Celebrations of Fascism
Holocaust Survivors in Israel Protest Neo-Nazi March in Kaunas
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Israel, Joseph Melamed, Kaunas, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views
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Hundreds of Neo-Nazis March Through the Center of Kaunas on Independence Day
O P I N I O N / E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T
by Dovid Katz
NOTE: A personal word of thanks to journalist Nerijus Povilaitis for graciously facilitating communication with Kaunas police to ensure the security of the small Defending History team monitoring/protesting the event, and to the Kaunas police for their excellent work.
[UPDATE of 19 Feb: I later learned from Lithuanian colleagues that this protection and respect seem to have been extended only to Dr. Efraim Zuroff and myself, not to the Lithuanian-citizen protesters.]
[UPDATE of 25 Feb: See now the memoirs of the same march by Evaldas Balčiūnas, Geoff Vasil and Efraim Zuroff, and my own later article in Algemeiner.com.]
The estimates of the crowd ranged from five hundred to a thousand depending (in part) on whether the march’s many supporters who stood outside its bordering police cordons were counted. Following yesterday’s Vilnius press conference led by Dr. Efraim Zuroff, who flew in from Israel for the event, and the earlier denunciation of racist manifestations by the new prime minister — these being possible rather than proven factors — the event was rather milder than last year’s (eyewitness report here). The major difference was the lack this year of visible swastikas (whether “classic” or “Lithuanian with added lines”), the more perfected police performance in keeping order, and the lack of overtly racist slogans. But there was no lack of graphic ingenuity in coming up with symbols that bring to mind the swastika (which was in fact made legal in Lithuania in 2010) and there was no lack of adulation of Holocaust-era fascist icons; the lead banner glorified the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister who was earlier this year reburied with full honors; he had signed the papers for the first murder camp for the Jewish citizens of this city, Kaunas, during his first week in office. Moreover, the Kaunas police had confirmed in writing beforehand that the 2013 march was proceeding with full authorization from the municipality. All this “patriotism” rooted in 1941 genocide of the Jews is proceeding with the blessings of the state and the silence of its foreign partners.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Kaunas, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion
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Kaunas Police Confirm that Neo-Nazi March on Independence Day Proceeding with Municipality’s Blessing
In response to a letter from the editor of this journal, expressing concern at various internet and other threats against those who would dare oppose the neo-Nazi march scheduled for 16 February 2013 in the center of Kaunas, a reply has been received from the police in Kaunas which does not address the direct issue of safety, but makes it clear that the march is approved by the powers that be in the municipality.This is important because of the various rumors spread by various organizations that ultranationalist youth have decided to march through central Kaunas with or without permission. The letter reads, in translation:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Kaunas, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches
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Wiesenthal Center Welcomes Punishment of Hungary by FIFA for Antisemitic Behavior of Hungarian Fans in August 2012
Jerusalem—The Simon Wiesenthal Center today praised the steps taken earlier this week by the international football federation (FIFA) to punish the Hungarian Football Federation in the wake of the antisemitic behavior of many dozens of Hungarian fans at a friendly match against Israel held this past August 15 in Budapest.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Hungary, Racism
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Shock of 2012: 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister Reburied with Full Honors
Compiled by Dovid Katz
◊
EU/NATO Ally Honors Holocaust Collaborator; Lithuanian Jewish Community Issues Protest; 3 US Congressmen Write to Prime Minister
Remains of 1941 fascist leader Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis) met by honor guard at Vilnius Airport on 17 May 2012 and reburied in Kaunas’s Church of the Resurrection on the 20th, as city’s mayor dismisses criticism.
Office of the prime minister, who signed off on government funding (€8,700 / US $11,000), defends reburial & honors of the 1941 Nazi puppet “prime minister” who personally signed the protocols confirming Nazi orders for (1) “all means” against Jews (but avoiding executions in public); (2) setting up a concentration camp for Lithuanian Jews [euphemism for the carnage underway at the Seventh Fort]; (3) all Kaunas Jews to be herded into a ghetto within 4 weeks (English here).
SEE ALSO:
Collaborators Glorified section
Previous sanitization program
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, EU, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?, Yivo Manipulated?
