Litvak Affairs
Dieckmann & Vanagaite Launch Crowdfunding Campaign for New Book
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Comments Off on Dieckmann & Vanagaite Launch Crowdfunding Campaign for New Book
Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Ends Up with DH Editor in Hit Job by Neo-Nazi Blogger
How did Lithuania’s Foreign Minister End Up Together with Defending History’s Editor in Hit Job by Nation’s Top Neo-Nazi Blogger?
“By doing the right thing, and calling for the removal of a central Vilnius plaque that honors a brutal Nazi collaborator”
◊
◊
LATEST ADDITION TO THE SERIES “OUR EDITOR IN THE NEO-NAZI IMAGINATION”
See also selection of the racist, homophobic, and misogynist output of a Baltic nation’s far-right blogger who is said to be an official in the Economy Ministry
There are ome strange twists in the 21st century history of Holocaust collaborator Jonas Noreika (who continues to be honored by street names, plaques, engraved stones and more).
Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika
Tagged Dovid Katz, far right in the Baltics, Linas Linkevicius, Lithuania's Foreign Ministry, Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seventy Years Declaration, Vytenis Andriukaitis, Zeppelinus
Comments Off on Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Ends Up with DH Editor in Hit Job by Neo-Nazi Blogger
Is Lithuania’s Department of Cultural Heritage Really Permitting a Farm, Garden & Drinking Well Inside Old Jewish Cemetery of Radvíleshik (Radviliškis)?
OPINION | CEMETERIES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH AFFAIRS | LITHUANIA
◊
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
◊
I was taken aback by the news being informally reported. “They came and they fenced off a part of the Radviliškis (Radvíleshik, Radvílishok) Jewish cemetery for themselves,” people told me. This was a well-known Jewish shtetl before the Holocaust. Without further ado I went to check it. A house and big chunk of property with it, were fenced off and for sale, clearly within the cemetery perimeter (of course with gravestones long pilfered from that section, and buried people underneath undisturbed). My photos of all parts of the cemetery are here.
FARM FOR SALE
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, Jewish heritage in Lithuania, Lithuanian Dept of Cultural Heritage, Radvileshik, Radvilishok, Radviliškis
Comments Off on Is Lithuania’s Department of Cultural Heritage Really Permitting a Farm, Garden & Drinking Well Inside Old Jewish Cemetery of Radvíleshik (Radviliškis)?
Vilnius Jewish Community Calls for New Democratic Elections
OPINION | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE | DEMOCRACY | LITVAK AFFAIRS
◊
VILNIUS—The elected leadership of the Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC) today published on its website, and on its Facebook page, an English version of the Lithuanian original that appeared on 10 October on the website as well as, on the same date, in the form of a Baltic News Service (BNS) press release, providing the contact name of Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), chair of the community and one of its twenty-one member elected council. The VJC, representing the more than 2,000 Jews of Vilnius in affiliation with groups in Šiauliai, Klaipeda and others, represents the vast majority of today’s living Jewish citizens in Lithuania. In fact, its electoral conference of May 2017 was the largest electoral conference of Jewish citizens in Lithuania this century.
“And most importantly […], to provide new elections for the chairpersonship of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in accordance with the honest rules that have been in place for many years, taking into account the votes of all the Jews of Lithuania, and not the ‘associations’ of ‘close friends’ who are themselves dependent for funding on the grace of the chairperson.”
Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius)
Tagged Faina Kukliansky, Jews in Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC), Simon Gurevich, Simonas Gurevicius, Vilnius Jewish Community (VJC)
Comments Off on Vilnius Jewish Community Calls for New Democratic Elections
Jacob Piliansky, 72, Soft-Spoken Spokesperson for Historic Truth and a Late-in-Life Artist, Dies in Vilnius
OBITUARIES | JACOB PILIANSKY | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE
◊
by Dovid Katz
◊
Jacob Piliansky (1946-2018)
Several dozen Vilnius Jews turned up today for the funeral of Jacob Piliansky at the city’s current Jewish cemetery at Sudervės 28. Decades ago, Piliansky, an engineer by trade, relocated to Washington DC (and for a time to the Netherlands) where he built a new life and career. But when his mother back in Vilnius, the legendary Dobke Jonis, turned ninety, he decided to return to his native Lithuania and live with her for the remainder of their years. Dobke (Dora Piliansky, 1912–2014), who passed away at age 102, was a cultural icon of her shtetl Zézmer (today’s Žiežmariai), whose prolific writings and drawings remain a testament, as does her testimony on the bestial brutality of the LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front) fascists in June 1941 who turned back Jewish escapees on the roads to ensure they would be trapped in the Nazi choke-hold. She brought up her children — Jacob (Yasha, Yankl) and his older sister Fréydke (Frida Piliansky Zavalkovsky, 1942–2016) — to stand proudly for historic truth and to fear nothing and nobody when it comes to telling the story of Lithuanian Jewry in its homeland. Or plain and simple, to stand up for what is right. Such folks do not often enjoy lifetimes of unbroken popularity or the easiest of times.
