Double Games
Red-Brown Commission Renewed: Box Coverage to 15 September 2012
Joseph Melamed, Head of Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors’ Association, Releases Letter to Director of Yad Vashem
TEL AVIV—The office of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel today released the text of the Hebrew letter which the ALJ’s chairman, Tel Aviv attorney Joseph Melamed, sent today to Avner Shalev, the director of Yad Vashem. Images of the letter’s two pages follow (signed letter as PDF). English translation here.
See also the separate English statement which the ALJ released to the media earlier today, following the recent news about the Lithuanian government renewing a much enlarged red-brown commission with the ostensible participation of Yad Vashem.
Holocaust Survivors, Based in Tel Aviv, Issue Statement on Renewal of the Red-Brown Commission
TEL AVIV—The following public statement was received at 2:15 PM Tel Aviv time from the offices of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel at King David Boulevard 1. In addition, the ALJ today released the letter written by its chairman to the head of Yad Vashem (English translation here). Background.
Clemens Heni’s Facebook Reactions to the Red-Brown Commission’s Renewal
The following Facebook entry is reproduced here with permission of the author, Dr. Clemens Heni.
Clemens Heni shared a link.
31 August 2012
1) Dina Porat wrote a piece on the Lithuanian Holocaust years ago, https://defendinghistory.com/readinglist.
2) Her joining the Lithuanian commission makes the institutional / government betrayal coming from Jerusalem even worse: a top honest Holocaust scholar joins with distorters, obfuscationists in a commission that has a track record of throwing its honest Israeli members to the wolves (Arad!), and of using serious foreign scholars with an array of intrigue, complexity, and layered nuance that no foreigner could combat in the multimillion euro den of Holocaust Obfuscation’s European capital.
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].
Executive Director of “Red-Brown Commission” Doubts Lithuanian Jews were Killed “on a Racial Basis” Before Arrival of German Forces in 1941
O P I N I O N
A number of viewers of the new Australian documentary film Rewriting History, by Marc Radomsky and Danny Ben-Moshe, have submitted to Defending History near-identical transcripts of a statement on camera, made to the film’s producers, by the executive director of the “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.”
Known for short as the “red-brown commission,” the state-sponsored body has long been opposed by Holocaust survivors and educators. The commission is responsible for Holocaust education in Lithuania, but has also taken an active political role in promoting the 2008 Prague Declaration and various details of alleged “equality” of Nazi and Soviet crimes. The commission’s website features the Prague Declaration in both English and Lithuanian.
The commission’s executive director, Ronaldas Račinskas, is quoted as saying on camera that his commission does not support “Double Genocide” but that he does support the 2008 Prague Declaration (though he concedes there are passages to be “discussed”). The problem is that the Prague Declaration is the primary document of the Double Genocide movement in Europe.
See also: Mr. Račinskas’s 2011 speech in the Lithuanian parliament; Critiques of his commission; 2015 Update: His call for investigations of Holocaust survivors who joined up with the anti-Nazi partisans.
Mr. Račinskas goes on to say, according to the transcripts provided of his Rewriting History interview:
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Includes “Historical Memory Policy” (= Double Genocide) Among Nation’s Prime Goals for 2013 EU Presidency
In a curious annual statement to his nation’s diplomats around the globe, Foreign Minister Audronius Ažubalis recently proclaimed publicly that “historical memory policy” would be one of the main goals of Lithuanian’s foreign policy, particularly as it looks forward to its rotating presidency of the EU next year.
EARLIER REPORT
The insistence on the Eastern European right wing’s history appears alongside energy and transport infrastructure, economic development, consular services for citizens resident abroad, military security, international alliances and more. The speech also mentions the need for more coordination of Lithuania’s “body and mind” implying the need for more rather than less diplomatic work in the field of history revisionism internationally.
Crying Over Dead Jews
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
Lithuania’s Jewish community isn’t immune from the broader issues facing Jewish existence in Eastern Europe and there are the same problems of Jewish identity that crop up in Russia, Bulgaria, Poland and elsewhere. And just as there are Christian Evangelicals and others who support the policies of the right-wing in the State of Israel elsewhere in Europe, there are those same voices among Lithuanian politicians and public figures.
