Events
Neo-Nazis, Glorifying Holocaust Collaborators & Spewing Racism, Again Gifted Center of Kaunas on Lithuania’s Cherished Feb 16th Independence Day
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, Events, History, Human Rights, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Swastikas in Lithuania
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Dr. Efraim Zuroff Awarded Gold Medal by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic
BELGRADE—The president of Serbia, Tomislav Nikolic, today awarded a Golden Medal for Merit to Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi hunter and its Director of East European Affairs, as part of the celebrations of Sretenje, the Serbian republic’s national day. The rationale for the award, which was granted to Dr. Zuroff for “exceptional achievements” included his “selfless dedication to defending the truth about the suffering of Jews, and also Serbs, Roma and other nations during World War II.”
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Efraim Zuroff, Events, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Roma
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust in Serbia, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Sretenje
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Lithuanian Jewish Community Marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day
COMMEMORATIONS | EVENTS | CEMETERIES AND MASS GRAVES
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by Julius Norwilla
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This year’s annual events organized by the Lithuanian Jewish Community to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day were held on the evening of Thursday, 26 January, on the eve of the officially designated day that falls on the 27th of each year. This year, the official Jewish Community organized two impressive public events to mark the occasion, which is important for every Jewish person in the country, where about 96% of the Jewish population was annihilated during the Holocaust.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Galina Vyšniauskienė, Holocaust Remembrance Day (Vilnius), Julius Norvila, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Simas Levinas, Vilnius Choral Synagogue
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Nida Degutiene’s Litvak-Israeli Cookbook Featured at NY’s Lithuanian Consulate in Cooperation with Yivo
OPINION | EVENTS | BOOKS | YIVO’S “LITHUANIAN PR” AGENDA
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NEW YORK—Tomorrow’s daytime event featuring Nida Degutiene’s new book, A Taste of Israel: From Classic Litvak to Modern Israel (Penguin Random House South Africa 2016) is a joint production of the Consulate General of Lithuania in New York City and the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research. It will be held at the Consulate General’s offices at 420 Fifth Avenue at 12:30 PM on Monday 16 January 2017. Defending History recommends the event to our readers in the New York City area and we recommend Ms. Degutiene’s excellent book (available from many outlets including Amazon).
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Politics of Memory, South Africa, Yivo Manipulated?
Tagged Lithuanian Consulate in NY, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, Litvak Cookbook, Nida Degutiene, Yivo, Yivo Lithuania
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Vilnius 2016 Chanukah Celebrations
VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE
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Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky led his 23rd annual Grand Menorah Lighting in the center of Vilnius on Wednesday evening 28 December, for (in Lithuanian Yiddish) di fínfte líkhtale, the fifth candle of Chanukah. The event attracted hundreds from different faiths who filled the square to celebrate harmony in the Lithuanian capital. It was addressed by Mayor Remigijus Šimašius and attended by diplomats from the embassies of Israel, Norway, Turkey, and the United States, among others, and dignitaries from the nation’s parliament, among them MP Emanuelis Zingeris, cofounder of the city’s Jewish museum.
MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE VILNIUS CITY-CENTER MENORAH:
City of Vilnius TV3.lt Lrytas.lt 15min.lt Delfi.lt Wilnoteka.lt
The event seemed to succeed even more this year following various alleged attempts at sabotage. Many of the Vilnius Jewish residents present were visibly thrilled that Mayor Šimašius had boldly ignored some public calls, one from a Lithuanian academic, one from an unsigned piece on the official Jewish community website, and one from an antisemitic author, all of which imlpied that it was suddenly (after 22 years of previous universally beloved events) “controversial,” perhaps for featuring Rabbi Krinsky, who has recently been the target of a bizarre campaign of harassment.
A big part of the crowd comprised young people who particularly enjoyed the candle lighting, the smaller menorah of ice, and the large tent where traditional foods were served to hundreds of Vilnius residents. Chanukah menorahs were handed out to all who wanted one.Continue reading
Posted in Events, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
Tagged Chanukah in Vilnius, Hanukkah in Vilnius, Mayor Remigijus Simasius, Professor Pinchos Fridberg, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky
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Runup to Chanukah 2016 in Vilnius
READERS IN LITHUANIA
All welcome at Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky’s annual Grand Chanukah Menorah Lighting on Wednesday evening 28 December 2016 at 5 PM (17:00) in central Vilnius on Gedimino Boulevard on Kudirka Square (opposite the Novotel). An annual highlight of Jewish life and also for Lithuanian-Jewish and Christian-Jewish friendship for nearly a quarter century. Also in Klaipėda (26 Dec), Kaunas (27 Dec) and Šiauliai (29 Dec).
