The recently launched website JosephLevinson.com provides renewed opportunities for acquiring his two major books that are available in English. One, The Shoah in Lithuania, includes documents of the Lithuanian Activist Front detailing their intentions for Jewish citizens, issued before the outbreak of war on 22 June 1941. It is also rich in resources on understanding how, where and why the far right’s “Double Genocide” revisionism arose in the first place. These are just two of the many areas covered by the book.
Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites
New Joseph Levinson Website Has Page on Old Jewish Cemeteries in Lithuania
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Joseph Levinson, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Alex Levinson, Joseph Levinson (Vilnius), Lithuania, old Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, The Double Genocide theory
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Aleksandrs Feigmanis Documents Mysterious Eight-Pointed Star in Riga Synagogue
Following publication last year of an article on the mysterious eight-pointed star known from some old Jewish cemeteries in western Lithuania (the area known as Zámet in Yiddish, corresponding in part to Žemaitija), DH contributor Dr. Aleksandrs Feigmanis, director of Riga-based BalticGen Tours, has reported that a similar eight-pointed star adorns the (recently renovated) synagogue in Riga, Latvia. Hopefully, images will emerge of the prewar design corresponding to the reconstructed section in question.
Posted in Aleksandrs Feigmanis, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Symbology
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Where You Have to Step on Old Jewish Gravestones to go to Church
C E M E T E R I E S / C H R I S T I A N – J E W I S H R E L A T I O N S
by Dovid Katz
◊
The following are translated (and edited) excerpts from a longer letter in Yiddish received from a survivor who has asked to remain anonymous, about the Jewish gravestones that form the steps going up to the Reformed Evangelical Church at Pylimo 18 in Vilnius.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Reformed Evangelical Church (Vilnius)
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Christian-Jewish relations, Jewish gravestones as steps to church, Lithuania, Reformed Evangelical Church in Vilnius, Reformed Evangelical Church Lithuania
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Mystery of the Eight-Pointed Western Litvak (Zámeter) Symbol on Jewish Gravestones
by Dovid Katz
On expeditions and on culture and history tours, we have on a number of occasions come across unusual Jewish gravestones (in Yiddish — matséyves), so far invariably on the territory of western Lithuania (and on occasion, in bordering Latvia) that is the land known in Litvak culture as Zámet (a Jewish person therefrom is a Zámeter, f. Zámeterin or deep Litvak Zámeterke).
In broad terms, it corresponds to historic Samogitia (Lithuanian Žemaitija). However, the specific cultural and linguistic borders relevant to Litvak culture and Yiddish dialectology often make for a unique Litvak geocultural configuration. For a general Yiddish orientation on the (pre-Holocaust) linguistic situation, see e.g. the maps for ‘ear’ and ‘dove’ vs ‘deaf’ in the in-progress Language Atlas of Lithuanian Yiddish.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Litvak Affairs, Symbology
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The Fate of an Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that is Part of Now
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
This comment first appeared in The Times of Israel on 22 May 2013.
One of the predictable consequences of genocide is the spectacle of old cemeteries without relatives or descendants of the buried to care for the gravestones or the site. Some stones will fall, some will sink, and then some will just be taken as usable components for the foundations of houses, the ballast of roads or the walls of a basketball court.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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An Unmarked Holocaust Mass Murder Site in Riga, the Latvian Capital
INTERVIEW WITH RIGA HISTORIAN MEYER MELLER (MELERS)
by Aleksandrs Feigmanis
The great Russian author Lev Tolstoy wrote in his story “From the Notebook of Prince D. Nekhlyudov. Luzern.”
“Seventh July 1857 in Luzern in front of the Schweizerhof Hotel, where most rich people would stay the itinerant beggar-singer sings songs for half an hour and plays his guitar. About a hundred people heard him. Three times the singer asked the crowd to give him some money or food. Nobody gave him anything and many laughed at him.” […] This is the event which the historian of our times should write about with fiery irascible letters. This event is much more important and serious and has much more sense than the facts written in newspapers and history books. […] This is not a fact for the history of human acts, but for the history of progress and civilization.”
All that marks this major Holocaust mass grave in Riga, the Latvian capital, is a plastic bucket of flowers near the empty frame of a long-destroyed Soviet-era tin sign.
If you wish to see the mass grave take number 13 bus from the central station headed for Plavnieki and get off at the stop called Darzenu baze (roughly a half-hour ride). When you get off, turn from Lubanas street to the right until you come to Darzenu baze (“warehouse for vegetables”). In the pine woods some 300 meters from the warehouse you will see a little hill, without any mark, inscription or tombstone. Just a few primitive buckets of plastic flowers mark the site. They are placed near a wood frame stand that once, in Soviet times, held within it a bilingual tin sign about the site, that has long been destroyed and removed. The site is about 600 meters from the nine-floor apartment houses in Riga’s Plavnieki district.
Posted in Aleksandrs Feigmanis, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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On the Preservation of Lithuania’s Old Jewish Cemeteries
O P I N I O N
by Joseph Levinson
Joseph Levinson (Josifas Levinsonas) in Vilnius, 2013. Courtesy of the Levinson family.
On April 25th 2013 an event dedicated to the recording, maintenance and preservation of old Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania was held at the Vilnius premises of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. It was organized by the NGO “Maceva” and chaired by one of the NGO’s founders and leading figures, himself a resident of Brussels.
The April 25th evening in Vilnius went “smoothly” until a veteran member of the Jewish Community politely pointed out that much of the work that the NGO was taking credit for and presented as a miracle dropped from the heavens had in fact been carried out many years earlier by the very Jewish Community in whose premises the event was held. There was a moment of shock when the event’s chairman reacted by saying “There are different kinds of Jews!” instead of thanking the senior member of our community for his well-intentioned, polite and factual corrective remarks from the floor.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Joseph Levinson, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged Joseph Levinson, Maceva
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Trilingual Memorial Plaque Unveiled on Zhager Town Square
O N – S I T E R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
ZHAGER, northern Lithuania. Over a hundred people gathered here today on the historic town square to unveil a trilingual plaque memorializing the erstwhile Jewish population of thousands in the town, today Žagarė. The event was incorporated into the annual Cherry Festival and suitably entitled “You can’t fudge the history.”
SEE ALSO THE REPORTS BY ROD FREEDMAN AND SARA MANOBLA
THE QUESTION: IS IT THE ONLY TOWN-CENTER IN ALL THE LAND WITH CLEAR AND TRUE WORDS ON THE TRUE FATE OF THE JEWISH POPULATION?
The text — in English, Lithuanian and Yiddish — summarizes the unvarnished history, with prominent reference to local Lithuanian collaboration (though historians will quibble with the use of “some” in place of “many” among other points). It is placed right in the center of town, rather than at a mass grave site deep in the forest; that might well be a first in modern Lithuanian history.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Events, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, South Africa, The Great SLS About-Face, Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Zháger (Žagarė)
Tagged Azubalis, Cliff Marks, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jewish + Lithuania, Lithuanian shtetl, Litvak, Roger Cohen, Valdas Balciunas, Zagare, Zhager, Zhager (Zagare)
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Old Stones Speak to Young Pupils: Jewish Gravestones in the Walls of a Vilnius School Yard
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Photos by Richard Schofield (© R. Schofield)
The Lazdynai Middle School in Vilnius, built in the early 1970s, has an admirable reputation, inter alia for an excellent trilingual policy enabling Polish and Russian to flourish alongside the national language, Lithuanian, in a spirit of multicultural respect and harmony so fitting for the city’s history.
Updates to May 2013:
Return visit to the Stones of Lazdynai
♦
Updates to 15 December 2011
Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art and Monuments
Facebook discussion thread
Work in Progress: A Cultural Dictionary of Lithuanian Jewish Gravestones
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Symbology
Tagged cohen hands, fate of Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, Jewish gravestones, Jewish sites in Vilnius, Lazdynai, Lazdynai Middle School, Olandu Jewish cemetery, use of gravestones in walls with letters showing, Uzupis Jewish cemetery, Zaretshe Jewish cemetery
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First Full Photo of July 2011 Ponár Desecration
Despite efforts by officials to suppress the photographs of the July 2011 desecration at the Ponár (Paneriai) mass murder site outside Vilnius, a cellphone image was released today to DefendingHistory.com by a former employee of the Tolerance Center who reported that he felt obliged by conscience to release the image. The Tolerance Center is the headquarters of the state Jewish museum which in addition to three addresses in Vilnius, runs the small museum at the Ponár site, where the desecration took place. This is the image of the paint attack on the main monument:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, News & Views, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
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A Speech Never Spoken at Plungyán (Plungė)
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
An imaginary speech, not delivered by any of the high government officials who addressed the commemoration at the mass murder site of the Jews of Plungyán (Plungė) on 17 July 2011.
My dear friends, it is precisely because I am a proud official of the government of independent, democratic, Lithuania, and I love my country, that I am able to speak here today openly, on the seventieth anniversary of the murder of the Jews of Plungė — Plungyán, as they proudly called it in the Yiddish that rang through its streets for so many centuries.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Events, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Plungyán (Plungė), Politics of Memory
Tagged Antisemitism Lithuania, Asta Skaisgirytė Liaukšienė, Desecration of monuments Lithuania, Emanuelis Zingeris, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Commemoration in Lithuania, Holocaust commemoration Lithuania, Holocaust Memory, Jacob Bunka, Kausenai Memorial, Kazys Vitkevečius, Lithuania Tolerance Studies, Plunge, Plunge Holocaust, Plungian, Plungian Holocaust, Plungyan, Plungyan Holocaust, Ronaldas Racinskas, Tolerance studies center Lithuania
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Pastor Michael Maass, Director of the Lithuanian Section of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), Speaks in Plungė
O P I N I O N
by Michael Maass
The text of Pastor Michael Maass’s talk at the Sabbath dinner in Plungyán (Plungė), Lithuania, on 15 July 2011, during preparations for the commemoration ceremony at the nearby mass murder site on 17 July 2011. See also Abel Levitt’s speech here, and the imaginary speech of a Lithuanian official here (with further links at end of page).
Text provided by Pastor Michael Maass.
Good evening. We are Michael and Fausta Maass, the directors of the Lithuanian branch of the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem. You might say we are ambassadors from the Christian nation to the Jewish nation. We represent millions of Christians in over sixty countries who love Israel and the Jewish people. We are honored to be with you tonight.
We believe that friendship between Jews and Christians is vitally important, especially in light of recent developments in the world. The legitimacy of the nation of Israel is under attack from many sides. Antisemitism is rising to a level not seen since the Second World War.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Michael & Fausta Maass, News & Views, Opinion
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Ponár Desecrated: Authorities Try to Cover Up the Event; No Arrests, No Reaction from Officials
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Authorities Cover Up Desecration of Lithuania’s Largest Holocaust Mass-Murder Site
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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
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Authorities Cover Up Desecration of Lithuania’s Largest Holocaust Mass-Murder Site
Over the weekend, foreign visitors discovered offensive desecrations at Ponár (Paneriai), the mass murder site of 100,000 people during the Holocaust, among them 70,000 Jews of the Vilna region.
One major monument was spray painted with a swastika and the Russian for ‘Hitler was right’, all in red. It was signed ‘Solomon’, the pseudonym of a ubiquitous graffiti artist who had not been known previously for antisemitic attempts, leading to suspicion that use of the name could be a decoy. It was likewise widely thought that the use of Russian rather than Lithuanian was a decoy, as well as a likely slight directed at the country’s tiny Jewish community, which antisemitic attacks frequently accuse of disloyalty.
- ‘Hitler was right’ (in Russian)
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Eyewitness Report: ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar Killing Site near the Lithuanian Capital
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
I attended the March of the Living today at Ponár (Polish Ponary, Lithuanian Paneriai), the mass killing site outside Vilnius, Lithuania. It is Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. I had been to Ponár only once before, because a friend of mine was afraid she would get lost taking the city buses there and back.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Games, Geoff Vasil, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
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Revolving Posters at Ponár
Ponár (Polish Ponary, Lithuanian Paneriai) is the mass murder site outside Vilnius where around a hundred thousand civilians were murdered by the Nazi regime. Some 70,000 of them were the Jews of Vilna and its region.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Games, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
Tagged Double Games in Holocaust Politics, Lithuania, Paneriai, Ponar, Ponary)
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Sparse Turnout at Ninth Fort Holocaust Commemoration; Christian Leader Stirs the Assembled
According to historians, the largest slaughter of people in a single day in the history of the Baltic states occurred on the 29th of October 1941, when between nine and ten thousand Jews were gruesomely killed at the ‘Ninth Fort’ near Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, under Nazi German command. Highly motivated local forces carried out most of the killing and the associated humiliation and degradation of the victims. To mark the occasion there is a commemoration ceremony at the site held each year at midday on the last Sunday in October. This year it was held today, under a bright sun that warmed the clear chill of late fall in Lithuania.
Organized by the Jewish Community of Kaunas, and addressed by its leader, Gercas (Hershl) Žakas, this year’s event drew just over a hundred people, filling less than half the paved plaza near the memorial dais. Survivors present expressed concern for the future status of Ninth Fort remembrance here, and Holocaust commemoration more generally. The concern echoes various factors, including the gradual disappearance of survivors and witnesses, the shrinking of the vestigial Jewish community, and the shifting political trends.
Posted in Ambassador Steinar Gil, Christian-Jewish Issues, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Michael & Fausta Maass, News & Views, Norway, Politics of Memory, Use and Abuse of Sugihara
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Gathering in the Forest to Remember the 8000 Jews of the Svintsyan Region
Some eighty people gathered at midday today, in an eerie mix of wind and autumn sun, at the forest mass grave memorial site just outside the town once known in Yiddish as Svintsyánke (or Nay-Svintsyán; now Lithuania’s 
Švenčioneliai, interwar Poland’s Nowo-Święciany). Such is the custom every year on the first Sunday in October, to remember the eight thousand Jewish civilians murdered there after a gruesome ten days of imprisonment, deprivation of basic human needs, and torture, in makeshift barracks here at the site, in October 1941. The eight thousand Jews were marched (with the lame and the old transported on wagons) from their hometowns in the area to the site on September 27th. They were all shot over a two-day period on the 7th and 8th of October 1941.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Poland, Svintsyán (Švenčionys)
Tagged Holocaust in Svencionys, Svintsyan, Svintsyánke
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