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Double Genocide, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust Revisionism, Jonathan Brent, Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Lithuanian Activist Front, Lithuanian Provisional Government of 1941, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, Skirpa + Brazaitis, Tim Snyder, Vytautas Magnus University, Yivo, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
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Some Psycho-Sexual Undercurrents of the Lithuanian Independence Day Nazi March
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
Back in 2008 a friend and I put subtitles to the march by Lithuanian neo-Nazis through the capital, Vilnius, on independence day, and put the video with subtitles up on YouTube. Back then there was almost zero mention of the march where openly fascist youth chanted slogans about attacking and killing Jews and Russians, and the de rigueur “Juden raus.” Following the YouTube posting and as news travelled around the world, certain Lithuanian media figures and politicians felt the need to at least say something. Not much, but something.
Posted in "Vilnius Jewish Public Library", Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Geoff Vasil, Humor (Of Sorts), LGBTQ Equal Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius
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Will Intellectuals in Western Countries Continue their Silence on Latvia’s Glorification of Hitler’s Waffen SS?
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium)
RIGA—The day is a festive one despite the gray and low sky. Young pretty girls have bunches of roses which they soon distribute to elderly and solemn gentlemen arriving, row upon row in an interminable procession. Numerous national flags are held in a heraldic and staid way by young men forming a kind of double guard of honor.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Roland Binet
Tagged Holocaust in Latvia, Holocaust in the Baltics
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1500 Honor the Waffen SS at Riga’s Liberty Monument; Event is Praised by Latvia’s President, Condemned by Council of Europe’s Commission on Racism
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
RIGA—According to most estimates, there were around 1500 participants today in the city-center ceremony honoring the Waffen SS, about 1000 police, and about one hundred protesters who turned out in opposition to the event.
The ongoing campaign by some East European governments to repackage far-right ultranationalist politics and policies (with concomitant antisemitic, racist and Nazi-glorifying undertones) as a wholesome British-conservative-style “center right” has suffered a major blow. The battleground of ideas has in recent weeks shifted to the annual Waffen SS commemoration ceremony held at Liberty Monument, the symbolic heart of the capital of Latvia, with the blessing of some of the nation’s top leaders.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Racism, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Symbology
Tagged Holocaust in Latvia, Holocaust in the Baltics
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Over 1000 Neo-Nazis Fill Main Vilnius Boulevard on Lithuanian Independence Day
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T
by Dovid Katz
Ignoring international pleas (including over two thousand signatures on an online petition) for the withdrawing of permits for this year’s neo-Nazi march, Vilnius authorities mounted a major police presence to keep order during today’s event in the heart of the Lithuanian capital.
This marcher’s handbag featured a designer swastika
The modified SS skull and crossbones and the “Lithuanian swastika” (with added lines) were among the symbols featured in today’s march
Posted in "Vilnius Jewish Public Library", Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius
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Once Again, Moral Abdication at the American Embassy in Vilnius?
C O M M E N T
In contrast to its potent and convincing public response to neo-Nazi events in the center of Vilnius in earlier years, the current leadership of the American embassy in the Lithuanian capital has followed a pattern disturbing to many Americans, of failing to even mention what America’s values are in commenting in official communications on both a neo-Nazi march and a pro-tolerance march, both scheduled for tomorrow, Lithuania’s independence day.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, The OSCE, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?
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Monica Lowenberg in Dialogue with Latvia’s Ambassador to the UK
D E B A T E
From the 2009 Waffen SS march in Riga. Photo Ilmars Znotins.
Monica Lowenberg is the creator of the international petition against this year’s Waffen SS march scheduled for 16 March 2012 in the heart of Riga, Latvia’s capital city. The petition has to date attracted some six thousand signatures from every part of the planet.
Its author approached the Latvian ambassador to the UK for support.
Below is his letter of 1 March (as PDF here). It is followed by the text of Monica Lowenberg’s 5 March reply, supplied to DefendingHistory.com for publication.
