The Baltic state-sponsored political infiltration into supposedly independent academic bodies concerned with Holocaust studies and education came into sharp focus in Washington this week with leakage to the media of a number of letters from Artūras Vazbys, Minister Counselor at the Lithuanian embassy in Washington DC. The identical letters read:
Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial
Lithuania’s Embassy in Washington Recruiting “Useful Academics” for Discredited “Red-Brown” Commission
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?
Tagged Emanuelis Zingeris, Holocaust in Lithuania, International Commission for the Evlauation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Ronaldas Racinskas
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Saying No to “Double Genocide”
O P I N I O N
by Danny-Ben Moshe
This comment appeared today in the Jerusalem Post and is republished here with the author’s permission.
The Israel-South Africa Chamber of Commerce is hosting as guest of honor Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Ažubalis at a gala dinner. Given the current Lithuanian government’s policies towards the Holocaust, it is a bizarre choice.
More than twenty years into their post-Soviet eras, Lithuania and other East European nations are understandably and appropriately seeking international acknowledgment for the suffering inflicted on them by the Soviet regime.
However, rather than commemorating this in its own right, Lithuania has led the campaign to tie this recognition in with the Holocaust, in a policy known as Double Genocide. By so doing, the recognition they seek for their own suffering under the Soviets ipso facto becomes a policy that distorts and downgrades the Holocaust, and undermines and threatens its memory.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Danny Ben-Moshe, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, South Africa
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Seventy Years Declaration in European Languages
◊
THE TEXT
Early history and coverage of the Seventy Years Declaration (Jan-Feb 2012)
Presentation at European Parliament (March 2012)
The documentary film Rewriting History now available free online; launched in Australia (Sept 2012) and in the United States (April 2013)
The film Defending Holocaust History (Spring 2013)
The SYD website
Defending History section on the Seventy Years Declaration
Historians’ mentions: Dan Stone; Gareth Pritchard & Desislava Ganeheva
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
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Lithuanian Radio Panel Discussion on the Seventy Years Declaration
The Seventy Years Declaration, released on 20 January 2012, was the subject of a 31 January 2012 Žinių radijas (News Radio) station panel discussion including one of the Lithuanian signatories of the declaration, Social Democratic MP Vytenis Andriukaitis, himself a signatory of the Lithuanian Declaration of Independence. MP Andriukaitis was attacked by the foreign minister for signing.
MP Andriukaitis’s response won international support, and there is reference in the panel discussion to the support from British human rights champion MP Denis MacShane for all eight Lithuanian parliamentarians who signed the Seventy Years Declaration.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", 70 Years Declaration, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Denis MacShane, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vytenis Andriukaitis
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Council of Europe’s Commission Against Racism and Intolerance Condemns Latvia’s Waffen SS Parades and Celebration of Hitler’s 1941 Invasion
The Council of Europe’s Commission against Racism and Intolerance today published online its 9 December report ECRI Report on Latvia (fourth monitoring cycle). In the 67 page report, the ECRI (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance) explicitly condemns the Waffen SS marches enabled and supported for many years by some of the highest echelons of Latvian government and society. There is also reference to the more recent case of celebrating the day of Hitler’s invasion in 1941.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Human Rights, Latvia, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Racism, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Nations
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Lithuanian Parliamentarian Vytenis Andriukaitis, Signatory of 70 Years Declaration, Replies to Foreign Minister, Cites ‘Moustache’ Remark and the Implications of ‘Double Genocide’
O P I N I O N
by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis
The following is an authorized translation from the Lithuanian text published on Delfi.lt on 9 February 2012. It is a reply to the foreign minister’s article published a week earlier (English translation here).
Honorable A. Ažubalis, Did You Pull Such an Understanding of History out of Thin Air?
by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lithuanian Parliament
Honorable minister, looking at the headline of your public statement, I hoped at least that you would apologize for the position expressed earlier that “it is impossible to find any difference between Hitler and Stalin except in their moustaches (Hitler’s was smaller).” I agree with the position expressed by Dennis MacShane, member of the British House of Commons, that such jokes by foreign minister Audronius Ažubalis are inappropriate in discussing the mass murder of six million Jews.
