O P I N I O N
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
Konstantinas Liuberskis–Žvainys is a figure with a curious biography.
News & Views
Another “Resistance Hero” or — War Criminal who Selected Jews for Mass Murder?
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Evaldas Balčiūnas, History, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Jewish + Lithuania
Comments Off on Another “Resistance Hero” or — War Criminal who Selected Jews for Mass Murder?
On the Recent Amateur Treatments of the Role of the Provisional Government of 1941 in the Mass Media
O P I N I O N
by Shimon Alperovich
Authorized translation from Lithuanian by Geoff Vasil of the 26 June 2012 statement issued by Dr. Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavičius), chairperson of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. Posted on the community’s website at: http://www.lzb.lt/en/home/691-recent.html. According to sources in the community, Dr. Alperovich wrote this in response to an article on Delfi.lt by Vidmantas Valiušaitis called “Why are Historians Afraid of the Facts?” (Lithuanian text here), and when Delfi allegedly declined to publish Dr. Alperovich’s response, the community placed it on its own webpage and elsewhere.
Recently there has been an increasing number of internet articles by amateur, non-professional authors without training in history expressing approval for the actions of the 1941 Provisional Government of Lithuania toward the Jews of Lithuania, without regard for the antisemitic actions of that government in the context of the mass murder of the Jews of Lithuania already underway at that time.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community earlier provided an assessment of the Lithuanian Activist Front and the Provisional Government.
It is saddening that the authors of these texts choose to ignore the conclusions of professional historians as well as the findings of the special commission established by decree of former president Valdas Adamkus and operating under the Lithuanian government, which clearly and categorically judges the actions of the LAF and PG thus:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014), Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Dr. Shimon Alperovich (Simas Alperavicius), Jewish Community of Lithuania, Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), Provisional Government (PG) of Lihtuania in 1941
Comments Off on On the Recent Amateur Treatments of the Role of the Provisional Government of 1941 in the Mass Media
Перезахоронение как способ переписать историю
МНЕНИЕ
Милан Херсонский
ЗА СЧЕТ НАЛОГОПЛАТЕЛЬЩИКОВ
Юозас Амбразайтис-Бразявичюс (1903- 1974)
В Каунасе полторы недели, с 17-го по 27-ое мая продолжались поминально-погребальные мероприятия, посвященные перемещению праха Юозаса Амбразявичюса-Бразайтиса, бывшего временного премьер-министра Временного правительства Литвы (ВПЛ) в бывшую временную литовскую столицу Каунас.
Его прах доставили самолетом из далекого американского штата Коннектикут в нынешнюю литовскую столицу Вильнюс, затем с почетным эскортом препроводили в Каунас, где прах погребенного в 1974-м году Бразайтиса был заново погребен, на сей раз – с отданием государственных почестей.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, In Russian, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Comments Off on Перезахоронение как способ переписать историю
Reply to the Economist on Lithuania’s Recent Reburial of the 1941 Nazi Puppet “Prime Minister”
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
This is a slightly edited reprint of the comment posted today in reply to the article “Lithuania under the Nazis: Hero or Villain?” on the Economist’s online “Eastern Approaches” section, at: http://www.economist.com/comment/1472788#comment-1472788.
Many thanks to the Economist and its online Eastern Approaches section for highlighting this important issue that so many others have just swept under the rug. But frankly speaking, it does our Lithuanian friends no good to slant each report in the direction of sophisticated apologetics for the Lithuanian (and other regional) governments’ tragic veering to the far right on issues of historic integrity, human rights, freedom of speech, antisemitism, racism, gay rights, and perhaps above all, state-sponsored adulation of local Nazi war criminals and collaborators, and actual local mass murderers of the region’s Jewish population. It was, alas, a level of participation that resulted in the Baltics having the highest percentage of murder of its Jewish population in Holocaust-era Europe.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, EU, Human Rights, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, United Kingdom
Tagged Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, DefendingHistory.com, Edward Lucas, Jewish + Lithuania, Leonidas Donskis, Valdas Adamkus, Vytautas Landsbergis, Vytenis Andriukaitis
Comments Off on Reply to the Economist on Lithuania’s Recent Reburial of the 1941 Nazi Puppet “Prime Minister”
A Heroic Narrative in Violation of Good Conscience
O P I N I O N
by Leonidas Donskis
The ceremonial reburial of the head of the Lithuanian Provisional Government (PG), Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, which recently took place, and the tension and details associated with it, said more about Lithuania today than all the news and commentary over the past twenty years put together.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Events, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuanian Holocaust, Lithuanian Jews
Comments Off on A Heroic Narrative in Violation of Good Conscience
Explosive Reactions to Saulius Berzhinis’s New Film on the Holocaust in Jurbarkas (Yúrberik)
O P I N I O N / F I L M R E V I E W
by Milan Chersonski
Vilnius film director Saulius Berzhinis
There has recently been extensive Lithuanian media coverage of a conflict between the authorities of the city Jurbarkas, Lithuania, and the film company Filmų Kopa, founded by film director Saulius Berzhinis (Beržinis) and managed by Ona Biveinienė.