I: The Latvian Ambassador to Monica Lowenberg (1 March 2012)
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Kingdom
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March 11th: A Grand Opportunity for the Lithuanian Human Rights Community — and the People of Vilnius
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
When three of us from the DefendingHistory.com community headed out from Vilnius on February 16th to confront the neo-Nazi march in central Kaunas, we were sure we would be joined by dozens, or more, true lovers of Lithuania — folks who cannot remain silent that perverted political leadership allows today’s neo-Nazis to achieve free reign in the center of a great city in the middle of the nation’s cherished independence day. Folks who cannot let the glorification of stylized swastikas (including the “Lithuanian swastika“), and white armbands (celebrating the LAF Holocaust perpetrators of 1941) go unchallenged in the country with the largest rate of murder of its civilian Jewish population in all Holocaust-era Europe. Folks who want to send at least some modicum of support to today’s minorities. And a message to the world that the neo-Nazis do not represent Lithuanian society.
It was a shock to find in Kaunas on February 16th, that the somewhat quixotic DefendingHistory.com threesome would find itself the only visible anti-Nazi presence during the march and the rally that followed.
Posted in "Vilnius Jewish Public Library", Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Efraim Zuroff, Genocide Research Center, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front), Lithuania, March 11th 2012, Milan Chersonski, neo-fascists in Lithuania, neo-Nazi marches in Vilnius, neo-Nazis in Lithuania, Olga Zabludoff, Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
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March 11th is Not a Day to Glorify the Perpetrators
O P I N I O N
by Olga Zabludoff
When I learned that the municipality of Vilnius had again issued permits for a neo-Nazi march on Lithuania’s March 11th Independence Day, I was disturbed for more than one reason. Why would the government, which has been purporting its wish for reconciliation with its small Lithuanian Jewish community and Jews everywhere, sanction the resurrection of a Holocaust image? Why would the government, which has been purporting its wish to better its tarnished image with worldwide Jewry, accept and endorse the display of the LAF white armbands imprinted with the flaming swastika?
Most survivors of the Lithuanian Holocaust are more traumatized by memories of the white-armbanded Lithuanian Activist Front than by memories of Hitler’s Aryan henchmen. It was the local LAF murderers who began to butcher Jews who had been their neighbors — this even before their German Nazi masters/commanders came upon the scene. It was the LAF who unleashed the Holocaust in Lithuania. It was then that their slogan was born: “Lithuania for Lithuanians!” (Lietuva Lietuviams).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Free Speech & Democracy, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius
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Latvian President, Blasting Critics of March 16th ‘Waffen SS Parade, says it’s ‘Crazy to Think Them War Criminals’
In an escalation of high level pro-Nazi rhetoric in Riga, the nation’s president, Andris Bērziņš, said today that the international community needs to have it explained.
Have what explained? Why those who served in Nazi Germany’s Latvian Waffen SS divisions are honored in the country’s capital on March 16th each year.
The president of Latvia went on to say that “It’s crazy to think they’re war criminals.”
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Latvia, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Riga's Waffen SS Marches
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Zingeris Statement on Planned March 11th Neo-Nazi March Fails to Mention — the Neo-Nazi March
C O M M E N T
In response to the international petition created by Olga Zabludoff asking the Lithuanian government to rescind permits for the March 11th neo-Nazi march in the center of the capital city Vilnius on the nation’s independence day, Lithuanian embassies in various countries yesterday sent their “Jewish lists” a statement dated 24 February 2012 signed by right-wing Jewish MP Emanuelis Zingeris.
The problem is that Mr. Zingeris’s eloquent statement, calling his countrymen to unity, justice and all lofty things on the nation’s independence day, does not mention with one word the actual neo-Nazi march that is the issue at hand.
It is a striking contrast with the unvarnished words from the heart of a simple Jewish resident of Vilnius about the same neo-Nazi march which DefendingHistory.com released, also yesterday, on YouTube.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Double Games, Events, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius
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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, 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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300 Neo-Nazis March through the Center of Kaunas on Lithuanian Independence Day; They are Addressed by Members of Parliament
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
With attention focused on the government-permission-granted central Vilnius neo-Nazi march slated for Lithuania’s March 11th independence day — now the subject of an international petition on Change.org — there was minimal foreign interest in today’s independence day neo-Nazi march and demonstration in central Kaunas, Lithuania’s second city. The March 11th independence day marks the date in 1990 when Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union. Today’s holiday is on the date of the 1918 declaration of independence which heralded the rise of the modern Lithuanian state in the twentieth century. Both dates are revered by the country’s diverse minorities and factions. They represent freedom from oppression and foreign domination, and celebrate the building of a free and democratic state.