SEE ALSO:
ANDRIUKAITIS SECTION
In your public statement, you again place two signed declarations in opposition to one another. One of them — the “only true one” — the “Declaration on European Conscience and Communism” signed in Prague in 2008, maintains that the precondition for a unified Europe is a unified view of history and the ability to condemn the last century’s crimes against humanity. The second, the Seventy Years Declaration — the declaration referred to as if it were a crime and condemned by you —was adopted marking the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee conference, a declaration which rejects attempts to trivialize the atrocities of the Jewish genocide.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom, Vytenis Andriukaitis
Tagged Audronius Azubalis + Holocaust, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, The 70 Years Declaration, Vytenis Andriukaitis
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The Lingering Legacy of Nazism
М Н Е Н И Е
Милан Херсонский
У НАЦИЗМА НЕ ДОЛЖНО БЫТЬ БУДУЩЕГО
20 января нынешнего 2012-го года исполнилось 70 лет с того дня, когда в 1942-м году на вилле Марлир близ озера Ванзее состоялась конференция представителей министерств и ветвей власти гитлеровской Германии, которая вошла в мировую историю по названию озера – Ванзейская конференция. Это было совещание нацистских чиновников, которые деловито и хладнокровно обсуждали вопросы реализации «окончательного решения еврейского вопроса», то есть полного истребления евреев в Европе.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, Human Rights, In Russian, Lithuania, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Dr. Shimon Alperovich, Chairman of Lithuanian Jewish Community, Blasts “Double Genocide” on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Dr. Shimon Alperovich spoke out on the fashionable — and deeply disturbing — “Double Genocide” theory of World War II at the annual 27 January Holocaust Remembrance Day program held at the Jewish Community of Lithuania’s Vilnius headquarters at Pylimo Street 4.
Video, by Defending History, of Dr. Alperovich’s remarks, delivered in Lithuanian, is available on YouTube.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
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UK MP Denis MacShane Rushes to Defense of Lithuanian Parliamentarians who Signed Seventy Years Declaration; Slams Foreign Minister’s Hitler-Stalin ‘Joke’
The following press statement was issued today by the office of UK MP Denis MacShane concerning the response of the Lithuanian foreign minister to the news that eight Lithuanian parliamentarians had signed the Seventy Years Declaration.
News Release 25 Jan. 2012
On the eve of National Holocaust Day, former Europe Minister Denis MacShane MP has written to Lithuanian MPs and MEPs who defied their political establishment to sign a statement on the Holocaust which attacks attempts to devalue the Nazi extermination of Jews by claiming it is no worse than the crimes committed by communists.
The Seventy Years Declaration was issued on 20 January 2012 by seventy European Union parliamentarians (MPs and MEPs) concerned about the return of antisemitism as an issue in contemporary politics. In January 1942, Nazi officials met at a conference at Lake Wannsee close to Berlin to plan the industrially organized extermination of European Jewry.
In recent years, European right-wing politicians have sought to gain acceptance for their view that the suffering under communist rule was the same as the Nazi extermination of Jews. This so-called “double genocide” thesis has been criticized by campaigners against modern antisemitism as leading to a devaluation of the unique specific Jew-hating roots of the Holocaust.
Now social democratic MPs and MEPs in Lithuania who signed this declaration have been attacked by government officials. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister went so far as to say there was no difference between Hitler and Stalin except the length of their moustache.Continue reading
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Antisemitism & Bias, Denis MacShane, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom, Vytenis Andriukaitis
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Lithuanian Foreign Minister Berates his Country’s Parliamentarians who Signed ‘70 Years Declaration’; Says Hitler = Stalin Except for Length of their Moustaches
The foreign minister of Lithuania did not wait until the day was over.
“It is not possible to find differences between Hitler and Stalin except in their moustaches (Hitler’s was shorter).”
— The Foreign Minister of Lithuania, commenting upon the Seventy Years Declaration in the early hours of 20 January 2012, 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Algirdas Sysas, Audronius Azubalis, Azubalis Hitler Stalin moustache, Double Genocide + Lithuania, Dr. Jonathan Brent, Emanuelis Zingeris, Justinas Karosas, Last Monday in Tel Aviv, Paul Berger, Prague Declaration, Vygaudas Ušackas
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Unconfirmed Report: Yad Vashem asked to Shore Up Discredited Red-Brown Commission with Three (!) New Members
VILNIUS. Unconfirmed rumors were swirling in “Holocaust politics” circles this week about an alleged request by “very high officials” of the Lithuanian government to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem — through channels including both countries’ foreign ministries — to shore up the status of the widely discredited “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.” The commission is widely known as the “Red-Brown Commission.”
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Israel, News & Views, Yad Vashem and Lithuania
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The Seventy Years Declaration in Dutch
20 januari 2012
De Zeventig Jaar-Declaratie
ter gelegenheid van het jubileum van de Definitieve Oplossing-conferentie bij Wannsee
Op deze zeventigste verjaardag van de formele adoptering door het nazieleiderschap van de ‘Definitieve Oplossing van het Joodse probleem’, wij, de ondertekenaars van dit document:
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial
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The Seventy Years Declaration
The Seventy Years Declaration
on the Anniversary of the Final Solution Conference at Wannsee
On this the 70th anniversary of the formal adoption by the Nazi leadership of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem” we the undersigned
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, EU, History, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, definition of genocide, Double Genocide, Holocaust in European Parliament, Last Monday in Tel Aviv, Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), Opposing Holocaust obfuscation & distortion, Prague Declaration, Seventy Years Declaration, SYD, Waffen SS (Estonia), Waffen SS (Latvia), Wannsee Conference
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The Seventy Years Declaration
O P I N I O N
by Danny Ben-Moshe
This comment appeared today in the Jerusalem Post and is republished here with the author’s permission.
