Double Genocide

Welcome. This is a reverse chronological listing of dated posts relevant to the Double Genocide debate. For background on Double Genocide please see:
https://defendinghistory.com/mission-statement
https://defendinghistory.com/what-is-it-all-about
https://defendinghistory.com/prague-declaration/opposition
https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Dovid-Katz-on-Double-Genocide-20111.pdf
*

Speculation on Estonia’s Position


This journal notes with satisfaction that the government of Estonia did not sign the 14 December 2010 letter from six East European ambassadors in support of inserting ‘Double Genocide’ language into EU’s new Stockholm Programme. The six are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.

For opponents of the new Far Right’s revisionist history of World War II, it was also a welcome surprise that Estonia’s ambassador to Lithuania did sign the 25 Nov 2010 letter from seven European ambassadors protesting antisemitism in Lithuania and ‘spurious efforts’ to equalize Nazi and Soviet crimes. British parliamentarian Denis MacShane has asked for that letter to made public.

Posted in Double Genocide, Estonia, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Speculation on Estonia’s Position

Estonia’s Absence on last Red-Brown Letter Explained by ‘Blizzard’


The foreign minister of Lithuania explained to reporters today the absence of Estonia’s name on the 14 December letter to Viviane Reding of the European Commission, asking for Double Genocide language and sentiment to be inserted into the Stockholm Programme, a move since rejected by the Commission. This journal was among those speculating on a possible change in Estonia’s  policy.

But today, the Lithuanian foreign minister, Audronius Ažubalis, explained to reporters that his Estonian counterpart ‘only arrived, because of the blizzard, after the other signatures had been signed, and wished to correct the text. But we didn’t have an opportunity’.

It remains for Estonia to clarify matters.

Posted in Double Genocide, Estonia, EU, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Estonia’s Absence on last Red-Brown Letter Explained by ‘Blizzard’

An Orwellian Description of the Drive to Revise History in the Direction of Double Genocide


Extract (from original posting by François Guesnet, Corob Reader in Jewish History, University College London) from the description of the (foregone?) conclusions of the “No Simples Stories” conference on 6-10 February 2011:

Continue reading

Posted in Documents, Double Games, Double Genocide, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom | Comments Off on An Orwellian Description of the Drive to Revise History in the Direction of Double Genocide

Six Countries Try to ‘Slip in’ Double Genocide in the ‘Stockholm Programme’; European Commission says ‘No’


Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry had announced on 14 December 2010 that it was the initiator of a new demand from six East European countries ― Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania  — to Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, that Double Genocide sentiments, and support for effective  criminalization of  the view that the Holocaust was a unique genocide, be incorporated in the new Stockholm Programme before the end of 2010. Less than a week earlier, Lithuania’s president took the same demand with her to a meeting in Brussels.

The Road from Prague to Stockholm (via Vilnius?)

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Hungary, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Latvia, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Six Countries Try to ‘Slip in’ Double Genocide in the ‘Stockholm Programme’; European Commission says ‘No’

When a ‘Human Rights Association’ accepts and repeats the antisemitic canards in town



O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

ORIGINAL DOCUMENT HERE

“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.

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja), Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Israel, News & Views, Opinion, UŽGAVĖNĖS (SHROVETIDE) | Comments Off on When a ‘Human Rights Association’ accepts and repeats the antisemitic canards in town

Lord Janner Confronts Revisionists’ ‘Double Genocide’, marking 2011’s Holocaust Memorial Day


Lord Janner of Braunstone (formerly Greville Janner, MP), in a statement published today on the Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism Foundation’s website, praised leaders of all political parties in the UK who have steadfastly supported cross-party work against racism and antisemitism and in the cause of proper and serious Holocaust commemoration. The essay, entitled ‘Never Again’, is issued on the eve of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27th.

In his major substantive contribution, Lord Janner explains the connection of antisemitism with the current campaign, spearheaded in Lithuania and Latvia, to have Nazi and Soviet crimes declared equivalent in principle (‘Double Genocide’). The most recent incident involving efforts  by a group of East European states to insert ‘Double Genocide’ into European Union policy occurred last month.

Continue reading

Posted in Double Genocide, Lord Janner of Braunstone, News & Views, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom | Comments Off on Lord Janner Confronts Revisionists’ ‘Double Genocide’, marking 2011’s Holocaust Memorial Day

Eastern EU Foreign Ministers continue to pursue ‘Double Genocide’ Resolutions, with an ‘Antisemitism Conference’ as Plausible Cover


According to a report that appeared yesterday on Baltic Course, the foreign ministers of the Czech Republic and Lithuania will continue to pursue ‘Double Genocide’ resolutions in the European Union, sometimes known in Eurospeak as ‘(equal) evaluation of totalitarian regimes’.

They appear to be wholly undaunted by the recent European Commission fiasco only several weeks ago.