Posted in Jacob Piliansky, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius)
Tagged Defending Holocaust History, Dobke Jonis, Jacob Piliansky, Jews in Vilnius, Simon Gurevich, Simonas Gurevicius, Vilnius Jewish community
Comments Off on Jacob Piliansky, 72, Soft-Spoken Spokesperson for Historic Truth and a Late-in-Life Artist, Dies in Vilnius
Museum of The Lost Truth: A Lithuanian Drama
OPINION | MUSEUMS | SHEDUVA | POLITICS OF MEMORY | SHTETL COMMEMORATIONS | HUMOR (OF SORTS)
◊
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
Evaldas Balčiūnas informed the English speaking world of a series of state honors for alleged Holocaust collaborators, starting with Jonas Noreika back in 2012. He paid a hefty personal price for it (scroll down his DH section to 2014).
◊
PREAMBLE
The Lost Shtetl is a massive, holistic project to reclaim the Lithuanian Jewish heritage of Šeduva (Shádeve, older Shádev). Plans include a multimillion euro state-of-the-art museum complex scheduled to open in 2020 that is slated to become an international tourist attraction. Now is an excellent time for public comment and observers’ contemplation.
“The Lost Shtetl” will not be a generic community of faceless Litvaks. It will make tangible the lives of real individuals. But will we learn about the real individuals from the town and its region who destroyed them? Their names and faces? Or will we simply tuck them away into the phrase: “The Nazis and their local collaborators murdered 664 Šeduva Jews in Liaudiškiai forest”?
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl", South Africa
Tagged Evaldas Balciunas, Holocaust in Lithuania, Lost Shtetl Museum, Museum of Jewish Sheduva, Seduva (Lithunia), Šeduva Museum of Jewish History, Sergejus Kanovicius
Comments Off on Museum of The Lost Truth: A Lithuanian Drama
Sept. 23rd Ponár Memorial and Pope Francis’s Visit to Vilna Ghetto Memorial
OPINION | EVENTS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HOLOCAUST MEMORIALS | VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE
◊
◊
IMAGE OF THE DAY: Elected chairperson of the Vilnius Jewish Community, Simon Gurevich, was not allowed past the security barrier, barring him from the Pope’s event to commemorate the Vilna Ghetto. At the earlier event at Ponár, he was not allowed to deliver his prepared remarks.
VILNIUS—The two major “September 23rd” events today in Vilnius were the annual commemoration ceremony at the mass murder site Ponár in the forest outside the city, and, later in the afternoon, Pope Francis’s visit to the small monument, its 1990s Yiddish letters faded beyond legibility, commemorating the Vilna Ghetto in an Old Town square opposite the city’s beloved Jewish Cultural and Information Center (JCIC). [See also Andrius Kulikauskas’s appeal to the Pope on the eve of his visit in connection with his visit to Lukiškės Square in central Vilnius.]
Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Christian-Jewish Issues, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Lithuania, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, September 23rd Commemorations, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
Tagged Emanuelis Zingeris, Faina Kukliansky, Fania Brantsovsky, Lithuanian Jewish Community, Ponar (Paneriai, Pope Francis in Lithuania, Pope Francis in Vilnius, Remigijus Šimašius, Sept 23 Holocaust Memorial, Simon Gurevich, Simonas Gurevicius
Comments Off on Sept. 23rd Ponár Memorial and Pope Francis’s Visit to Vilna Ghetto Memorial
Can Pope Francis, in Vilnius, Heal the Blind at Lukiškės Square?
