From our front page of 29 September 2015:
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Events
On the Eve of the 30 Sept. 2015 “Conference on Antisemitism and Radicalism” in Vilnius
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, September 23rd Commemorations
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Vilnius Names Street for Beloved Lithuanian Rescuer Ona Šimaitė
E V E N T S / O P I N I O N
by Defending History Staff
VILNIUS—For many years it has been a source of deep pain to many Lithuanians, Jews and others that the capital (and cities and towns around the country) continue to have street names honoring Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators but none for the true heroes of the Lithuanian Holocaust — the Lithuanian rescuers, who risked their and their families’ lives to “just do the right thing” and rescue some person or persons of a minority marked for rapid murder on the basis of Jewish birth. In the Baltics, the rescuers had to have much more courage even than in many other countries, because they were regarded as enemies of nationalist patriotism, as then constructed, not only as defiers of the German occupying forces’ program of extermination. They were regarded here as “enemies of Lithuania” (or Latvia, or Estonia), and sympathizes of communism who could expect no mercy if found out either by the German authorities or the local Lithuanian forces.
In 2013, Defending History objected to the plan to name a street for Ona Šimaitė in the boondocks and pressed for her street to be right in the city center.
Posted in CPJCE (London), Events, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
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Ponár (Paneriai) Memorial: No Rabbi, No Cantor, No Kaddish
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Ponár (Paneriai) Commemoration on Lithuania’s Annual Holocaust Day is Dejudaicized Even More in “Nationalist Takeover of Litvak Heritage”: No Rabbi, No Cantor, No Kaddish
But ethnic Lithuanian costume and song are featured at the mass grave of Vilna Jewry. Honor guard with bayoneted rifles was a questionable touch.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
Tagged Amir Maimon, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, Holocaust in Lithuania, Israeli Embassy in Vilnius, Mickey Kantor, Paneriai, Ponar, Rachel Margolis, Vilna Ghetto
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90th Anniversary Yivo Conference in Vilnius is Major Success
E V E N T S / O P I N I O N
VILNIUS—Despite the relatively modest number of participants in the hall, around fifty, the 90th Anniversary Conference of Yivo in Vilnius was unanimously judged to be a major success with Yiddish scholars and cultural leaders from Buenos Aires, New York, Tel Aviv and Vilnius reading papers in English, Lithuanian, and Yiddish. Four papers were in Yiddish (by Lea Garfinkel, Dovid Katz, Abraham Lichtenbaum and Mordehay Yushkovsky), representing a serious Yiddish-in-Yiddish component of an academic conference for the first time in years. Yiddish greetings were also delivered by Emanuelis Zingeris, parliamentarian and founder of the city’s Jewish museum. There were greetings from the Israeli ambassador and the Lithuanian parliament and foreign ministry.
Posted in Events, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Yiddish Affairs
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Delegates to Yivo Conference: Welcome to Vilnius!
ברוכיﬦ הבﬡיﬦ ﬡין וויﬥנע, דעלעגאַטן ﬡויף דער ייוואָ קאָנפערענץ!
SVEIKI ATVYKĘ Į VILNIŲ, JIVO KONFERENCIJOS DELEGATAI!
WELCOME TO VILNIUS, DELEGATES TO THE YIVO CONFERENCE!
Posted in Events, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Yiddish Affairs
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A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!
