Events

Evaldas Balčiūnas Remembers February 16th 2013 March in Central Kaunas



 

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

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

Editor’s note: This adapted translation from the Lithuanian original, by Geoff Vasil, has been approved by the author.

 

On February 16 I visited Kaunas. I heard the neo-Nazis would try to desecrate the nation’s freedom, for which people of the country of all ethnicities had struggled. Sadly, the neo-Nazis are now shouting loudly: “Lithuania for Lithuanians…”

One of the organizers of the march boasted the vanguard of the march would be carrying a portrait of Ambrazevičius.

It’s worth recalling what sort of person he was. In 1941 Ambrazevičius led the Provisional Government formed by the LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front), the Provisional Government which called Lithuanian policemen to serve the Nazis, set up a concentration camp (at the Seventh Fort, where it all ended in the murder of several thousand Jews), and even while realizing the Nazis no longer needed their service, this gang went on to promulgate the “Regulations on the Situation of the Jews,” which legally deprived their neighbors of human rights, while on the ground armed people were already murdering Jews throughout Lithuania.

The author and his friends and colleagues who constituted the small “anti-fascist zone” at the March 16th neo-Nazi parade in Kaunas, Lithuania on the occasion of the nation’s independence day.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Events, Human Rights, Kaunas, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Evaldas Balčiūnas Remembers February 16th 2013 March in Central Kaunas

Holocaust Survivors in Israel Protest Neo-Nazi March in Kaunas


Letter from Holocaust survivors Feb 2013

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Israel, Joseph Melamed, Kaunas, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views | Comments Off on Holocaust Survivors in Israel Protest Neo-Nazi March in Kaunas

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.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Kaunas, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion | Comments Off on Hundreds of Neo-Nazis March Through the Center of Kaunas on Independence Day

LGBT Equality Protests Removal of July 2013 March from Vilnius’s Central Boulevard


LGBT Equality (the LGL — Lithuanian Gay League) today issued a statement on its website  urging the Vilnius municipality to change its heart over a decision to ban the Baltic Pride march from the capital’s center in the summer of 2013, just as Lithuania will proudly be assuming the rotating chairmanship of the European Union. The statement follows an earlier 16 January statement.

In the meantime, a nationalist website has announced that the March 11th 2013 neo-Nazi march will proceed on the capital’s central boulevard as always, irrespective of any requests from the municipality. The statement is signed by a former long-term high official of the Genocide Research Center who was involved in organizing various neo-Nazi marches and defending them publicly.Continue reading

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Instead of Truth about the Holocaust – Myths about Saving Jews



O P I N I O N

by Pinchos Fridberg


Editor’s note [updated 27 January 2013]:
Pinchos Fridberg, a native and resident of Vilnius, is a Holocaust survivor. He graduated from Vilnius University in 1961 and completed his PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics in 1965 and an additional doctoral science degree in radio physics in 1974. From 1961 to 1978 he was chair of the Laboratory of Theoretical Investigations at the Vilnius Scientific Institute of Radio Measuring Devices. In 1978 he joined Grodno State University, where he was named professor. In 1989 he became head of the Department of Theoretical Radio Physics at the Zondas Company in Vilnius.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem and Lithuania | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Instead of Truth about the Holocaust – Myths about Saving Jews

New Year’s Call on the US State Department to Reject Politics of Holocaust Denial



2013: Call on US State Dept to Reject Politics of Holocaust Denial and Appeasement of Eastern Europe’s New Far Right

Shock of 2012: When a NATO-EU Ally Reburied and Glorified its 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister who Signed Orders for Kovno Ghetto

Instead of politely protesting, the US Embassy in Vilnius financed a camouflage symposium on Holocaust issues to deflect attention from the week’s event. Framed to honor T. Snyder’s book Bloodlands, it also featured the head of YIVO.

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December 2012 London Conference at UCL and Protest (Box Coverage to 24 Dec)



DOCUMENTS: Petition (with links; with select signatures) ◊ Petitioner’s dossierUPDATES: Petition’s first effect ◊ Jewish Chronicle ◊ London Jewish News ◊ UCL Hebrew Dept lets Holocaust survivors down ◊ Disinformation campaign ◊ Monica Lowenberg looks back at the events (24 Dec. 2012)LETTERS: Alumnus writes to provost (& to ambassador) ◊ Ruth Barnett ◊ Hans Coppi  (English) ◊ (Rachel Margolis’s cousin) Budd Margolis ◊ Gert Weisskirchen

PROTEST AT LITHUANIAN EMBASSY IN LONDON

VIDEO FROM THE EVENT: 12, and 3

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Within Days of Monica Lowenberg’s Petition, Vilnius Municipality Tries to Move March 11th 2013 Neo-Nazi March Away from City Center


Several days after Monica Lowenberg’s petition was presented to the Lithuanian embassy in London, one of the petition’s points was partly acted on, at least as far as a press release goes, by a governmental agency in Lithuania, notably the Vilnius municipality.