At the same time, they have announced their conference on antisemitism in Prague, apparently to blunt international criticism of the ‘Double Genocide’ campaign. This is particularly curious in the case of the Lithuanian foreign minister, who has yet to apologise for his own ‘clasically’ antisemitic outburst last October, which drew a swift response from his country’s small but proud Jewish community.

Continue reading

Posted in Double Games, Double Genocide, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Eastern EU Foreign Ministers continue to pursue ‘Double Genocide’ Resolutions, with an ‘Antisemitism Conference’ as Plausible Cover

In Major Speech to UK’s Parliament, MP MacShane Confronts Hungarian Injustice, Baltics’ Double Genocide Campaign


MP Denis MacShane

Denis MacShane, the veteran Labour Party member of the British Parliament for Rotherham, gave a major speech on antisemitism in the House of Commons yesterday. (Full text of Denis MacShane’s 20 January speech.)

In contrast to politicians across Europe who pay lip service to the battle against antisemitism ‘in general’, Mr MacShane emphasized the actual issues of the day, including two major and ongoing scandals sadly involving member states of the European Union in the new accession eastern area. In both cases, his speech serves to overcome the veil of reticence sometimes encountered when it comes to criticizing Britain’s partners in the EU, NATO, the OSCE and other international organizations.

Continue reading

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Denis MacShane, Double Genocide, EU, Human Rights, Hungary, Latvia, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom | Comments Off on In Major Speech to UK’s Parliament, MP MacShane Confronts Hungarian Injustice, Baltics’ Double Genocide Campaign

Statement on ‘Double Genocide’ issued by Society for the Promotion of the European Human Rights Model Abroad


In a statement published today on its website, the Society for the Promotion of the European Human Rights Model Abroad takes note of the antisemitic foundations of the new ‘Double Genocide’ movement in Eastern Europe, and particularly in the Baltic states. It also takes the Lithuanian government to task for the 2010 law that effectively threatens imprisonment for those who reject ‘Double Genocide’.

Continue reading

Posted in Didier Bertin, Double Genocide, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Statement on ‘Double Genocide’ issued by Society for the Promotion of the European Human Rights Model Abroad

A rather simple story: Lithuania, the Jews, and the Shoah


 


O P I N I O N

by Clemens Heni

An Open Letter to the Scholars Reading Papers at the 6-7 February UCL-Warburg Symposium in London

On February 6 and 7 of 2011, there will be a conference held in London, entitled “No simple stories: Jewish-Lithuanian relations between coexistence and violence”. Taking into account that some 95% of Lithuanian Jews were killed during the Holocaust — the highest percentage in all of Europe — this is quite a heartbreaking title, isn’t it?

“No simple stories” — really? For those Lithuanians involved, killing Jews was quite simple, even before the Germans arrived.

“No simple stories.”

Really?

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Clemens Heni, Double Genocide, History, Lithuania, Opinion, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom, Yitzhak Arad | Comments Off on A rather simple story: Lithuania, the Jews, and the Shoah

Lithuanian Jews, Holocaust Survivors, Specialists who Disagree with the Lithuanian Government — Shut Out of London Conference



O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

The Holocaust Survivor community is responding with a mixture of sadness and defiance to news that the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, which actively coordinated the recent attempt (December 2010) to underpin ‘Double Genocide’ and downgrade the Holocaust in European Union law (see top story on home page), is now financing, in partnership with (naive?) parties in London, a starkly one-sided colloquium on ‘Jewish-Lithuanian Relations Between Coexistence and Violence’ on 6-7 Feb 2011 in London.

London Fog: Will the Conference be a ‘Graywash’?

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Genocide, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, News & Views, Opinion, Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom | Comments Off on Lithuanian Jews, Holocaust Survivors, Specialists who Disagree with the Lithuanian Government — Shut Out of London Conference

A Shameful Shoah Whitewash



O P I N I O N

by Efraim Zuroff

This comment appeared in today’s Jewish Chronicle (London) and is reposted here by the author’s permission.


A financially-strapped small Eastern European country is spending tens of thousands of pounds to sponsor an extraordinarily large number of political and cultural events ― lectures, concerts, exhibitions and films ― in London next week. Why? That is the obvious question for the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, several Lithuanian cultural institutions, and local UK partners.

Under the heading No Simple Stories; Jewish-Lithuanian relationships: facing difficult questions, the events are projected as an honest attempt to address the ostensibly complex history of Lithuania’s once very large Jewish community, which was irreparably decimated during the Holocaust — 96.4% of the 220,000 Jews who lived in Lithuania under the Nazi occupation were slaughtered, with the help of a large number of local collaborators.

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Double Genocide, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, History, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on A Shameful Shoah Whitewash

“This Campaign Makes Me Really Angry”



O P I N I O N

by Shimon Alperovich

The following is Rachel Croucher’s authorized translation of the interview with Lithuanian Jewish Community chairperson Dr. Shimon Alperovich published in German by Frank Brendle in Taz.de.


