamation by the state’s campaign of Holocaust revisionism that has included a “blame the victims” components that started eleven years ago.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST (ONLY JEWISH) VETERANS OF THE ANTI-NAZI PARTISANS; RENEWED 2017 CAMPAIGN AGAINST FANIA YOCHELES BRANTSOVSKY

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Documents, Events, Genocide Center (Vilnius), Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius Neo-Nazi Marches | Tagged Arunas Eifirdas, Fania Jocheles Brancovskaja, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, Genocide Center Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish partisans, Sakalas Gorodeckis, Vilnius neo-Nazi marches | Comments Off

Baltic Holocaust: First Stahlecker Report (1941) Digitized

Posted on 3 April 2017 by Defending History

by Rafael Katz

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The two Stahlecker Reports summarize the inner workings of Einsatzgruppe A during the Baltic invasion of Operation Barbarossa, which set in motion the Holocaust. We herewith offer a digitized version of the two reports. For an introduction to the reports and links for download please see our earlier article in January 2015. As of now, we have digitized half of the reports, and will give notice once we complete the conversion. The full reports can be viewed in their JPG version via the link above. Below we offer a digitized version of 1-100 from 1-143 of the first report, and, on a separate page, 1-73 of 150 from the second report.

Posted in Documents, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Rafael Katz, Raphael Katz | Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Rafael Katz, Stahlecker Report (1941) | Comments Off

Baltic Holocaust: Second Stahlecker Report (1941) Digitized

Posted on 3 April 2017 by Defending History

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by Rafael Katz

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Note: See for introductory remarks the author’s earlier January 2015 summary of the project and his posting today of the digitized text of the First Stahlecker Report.

Posted in Documents, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Rafael Katz, Raphael Katz | Comments Off

State-Sponsored “Genocide Center” Issues Document that is “2017’s Jew-Witch Hunt” Against 95 Year Old Holocaust Survivor Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky

Posted on 26 March 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | DOCUMENTS | BLAMING THE VICTIMS? | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | VILNIUS GENOCIDE CENTER | ANTISEMITISM

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by Dovid Katz

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VILNIUS—The following (text below) is a translation from Lithuanian of the 2 March 2017 letter from the state-sponsored Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania (widely known as the Genocide Center) to a nationalist group that put on this year’s March 11th Independence Day neo-Nazi march, with authorities’ permission, in the center of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. The group had complained about Lithuania’s president, Dalia Grybauskaite, having granted an award on February 16th to Lithuania’s oldest Holocaust survivor, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, soon to turn 95, for her work in the field of Holocaust education. The president’s office had referred the complaint to the Genocide Center which issued this letter (facsimile of the original below). The correspondence was then read out at a bizarre ceremony that some observers thought bore the hallmarks of a 2017 “Jew-witch hunt” when the Independence day festivities announced a detour to the presidential palace to read out the various letters and condemn Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, who is the only one of her family to survive the Holocaust precisely because she escaped the Vilna Ghetto in September 1943 and joined up with the anti-Nazi Soviet partisans, the only force seriously challenging Hitler’s rule of Lithuania.

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Documents, Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, EU, Genocide Center (Vilnius), Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Views of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Vilnius Neo-Nazi Marches | Tagged Arvydas Anusauskas, Dalia Grybauskaite, Fania Brancovskaja, Fania Brantsovsky, Genocide Center Vilnius, Jewish partisans in Lithuania, Vilna Ghetto | Comments Off

Vilnius Jewish Community Board Issues “Historic Call” for Restoration of Democracy

Posted on 23 March 2017 by Defending History

VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | DOCUMENTS

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VILNIUS—The Board of the Vilnius Jewish Community today issued a letter to the chairperson of both the Vilnius and Lithuanian Jewish communities, attorney Ms. Faina Kukliansky, calling on her to convene a meeting of the Board, as required by the Community’s bylaws. In the context of perceived silence over a number of years, the letter, signed by an overwhelming majority of members of the Board, is widely being taken as a sign of communal energy, courage and willingness to come together to act for the community’s democratic integrity, that some observers have felt has been lacking in the years since the death of the near-legendary longtime chairperson of the Jewish community, Dr. Simon Alperovich, in 2014. The facsimile follows.

Posted in Documents, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Comments Off

“Statistics” Posted by the “Good Will Foundation” in Vilnius

Posted on 19 March 2017 by Defending History

OPINION | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The following list of “Statistics: Project Funding Allocations” is a screenshot taken today of the page of that name on the website of the Lithuanian government’s Good Will Foundation (GWF). It is also available (with some browsers) in the alternative interactive Tableau format (below the screenshot).

Posted in "Admas Kodesh", "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Documents, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Tagged "American Zionist Movement" + Lithuania, Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, CPJCE (London), Geros valios fondas (Vilnius), Good Will Foundation (Vilnius), Herbert Block, Herbert Block + American Zionist Movement, Herbert Block + Good Will Foundation, Herbert Block + USCPAHA, Jewish Community of Lithuania, Piramont (Snipiskes), Ruta Bloshtein petition, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, USCPAHA, Vilnius Jewish cemetery | Comments Off

Letter from a German Soldier in Kaunas, 29 June 1941

Posted on 26 January 2017 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | HISTORY

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by Andreas Kuck

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The following letter, presented in German facsmile of the original and in a draft English translation, was sent by German soldier Heinrich Sandt (1908 — 19??) from Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, on 29 June 1941 (the letter is both dated and stamped with the date). He was a member of the 10th Company of Infantry Regiment 89 (later Grenadier Regiment 89). He wrote the letter to his wife Elisabeth about what he witnessed in Kaunas. The 89th appears to have crossed the Nemunas (Nieman River) on 25 June 1941.

Posted in Documents, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Memoirs, News & Views | Comments Off

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Documents

CHRISTIAN-JEWISH ISSUES | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION | HUMAN RIGHTS | DOCUMENTS

DOCUMENTS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY |OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | INTERNATIONAL PETITION

COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | HISTORY | DOCUMENTS

DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION

OPINION | HISTORY | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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The trial scheduled for 15 Jan. 2019. Sample Noreika document.

DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

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DOCUMENTS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CPJCE

DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

DOCUMENTS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | DEMOCRACY | GOOD WILL FOUNDATION | HUMAN RIGHTS

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES

DOCUMENTS | IRELAND | BLAMING THE VICTIMS?

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE

OPINION | DOCUMENTS | BLAMING THE VICTIMS? | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | VILNIUS GENOCIDE CENTER | ANTISEMITISM | PRO-NAZI MARCHES | VILNIUS MARCHES

CAMPAIGN AGAINST (ONLY JEWISH) VETERANS OF THE ANTI-NAZI PARTISANS; RENEWED 2017 CAMPAIGN AGAINST FANIA YOCHELES BRANTSOVSKY

by Rafael Katz

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by Rafael Katz

OPINION | DOCUMENTS | BLAMING THE VICTIMS? | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | VILNIUS GENOCIDE CENTER | ANTISEMITISM

by Dovid Katz

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by Andreas Kuck

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