PUBLIC PETITIONS HAVE AN EFFECT!

Point no. 4 of Ms. Lowenberg’s petition reads:

4) A commitment to disallow the neo-Nazi parades in the city centres of Vilnius and Kaunas on national Independence Day holidays in 2013 (with no prejudice to reassignment of venues on free speech grounds to sites and dates that do not heavily imply state support).

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Human Rights, Litvak Affairs, Monica Lowenberg, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius | Comments Off on Within Days of Monica Lowenberg’s Petition, Vilnius Municipality Tries to Move March 11th 2013 Neo-Nazi March Away from City Center

Gert Weisskirchen’s Open Letter to the Lithuanian Ambassador in London



The following letter was released today by Professor Weisskirchen’s office. It is followed by an English translation by Irene Fick.


Dezember 17, 2012

H.E. Ambassador Asta Skaisgiryte Liauskiene

The Embassy of Lithuania

 

Exzellenz, sehr geehrte Frau Botschafterin,

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UCL Hebrew-Jewish Studies Dept Rejects Request for Five Minutes for Holocaust Survivor to Read Petition at Lithuanian Gov. Sponsored Conference


London observers were wondering whether the medal Professor Antony Polonsky received earlier this year from the president of Lithuania for his PR work for the Lithuanian government may have something to do with his denial of Monica Lowenberg’s request, asking for five minutes for her father, a Holocaust survivor, to read out at next week’s conference her petition to the Lithuanian government, proposing constructive solutions to the issues at hand. The petition has to date garnered over 250 signatories from two dozen countries. The following is the correspondence, which started with Ms. Lowenberg’s appeal to Professor Ada Rapoport-Albert and Dr. Francois Guesnet. Dr. Guesnet, the Corob Reader in Jewish History at UCL is one of the conference coordinators on behalf of the Lithuanian government funded institutions financing the conference. Holocaust survivors consulted cannot understand why safe and secure academics who hold high posts at Western institutions should so fear “even to give five minutes for somebody else to come and disagree” with the conference’s pay-masters in the freedom of the British capital.

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Posted in "Tuskulėnai Peace Park", Documents, Double Games, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on UCL Hebrew-Jewish Studies Dept Rejects Request for Five Minutes for Holocaust Survivor to Read Petition at Lithuanian Gov. Sponsored Conference

UCL Alumnus David Cukier Writes to the Lithuanian Ambassador in London



O P I N I O N

by David Cukier

 

HE Ambassador Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė
The Lithuanian Embassy,
Lithuania House,
2 Bessborough Gardens,
Westminster,
London, SW1V 2JE
13 December 2012
Dear Ambassador,

I write to you concerning the forthcoming conference to be hosted by UCL called ‘Simple Stories’ where the conference co-sponsored by your government is attempting to revise the accepted historical narrative concerning the events of 1941-1944 in Lithuania . In so doing it is encouraging divisive extremist fascist political opinion in your country, which as an EU and NATO member, it surely behoves Lithuania to seek to eliminate. Rather it should be incumbent on the Government of Lithuania to discourage prejudicial politics against all its minorities including the small Jewish minority in the country, and to respect human rights that were so lacking in the war years between 1941-41.

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The Text of Monica Lowenberg’s Petition on Change.org



The following is a verbatim reprint of Monica Lowenberg’s December 2012 petition on Change.org. Embedded links have been added, marked by underlining, referring readers to further coverage on Defending History pages which link to various  sources providing more background.


Petitioning HE Ambassador Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė

 This petition will be delivered to:

  • Lithuanian Ambassador for London, UK
  • HE Ambassador Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė

Abandon state sponsored Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Obfuscation

  •  Petition by
  •  Monica Lowenberg
  •  London, United Kingdom

Following the announcement that the Lithuanian Embassy is one of the generous co-sponsors of this month’s London conference on Jewish-Lithuanian issues including the Holocaust, we the undersigned ask the Embassy’s public support on the following urgent matters:

1) Rapid and elegant public apologies, released prior to the conference, to the Jewish Holocaust Survivors defamed in recent years by Lithuanian prosecutors, media and some government officials. The survivors are in their late 80s and 90s, making time essential if there is going to be a symbolic amelioration in the manner in which the Lithuanian state is ending a 700 year old history of Jewish settlement, and on what note, with the last survivors of the bona fide pre Holocaust generation. Most urgently, Rachel Margolis; also: Yitzhak Arad and Fania Brantsovsky and Joseph Melamed.