What is perhaps different in Lithuania than elsewhere in Eastern Europe is that this Gentile support for Zionist ideals doesn’t translate into support for the surviving local Jewish community or contribute to a profounder and more sympathetic understanding of the Holocaust.
UPDATE OF 5 AUGUST 2012: This essay was republished with permission in the Algemeiner Journal; in 15min.lt (where it seems to have been taken down, but is still listed in Search); in Jewish Ideas Daily (where it was chosen as one of the editor’s picks for 1 August 2012).
Visitors to Vilnius will see any number of plaques dedicated to famous Jewish residents of Vilnius and several dedicated to the Holocaust. Those who look a little deeper under the surface might find there are a number of agencies, organizations and institutions operating in Vilnius which seemingly are aimed at promoting Jewish history, language and culture. In fact, both the plaques and monuments, and the majority of these “Jewish” organizations, serve as little more than window-dressing and display show-cases the Lithuanian government rolls out as exhibits evidencing Lithuanian sincerity in addressing the incomparable atrocity of the Holocaust.
Amherst’s NYBC Caught Up in Lithuanian Government’s Jew-less, Yiddish-less PR Library
Last March 11th, Lithuanian Independence Day, when over a thousand neo-Nazi marchers passed the sign for the government’s Jewish Public Library on the capital’s main boulevard, no member of the library’s staff turned up to oppose the neo-fascists, with even a modest, polite sign of disapproval. The march proceeded with official permits and the participation of several members of parliament identified with the ruling coalition. The Lithuanian Embassy in Washington DC failed to respond to a DC based petition that attracted 2,156 signatories, many from Lithuanian citizens.
Landsbergis. Then and Now.
O P I N I O N
Vytautas Landsbergis is one of the giants of the late twentieth century. Along with Poland’s Lech Wałęsa and then-Czechoslovakia’s Václav Havel, Landsbergis led his people from foreign domination to freedom and democracy. Nothing these gentlemen might later on have said or done to their own legacies, particularly in the subsequent century, can detract from their singular achievements in contributing to the downfall of the Soviet Union and the freedom of the subjugated nations on its western periphery.
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.
Перезахоронение как способ переписать историю
МНЕНИЕ
Милан Херсонский
ЗА СЧЕТ НАЛОГОПЛАТЕЛЬЩИКОВ
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.
Congratulating Algimantas Kasparavičius who Gets it Right: Trying to Manage History is a Big-Time Loser for Mature Foreign Policy
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
It isn’t every Monday and Thursday (as the old Yiddish saying goes) that this journal publishes an opinion piece congratulating a contemporary historian in Lithuania who is a current mainstream player (rather than a pensioner, conceptual or actual exile, or someone painted up as a narrow ethnic-minority champion, anarchist, Soviet apologist, plain old personal maverick, or what-not). It is even more unusual for DefendingHistory.com to go out on a limb without even knowing said historian’s views on the issues that lie at the core of DH’s modest corner in the contemporary marketplace of ideas.
Let it be said at the outset that we sincerely hope that a vote of confidence and congratulations from DefendingHistory.com will not unduly (let alone fatally) harm the man’s future career prospects in the vaunted circles of Lithuania’s most powerful politicians, state institutions and history professors. But come to think of it, the improper leap-into-bed together of this untenable ménage-à-trois goes to the core of the conundrum.
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.
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:
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
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).
Tim Snyder, in Vilnius, Comments Publicly on the Reburial and Glorification of 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister
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:
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.”
Lithuania’s Prime Minister and Culture Minister Personally Signed off on €8,700 (US $11,000) Expenditure to Honor Wartime Fascist Leader
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.
Day of Shame (May 19th) Can Still be Averted at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas
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:
Rabinowitz-Dorf PR Campaign for Lithuanian Embassy and “Fake Litvaks” Backfires Bigtime
Rabinowitz-Dorf: Did the PR firm sell out Lithuanian Jewry to help the current right-wing government “change” the history of the Holocaust with American Jewish cover, while enabling “Fake Litvaks” to misrepresent themselves as representing the Jewish community in Lithuania?