Posted in Chabad in Vilnius, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Hanukkah in Vilnius, Rabbi Kalev Krelin, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky
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“Surreal” Nov. 29th Vilnius Public Debate on Street Named for Nazi Collaborator
[LAST UPDATE]
In Vilnius, City Council Holds “Surreal” Public Debate on 29 Nov. 2016 on Street Name Honoring a Nazi Collaborator; But Will the Mayor (Who Did Not Attend) Ever Speak Out with Moral Clarity?
Keynote speaker was Mark Adam Harold, the British born city councillor who “courageously and dramatically” proposed renaming the street that currently honors Nazi collaborator K. Škirpa.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
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Conference on East European Holocaust Opens in Warsaw
Conference in Warsaw, 5–7 December 2016:
Conference Features Omer Bartov, Christoph Dieckmann, Dan Michman, Antony Polonsky, Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Saulius Sužiedėlis, Rūta Vanagaitė, Efraim Zuroff, and Other Major Specialists on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe
Expectations rising that the Lithuanian government sponsored “Red-Brown Commission” (three of whose members are speaking) may now publicly call for (1) research (and acknowledgment of extant research and testimony) on massive “pre-German violence” in dozens of towns in the last week of June 1941; (2) written state apologies to defamed Holocaust survivors Yitzhak Arad, Fania Brantsovsky, Pinchos Fridberg, Rachel Margolis and Joseph Melamed; (3) dismantling of public-space shrines, street names, university lecture halls etc that honor Holocaust collaborators; (4) repeal of the 2010 “red-brown jailtime law” that effectively criminalizes free debate; (5) abandonment of official adherence to 2008 Prague Declaration (and acknowledgment of the need for consideration also of the points made in the 2012 Seventy Years Declaration).
Posted in Events, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Poland, Politics of Memory
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Surreal Vilnius City Council Public Debate on Street Named for Nazi Collaborator
But Will the Mayor (Who Did Not Attend) Ever Speak Out with Moral Clarity?
Keynote speaker was Mark Adam Harold, the British born city councillor who “courageously and dramatically” proposed renaming the street that currently honors Nazi collaborator K. Škirpa.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
Tagged Andrius Kulikauskas, Holocaust Commemoration in Lithuania, Kazys Škirpa, Mark Harold, Remigijus Šimašius
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September 23rd Events in the Vilnius Region
DEFENDING HISTORY WAS THERE
Annual Sept. 23 Official Commemoration Ceremony at the Ponár (Paneriai) Mass Murder Site Outside Vilnius, Lithuania
Historic Breakthrough as Lithuanian Jewish Community’s Faina Kukliansky Finally Calls for Removal of Street Names and Memorials for Holocaust Collaborators, Boldly Citing Juozas Krikštaponis, Jonas Noreika, and Kazys Škirpa; Sharp Contrast with Last Year’s Failed Event
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Israel, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai), September 23rd Commemorations
Tagged Amir Maimon, Efraim Zuroff, Faina Kukliansky, glorification of Holocaust collaborators, Holocaust Commemoration in Lithuania, Holocaust museum in Vilnius, Jonas Noreika, Julius Norwilla, Juozas Krikštaponis, Kazys Škirpa, Ponar (Paneriai, Ruta Vanagaite
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Run-Up to Lithuania’s Sept. 23rd 2016 Holocaust Commemoration Day
Events in the Week of Lithuania’s Official September 23rd Holocaust Commemoration Day
Vilnius mayor — and nation’s president and prime minister — face a stark choice on whether to speak out with moral clarity on painful issues of city-center street names and plaques honoring Holocaust collaborators, and the desecration of the country’s oldest Jewish cemetery by a new congress center, prior to this year’s series of official gala Vilna Ghetto commemoration events, 20-28 September 2016
OUR TAKE ON THE NEW HEBREW-YIDDISH STREET SIGN IN THE OLD JEWISH QUARTER
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, September 23rd Commemorations
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Yiddish Loses Last Global Position as Symbolic “First Jewish Language” in Vilnius
OPINION | COMMEMORATION OF DESTROYED COMMUNITIES | YIDDISH AFFAIRS | LITVAK AFFAIRS | IDENTITY-THEFT LITVAK INDUSTRY
by Dovid Katz
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VILNIUS—For close to three decades, Vilnius has been the only city in the world with municipally sponsored public plaques and signs that regularly include Yiddish. Symbologically for a small, weak, stateless, threatened and “threat-to-nobody” language in this part of the world, it was an equally important statement of respect for the language, literature and culture of the murdered Jewish people of the city that Yiddish sometimes came first, “on top,” and always so when it was a question between Yiddish and modern Israeli Hebrew.
