VILNIUS—Five years ago in 2011, on the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Lithuanian Holocaust on 23 June 1941 and the following days — nationalist murderers killed thousands of Jewish neighbors before the first German forces arrived or assumed control — the state sponsored an array of activities honoring the “rebels” (an historic nonsense, the Soviet occupying forces were fleeing Hitler’s invasion, the largest in human history, not the local Jew-killers).
News & Views
Defending History Brings Results
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Celebrating (!) 75th Anniversary of Start of the Lithuanian Holocaust (23 June 2016)?
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VILNIUS—For the tiny and dwindling group of Holocaust survivors in this part of the world, the indelibly cursed day the genocide began was June 23rd 1941, when hordes of young local “nationalists,” some affiliated with the fascist Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) — which had put in writing its intentions for Jewish fellow-citizens beforehand — began to murder, plunder and rape their neighbors in at least forty locations before the first German soldiers even got there, as confirmed by numerous historians and eyewitnesses. Within a few days, most would don white-armbands.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust in the Baltics, LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front), Vytautas Magnus University
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Asra Kadisha on Vilna Cemetery: From Proud Powerhouse of Historic Truth to Silent Mouse?
PAPER TRAIL | REGISTRY OF OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | DH SECTION
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O P I N I O N
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VILNIUS—Between October 2014 and October 2015, the international Jewish-cemetery group Asra Kadisha, coordinated by haredim largely affiliated with the “Zalmen” branch of the split Hasidic Satmar group (today the world’s largest Hasidic group) made a number of contributions that will remain permanent. Thanks in whole or in part to Asra Kadisha, eighteen important documents were published opposing the antisemitic decision of some Lithuanian government officials to allow a convention center to rise, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of skeletons on all four sides, skeletons of Jewish citizens of Vilnius buried there between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. As a Protestant minister and Catholic philosopher have pointed out, such would not have been the decision were it a Christian cemetery or one housing heroes of Lithuanian culture between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. Of course the millions in store for property developers and their many “beneficiaries” (for decades to come) play a prime role; antisemitism enters the picture when the state fails to put in play the same brakes which it applies for majority culture and majority religion sacred sites.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), CPJCE (London), 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, United States, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Tagged Asra Kadisha, CPJCE
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Document Unearthed: 1935 Tel Aviv Protest Against Plans to Defile the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
DOCUMENTS | PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | CEMETERIES
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VILNIUS—Professor Sid (Shnayer) Leiman, widely considered to be the world’s leading scholar on the old Vilna Jewish cemetery at Piramónt (in the Šnipiškės district), today released a remarkable document: a spirited 1935 protest, in Hebrew, from the Vilna Gaon Synagogue in Tel Aviv, against the then Polish municipal authorities’ plans to construct a sports stadium in the heart of the old cemetery.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Tagged Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, Jewish cemetery at Snipiskes, Piramont, Vilnius Old Jewish Cemetery
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DH Writer Lugged into Court Again for Critique of State Honors for Holocaust Collaborators
FREE SPEECH | HUMAN RIGHTS | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | BOLD CITIZENS
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VILNIUS—The latest in a long line of court appearance demanded by summons of Defending History author Evaldas Balčiūnas, will be held this Monday, 13 June, at 1:30 PM (13:30) at Vilnius County Court at Laisves Prospektas 79A, courtroom 019.