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Posted in Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Text of Monica Lowenberg’s Petition on Change.org

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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Why Monica Lowenberg’s Petition Is So Important



O P I N I O N

Londoner Monica Lowenberg, who has done so much, with a petition and via press coverage, to keep on Britain’s political agenda the Latvian government-blessed Waffen-SS parades in Riga each year, has in one fell swoop done a huge good for sadly analogous topics pertaining to neighboring Lithuania.  By launching an international petition in advance of this month’s Lithuanian government sponsored PR conference in London, and focusing the petition on simple, virtually cost-free good-will solutions to the irksome issues in Lithuanian-Jewish relations, she has shown how easy the extant problems would be to solve if the political will were there from the state (and it is the state, not the everyday people of the country that is the cause of all these problems). A state has embarked on a foolhardy campaign to rewrite history in the direction of glorification of Hitlerist allies in Eastern Europe, precisely the opposite of the values that EU and NATO member states should be instilling in new generations of Europeans.

Ms. Lowenberg’s petition, signed by hundreds of people from a dozen countries in its first few days, begins with the simple request for a public apology by the Lithuanian government to the Holocaust survivors defamed by Lithuania’s antisemitic state prosecutors who have called the courageous Jewish ghetto survivors who joined the anti-Nazi partisans (and are heroes of the free world) — “war criminals.” For half a dozen years, the campaign has included everything from press releases saying that these survivors “cannot be found” to police actually turning up looking for two women in their late eighties.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Events, Human Rights, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Opinion, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom | Comments Off on Why Monica Lowenberg’s Petition Is So Important

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

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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Ukrainian Holocaust Revisionists Woo Canada, Exposed by Historian from Lund, Sweden . . .



SUMMARY OF EVENTS AND COVERAGE:

1: Ultranationalists sponsor a North American lecture tour for a Lviv-based museum director (his museum features a profoundly photoshopped image). Harvard University (18 Oct) and a meeting with Canada’s prime minister (19 Oct) are included; the PM unwittingly lends credence to the Holocaust revisionist campaign emanating from Eastern Europe.

2: Lund University (Sweden) historian Dr. Per Anders Rudling protests.

Dr. Per Anders Rudling (Lund University, Sweden)

3: Canadian missile lands in Sweden: nationalist organizations complain to the vice-chancellor at Lund University in Sweden about Dr. Rudling.

4: Exclusive: Per Anders Rudling in DefendingHistory.

5: Scholars issue open letter.

Posted in Canada, Collaborators Glorified, Events, News & Views, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Sweden, Ukraine | Comments Off on Ukrainian Holocaust Revisionists Woo Canada, Exposed by Historian from Lund, Sweden . . .

Simon Wiesenthal Center Laments Yivo’s Betrayals of Jewish Causes for the Sake of Lithuanian State PR



O P I N I O N

by Efraim Zuroff

reprinted with the author’s permission from today’s Times of Israel


 

This week, one of the more shameful events in Lithuanian-Jewish relations since the Baltic republic regained independence in 1991 will be hosted in New York by the once-venerable Yivo Institute. Under the heading “Reclaiming the Jewish Narrative in Lithuania Today,” the Yiddish research institute will host Markas Zingeris, whom it describes as a “Lithuanian-Jewish poet and writer,” to speak about relations between Jews and Lithuanians since the fall of Communism.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Efraim Zuroff, Events, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, The Great SLS About-Face, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Simon Wiesenthal Center Laments Yivo’s Betrayals of Jewish Causes for the Sake of Lithuanian State PR

Ukrainian Ultranationalists Sponsor Lecture Tour Across North American Universities



O P I N I O N

by Per Anders Rudling

Last week, a Canada-wide lecture tour by Ruslan Zabily was announced. He is the former director of the Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement and the current director of the Lonsky Street Prison National Memorial Museum (for short: the Lonsky Museum) in Lviv, Ukraine.

AT THE LONSKY MUSEUM: JEWISH HOLOCAUST VICTIMS PHOTOSHOPPED OUT. A woman has just recognized a loved one among the victims of the NKVD killings in 1941. In the background of the original photo one also sees groups of Jewish victims of the massacre which followed within days of the NKVD murders (Jews were forced to carry and rebury these victims). Thousands of Jews were killed as Soviet crimes were blamed on them and used to incite antisemitic violence and murder. In this photoshopped version on display at the Lonsky Museum, the nationalists’ Jewish civilian victims are literally covered by the circular insertions of Soviet crime statistics, implicitly ethniziced as Ukrainian suffering.

The original image, before photoshopping at the Lonsky…

The lecture tour includes some of the most prestigious universities in Canada — the universities of Alberta, Toronto, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Ottawa — as well as Harvard University’s Ukrainian Studies Institute in the United States. The lectures in Alberta and Toronto are facilitated by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies; the Peter Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine; the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies; the Harvard Institute of Ukrainian Studies and its Chair of Ukrainian Studies.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bandera, Canada, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ukrainian Ultranationalists Sponsor Lecture Tour Across North American Universities