To mark the seventieth anniversary of the beginning of World War II in Lithuania and the beginning of the total annihilation of its Jews, the Jurbarkas regional museum commissioned a documentary about Jews who lived in the town before World War II, paid for by the Ministry of Culture and the budget of the municipality. Filmų Kopa was awarded the commission and made a documentary called “When Yiddish was Heard in Jurbarkas.” The town’s name in Yiddish is Yúrberik or Yúrburg.
As the film has become a matter of sharp conflict, it is worthwhile in the first instance to take a good look at the actual product that Filmų Kopa delivered to the residents of Jurbarkas.
Posted in Arts, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Film, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Media Watch, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Saulius Beržinis
Comments Off on Explosive Reactions to Saulius Berzhinis’s New Film on the Holocaust in Jurbarkas (Yúrberik)
Red-Brown Campaigners Soften Rhetoric at Latest European Parliament Conference
O P I N I O N
Lithuania’s major daily Lietuvos rytas today published a report on the just completed conference called “Legal Regulation of Communist Crimes” held at the European Parliament (full DH.com translation here).
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, News & Views, Opinion
Comments Off on Red-Brown Campaigners Soften Rhetoric at Latest European Parliament Conference
Фильм о Юрбаркасе, в котором давно не звучит идиш
М Н Е Н И Е
Милан Херсонский
В литовских СМИ – печатных и виртуальных, местных и центральных – в последнее время уделялось большое внимание конфликту, возникшему между администрацией города Юрбаркаса, с одной стороны, и кинокомпанией «Filmų kopa» (режиссер Саулюс Бержинис, директор Она Бивейнене) – с другой.
Posted in In Russian, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Comments Off on Фильм о Юрбаркасе, в котором давно не звучит идиш
Congratulating Algimantas Kasparavičius who Gets it Right: Trying to Manage History is a Big-Time Loser for Mature Foreign Policy
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
It isn’t every Monday and Thursday (as the old Yiddish saying goes) that this journal publishes an opinion piece congratulating a contemporary historian in Lithuania who is a current mainstream player (rather than a pensioner, conceptual or actual exile, or someone painted up as a narrow ethnic-minority champion, anarchist, Soviet apologist, plain old personal maverick, or what-not). It is even more unusual for DefendingHistory.com to go out on a limb without even knowing said historian’s views on the issues that lie at the core of DH’s modest corner in the contemporary marketplace of ideas.
Let it be said at the outset that we sincerely hope that a vote of confidence and congratulations from DefendingHistory.com will not unduly (let alone fatally) harm the man’s future career prospects in the vaunted circles of Lithuania’s most powerful politicians, state institutions and history professors. But come to think of it, the improper leap-into-bed together of this untenable ménage-à-trois goes to the core of the conundrum.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Games, Dovid Katz, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Comments Off on Congratulating Algimantas Kasparavičius who Gets it Right: Trying to Manage History is a Big-Time Loser for Mature Foreign Policy
Unelected 1941 Pro-Nazi Provisional Government of Lithuania Never Intended Good for Country
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
In May Lithuania celebrated the return of the ashes of the Nazi puppet prime minister of June, 1941, Juozas Ambrazevičius (who changed his surname to Brazaitis as a matter of convenience when he began using papers issued to one Brazaitis). The schizophrenic nature of the events were evident from the start, from the Kubilius government’s resolution allocating 30,000 litas in funding to celebrate the Lithuanian Nazi which, several items down the list, also allocated 3,000 litas for a project to “name the names,” to draw up a list of Lithuanian Holocaust victims, in conjunction with the Yad Vashem institution in Jerusalem.
The dissociative shell game continued when the government and state institutions sought to pawn off the events they financed on other institutions: the Catholic Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kaunas, and an “academic conference/commemoration” planned at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. After a scandal broke and former professor now MEP Leonidas Donskis published an eloquent protest on DH, the rector of VMU, who didn’t want the heat, told the Nazi celebrators to find another venue, one supplied by the Kaunas municipality, the chambers of the Kaunas city council. Then, in keeping with the theme of schizophrenia, VMU decided to allow another “academic conference” on university premises, initially with the exact same list of speakers as the banned event.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Free Speech & Democracy, Geoff Vasil, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated?