TO OUR JEWISH READERS EVERYWHERE ON THE OCCASION OF RÒSHESHÓNE (THE JEWISH NEW YEAR):
אַ גוטן געבענטשטן יאָר
און אַ גמר חתימה טובה
Posted in Events, News & Views
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New Jewish Monument in Rokiškis (Rákeshik), Lithuania, Commemorates 3 Synagogues
E V E N T S / O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
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For many years, international visitors to Rokiškis (in Yiddish: Rákishok, or less formally: Rákeshik), in northeastern Lithuania, have remarked that the town’s central area seemed to preserve little (or no) trace or commemoration of its erstwhile Jewish population, though a large monument now graces the entrance to the old Jewish cemetery outside town. Before the Holocaust, this town was home to around 3,500 Jews (some 40% of the total population, and the overwhelming majority in its central area). Luckily, a short film of pre-Holocaust Jewish Rákishok survives (from 1937), and is available on Youtube. Thanks to Polish film maker Tomek Wisniewski for circulating the link in recent days.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Dovid Katz, Events, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Rákishok (Rokiškis), Swastikas in Lithuania, Symbology
Tagged Antanas Vagonis, Aurimas Širvys, Berl Kagan, Dovid Katz, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jewish Lithuanian towns, Jewish Rokiskis, Julius Norwilla, Lithuanian-Jewish relations, Litvak issues, Litvak SIG, Meilach Balczuk-Felin, Philip Shapiro / Jewish Gen / Litvak, Rakeshik, Rakishok, Rokiskis + Jews, Rokiškis Regional Museum
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Lithuanian Post Office Honors Sugihara and Zwartendijk on 75th Anniversary of “Visas for Life”
KAUNAS—The Postal Service of Lithuania today launched two handsome commemorative envelopes in memory of two celebrated European consuls in Kaunas who helped thousands of Jews obtain visas that enabled them to leave Lithuania during the final year before the Nazi invasion and the Holocaust came to the country. The two, Chiune Sugihara (1900−1986) of Japan and Jan Zwartendijk (1896−1976) of the Netherlands risked their careers, and more, to disobey instructions and the letter of the law to save those who came to them for help. These were primarily citizens of prewar Poland who found themselves in Lithuania in the summer of 1940, when the country was being absorbed into the USSR, and the consulates and embassies in Kaunas were under pressure to close down altogether.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Events, Japan, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Use and Abuse of Sugihara
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The June 2015 Memorial for the Lietūkis Garage Massacre in Kaunas, Lithuania
O P I N I O N / E Y E W I T N E S S A C C O U N T
by Julius Norwilla
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To mark the 74th anniversary of one of the iconic events of the Lithuanian Holocaust, the infamous Lietūkis Garage Massacre of 27 June 1941, the Kaunas Jewish Community organized its annual memorial event at the site, last Friday, 26 June 2015. The massacre, carried out by local Lithuanian “patriots” wearing the white armbands of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), butchered dozens of Jewish passers-by at a garage on Kaunas’s Vytautas Avenue, using a variety of execution methods, including clubbing to death with crowbars, and particularly, forcing water from high-pressure hoses into bodily orifices of the victims until they burst. A growing crowd, including women holding up their young children to get the best views, cheered them on.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, History, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Aleksandras Bosas, Amir Maimon, Embassy of Israel in Lithuania, Holocaust in Lithuania, Julius Norwilla, Lietukis Garage, Lithuanian Activist Front
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Ukrainian Hitlerist Icons Celebrated in Weston-on-Trent in Derbyshire, England
O P I N I O N / U K / U K R A I N E
by J. North
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Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Youth Association (CYM Great Britain) held a remembrance day at the Tarasivka camp at Weston-on-Trent in Derbyshire. They advertised the event on their website (http://cym.org/uk) and with a poster replete with (ultra)nationalist imagery.
Posted in Bandera, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ukraine, United Kingdom
Tagged Bandera + Ukraine, fascism in Ukraine, J. North, Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian far right + UK
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Legacy of Rūta Vanagaitė’s 17 April 2015 Conference at Vilnius City Hall
[updated]
Tomas Venclova addresses Ruta Vanagaite’s conference at Vilnius City Hall on April 17, 2015. Photo: Julius Norwilla.
Posted in Events, History, Lithuania, News & Views, Rūta Vanagaitė, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis
Tagged Dovid Katz, Efraim Zuroff, Evaldas Balciunas, Holocaust in Lithuania, Ingrida Vilkiene, Julius Norvila, Julius Norwilla, Pavel Tychtl, Ruta Vanagaite, Sarunas Liekis, Saulius Suziedelis, Tomas Venclova
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Lithuania’s President and Entourage Lay Wreaths at Ponár on May 8th…
VIDEO
Dovid Katz in Times of Israel (11 May)
Efraim Zuroff in i24 (12 May)
“Equally” at Monuments for Jewish, Lithuanian and Polish Victims, but Skipping the Stone Commemorating the 7,514 Red Army Prisoners of Various Nationalities Starved and Murdered at the Site.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged May 8th memorial at Ponar (Paneriai), Ponar (Paneriai, President Dalia Grybauskaite + Holocaust
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For First Time, EU Sponsors a Balanced Holocaust Conference in Lithuania
PROGRESS
IN CHALLENGING THE EAST EUROPEAN STATE-SPONSORED “DOUBLE GENOCIDE” / “PRAGUE DECLARATION” JUGGERNAUT & MONOPOLY OF IDEAS
Posted in EU, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Lithuania, News & Views
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Wiesenthal Center Releases Vilnius Municipality’s 10 March Response to Appeal to Halt Neo-Nazi Takeover of Downtown Vilnius on Lithuania’s Independence Day
The Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center today released the response received by its director, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, to his 3 March appeal to the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, the nation’s capital, to halt the planned neo-Nazi march in the city’s center on independence day, March 11th. The response was received on 10 March by emailed PDF, and seems to fail to address the requests in the letter that the municipality ensure that Nazi symbols, racially exclusionary slogans and glorification of Holocaust collaborators not be allowed in the city center on the national holiday.