COME SUPPORT EVALDAS BALČIŪNAS MONDAY 13 JUNE 2016, 1:30 PM (13:30), VILNIUS COUNTY COURT, LAISVĖS PROSPEKTAS 79A, ROOM 019
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prosecutors & Police 'Investigate' DH Author Evaldas Balčiūnas, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika
Tagged Abuse of Judiciary in the Baltics, Democracy in Eastern Europe, Evaldas Balciunas, Free Speech and Holocaust Discourse, Free speech in Lithuania, human rights in Lithuania
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Ruta Bloshtein Discovers 1935 Vilna Rabbis’ Condemnation of Plans to Desecrate Old Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt
DOCUMENTS | PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | CEMETERIES
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VILNIUS—In a strictly private capacity, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, a Vilnius born member of Lithuania’s small Jewish community, whose maternal ancestors hail from the shtetl Tríshik (Tryškiai), has released to the media a remarkable Yiddish public poster issued by the Vilna Board of Rabbis on 30 Nissan 5695 — the Jewish calendar date corresponding with 3 May 1935 — that she discovered in Lithuania’s central state archive. It is an impassioned plea by the Board of Rabbis asking the then Polish authorities in the city to abandon their plans for a sports stadium on the site of Piramónt (in the Šnipiškės district), the old Vilna Jewish cemetery that goes back to the late fifteenth century, and where thousands of luminous Litvak scholars lie buried.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein
Tagged CPJCE, Piramont, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, US Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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South African Litvak in London Critiques Lithuania’s Citizenship Policies
OPINION | LITHUANIA | SOUTH AFRICA | HUMAN RIGHTS | ANTISEMITISM & BIAS
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by Daniel Lutrin
The following opinion piece by Daniel Lutrin appeared in the South African Jewish Report on 1 June 2016 under the headline “Lithuanian Citizenship: Only Successful Applicant is a Dead Jew.” Comments or discussion may be directed to the South African Jewish Report. Defending History is always prepared to consider actual articles in reaction to published articles.
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It was gratifying to see a recent article regarding the plight that Jews of Lithuanian origin (Litvaks) are facing when applying to have their Lithuanian citizenship restored. The article, however, does not hone in on the critical matter at hand, namely the extent to which Lithuanian bureaucrats have gone to deny Jews of their ancestral right to citizenship.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Citizenship, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, South Africa
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San Francisco Examiner — Bamboozled?
MUSEUMS | MEDIA WATCH | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | POLITICS OF MEMORY
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VILNIUS—Yet another major American newspaper, this time the San Francisco Examiner, has done a fine travel report on Vilnius, the beautiful capital of Lithuania, but with perhaps naive and uncritical treatment of one of the city’s less savory sites that is a product of the far-right history revisionism of the ultranationalist camp. It is the city center’s so-called “Museum of Genocide Victims” that is mostly dedicated to the genocide that did not happen in Lithuania (during the dictatorial Soviets’ misrule), while making national heroes of some of the local collaborators including actual killers) in the Holocaust — the genocide that did take place, resulting in the annihilation of 96.4% of Lithuanian Jewry, the highest percentage in Holocaust-era Europe. The conceptual backdrop is the thriving Double Genocide movement in this part of the world.
The Examiner article reports that “Gediminas Avenue, the main artery through the city […] ends up at the Museum of Genocide Victims, the location of the 20th century Soviet KGB prison. […] The Museum is a very powerful statement to the horrors mankind can inflict on humanity.” Not a word about the fact that the same building was also a Gestapo headquarters during the Holocaust where the murders of 100,000 citizens at nearby Ponár (Paneriai) were coordinated, nor about the massive glorification of Holocaust collaborators throughout the building.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged 36 Hours in Vilnius, Genocide Museum in Vilnius, Holocaust museums, Jonathan Rome, New York Times on Lithuania, San Francisco Examiner on Lithuania, Sarah Khan, The Old World Charm of Vilnius
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Can Litvak Scions Worldwide Reclaim Lithuanian (Hence EU) Citizenship?
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by Stefanie De Saude
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The following is a slightly updated reprint, with the author’s permission, of today’s article in News24.com.
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A confluence of poor government policy implementation and underhanded representation of the Jewish community in Lithuania was until recently creating a toxic mix of frustration and tension with the Jewish diaspora. Considering the sizable South African Jewish community that is of Lithuanian descent, this would be cause for alarm. But a string of recent court cases and a bold step forward by the Lithuanian government give hope that the project of reintegration of the Jewish diaspora in Lithuania is on track.