Comments Off on Unelected 1941 Pro-Nazi Provisional Government of Lithuania Never Intended Good for Country
Public Statement Concerning Instrumentalization of Academic Publications in Ukraine
O P I N I O N
by Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe and Per Anders Rudling
Vadym Kolesnychenko, a member of the parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions, recently published a volume (http://r-u.org.ua/kniga/kniga.pdf) of Russian language translations of articles written by Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, Per Anders Rudling and Timothy Snyder.
The articles appeared originally in journals such as Kritika, New York Times Review of Books, Carl Beck Papers and KakanienRevisited. Mr. Kolesnychenko translated and published the volume without the approval or consent of the authors. We regard this conduct as unethical.
Our objections to the political instrumentalization of our work by the Party of Regions are the same as our reservations to analogous instrumentalization by pro-nationalist groups and organizations.
- Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe
- University of Hamburg
- Per Anders Rudling
- Lund University
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, G. Rossoliński-Liebe, History, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged G. Rossoliński-Liebe, Per Anders Rudling, Timothy Snyder, Vadym Kolesnychenko
Comments Off on Public Statement Concerning Instrumentalization of Academic Publications in Ukraine
Estonia’s 2012 “Valentine’s Day Law”
O P I N I O N
by Leena Hietanen and Petri Krohn
TALLINN―The rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators here in Estonia reached its climax on 14 February 2012, when the Estonian Parliament adopted a declaration sponsored by Defense Minister Mart Laar, in which all who took up arms against the Soviet Union were recognized as “freedom fighters.” The parliament’s statement included the following language, made to sound rather innocuous:
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Estonia, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Leena Hietanen, News & Views
Comments Off on Estonia’s 2012 “Valentine’s Day Law”
VMU in Kaunas Sinking Further into Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis Morass, as Historians Join Glorifiers for Yet Another Event
[Updates inserted in square brackets.] According to the website of Vytautas Magnus Univeristy, another event on Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis, the Nazi puppet “prime minister” of Lithuania who presided over the onset of the genocide of Lithuanian Jewry, will be held tomorrow, 24 May 2012, in the same VMU building (at Donelaičio Street 52) which is reputed to house both a lecture hall (room no. 608) and a bas-relief honoring the wartime fascist. Tomorrow’s event has also been announced on Bernardinai.lt. [Editor’s note of 24 May 2012: Shortly after the appearance of this article, the VMU website program was withdrawn; a screen shot appears below toward the end of this article.]
It is only a week since Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) withdrew from hosting a conference to honor the memory of the wartime collaborator in circumstances that have led to substantial confusion and conflict.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Events, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute (VYI), Vytautas Magnus University (VMU)
Comments Off on VMU in Kaunas Sinking Further into Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis Morass, as Historians Join Glorifiers for Yet Another Event
“Take off your hat. This is not the synagogue.”
E Y E W I T N E S S A C C O U N T / O P I N I O N
by Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson
An eyewitness account of the memorial conference for 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis held at Kaunas City Hall on Saturday 19 May 2012. The event had been moved from its earlier scheduled venue at Vytautas Magnus University.
A few months ago, I received an invitation to give a talk at a conference to be held at the Lozoraitis Museum on the campus of Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas on the 19th of May. That would be my fourth visit to Lithuania and my first to Kaunas.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson
Comments Off on “Take off your hat. This is not the synagogue.”
Kaunas University History Professor on the Glorification of Nazi Puppet PM Ambrezevicius-Brazaitis
The following is a translation of today’s Lietuvos rytas publication of an interview with Vytautas Magnus University professor of history and director of its Émigré Studies Center Egidijus Aleksandravičius. The interview was conducted by Valdas Bartaševičius. In the interview’s final paragraph, the professor decries the university administrators who cancelled (under pressure) one of the festive events celebrating reburial of the Nazi puppet prime minister (who personally signed papers ordering the Jewish citizens of his city, Kaunas, into a ghetto, after others were massacred at the Seventh Fort), explaining (see final paragraph, below): “This wasn’t the academic community but a decision of the VMU administration which became frightened that they were going to get hit over the head with a club by the Jews.” The text of the interview as PDF (Lithuanian original in Lrytas.lt).
◊
Egidijus Aleksandravičius: “By Reburying Brazaitis, we Wanted to Show that the Lithuanian Drama hasn’t Yet Ended”
by Valdas Bartaševičius (Lietuvos rytas)
The mortal remains of the controversial head of the Lithuanian Provisional Government, Juozas Brazaitis, were flown from the United States to Lithuania and reburied Sunday in Kaunas.
The ceremony for the reburial of Brazaitis gave rise to protests by Jews who judge negatively the activities of the Provisional Government of 1941, which published antisemitic statements.
This led to the decision by Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) not to allow a conference on Brazaitis which had been planned there.