Dr. Zuroff’s letter of March 3rd elicited the following reply on the 10th of March (as PDF):
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Events, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Vilnius
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An “Inner” View of the Neo-March on Vilnius, 2015
O P I N I O N / N E O – N A Z I M A R C H E S
by Geoff Vasil
Afunny thing happened on the way to the neo-Nazi march. I saw a man walking towards me, and thought I knew him. Apparently he thought the same thing, and we both said hello in Lithuanian as we passed one another. As I pondered how we might know each other, it came to me: I had seen him at an earlier neo-Nazi march, probably the one in Kaunas a month earlier. He thought I was a fellow marcher, apparently, or at least not an enemy to the cause.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Geoff Vasil, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius
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Defending History’s Eyewitness Report of Riga, 16 March
In the East of EU-NATO-Land: Again, Latvian Authorities Grant Riga Old Town and its “Liberty Monument” on March 16th to 1500 Worshippers of Hitler’s Waffen SS Latvian Divisions
All Waffen SS members swore an oath to Adolf Hitler, some were recycled Holocaust killers. Lithuania’s far-right leaders J. Panka and R. Čekutis, fresh from neo-Nazi march in Vilnius, were on hand as honored guests; British neo-Nazis came for the event. For the second year in a row, the prime minister forbade ministers from attending. The antisemite who went around seeking Jewish observers to “enlighten” them (video).
Top left: Sea of flowers placed at Liberty Monument to honor Waffen SS. Top right: throng marches through historic old town. Bottom from left: heavy police presence; an antisemitic poster distributed by one of the event’s supporters.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Riga's Waffen SS Marches
Tagged Latvia, March 16th in Riga, Neo-Nazi Marches in the Baltics, Waffen SS (Latvia)
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Wiesenthal Center’s Press Release Following Neo-Nazi March in Central Vilnius
VILNIUS—The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office, in Jerusalem, today issued this statement from Vilnius, where its Director for East European Affairs, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, came to monitor yesterday’s neo-Nazi march on Lithuania’s independence day, as part of his month of monitoring of all four Baltic neo-Nazi events from 16 February to 16 March.
The text of the press release follows:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Events, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
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Defending History’s Eyewitness Report on Vilnius, March 11, 2015
1,500 Neo-Nazis and Far-Right Extremists Again Given Vilnius’s Main Boulevard on Nation’s March 11th Independence Day; They Parade from Cathedral Square to Nation’s Parliament with Fascist Symbols and Chants of “Lietuva Lietuviams” (Lithuania for [Pure] Lithuanians)
STATEMENTS FROM PRECEDING DAYS;
UPDATES: FOLLOWING THE EVENT — JEWISH COMMUNITY OF LITHUANIA’S STATEMENT AND REPORT; SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER; GEOFF VASIL IN DH
Flag with Swastika Hoisted Outside Nation’s Parliament for Over an Hour
Photos: Geoff Vasil (left image) and Defending History (right image)
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius
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Run-Up to the March 11, 2015 Neo-Nazi March in Central Vilnius…
Will Lithuania’s Leaders Let 25th Independence Day be Marred by Neo-Nazis Commandeering Capital’s Center?
The Latest:
Last-minute statements from the head of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, and the Simon Wiesenthal’s Center director of East European Affairs. From Prof. Pinchos Fridberg.
Appeals from Dr. Zuroff to the mayor of Vilnius, and Dr. Vilhjálmsson to the Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HRMI).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius
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