Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial

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
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Prankster Claiming to Represent Litvak Graveyard NGO Attempts to Divide Litvak Community



O P I N I O N

The run-up to next week’s controversial Lithuanian-government sponsored conference on Lithuanian Jewish issues in London, which is sowing enough confusion as it is, was put into further disarray as it emerged that an email received by hundreds of people (from various forwarders) is apparently part of a curious hoax. The only discernible purpose seemed to be bring discord into the fragile ranks of the surviving Litvak camp by spreading a set of “symmetrical” false rumors.

Some of the emails were identified as originally coming from an official of an NGO, “Maceva” that is dedicated to the laudable cause of maintaining Lithuanian Jewish graveyards, but it is increasingly thought that this shocking attribution could well be part of the hoaxter’s agenda, and that an unambiguous denial — or apology —will be forthcoming from Maceva’s board of directors at the earliest possible opportunity.

The major two — actually three — pieces of disinformation being disseminated are:

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Monica Lowenberg’s Petition to the Lithuanian Ambassador to the UK, HE Asta Skaisgirytė-Liauškienė



The text of Monica Lowenberg’s petition that appeared today on Change.org. To sign please visit:

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/he-ambassador-asta-skaisgiryt%C4%97-liau%C5%A1kien%C4%97-lithuanian-ambassador-london-uk-abandon-state-sponsored-anti-semitism-and-holocaust-obfuscation


Abandon state sponsored Antisemitism and Holocaust Obfuscation

  • To:
  • HE Ambassador Asta Skaisgirytė-Liauškienė
  • Lithuanian Ambassador for London, UK

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Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, Litvak Affairs, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Monica Lowenberg’s Petition to the Lithuanian Ambassador to the UK, HE Asta Skaisgirytė-Liauškienė

Yitzhak Arad’s Paper



The Holocaust in Lithuania, and Its Obfuscation, in Lithuanian Sources

by Yitzhak Arad

Editor’s note: Yitzhak Arad explained that Yad Vashem had refused to publish this paper, and that he did not accept the reasons given, believing that in fact politics were at work. The Defending History community is honored to be able to pubish Dr. Arad’s paper.

C O N T E N T S:

Introduction

Lithuanian Nationalism and Antisemitism Prior to the Holocaust

The First Soviet Occupation of Lithuania, 15 June 1940 – 22 June 1941 

 The Lithuanian Activist Front: Antisemitic Incitement

The German Invasion and the Organization of an “Independent” Lithuanian Government

The Period of Pogroms: Late June to Mid July 1941

The Lithuanian Press at the Time of the Pogroms: A Source of Incitement

The Lithuanian Provisional Government: Anti-Jewish Legislation

Systematic Mass Murder: German Design and Command, Lithuanian Perpetration (late July–November 1941)

Lithuanian Police Battalions and Their Role in the Murder of the Jews

The Lithuanian Catholic Church and the Holocaust

The Rewriting of Holocaust History and the Double Genocide Thesis — “The Jewish Holocaust and the Lithuanian Holocaust”

Anti-Soviet Guerilla Warfare in Lithuania

The Prague Declaration of June 2008 and the European Parliament Resolution of April 2009

Conclusion

Notes

 

Introduction

In Lithuania, as in other places in Europe conquered by Nazi Germany, a thorough and comprehensive inquiry into the tragic events that occurred compels consideration of three factors:

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, History, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yitzhak Arad | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Yitzhak Arad’s Paper

Red-Brown Circus in Lithuanian Capital



Outgoing prime minister, after right wing’s loss in Lithuania’s elections, headlines “Double Genocide” conference in nation’s parliamentRed-Brown Commission is primary organizer of the eventGirniusLandsbergisLiekisRačinskasZingeris are featured; Partners include the “Genocide Center” that Glorifies Local Holocaust Perpetrators

UPDATES TO 21 FEBRUARY 2013:

HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR PINCHOS FRIDBERG SPEAKS OUT — ON THE LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY’S WEBSITE; IN THE ALGEMEINER; SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER’S OPERATION LAST CHANCE; AND DEFENDING HISTORY.