Posted in Citizenship, News & Views
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“Prague Platform” Ensnares “European Shoah Legacy Institute” in Double Genocide
“Prague Platform” and Slovak government announce partnership with the “European Shoah Legacy Institute” (!) in organizing:
EU Competition for a New Red-Brown, Mix-n-Match Memorial in Brussels; Students Aged 16-21 Eligible
CAMPAIGN TO EXPORT DOUBLE GENOCIDE FROM EAST EUROPEAN NATIONALISTS TO THE WIDER EU?
Will the red-equals-brown street-shows of Eastern Europe now be exported to Brussels under cover of a “Jewish” organization dedicated to Holocaust justice?
“Guidelines” include the requirement that “the memorial must be inclusive of the victims of National Socialism, Fascism and Communism”
LONG RECORD OF USE OF JEWISH, YIDDISH, OR HOLOCAUST PROJECTS AS A KIND OF PR COVER FOR HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM
ALSO: EU funded “Prague Platform” exhibit that spews Double Genocide revisionism of the Holocaust arrives in Budapest; More on the “Platform” and the exhibit that circles the globe (courtesy of EU taxpayers) to underpin Eastern European far-right revisionism; Still, Platform’s director insists that nobody is erecting monuments for Nazi collaborators — Unaware of news from Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine? More…
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform"
Tagged Double Genocide, ESLI, ESLI.org, European Shoah Legacy Institute, Holocaust Obfuscation, Holocaust Politics, Prague Declaration, Prague Platform
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Vilnius City Council Member Decries Memorials for Nazi Collaborators
VILNIUS—Briton Mark Adam Harold, also known as Mark Splinter, this city’s sole foreign elected City Council member, spoke out in an interview published today in 15min.lt calling for the city to accept the 2015 petition of a group of intellectuals to remove plaques honoring Holocaust collaborator Jonas Noreika. In his reply to a pointed question, he also added that the city-center street named for Nazi collaborator Kazys Škirpa be renamed for Righteous of the Nations (rescuers of civilians targeted for death by the Nazis and their local partners). He also challenged the city’s mayor, implying that there might be an element of cowardice in failure to undertake simple measures that would immeasurably improve the international reputation of Lithuania’s storied capital.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Honoring Holocaust collaborators, Mark Adam Harold, Mark Splinter, Vilnius, Vilnius City Council
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Lithuanian Philosopher Writes to Archbishop Grušas
CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | EVENTS | BOLD CITIZENS SPEAK OUT
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by Andrius Kulikauskas
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Editor’s note: The author provides here his own synopsis (with explanatory comments for Defending History readers) of his Lithuanian essay that appeared in Veidas on 5 May 2016. It is in effect an open letter from a Lithuanian citizen to Archbishop Gintaras Grušas on the occasion of the “Jubilee Year of Mercy” events scheduled this week under the title “National Congress of Mercy.”
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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jewish-Christian relations in Lithuania, Lithuanian-Jewish relations
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GioBaltic’s Report on Piramónt
PIRAMÓNT | PAPER TRAIL | OPPOSITION | CEMETERIES
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VILNIUS—Defending History today obtained from multiple sources here PDF copies (all with some faulty representation of Lithuanian language diacritics) of a new geophysical report by the company GeoBaltic, specialists in oil and gas exploration, on the territory of the old Jewish cemetery at Piramónt in the Šnipiškės section of modern Vilnius. The entire document is now available online, and it is anticipated in some quarters that one or more of the funded bodies tasked with preserving Jewish heritage in Europe (e.g. the US taxpayer-funded Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad in Washington DC and the CPJCE in London) will rapidly publish a full English translation along with their own reactions and responses.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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First Test of Torah Integrity for New Vilnius Rabbi Samson Daniel Izakson?