“Are Jews justified in being angered by the idea of honoring Brazaitis by reburying his remains in his homeland?” Lietuvos Rytas asked Egidijus Aleksandravičius, a VMU professor and director of the Émigré Studies Center.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Holocaust collaborators glorified in Kaunas, Holocaust in Lithuania, Vhytautas Magnus University, VMU and Jewish issues
Comments Off on Kaunas University History Professor on the Glorification of Nazi Puppet PM Ambrezevicius-Brazaitis
An Open Letter to Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
NOTE: This is an authorized republication of today’s letter, which first appeared in the online Algemeiner Journal. [Update: It then appeared in the AJ’s print edition on 25 May, pp. 2, 4, 5.]
Dear Tim,
Greetings, and sorry we missed each other in Vilnius this time. I write in the context of our ongoing and respectful conversation, which started in the Guardian (thanks to Matt Seaton, and prominently including Efraim Zuroff) back in 2010 (I, II, III, IV); continuing through our meeting at Yale, the Aftermath Conference in Melbourne, Australia, in 2011 (thanks to Mark Baker, and with participation of Jan Gross and Patrick Desbois), and more recently, via my review of your book Bloodlands (along with Alexander Prusin’s The Lands Between), in East European Jewish Affairs.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Books, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States
Tagged Bloodlands, Efraim Zuroff, Jewish + Lithuania, Jonathan Brent, Mark Baker, Matt Seaton, Prague Declaration, Timothy Snyder, Yivo, Yivo Lithuania
Comments Off on An Open Letter to Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder
Lithuanian Newspaper Accuses Kaunas Rector of Misleading Parliament about Whether He Knew in Advance of VMU’s Planned Conference To Honor Wartime Nazi Puppet Prime Minister
Reporter Andrius Makauskas, in a substantial article in yesterday’s online edition of the respected daily Lietuvos žinios (Lžionios.lt, “Lithuanian News” which is not to be confused with the antisemitic, ultranationalist Vakaro žinios, “Evening News”), makes the sensational claim that the rector of Kaunas’s Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) was untruthful when he told parliament last week that he and his university had not been given advance notice of plans to use VMU premises for a 19 May 2012 “memorial conference” honoring the 1941 Nazi puppet “prime minister” Juozas Ambrazevičius (later Brazaitis).
The 1941 Nazi-puppet prime minister had signed orders for “all means” against the Jews (though asking for a halt to “public executions”), for setting up a concentration camp, and for herding “all of the Jews of Kaunas” into a ghetto within four weeks (English here).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, News & Views, US State Dept Manipulated?, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Comments Off on Lithuanian Newspaper Accuses Kaunas Rector of Misleading Parliament about Whether He Knew in Advance of VMU’s Planned Conference To Honor Wartime Nazi Puppet Prime Minister
Dramatic Confrontation on the Floor of the Lithuanian Parliament
DefendingHistory.com has been able to confirm the following exchange on the floor of the Seimas (Lithuanian parliament) on 17 May 2012. MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, the Social Democrats’ senior spokesperson for foreign affairs asked a question of the prime minister, Andrius Kubilius, and the foreign minister, Audronius Ažubalis, both from the ruling Conservative / Christian Democrats’ faction. It was answered by the foreign minister.
The following is a translation of the exchange.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vytenis Andriukaitis
Comments Off on Dramatic Confrontation on the Floor of the Lithuanian Parliament
Tim Snyder, in Vilnius, Comments Publicly on the Reburial and Glorification of 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister
It seemed to many Vilnius observers this week that Yale historian Professor Timothy Snyder and Yivo director Mr. Jonathan Brent were both “brought” to Lithuania for various events that would, without their foreknowledge, coincide with the week of the Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis glorification ceremonies financed by the Lithuanian government. These ceremonies have now attracted considerable international criticism (see page one).
It was hoped by some in high places, it is alleged, that their presece would deflect international attention from the honoring of the Nazi puppet prime minister (it didn’t), and that their own fabled reluctance to criticize the Lithuanian government unambiguously would in its own way add legitimacy to the controversial events (it won’t).
Background:
Though neither of the two Foreign Ministry Chosen, both painfully controversial among Holocaust survivors and their families, would issue during their stay in Vilnius a public statement on the series of state-sponsored events to honor a Nazi collaborator, Professor Snyder did answer a question about the reburial in a public interview carried by 15min.lt. The question and answer are as follows:
— There is a controversy in Lithuania surrounding the reburial of Juozas Brazaitis, leader of the provisional government, with the support of the government. Do you think it’s a right thing to do?
“I am going to choose my words very carefully here. I think before you rebury anyone, you should think very very hard and probably wait a very very long time because once you rebury somebody once, you can’t rebury them again.”
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States
Comments Off on Tim Snyder, in Vilnius, Comments Publicly on the Reburial and Glorification of 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister