News & Views

Яд Вашем и «Два геноцида»

Posted on 18 August 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

Authorized translation into Russian by Milan Chersonski of Danny Ben-Moshe’s op-ed, Yad Vashem and the “Two Genocides” in the 26 August 2013 edition of Jerusalem Report.

Данни Бен-Моше

Яд Вашем и «Два геноцида»

Восточно-европейские политики, переписывая историю Холокоста, создают «двумя геноцидами» угрозу деятельности Яд Вашем по сохранению памяти о Холокосте

Я помню своё первое посещение Яд Вашем, когда 16-летним подростком я оказался в Иерусалиме. Он произвел на меня глубокое впечатление, можно сказать, потряс меня. Когда я уходил оттуда, к лацкану моего пиджака был приколот значок со словом «Захор», что на иврите значит – «Память».

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Danny Ben-Moshe, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, In Russian, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged Emanuelis Zingeris, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes of Lithuania, Pinchos Fridberg, Yad Vashem | Comments Off

Disarray as Shimon Samuels Lecture at Vilnius “Jewish Library” is Cancelled

Posted on 12 August 2013 by Defending History

Vilnius Jewish Public Library, recently host to Genocide Center and R & B Commission

ANNOUNCES CANCELLATION

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Jewish Public Library | Comments Off

Correspondence on a Forthcoming Event in Vilnius

Posted on 11 August 2013 by Defending History

Editor’s note: Professor Pinchos Fridberg today released for publication the following email exchange. His most recent publication on the issue at hand is “Lithuania paying with its image for an official’s ambitions” which has appeared in Russian (English translation here; background).

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", News & Views, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Translation into English of Professor Pinchos Fridberg’s Article of 9 April 2013

Posted on 11 August 2013 by Defending History

The following, for readers’ reference, is a translation of Professor Pinchos Fridberg’s article that appeared in Russian in Zman.com (on 9 April 2013). It was reprinted in Obzor and Shofar7.

Lithuania is Paying with its Image for an Official’s Ambitions

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Who’s Afraid of Defending History Dot Com?

Posted on 8 August 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

It is gratifying that numerous scholars from different parts of the world, and indeed of differing opinions on the contentious issues that lie at the heart of Defending History, have on occasion found it a useful resource for data and views on various topics, including the Double Genocide movement, the Prague Declaration (2008), the Seventy Years Declaration (2012), the politics of memory, Holocaust Obfuscation, glorification of Holocaust perpetrators (and attempted criminalization of resistance heroes), East European antisemitism, racism, homophobia, and Litvak identity theft (more on contents and quick intro page).

Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status | Tagged democracy in the Baltics, Mccarthyism in 21st century Eastern Europe, new far right in Eastern Europe | Comments Off

Lithuania Propaganda Agency is On The Road Again

Posted on 4 August 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

This opinion piece and eyewitness report by Geoff Vasil relates to the July 10th event in honor of the Red-Brown Commission held at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library. See related reports on the library’s instrumentalization as a PR platform for the Commission and the more or less contemporaneous announcement of the Commission’s resumed activities, in the absence of apologies to Yitzhak Arad, Pinchos Fridberg, and the other accused Holocaust survivors.

Attendees at the July 10, 2013 event to honor the “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania” were treated to speeches and plentiful Katz-bashing by (from right) Ronaldas Račinskas, Saulius Sužiedėlis and Ilya Lempertas.

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Games, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Events, Geoff Vasil, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Humor (Of Sorts), Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, The Great SLS About-Face, Vilnius Jewish Public Library, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged Double Genocide, Geoff Vasil, Holocaust in Lithuania, Ilya Lempertas, International Commission for the Evalluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania, Israel Lempert (Izraelis Lempertas), Karen Sutton, Kerry Keys, Massacre of the Jews in Lithuania, Mikhail Iossel, Prague Declaration, Saulius Suziedelis, Seventy Years Declaration, SLS Vilnius, Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Zilvinas Bieliauskas | Comments Off

Tourists Shocked at Monuments and Street Names for Holocaust Collaborators

Posted on 3 August 2013 by Defending History

Increasing numbers of summer tourists, in the spirit of “dark tourism” (and, in an EU/NATO country, a spirit of incredulity) are seeking out street names, public plaques, university lecture halls and other monuments to both collaborators and actual perpetrators of the Lithuanian Holocaust.

Some find the following sections helpful to locating specific sites:

(1) Anthology of street names and honors for killers and collaborators in Lithuania.

(2) Section on events and memorials for collaborators and perpetrators in various parts of Eastern Europe.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Peres in Vilnius July-August 2013 Summary Coverage

Posted on 2 August 2013 by Defending History

Israel’s President Shimon Peres Welcomed in Lithuania

THE QUESTION: Did he remember in private at least to mention the fate of Litvaks (mostly Israeli citizens), in their late 80s to 90s, being “sent to hell” as “suspected criminals for posterity” on the basis of antisemitic governmental kangaroo pronouncements designed to invert the narrative of the Lithuanian Holocaust? Two of them, Yitzhak Arad and Joseph Melamed, are heroes of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. Survivors correspond with president’s office.

Posted in News & Views | Comments Off

Open Letter to Evaldas Gustas, new Minister for the Economy in Lithuania

Posted on 2 August 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

SAMPLE IMAGES

Background:

Original 2 May 2013 report; Person identified by the media submits 13 May 2013 complaint to the Press Commission [draft English translation], citing Anarchija.lt, Balsas.lt, KaunoŽinios.lt, Lrytas.lt as well as DefendingHistory.com. He does not deny the identification but disputes the characterization of his work as in harmony with neo-Nazism.

23 July update: Zeppelinus greets Baltic Pride with a new hate image.

Dear Mr. Gustas,

Congratulations on your recent appointment as Economy Minister. May your tenure be blessed with success, wisdom and good fortune for all of Lithuania’s citizens.

We address you on the advent of your tenure on a human rights matter rather than an economic question. We feel certain you would agree that there is a demonstrable correlation between the long-term successful economies of the world and free and open democratic societies that reject all forms of state-supported fascism, racism, antisemitism, homophobia and other forms of hate and exclusionism directed at segments of the population.

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Dovid Katz, EU, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Russian Speakers' Personal Status | Tagged Antisemitism, Evaldas Gustas, homophobia in Lithuania, Human Rights, human rights in Lithuania, racism, Zeppelinus | Comments Off

An Important Book by Lithuania’s Health Minister, Totally Ignored by the Lithuanian Media. Why?

Posted on 1 August 2013 by Defending History

B O O K S

by Geoff Vasil

See also: Andriukaitis’s 2012 reply to the foreign minister; on the floor of parliament; Andriukaitis section

Vytenis Andriukaitis by Defending History

Vytenis Povilas Andrukaitis, health minister of Lithuania. Photo: DefendingHistory.com

Vytenis Andriukaitis is a veteran politician. If you haven’t been following Lithuanian politics since 1990, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of him, and even if you have, there’s a fair chance you didn’t notice him amid the various cults of personality which have dominated the political scene since about 1990.

The reason for that is fairly simple: Andriukaitis has never cultivated or even tolerated a cult of personality to grow up around him. From the very first days of Lithuanian independence, a freedom movement with which Andriukaitis was intimately involved, he has stubbornly clung to the idea of multiparty parliamentary democracy, largely by his own tenacity reviving the pre-World War II Lithuanian Social Democratic Party.

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Books, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vytenis Andriukaitis | Comments Off

The Fate of an Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that is Part of Now

Posted on 30 July 2013 by Defending History

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 | Comments Off

Estonian Pro-Fascists Celebrate Country’s 1944 Waffen SS Legion

Posted on 29 July 2013 by Defending History

This year’s summer celebration of Estonia’s Hitler-allied Waffen SS was held as scheduled, in the Sinimae hills of eastern Estonia last Saturday, the 27th of July. Images and reports were carried by Postimees and other media.

Source: Postimees

Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Estonia, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, News & Views | Comments Off

Revival of Antisemitism in Europe

Posted on 25 July 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud/Belgium)

One would have thought that after the destruction of millions of Jews during the war and the creation of Israel, that antisemitism would have disappeared forever from Europe, the harsh and bloody lessons of the Holocaust having been learned. Yet, now, almost seventy years later, antisemitism is still an important factor to be reckoned with, both in Eastern and Western Europe.

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, News & Views, Opinion, Roland Binet, Sweden | Comments Off

Zeppelinus, Unmasked as Official at Lithuania’s Ministry for the Economy, Posts New Gay-Hate Image to “Welcome” Baltic Pride Week

Posted on 22 July 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

The leading neo-Nazi blogger in Lithuania, “Zeppelinus,” who was unmasked several months ago by a number of publications as a high official at the Ministry for the Economy and chairman of the nation’s Tripartite Commission, did not deny the identification.

Instead, quite incredibly, he complained to the press commission against those who would dare deem to be unacceptable his hateful racist, antisemitic, homophobic and pro-fascist productions.

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Racism | Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Gay Rights (LGBT) in Lithuania, homophobia, racism, Zeppelinus | Comments Off

Free Speech and Holocaust Remembrance in the Eastern European Union

Posted on 21 July 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

NOTE: This was written in response to “Foreign countries use far-right operations to undermine Lithuania’s image” published on June 7, 2013, on the Lithuania Tribune website.

Initially the editor-in-chief of the Lithuania Tribune agreed to publish the following reply in the Lithuania Tribune, but then changed his mind and finally refused, only informing the author a month later…

Posted in Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, Geoff Vasil, History, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

A Library with an Agenda? Bringing American Naifs On Board the Ultranationalists’ Baltic Holocaust Distortion Train?

Posted on 19 July 2013 by Defending History

SUMMARY COVERAGE OF “VILNIUS JEWISH PUBLIC LIBRARY” EVENTS TO 19 JULY 2013:

Wyman Brent’s prophecy fulfilled?

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Events, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged Genocide Center and Vilnius Jewish Library, Genocide Center in Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust Obfuscation in Vilnius, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Pinchos Fridberg, Red-Brown Commission, SLS (Summer Literary Seminars) Vilnius, Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Wyman Brent, Zilvinas Bieliauskas | Comments Off

EHU Center for German Studies: “Colloquium Vilnense 2013” is Short on “The Second Opinion” when it comes to The Holocaust

Posted on 19 July 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

Colleagues at the prestigious European Humanities University in Vilnius (EHU, also known as the Belarusian Humanities University, in exile here in Vilnius) have passed on the public poster for this year’s series of seminars under the title Colloquium vilnense 2013, running from May to November 2013. The A3 size poster is reproduced (much reduced) at the bottom of this page in two halves.

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Documents, Double Games, Dovid Katz, EU, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Germany, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged Belarusian Humanities University (Vilnius), Colloquium vilnense, Colloquium vilnense + Jewish issues, Colloquium vilnense + Yiddish, EHU (European Humanities University), EHU Center for German Studies (Vilnius), European Humanities University + Yiddish, Holocaust Denial and Obfuscation, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust Obfuscation, Vilnius Yiddish Institute | Comments Off

Holocaust Survivors from Lithuania Issue Statement on Sutzkever Prize in Vilnius

Posted on 18 July 2013 by Defending History

On the 15 July 2013 centenary of the birth of the illustrious Yiddish poet of Vilna, Abraham Sutzkever (1913–2010), the last active association of Holocaust survivors from Lithuania released the statement below (also available as PDF). It urges organizers, participants, judges and prize winners to avoid being instrumentalized as cover-up props for Holocaust obfuscation. It proposes that they simply issue public statements calling for written public apologies from the Lithuanian government to the defamed Jewish partisans who knew Sutzkever well from the forests of Lithuania and dozens of years of contact in survivor circles. See the related debate on this year’s Sutzkever Prize.

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Documents, Double Games, Events, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Joseph Melamed, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Sutzkever Prize in Lithuania, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged Abraham Sutzkever, Fania Brantsovsky, Joseph Melamed, Rachel Margolis, SLS Jewish Lithuania Sutzkever Prize, Sutzkever Prize in Lithuania, Yitzhak Arad | Comments Off

Vexed Revival of “Red-Brown Commission”

Posted on 12 July 2013 by Defending History

State-sponsored Zingeris-Račinskas “red-brown commission” (officially: International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania) in Vilnius posts new list of members.

See also:

Page on the commission

Critiques of the commission and its associated Prague Declaration

DH section on the commission.

Resignations to date from Commission-related bodies include Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Sir Martin Gilbert (London), Prof. Gershon Greenberg (Washington DC), Prof. Konrad Kwiet (Sydney) and Prof. Dov Levin (Jerusalem).

Holocaust survivors themselves have stood up to express disquiet about some aspects of the commission: Yitzhak Arad, Pinchos Fridberg (more), Dov Levin (more), Joseph Melamed (more), Basheva Ran, the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Jewish Community of Lithuania / Union of Ghetto Survivors. A decade and a half of issues.

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Germany, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Jewish Public Library | Tagged Arunas Bubnys, Double Genocide, Dov Levin, Emanuelis Zingeris, Holocaust Denial and Obfuscation, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust Obfuscation, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Joseph Melamed, Litvaks, Milan Chersonski, Pinchos Fridberg, Red-Brown Commission, Ronaldas Racinskas, Sarunas Liekis, Yitzhak Arad | Comments Off

President of Germany Hails Baltic Double Genocide Revisionism

Posted on 11 July 2013 by Defending History

by Leena Hietanen (Tallinn)

Germany’s president, Joachim Gauck, welcomed intensified cooperation between Estonian and German historians in the cause of continuing the search for Communist crimes in both Soviet Estonia and East Germany. He posed for photographs alongside Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves with a backdrop of the iconic red-equals-brown Hollywoodesque “set” welcoming visitors to the nation’s Museum of the Occupation in Central Tallinn.

german and estonian presidents celebrate double genocide

Photo of the two presidents with red-brown-equals-sign backdrop at the Museum of the Occupation in Central Tallinn: Postimees (Erik Peinar). More red-brown iconography here.

Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, EU, Germany, Leena Hietanen, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform" | Tagged Double Genocide in Estonia and Germany, German-Estonian relations, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust in Estonia, Joachim Gauck on Jewish and Holocaust issues, Leena Hietanen, Toomas Hendrik Ilves on Jewish and Holocaust issues | Comments Off

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News & Views

O P I N I O N

Данни Бен-Моше

Яд Вашем и «Два геноцида»

Восточно-европейские политики, переписывая историю Холокоста, создают «двумя геноцидами» угрозу деятельности Яд Вашем по сохранению памяти о Холокосте

Vilnius Jewish Public Library, recently host to Genocide Center and R & B Commission

Lithuania is Paying with its Image for an Official’s Ambitions

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

O P I N I O N

O P I N I O N

Background:

B O O K S

by Geoff Vasil

See also: Andriukaitis’s 2012 reply to the foreign minister; on the floor of parliament; Andriukaitis section

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

O P I N I O N

by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud/Belgium)

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

SUMMARY COVERAGE OF “VILNIUS JEWISH PUBLIC LIBRARY” EVENTS TO 19 JULY 2013:

Wyman Brent’s prophecy fulfilled?

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

State-sponsored Zingeris-Račinskas “red-brown commission” (officially: International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania) in Vilnius posts new list of members.

See also:

Page on the commission

Critiques of the commission and its associated Prague Declaration

DH section on the commission.

Resignations to date from Commission-related bodies include Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Sir Martin Gilbert (London), Prof. Gershon Greenberg (Washington DC), Prof. Konrad Kwiet (Sydney) and Prof. Dov Levin (Jerusalem).

by Leena Hietanen (Tallinn)

Photo of the two presidents with red-brown-equals-sign backdrop at the Museum of the Occupation in Central Tallinn: Postimees (Erik Peinar). More red-brown iconography here.

**Scholars & journalists: When you use DH, please cite DH.**