PIRAMÓNT | PAPER TRAIL | OPPOSITION | CEMETERIES
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VILNIUS—When Lithuania’s official chief rabbi of eleven years’ standing, Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, was dismissed last summer after disagreeing with the government’s plan to erect a national convention center in the heart of Vilna’s old Jewish cemetery, the event caught the attention of both local and international media. It was quietly hoped, both in Vilnius and abroad, that the eventual replacement would be loyal to sacred Jewish causes (see Rabbi Burshtein’s final statement of his tenure in Vilnius), someone who would not dare, for the considerations of a job, betray the letter and spirit of Jewish law, or the living and the deceased actual Jews of Vilna over the centuries. See Prof. Shnayer Leiman’s essay on the subject, our editor’s summary, a satiric Motke Chabad take, and Dr. Bernard Fryshman’s reminder that “Even now, the cemetery contains the bodies of the Chayey Odom and the Be’eyr ha-Goylo among many others.” A second essay by Professor Leiman paves the way for inspiring reconstruction of many of the major historic structures of Lithuania’s foremost Jewish cemetery.
by Vulovak (Vilnius) for DefendingHistory.com
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
Tagged CPJCE, Piramont (Snipiskes), Rabbi Samson Daniel Izakson, Rabbi Samson Izakson in Vilnius, Vilna Jewish cemetery
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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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Appeal to Conscience of the “Red-Brown Commission”
[updated]
Appeal to the conscience of the members of the renewed state-financed “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania”
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", 70 Years Declaration, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Germany, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform", Yad Vashem and Lithuania, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Historical Commission (Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust studies manipulated?, International Commision for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Lithuania, Pinchos Fridberg, Yitzhak Arad
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Professor Dov Levin’s Findings on the Outbreak of the Lithuanian Holocaust
DOCUMENTS | HISTORY
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The following is the first column of page 898 of Professor Dov Levin’s entry, “Lithuania,” in volume 3 of Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (Israel Gutman, editor-in-chief; published by Macmillan, New York, and Collier Macmillan, London, 1990, in cooperation with Yad Vashem: The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem). Further reading on the subject. Eyewitness testimonies.
Posted in Documents, Dov Levin (1925 - 2016), History, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), Professor Dov Levin, Start of the Lithuanian Holocaust
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UCL “Point Man” Honored in Vilnius
LONDON—Defending History readers are familiar with the curious history of University College London’s Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies repeatedly providing cover for Lithuanian government efforts to obfuscate the Holocaust via the revisionist paradigm widely known as Double Genocide. The saga started in late 2010 with the announcement of an “academic” conference from which all critics of Lithuanian government policy were banned, and whose raison d’être was announced as replacing the “simplified” narratives of the Holocaust. The then head of the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Prof. Ada Rapoport-Albert, was herself one of the signatories on a public letter of protest handed to the Lithuanian embassy in February 2011. The Wiesenthal Center’s director of East European affairs, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, published an op-ed on the subject in London’s Jewish Chronicle.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
Tagged Francois Guesnet, UCL + Lithuania, UCL Jewish Studies
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Jews and Other Minorities in Eastern Europe Concerned by EU Chief’s Addition of a Single Word about Old Jewish Cemetery
CEMETERY PAPER TRAIL | OPPOSITION TO DATE | DH SECTION | BACKGROUND
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BRUSSELS—Back in October, 2015, high-level European Union spokesperson Chiara Adamo had replied to French human rights activist Didier Bertin on behalf of European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, assuring the public that
“Contrary to reports in some Lithuanian newspapers and international media, the planned renovation project at the Vilnius Snipisek cemetery is not supported by European Union funds.”
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Appeals to the European Commission on Piramónt, Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, EU, Gareth Thomas, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory
Tagged EU and antisemitism, Jewish affairs in European Commission, Jewish cemeteries in Europe, Piramont (Snipiskes), US Commission for American Heritage, Vilniujs Jewish cemetery
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Latvia’s Ambassador to the UK Replies to Gareth Thomas MP on Annual Waffen SS Marches in Central Riga
UK | LATVIA | GLORIFICATION OF COLLABORATORS | PRO-NAZI MARCHES | DOCUMENTS
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LONDON—The following is the 16 April 2016 reply of the Latvian ambassador to the UK Aandris Teikmanis to MP Gareth Thomas, concerning the annual March 16th events in central Riga glorifying the Latvian Waffen SS.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, EU, Gareth Thomas, Human Rights, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Kingdom
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