For the first time in thirty years, Yiddish has been denied primacy of place among the Jewish languages of the city. The new sign starts with an Israeli Hebrew version used by nobody in pre-Holocaust Vilna.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Dovid Katz, Events, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Israel, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Symbology, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Amir Maimon, Emanuelis Zingeris, Faina Kukliansky, Hebrew-Yiddish conflict, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust remembrance in Vilnius, Jewish Community of Lithuania, Vilnius Jewish street names, Vilnius Yiddish street signs, Yiddish in Lithuania, Yiddish in Vilnius, Yiddish street names, Yidishe gas in Vilnius, Zydu gatve in Vilnius
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My Take On Malát
OPINION | SHTETL COMMEMORATIONS | EVENTS | POLITICS OF MEMORY | COLLABORATOR GLORIFICATION
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by Julius Norwilla
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The year 2016 marks the 75th anniversary of the genocide of the Jews of the Lithuanian shtetls, the smaller towns, villages and countryside, in fact, a solid majority of Lithuanian Jewry (with a smaller component being kept alive in four cities for slave labor and rolling annihilation over the remaining years of the Holocaust). Marking the anniversary, at the end of August and beginning of September this year (a period in 1941 when a number of the local massacres were concentrated), there have been commemorative events in (Yiddish names first) Birzh (now: Biržai), Dusát (Dusetos), Malát (Molėtai), Shádov (Šeduva), Vílkomir (Ukmergė) and more. By far the largest event took place at Malát on the 29th of August. The project, leading to establishment of a new foundation, was initiated by Tzvi Kritzer. The speakers included high representatives from the Lithuanian government, its official Jewish community, and various public and cultural representatives.
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Christian-Jewish Issues, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Malát (Molėtai), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust in Malat, Holocaust in the Baltics, Jonas Zvinys, Julius Norvila, Julius Norwilla, Leon Kaplan, Lithuania, Malat (Moletai), Musiskiai, Ruta Vanagaite, Stasys Zvinys, Viktorija Kazlienė, white armbanders (1941), Zuroff and Vanagaite
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August and September 2016 Memorials for Destroyed Jewish Communities
Summer and Fall 2016: 75th Anniversary
of the Nazis’ annihilation, with vast local collaboration, of Lithuania’s Jews in the towns, villages, provinces; implementation of ghettoization and mass murder in the cities.
Perhaps among the simplest, most minimalist measures of a municipality’s sincerity (beyond PR bonanzas, photo-ops and legitimizations via useful foreigners): (a) Modest town-center information board on the origins, history, culture, contributions and (true) fate of the town’s Jewish citizens; (b) Rapid removal of any local shrines, street names, museum tributes etc. to the local collaborators and murderers. “You just can’t make heroes out of the killers and expect to cover it up with some annual PR event for the foreigners.”
Language and respect for the victims: In addition to Lithuanian and English, will new memorial texts (including those at forest mass graves and old cemeteries) continue to include Yiddish, the language of 100% of the murdered Jews in all these towns? For many years, Lithuania has had a uniquely admirable record in this regard.