YEAR OF REMEMBRANCE: In the Lithuanian year of remembrance the Holocaust is under threat of being forgotten while surviving Jewish partisans have been the subject of a campaign for some years. Conversation with Simonas Alperavičius, President of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. INTERVIEW BY FRANK BRENDLE, 04.02.2011

Mr Alperavičius, the 70th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of Lithuania falls this year, as well as twenty years of independence from the Soviet Union. What will take priority?

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rachel Croucher, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014) | Comments Off on “This Campaign Makes Me Really Angry”

‘Holocaust Obfuscation’ as Specific Term enters the Diplomatic Lexicon


A report on the website of the Board of Deputies of British Jews reveals that Holocaust Obfuscation is gaining ground rapidly as a highly specific term for the phenomenon of ‘denying without denying’ in the context of the far right’s Double Genocide revisionism prevalent in post-Soviet Eastern Europe and especially the Baltics. The Board’s summary of a meeting held with the Lithuanian ambassador to London, HE Dr Oskaras Jusys noted that:

Continue reading

Posted in Double Genocide, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, News & Views, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom | Comments Off on ‘Holocaust Obfuscation’ as Specific Term enters the Diplomatic Lexicon

Vilnius ‘Yiddish Studies Professor’ tells ‘Economist’ that Litvaks who Speak Out for Lithuanian Jewry are ‘Taliban’


Litvak Taliban?

Dispatched to London by the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, the state-approved director of the Vilnius Yiddish(-less) Institute bemoaned feeling himself ‘between two Talibans’, referring to the antisemitic establishment in Lithuania on the one hand, and to a polite letter of Litvak protest on the other. The comment was reported in today’s Economist, in an article by Edward Lucas, which also reports that the VYI director, Sarunas Liekis, described himself as ‘a Yiddish-studies professor from Vilnius’ [the article as PDF].

The ‘Taliban’ letter was signed among others, by Lord Janner; British MP Denis MacShane; head of the last active Litvak organization in the world, Joe Melamed; the master historian of the Lithuanian Holocaust Prof. Dov Levin; Rabbi Barry Marcus, leader of London’s Central Synagogue. Text of the ‘Taliban’ letter here. Signatories here.

Continue reading

Posted in Double Games, Double Genocide, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like?, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Vilnius ‘Yiddish Studies Professor’ tells ‘Economist’ that Litvaks who Speak Out for Lithuanian Jewry are ‘Taliban’

Two Conferences in Late March: Red-Brown Brigades and — on Antisemitism. . .


According to a 17 January 2011 report on The Baltic Course, the foreign ministers of the Czech Republic and of Lithuania agreed to ‘continue cooperating with an aim to properly evaluate at the EU level the crimes of totalitarian regimes’ (Obfuspeak for the red-brown movement in the European Parliament) as well as ‘the agenda of Lithuania’s chairmanship [of the OSCE] and plans for the conference on antisemitism, which is co-organized by Lithuania and the Czech Republic in Prague’.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide, News & Views | Comments Off on Two Conferences in Late March: Red-Brown Brigades and — on Antisemitism. . .

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.

Continue reading

Posted in Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Hungary, Lithuania, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 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

Didier Bertin replies



O P I N I O N

by Didier Bertin

Reply to the letter of 14 March 2011 from the Chief of Staff of Viviane Reding by Didier Bertin (Society for the Promotion of the European Human Rights Model)

ENGLISH VERSION

PREFACE: We have started to exchange letters with Viviane Reding, Vice President of the European Commission and her Chief of Staff Martin Selmayr regarding our opposition in the name of European Values to the dangerous tendency to consider that the former Communist regimes committed crimes equivalent to those of Nazism and thus undermining the uniqueness of the Holocaust.

We have noted in your last letter that European Union has allocated resources to finance programs safeguarding the memory of the crimes committed by totalitarian regimes including Nazism. We thus understand that Nazism is now considered as a totalitarian regime among others and has lost its usual specificity of symbol of the highest degree of horror reached in our civilized word.

Continue reading

Posted in Didier Bertin, Double Genocide, Opinion | Comments Off on Didier Bertin replies

Lithuanian government’s ‘Jewish Affairs Advisor’ calls TV interview of DH.com editor ‘Goebbels-worthy’


Arkady Vinokur (Arkadijus Vinokuras), official Advisor on Jewish Affairs to the prime minister of Lithuania, published an article in today’s Lietuvos rytas expressing the view that a television interview given by this journal’s editor is ‘worthy of Goebbels’.

Continue reading

Posted in Double Genocide, News & Views | Comments Off on Lithuanian government’s ‘Jewish Affairs Advisor’ calls TV interview of DH.com editor ‘Goebbels-worthy’

Has LRG Media (UK) been Compromised?


The prestigious British-based LRG Media, a multimedia company with an impressive record of achievements and awards, has apparently been targeted by certain elements in Lithuanian government circles as the latest ‘Naive Useful Foreign Entity’ to help make respectable internationally the state-sponsored campaigns for Double Genocide, Holocaust Obfuscation, and selective toleration of current antisemitism.

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Arts, Double Genocide, Film, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Has LRG Media (UK) been Compromised?