EVALDAS BALČIŪNAS

GEOFF VASIL (VASILIAUSKAS)

OUR PRE-CONFERENCE REPORT

Dovid Katz replies to the Red-Brown Commission website’s attack against Professor Pinchos Fridberg

 

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform", Symbology, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Comments Off on Red-Brown Circus in Lithuanian Capital

When the Politicians Run the Conferences on — History



O P I N I O N   A N D   E Y E W I T N E S S    R E P O R T

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

 

A conference called “United Europe, United History” took place at the Lithuanian parliament on November 15th  and 16th. The conference organizers and speakers repeatedly spoke of upcoming changes in the government (16 November was the first day the newly elected parliament assembled), and conference organizer and “Red-Brown Commission” chairman Emanuelis Zingeris even tried, unsuccessfully, to explain the poll results as the bad influence of the long Soviet occupation on the mentality of the people… (It was probably a good thing he didn’t call for a an international tribunal to provide compensation for the losses suffered by his party).

But one thing at a time.

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Events, History, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Comments Off on When the Politicians Run the Conferences on — History

Kristallnacht Becomes PR Hook for Double Genociders at Berlin Events of the “Prague Process Platform”


The Platform of European Memory and Conscience is the name of one of the main European engines of Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation. Apparently funded by the European Union in part (or more), its name is inspired by the full name of the 2008 “Prague Declaration” (on European Conscience and Communism), which is prominently advertised on its home page. Informally it is referred to as the “Prague Process Platform” (PPP)  and is based in the Czech Republic.

THE REPORT FROM THE “PLATFORM”

Kristallnacht, 74 years ago tonight, was the Night of Broken Glass, in which widespread coordinated violence against Jewish citizens of Germany, supported by the Nazi regime, resulted in at least 91 deaths, 30,000 arrests and transfers to concentration camps, and over a thousand synagogues burned down. The event was a major harbinger of the imminent genocide of European Jewry.

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Outgoing Lithuanian PM, Red-Brown Commission and Genocide Center Joining Forces for Mid-November Vilnius Conference Promoting “Double Genocide”


With the recent Lithuanian elections barely out of the way, and the ruling right-wing Homeland Union Conservatives the undisputed losers, the ultranationalist right is losing no time in pressing ahead aggressively with the Double Genocide “red-equals-brown” agenda, reverting to one of the movement’s original slogans: “United Europe — United History.” For pro-tolerance and liberal forces, the profoundly undemocratic message implied is that a united Europe has to also be united (i.e. have one opinion) on questions of history, and that Double Genocide and its central document, the 2008 Prague Declaration, are inviolable truths.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages, Yad Vashem and Lithuania | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Outgoing Lithuanian PM, Red-Brown Commission and Genocide Center Joining Forces for Mid-November Vilnius Conference Promoting “Double Genocide”

Seventy Years Declaration: Summary Coverage to 1 November 2012



The Seventy Years Declaration

Solemnly commemorates the Holocaust and reaffirms human rights of all people. Opposes the Prague Declaration and ‘Double Genocide’ politics. Rejects glorification of the Waffen SS of Estonia and Latvia and the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF).

Lithuania’s foreign minister’s “moustache response” came within minutes of SYD’s release.

 ———

TEXT AND LIST OF FOUNDING SIGNATORIES

PRESENTED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

UPDATE: DOCUMENTARY FILM RELEASED

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Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Denis MacShane, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, History, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Seventy Years Declaration: Summary Coverage to 1 November 2012

“Red-Brown Commission” is Formal Member of Revisionists’ “Platform of European Memory and Conscience”


It was today confirmed by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience that the Lithuanian government’s “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes of Lithuania” (known for brevity as the “Red-Brown Commission”) is a formal member of the “Platform.” This is further confirmed on the Platform’s website under the list of “Platform Members” (right hand column).

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform", Yad Vashem and Lithuania | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on “Red-Brown Commission” is Formal Member of Revisionists’ “Platform of European Memory and Conscience”

Self-Induced Confusion



B O O K S

by Olga Zabludoff

Review of We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust by Ellen Cassedy. University of Nebraska Press, 2012.


Had this title been billed as a simple memoir of Cassedy’s trip to Lithuania in the summer of 2004, my criticism of her book would be tempered. She had gone to the land of her ancestors to study Yiddish at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute and to connect with her Jewish roots. The professors and mentors she encounters at the Yiddish Institute come alive, as do the various Lithuanians and Jews with whom she connects. Cassedy is a good writer who captures physical details well. But even at that, this reviewer found the memoir to be superficial.

The major problem is that Cassedy’s book is being promoted as the Bible of the Lithuanian Holocaust by advocates for the current Lithuanian government and elite establishment which aspire to paint for the outside world a distorted version of the Holocaust. A version defined in shades of gray and the confusion they generate.  A version that incorporates the mythology of equivalency between crimes committed by the Nazi and Soviet occupation regimes.

SEE ALSO THE REVIEWS BY

Dovid Katz in the Algemeiner Journal

Allan Nadler in the Forward

Efraim Zuroff in Haaretz

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Books, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States, VilNews.com, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Self-Induced Confusion

Juozas Šibaila, Another “Hero” with a Suppressed Biography


 


O P I N I O N

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

Following the Lithuanian parliament’s recognition of the February 16, 1949 declaration of the Council of the Union of the Struggle for Lithuanian Freedom as an act with the force of law, there was a natural interest in questions about who the partisans who signed that declaration were. It would seem the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania would be the organization to present the most comprehensive biographies for these people.

Unfortunately that’s not the case.

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Lithuanian President’s Decree on “Red-Brown Commission” is Re-issued with “New Sentence”


Baltic News Service (BNS) has just released yet more convoluted news on the renewal of the “red-brown commission” by, it appears, yet another revised presidential decree. Full text of the BNS report follows below.

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Efraim Zuroff Comments on Facebook on Next Tuesday’s Zingeris Event at Yivo in New York City


Efraim Zuroff, the Holocaust historian, Nazi-hunter and author, today posted the following message on his Facebook page. It is reproduced here with the permission of Dr. Zuroff, who is director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel office and its Operation Last Chance. For more on the alleged US embassy (Vilnius) blackballing of Dr. Zuroff from an international 2011 summer program in Vilnius see here. Background to the Yivo event: see Milan Chersonski’s article.


  • This is a call for action to those in the NYC area. This coming Tuesday, October 16 at 7 PM, YIVO is hosting an evening at the Center for Jewish History at 15 West 16th St. entitled “Reclaiming The Jewish Narrative in Lithuania Today.” The problem is that the featured guests are all supporters of the Lithuanian government’s efforts to promote the canard of equivalency between Communist and Nazi crimes and are minimizing the huge role of Lithuanians in the mass murder of Lithuanian Jews. Anyone able to go and confront Markas Zingeris, the Lithuanian PM’s advisor on genocide, and former US ambassador to Lithuania Anne Derse whose embassy blackballed my participation in a seminar on Lithuanian Jewish history at the request of the Lithuanian authorities, will be doing a big mitzva!!!

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A “New” Postcard, Featuring Antisemitic Distortion of the 1941 Lietukis Garage Massacre, Comes to Light as Vilnius University Calls the Envelope-Maker “Humanistic”


Just as Vilnius University put up a sign in Lithuanan and English, defending as “humanistic” its exhibition of a collection of envelopes by the antisemitic and homophobic designer Antanas Šakalys, the VU employee who had first provided the offensive images to DefendingHistory, which we published on 21 September 2012, provided another, at 2PM today, to coincide with the time of the scheduled gala opening of the exhibition, cancelled after our article and the 25 Septenber Delfi.lt report by Eglė Samoškaitė. The 2PM slot was then symbolically taken up at the university by a group of nine dauntless protesters against the glorification of an antisemitic and homophobic designer.

Ironically the envelope released today, a production of the same designer, also refers to “humanism”…

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Holocaust Commemoration Vilnius Style — with an Israeli Twist


 


E Y E W I T N E S S   R E P O R T  /  O P I N I O N

 

The ceremony today to commemorate Lithuanian Holocaust victims at Ponár, the country’s largest mass murder site, outside the capital city of Vilnius, on the day officially known as Day to Commemorate the Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, went off pretty much as most official commemorations do here: inappropriate and with seeming desperation to focus on any topic except the circumstances of the actual Lithuanian Holocaust—the massive collaboration and participation that led to the country’s having the highest proportion of Holocaust murder in Europe.

Ponár is the site’s Yiddish name. It is today Paneriai and is known as Ponary in Polish.

The official date, the 23rd of September was marked this year on the 24th, apparently so officials wouldn’t have to interrupt their weekend break.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai), Symbology, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Holocaust Commemoration Vilnius Style — with an Israeli Twist

MP Denis MacShane Writes to the Director-General of the Imperial War Museum in London



 O P I N I O N

by Denis MacShane

The letter below was sent by then MP Denis MacShane to the director-general of the Imperial War Museum on 18 September 2012. It was released for publication in 2013, and now appears in its chronological (time of writing) slot in Defending History’s Denis MacShane section.

 

  • Ms Diane Lees
  • Director-General
  • Imperial War Museum
  • Lambeth Road
  • London SE1 6HZ

Dear Ms Lees:

I write to you as one of the MPs who takes a special interest in contemporary antisemitism. I chaired the All Party Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into the problem, have written a well-received book “Globalising Hatred: The New Antisemitism” (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2008/9), and lecture and write all over the world on the return of the racist ideology of antisemitism in the 21st century.

Thus as a life-long supporter of the Imperial War Museum, and one particularly proud that this magnificent British institution encompasses the excellent Holocaust Exhibition, I write to express some urgent concern that IWM might unwittingly be drawn into a plan by certain far-right or ultranationalist circles in the current Lithuanian government to abuse the good name and offices of IWM in an attempt to legitimise the profoundly problematic “Genocide Centre” in Lithuania, in a series of meetings scheduled for this month, apparently organised by the Lithuanian Embassy here in London.

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Posted in Denis MacShane, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Lithuania, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on MP Denis MacShane Writes to the Director-General of the Imperial War Museum in London

Emanuelis Zingeris, Star of the Red-Brown Road Show, Turns Up in Reykjavík on the Jewish New Year



E Y E W I T N E S S   R E P O R T / O P I N I O N

by Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson

 

REYKAVÍK—On the first day of Rosh Hashona, the Jewish New Year (yesterday, 17 September 2012), Mr. Emanuelis Zingeris came to perform an official duty here in Iceland as chairman of the Lithuanian Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. He presented the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry’s Millennium Star to Steingrímur Hermannsson, a former prime minister of Iceland who passed away in 2010. Hermannsson‘s widow received the posthumous medal from Mr. Zingeris at a ceremony in the Icelandic Parliament, which was attended by an exceptionally small number of people.

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Journey into the Backwaters of Holocaust Obfuscation



B O O K S

by Geoff Vasil

Journey into the Backwaters of the Heart: Stories of Women Who Survived Hitler and Stalin by Laima Vince. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform: 2012.


The first problem the reader comes across is in the introduction, where the author asserts two waves of Jewish immigration into Lithuania in the 8th and 11th centuries. Much later in the book she says, twice, Jews settled in Lithuania in the 16th century, a claim that leaves the informed reader wondering for whom the grand duke Vytautas (Witold) issued his famous charters on the rights of Jews in the 14th century.

The introduction also presents the events of 1940 and 1941 in Lithuania in a manner calculated to make the reader think the Lithuanian Provisional Government of 1941 and the Lithuanian Activist Front were two altogether separate entities.

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Posted in Books, Debates on Juozas Lukša, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Geoff Vasil, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Journey into the Backwaters of Holocaust Obfuscation

Red-Brown Commission Renewed: Box Coverage to 15 September 2012


Lithuanian President Refinances Red-Brown Commission

Yad Vashem is Pressed by Foreign Ministry to Join as Holocaust Survivors Protest, after Years of Dissent; Rapid Descent into Morass of Lithuanian-Russian Politics

INTERNATIONAL REACTION: DefendingHistoryLithuanian Holocaust Survivors in Israel issue statement and open letterSurvivor families (USA); Dr. Clemens Heni (Berlin).

BUT VILNIUS US EMBASSY’S JONATHAN BERGER ISSUES STATEMENT PRAISING THE COMMISSION.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?, Yad Vashem and Lithuania | Comments Off on Red-Brown Commission Renewed: Box Coverage to 15 September 2012

Deception Exposed: The New Documentary Film “Rewriting History”



F I L M

by Graeme Blundell

NOTE: This review appeared in today’s Australian. The original publication is available here and here.


This is one of those documentaries that is so compelling and so confronting it leaves you stunned, a little breathless.

It’s both a kind of contemporary international political thriller and a rigorously researched investigation into a piece of the past and the way it is remembered in the present. Or not remembered, when the truth of that past becomes politically problematic.

The film follows two slightly eccentric professors, the Australian Danny Ben-Moshe from the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University and Dovid Katz who taught Yiddish at Vilnius University, the oldest in Lithuania, as they confront the Lithuanian government.

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