On January 20, 1942, the Nazi leadership gathered in a villa on the outskirts of Berlin and adopted the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” The Wannsee Conference, as this became known, from the suburb where the meeting was held, formalized the process that exterminated so much of European Jewry.
As we mark the seventieth anniversary of that 90-minute meeting in which fifteen people condemned millions to death, there are many crucial lessons to learn from the Holocaust. I wish to highlight two.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Danny Ben-Moshe, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged 2008 Prague Declaration on European Conscience, Danny Ben-Moshe, Double Genocide, Seventy Years Declaration, Wannsee Confererence
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The Seventy Years Declaration (Summary Page)
[last update 20 Jan. 2015]
THE ORIGINAL ENGLISH TEXT
Early history and coverage of the Seventy Years Declaration (Jan-Feb 2012)
Presentation at European Parliament (March 2012)
The documentary film Rewriting History now available free online; launched in Australia (Sept 2012) and in the United States (April 2013)
The film Defending Holocaust History (Spring 2013)
The SYD website
Defending History section on the Seventy Years Declaration
Historians’ mentions: Dan Stone; Gareth Pritchard & Desislava Ganeheva
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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EU Ambassador to Afghanistan Writes in the Wall Street Journal that Nazi Rule in Lithuania was “A Few Years’ Respite from the Communists”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office today released a statement in which its director, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, calls for an apology from the European Union’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Vygaudas Ušackas, for insensitive and misleading remarks on the Lithuanian Holocaust in a 6 December 2011 Wall Street Journal article. A letter of protest by Jack Zwanziger of Chicago appeared in the WSJ on 14 December 2011.
- UPDATE:
- Jerusalem-Kabul debate
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust Obfuscation, Holocaust Trivialization, Lithuanian Foreign Minister + Holocaust, Lithuanian government + Holocaust, Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office, Vygaudas Ušackas
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Petras Stankeras Rides Again: Rehabilitating Fascism for the Lithuanian Mainstream
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
Petras Stankeras appeared on the pages of DefendingHistory.com in late November 2010, after publishing on 14 November 2010 in the mainstream Lithuanian weekly magazine Veidas an article in which he called the Holocaust “a myth”, described Ribbentrop’s hanging as a lamentable case of “victor’s justice” (also praising the Nazi foreign minister for conducting himself heroically), and called the Nuremberg Trials “a farce”. A full translation of the article is available here. A subsequent comment piece appeared in this journal early this year.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Geoff Vasil, Human Rights, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion
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Václav Havel and the Prague Declaration
O P I N I O N
by Efraim Zuroff
I hate to spoil the Havel and the Jews festival in the wake of his demise, but I feel that it is important to point out a terrible mistake Havel made which directly relates to Jewish affairs. I am referring to his signing the Prague Declaration of June 3, 2008 (along with 39 other East European politicians and intellectuals), which basically equates Communist crimes with those of the Nazis, warns that “Europe will not be united unless it is able to unite its history [and] recognize Communism and Nazism as a common legacy”and seeks to deny the Holocaust its deserved status as a unique case of genocide.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Events, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Have + Prague Declaration, Havel + Jewish + Prague Declaration, Havel + Jews, Prague Declaration, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Vaclav Havel
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‘Double Genocide’ Permeates Local Antisemitic Discourse in Report on Efraim Zuroff’s Operation Last Chance II in Berlin
Following a week of major international coverage of the Berlin launch of Operation Last Chance II, the popular antisemitic Vilnius-based daily Vakaro žinios (‘Evening News’) ran a short article on the subject on the International page of its weekend edition. The purpose of Operation Last Chance is to locate remaining Nazi war criminals so that they can be brought to justice and have a fair trial in their own country (see www.OperationLastChance.org).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Media Watch, News & Views
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Suspense in Vilnius as Paleckis Verdict Day Nears
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Suspense is growing in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, concerning the verdict in the free speech trial of the flamboyant, controversial young left-wing politician, Algirdas Paleckis. The court’s ruling will be read from the bench next Wednesday 14 December 2011 at 2 PM at the First District Court at Laisves 79, Vilnius. The charge carries a possible one-year prison sentence if Mr. Paleckis is found guilty. A press release was received today from the Lithuania Without Nazism organization (not to be confused with the ‘secret’ internet group ‘Lithuania Without Neo-Nazism’, that some believe to be a manipulated group, somewhat sophomoric, or both).
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Algirdas Paleckis, European Union free speech Lithuania, Free speech in Lithuania, Holocaust in Lithuania, Lithuania without Nazism, Lithuania without neo-Nazism, NATO Lithuania free speech, OSCE Lithuania
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