Posted in Birzh (Biržai ), Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Malát (Molėtai), Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its Free-of-Jewish-Staff "Museum of the Lost Shtetl", September 23rd Commemorations
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Baltic Red-Brown “Nazi-Soviet Hunter” Featured at Brazil’s Olympics in Rio
OPINION | RED-BROWN COMMISSION (PAGE) | RB COMMISSION (SECTION) | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | VILNIUS YIDDISH INSTITUTE
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VILNIUS—The news portal Delfi.lt reported yesterday on Lithuanian sharpshooting star Ronaldas Račinskas making a hit at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics not only for his talents with a rifle, but on his work back home for which the headline calls him the “Nazi-Soviet hunter,” in the latest of a long series of Holocaust terms appropriated and ably recast by the Red-Brown movement’s PR wizzards. Besides heading a commission that now includes the gentleman who launched the campaign, a decade ago, to “hunt” Holocaust survivors who joined the Jewish partisans, his “Nazi and Soviet hunting” refers to his role as Director of the Secretariat of that comission, popularly known as the Red-Brown Commission, a state-financed entity that is one of the main European engines for spreading the revisionist far right’s “Double Genocide” model of World War II history. In that history, as an example, those who liberated Auschwitz are declared to be equal in principle to those who committed the genocide there. Moreover the movement’s primary document, the 2008 Prague Declaration (PD), insists that all European “minds” accept the revised history and regard Nazi and Soviet crimes as equal, a stance widely considered to be a camouflage for obfuscating and diminishing the Holocaust. The response in the European arena came in the form of the 2012 Seventy Years Declaration (SYD).
Director of the Secretariat of the state-sponsored International Commission on the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania (known for short as the “Red-Brown Commission”) is a sharpshooting star at the Rio Olympics. He has rapidly brought red-brown politics into the apolitical environment of the Olympic Games. His views on the Holocaust feature in a new German documentary.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Genocide, Events, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Double Genocide, International Commission for the Evaluation of Nazi and Soviet Crimes (Vilnius), Prague Declaration, Red-Brown Commission, Rio Olympics and Baltic politics, Ronaldas Racinskas, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
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Vilnius Open Forum on Yiddish, Litvaks, Holocaust: All Welcome on 7 July
THURSDAY 7 JULY 2016 AT 7 PM (1900):
OPEN FORUM IN VILNIUS CHAIRED BY DEFENDING HISTORY EDITOR ON
“What You Always Wanted to Ask about Yiddish & Litvaks & The Lithuanian Holocaust”
A Question-and-Answer Session at the Jewish Cultural and Information Center, Mesiniu 3, Vilnius. Everyone Welcome. Admission Free.
Posted in Events, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
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Amžinas tebus šventųjų atminimas
Julius Norwilla
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Lietuvos Holokausto atlase Vilniaus apylinkėse pažymėta iš viso dvylika žudynių vietų. Geriausiai žinomas Panerių memorialas. Būtent čia organizuojami vieši Holokausto aukų atminties pagerbimo renginiai. Kitos gi vietos žinomos mažiau lankomos retai. Sekmadienį, gegužės 22 d., maža grupele išvykome aplankyti mažiau žinomos žudynių vietos Naujaneriuose.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs
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An Event in Paris
PARIS—According to a mass emailing underway this week, Yahad-in-Unum, based in Paris, is inviting the public to a symposium on the Lithuanian Holocaust on Tuesday 3 May at 5 PM at 9 rue Mahler (Room 107).The event is organized by Yahad-in-Unum with unspecified Lithuanian partners and including a video link with a team in Lithuania.
Posted in Events, France, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis
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Latvia Arrests Peaceful German Visitors Who Wanted to Protest Annual Waffen SS March
OPINION | LATVIA | FREE SPEECH | NEO-NAZI MARCHES | RIGA MARCHES | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED
by Frank Brendle
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Latvian authorities denied today entry for six German antifascists who intended to support the protest against tomorrow’s edition of central Riga’s annual March 16th Waffen SS march.
MORE COVERAGE HERE
This morning, Cornelia Kerth, chairwoman of Germany’s most important antifascist organization, the Association of Persons Persecuted by the Nazis / Federation of Antifascists (in German VVN-BdA) entered Hamburg airport to board her flight with Air Baltic to Riga. Check-in was without problem, but at the final steps before boarding the aircraft, authorities informed her that she may not enter the plane: “You are on a black list of the Latvian immigration authorities,” they said.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, EU, Events, Frank Brendle, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Latvia, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches
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Neo-Nazis Given Central Vilnius Again on March 11th Independence Day
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, EU, Events, Genocide Center (Vilnius), Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė, Vilnius, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
Tagged antisemitism (Baltics), legalized swastikas (Lithuania), Lithuanian Union of Nationalist Youth, neo-Nazi marches in Lithuania, neo-nazism, Ricardas Cekutis, Vilma Fiokla Kiure, Vilnius
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