OPINION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH AFFAIRS | HISTORY | COLLABORATORS HONORED | BLAMING THE VICTIMS
by Andrius Kulikauskas
◊
Pope Francis’s two-day visit to Lithuania this weekend includes a symbolic stop at the Vilna Ghetto on his second day, September 23, at roughly 4 PM at Rūdininkai Square. On that day, 75 years ago, Nazi Germans liquidated the Vilna Ghetto, murdering some of its Jews in Paneriai Forest (Ponár), and moving the rest to concentration camps in Latvia, Estonia and Germany. Since 1994, it has been the National Day of Commemoration of the Genocide of Lithuania’s Jews. Now it will surely be linked in the Lithuanian psyche with this visit by Pope Francis, and perhaps some day, Saint Francis.
Pope Francis in the Lithuanian capital
However, his visit is also a chance for him to make plain to the children of God our lack of empathy for Lithuania’s Jews. A very short detour to the “Vilnius Sports Palace” — and a heavenly nod by the Pope — would let us tear down that “Soviet temple”, resurrect the holy Jewish cemetery beneath it, and enjoy a symbol of Litvak and Lithuanian friendship forever. This brings to mind the detour Jesus made in Jericho, when two blind men called out, “Lord, have mercy on us, you son of David!” And Jesus halted the crowd.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Andrius Kulikausks, Arunas Bubnys, Catholic-Jewish relations (Lithuania), Christian-Jewish relations (Lithuania), Genocide Center Vilnius, Gintaras Grušas, Jonas Noreika, Lietuvos Laisvės Kovotojų Sąjunga, LLKS, Lukiskes Square, Lukiskiu Square, Paneriai (Ponar), Piramont (Snipiskes) Jewish cemetery, Pope Francis + Jewish, Pope Francis + Lukiskiu, Pope Francis + Vilnius, Union of Fighters for Lithuania Freedom
Comments Off on Can Pope Francis, in Vilnius, Heal the Blind at Lukiškės Square?
Ten Israeli Knesset Members Call on Lithuania’s President to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OPINION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
◊
JERUSALEM—A 12 September 2018 letter from ten members of Israel’s Knesset (parliament) to Lithuania’s president, Dalia Grybauskaite, was released to the media today. The letter calls on the Lithuanian president to cancel plans for a national convention center in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery and to “find a reasonable alternative” for situating the new convention center.
The Israeli parliamentarians’ letter, at the bottom of this report and available from Defending History as PDF, comes on the heels of the recent appeal by three United States senators, and last year’s call in the same spirit by twelve members of the United States House of Representatives. An international petition initiated by a leading member of Vilnius’s Orthodox Jewish community, Ruta Bloshtein, has to date achieved 44,400 signatures. In addition Litvak (Lithuanian tradition) rabbis and rabbinical organizations internationally, along with many other writers from diverse backgrounds, have put in writing unequivocal opposition to the project. Within Lithuanian society, the two leaders of the movement to save the old Jewish cemetery from the convention center are both non-Jewish citizens whose writings and actions are an international credit to the country and its capacity for robust discourse. See the Andrius Kulikauskas and Julius Norwilla sections in DH.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Tagged Piramont Snipiskes cemetery, Vilnius Jewish community, Vilnius Old Jewish Cemetery
Comments Off on Ten Israeli Knesset Members Call on Lithuania’s President to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Lingering Discussions of Netanyahu’s 23-26 August 2018 Visit to Lithuania
ISRAEL PAGE | ISRAEL SECTION | LOWPOINT IN ISRAEL’S PROUD DIPLOMATIC HISTORY?
◊
Debbie Maimon in Yated Ne’eman on the “Pandora’s Box” Opened; Efraim Zuroff’s Critique of Netanyahu’s Acquiescence to Lithuanian State Holocaust PR Games
◊
DH’s Israel Page
◊
Ben Cohen’s Coverage in Algemeiner.com Cites Three Defending History Suggestions for the “Lithuanian-Israeli Moral Agenda”
(1) Call for letters of apology for three Israeli citizens defamed for posterity by Vilnius prosecutors: Yitzhak Arad (b. 1926) and Rachel Margolis (1921–2015) and Joseph Melamed (1924–2017). All three fought with the Jewish partisans against the Nazis. Two of the three were decorated heroes of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.
Continue reading
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Debbie Maimon, Israel + Lithuania, Israel policy on Eastern Europe, Israel policy on Holocaust, Joseph Melamed, Netanyahu + Lithuania, Netanyahu in Vilnius, Rachel Margolis, Yitzhak Arad
Comments Off on Lingering Discussions of Netanyahu’s 23-26 August 2018 Visit to Lithuania
Vilnius Jewish Community Calls on Lithuanian Gov. to Preserve Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery & Other Heritage Sites
LITHUANIAN JEWISH LIFE | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | CEMETERIES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH ISSUES
◊
VILNIUS—The 21 person democratically elected board of the Vilnius Jewish Community, representing the approximately 2,200 Jews resident in the Lithuanian capital, today released an approved English translation of its 29 August 2018 statement on Jewish heritage in partnership with a number of smaller regional Jewish communities throughout the country. The original Lithuanian text is available here, and appears at the end of this report below.
Those following the saga of attempts to humiliate the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery by situating a national convention center in its heart, will be encouraged by the explicit language concerning the project contained in the statement:
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, EU, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Tagged Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community, Old Vilnius Jewish cemetery, Piramont, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish Cmmunity
Comments Off on Vilnius Jewish Community Calls on Lithuanian Gov. to Preserve Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery & Other Heritage Sites
Grant Gochin Exposes Noreika’s Criminal Gang
OPINION | HISTORY | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
◊
by Andrius Kulikauskas
◊
Lithuanian citizen Grant Gochin, a Litvak born in South Africa and living in California, has relentlessly challenged Lithuania’s Genocide Center to tell the truth about Jonas Noreika, whom the Center maintains can be considered an anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi hero despite his role as a Holocaust perpetrator. Gochin’s 40 page Query Regarding Jonas Noreika’s criminal gang, submitted on June 15, 2018, is available in a PDF file which includes the Lithuanian original (pages 49-89), the English translation (pages 1-45), and an extensive list of source materials (pages 90-100). Jonas Noreika’s granddaughter Silvia Foti also contributed a letter in support of Grant’s query (pages 47-48). The Genocide Center has posted its 18 page response in Lithuanian. On its website it warns that “G.A.G Gochin’s ‘investigation’ of J. Noreika, without providing substantial proof, possibly violating the Republic of Lithuania’s Constitution and the Republic of Lithuania’s Criminal Code, accuses many individuals […]”.
Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Andrius Kulikauskas, Evaldas Balciunas, Genocide Center Vilnius, glorification of Holocaust collaborators, Jonas Noreika
Comments Off on Grant Gochin Exposes Noreika’s Criminal Gang
Mound of Gravel Appears at the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt
CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | HUMAN RIGHTS | LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
◊
Photo: Julius Norwilla / Defending History
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Tagged Herbert Block, Julius Norvila, Julius Norwilla, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, Paul Packer, Piramont Jewish cemetery, Snipiskes --- zydu kapines, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery
Comments Off on Mound of Gravel Appears at the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt
Turto Bankas Discusses the Terms for Desecrating Vilnius
OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS | LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
◊
by Andrius Kulikauskas
On July 2, 2018, at 11 AM, Lithuania’s state property bank, Turto Bankas, led an open meeting to discuss the rental terms for the operator of the Vilnius Concert and Sports House, previously known as the Soviet Sports Palace (Sporto rūmai), which the Soviets built on Vilnius’s oldest Jewish cemetery. The search for an operator is part of a plan by the Lithuanian government to remake the decrepit building as a modern convention center and a symbol of Vilnius. According to critics, the plan is senseless and the symbol shameful.
Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion
Comments Off on Turto Bankas Discusses the Terms for Desecrating Vilnius
Prime Minister’s Office Gloats Over “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery” Project in Reply to Plea from Vilnius Native Ruta Bloshtein
HUMAN RIGHTS | LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
◊
VILNIUS—In March of 2017, Vilnius native and resident Ruta Bloshtein, author of the international petition on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that has achieved 44,000 signatures to date, presented a copy of the petition with a full list of signatures to the office of the prime minister. In June of 2017, she received a reply from the government restating the supposed justification for desecrating the five hundred year old Jewish cemetery on the basis of “permissions” obtained from the (allegedly corrupt) “grave-trading CPJCE rabbis” of London, who are currently under investigation in London.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein
Comments Off on Prime Minister’s Office Gloats Over “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery” Project in Reply to Plea from Vilnius Native Ruta Bloshtein
Herbert Block Issues Public Statement on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | USCPAHA | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES
◊
by Herbert Block
I have been involved in Jewish community, heritage and Holocaust-restitution issues in Lithuania for almost two decades, through various professional and personal capacities. While I have worked on these matters in other European countries, I have a special interest in and bond with these subjects as almost all my family came to America from Litvak areas. In the past few years I have spent a lot of time on the issue of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery in Šnipiškės (Piramónt) and the future plans for the Sports Palace building which has been on that site for decades. I met with many rabbis and community leaders with vastly different views and no meeting or photo should be interpreted as an endorsement of any position.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Herbert Block, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Comments Off on Herbert Block Issues Public Statement on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Three U.S. Senators Appeal to Pres. Grybauskaitė to Spare Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
◊
WASHINGTON DC—Three United States senators, Benjamin L. Cardin (Maryland, D.), Pat Roberts (Kansas, R.), and James E. Risch (Idaho, R.) today wrote to Lithuania’s president, Dalia Grybauskaitė, appealing to her to move the planned national convention center away from the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery to another venue. It follows a similar appeal by twelve members of the American Congress last summer, a wide range of religious, community and religious figures and institutions internationally, and a recent statement to The New York Times by the elected head of the Vilnius Jewish Community, representing the vast majority of Lithuania’s surviving Jewish citizens. Vilnius native and resident Ruta Bloshtein, a prominent figure in Lithuania’s small Orthodox Jewish community, initiated a petition signed by close to 44,000 people internationally.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, United States
Tagged Piramont, rights of minority cemeteries, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery
Comments Off on Three U.S. Senators Appeal to Pres. Grybauskaitė to Spare Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Environment as Spiritual Capital: Restoring Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery
CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS | CEMETERIES | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | PETITION
◊
by Andrius Kulikauskas
Text of the abstract for a paper for the First Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS), Oct 8-9, 2018, Riga, Latvia.
◊
We develop a concept of “spiritual capital” which has suggested itself in the public debate regarding the future of the Vilnius Sports Palace, a large forum which the Soviets built in the 1960s on a Jewish cemetery which is the oldest in Vilnius and perhaps all of the Baltic states. This concept of spiritual capital is relevant for analyzing cultural surroundings but could also perhaps ground a healthy human relationship with natural surroundings.
Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory
Comments Off on Environment as Spiritual Capital: Restoring Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery
Landsbergis and Pavilionis Address June 23rd Rally in Central Vilnius
JUNE 23rd MEMORIALS | EVENTS | OPINION | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | ANTISEMITISM
◊
by Julius Norwilla
◊
Today’s central Vilnius event celebrated the 77th anniversary of the 23 June 1941 “uprising.” Between fifty and sixty people took part. Half of them are members of the motorbike club. The event was organized by the Lithuanian Seimas (parliament). The Seimas was represented by three MPs – Žygimantas Pavilionis, former ambassador to USA; Audronius Ažubalis, former foreign minister; and Laurynas Kasčiūnas. One of the speakers was the Roman Catholic priest and motorbiker Egidijus Kazlauskas who spoke about the suffering and the perseverance of Lithuanians when persecuted by deportations to the eastern Soviet Union. Vilnius city Mayor Remigijus Šimašius was not present, but he has sent his greetings via advisor Mindaugas Kubilius.
A guest of honor was Vytautas Landsbergis, the elder statesman who was modern democratic Lithuania’s founding head of state. In the new century he became a European parliamentarian dedicated to revision of World War II history, most famously via the Prague Declaration which he signed. The event was co-organized by the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Union (Lietuvos laisvės kovotojų sąjunga).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, History, Julius Norwilla, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, June 23rd start of Lithuanian Holocaust
Comments Off on Landsbergis and Pavilionis Address June 23rd Rally in Central Vilnius