But in recent years, both dates have been hijacked by neo-Nazi groups in the heart of the country’s major cities, with the support of some members of parliament and leading political figures. There is, moreover, the proverbial blind eye of much or most of the elite classes, which serves as a contributing catalyst.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Kaunas, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated?
Tagged Emanuelis Zingeris, Kazimieras Uoka, neo-Nazi march in Kaunas, Petras Grazuils, Rima Baskiene, swastikas in Lithuania, Visa Marija Cigrijene, Vytautas Landsbergis
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Tolerance March of 100 is Cancelled in Kaunas; Neo-Nazi March for 1000 Going Ahead
In a decision with a surreal touch of a topsy-turvy world, Kaunas municipal authorities have announced that they are on “security grounds” revoking the permit for a pro-human rights march with a maximum of one hundred people. The march had been permitted for 4 PM this Thursday, 16 February, in the center of Kaunas, Lithuania’s second city. It was conceived in part as a response to the neo-Nazi march which has a permit for a maximum of one thousand people at 1 PM the same day.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Human Rights, Kaunas, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, neo-Nazis in Lithuania
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The Lingering Legacy of Nazism
O P I N I O N
by Milan Chersonski
Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij), longtime editor (1999-2011) of Jerusalem of Lithuania, quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, was previously (1979-1999) director of the Yiddish Folk Theater of Lithuania, which in Soviet times was the USSR’s only Yiddish amateur theater company. The views he expresses in DefendingHistory.com are as always his own. Authorized translation from the Russian original by DefendingHistory.com.
The twentieth of January 2012 made it precisely seventy years from the day when a conference of ministries and agencies of Hitler’s Germany was held at the Marlier Villa by Lake Wannsee. It went down in history as the Wannsee Conference. Nazi officials in a business-like manner in ice blood, discussed the problems of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, the euphemism for genocide of the Jews in Europe.
Fulfillment of the Wannsee Conference decisions, which became directives, continued until the last days of the Nazi state. Not even the approach of the Red Army in the east or the successful landing of the anti-Hitler coalition in the west resulted in German leaders abandoning the project to annihilate the Jewish people. In the face of a string of crushing defeats, acute shortages of transport, ammunition, fuel and even food, the Nazis went on sending Jews to their death with a maniacal consistency.
But it would be a very serious mistake to think that the Wannsee Conference directives per se played the main role in the Final Solution of the Jewish Question here in Lithuania. In this part of the world the Nazis and their many accomplices had been quick to rob and massacre the majority of the Jewish population by December 1941. Before the Wannsee Conference.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, History, Human Rights, Kaunas, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius
Tagged 2008 Prague Declaration, Azubalis + Holocaust, Azubalis + Jews, Holocaust in Lithuania, The 70 Years Declaration, Wannsee Declaration
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Olga Zabludoff’s Petition to Stop the March 11th Neo-Nazi March in Vilnius
The following is the text of the petition created by Olga Zabludoff today on Change.org.
Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States: Ban Neo-Nazis from Desecrating the Dignity of Lithuania’s Independence Day
This petition was delivered to:
- Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States
- Ambassador Zygimantas Pavilionis
Petition by
- Olga Zabludoff
- Washington, DC
For the fifth time in the past five years a neo-Nazi parade (this year with a permit enabling a maximum of 2,000 participants) will march through the heart of Vilnius on March 11, Independence Day, one of the proudest and most significant days for the people of Lithuania. The neo-Nazi theme will be “Homeland.” Their display, if permitted by the government, will be taken by extremists throughout the region and Europe as a stamp of growing approval of neo-Nazi activities and a signal that the murder of about 95% of Lithuania’s Jewry during the Holocaust, largely by local collaborators, is taken lightly by today’s government.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Vilnius
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