News & Views

Three Progressive Members of Lithuania’s Parliament Ask Prosecutors to Investigate Threats by Genocide Center’s “Chief Specialist”



On 1 April 2012, three members of the Lithuanian Parliament — Petras Auštrevičius, Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis and Justinas Karosas — submitted a formal letter to prosecutors asking for an investigation into the threats made by a “chief specialist” (PDF here) at the state-sponsored Genocide Research Center, who has also published antisemitic, racist and homophobic statements and participated in the organization of neo-Nazi marches (see e.g. here, here, here, here and here).

[Two of the three targeted parliamentarians are signatories to the Seventy Years Declaration, and were recently attacked by the foreign minister; see here and here; see also MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis’s response here.]

The Lithuanian original of the three parliamentarians’ 1 April letter to prosecutors is here. A full English translation follows below.

[See also the 5 April 2012 article by MP Andriukaitas (English here), Ignas Krasauskas’s 4 April report, and Geoff Vasil’s 12 April analysis.]


To the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Lithuania

1 April 2012 No. 04-11/2012

Continue reading

Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages, Vytenis Andriukaitis | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Three Progressive Members of Lithuania’s Parliament Ask Prosecutors to Investigate Threats by Genocide Center’s “Chief Specialist”

Lithuanian Neo-Nazi Leader Calls for Murder of MPs



O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

Ričardas Čekutis, “chief specialist” at Lithuanian’s state-sponsored Genocide Center in Vilnius old town, a fascist party leader and co-organizer of the annual neo-Nazi marches through Vilnius, has again made controversial comments on Facebook, this time apparently calling upon other Lithuanian neo-Nazis to murder three MPs. Two of the three are signatories to the Seventy Years Declaration (SYD) first published in DefendingHistory.com and presented to the president of the European Parliament in Strasbourg last month.

Confirming suspicions that SYD had angered not just the clique of apparatchiks who earn a good living from the Double Genocide industry in this part of the world, and had made wider waves in the Lithuanian neo-Nazi underground, Čekutis seemed to call for someone to shoot MPs Vytenis Andriukaitis, Justinas Karosas—both of whom signed the SYD—and the MP Petras Austrevičius.

Continue reading

Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Free Speech & Democracy, Geoff Vasil, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Comments Off on Lithuanian Neo-Nazi Leader Calls for Murder of MPs

MP Vytenis Andriukaitis: Open Letter to Genocide Center “Chief Specialist” Ričardas Čekutis



O P I N I O N

by Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis

Authorized translation from the Lithuanian original that appeared on Balsas.lt on 5 April 2012.


 

Yesterday, April 4, my colleague Petras Auštrevičius sent me a fragment of some internet correspondence between you, Ričardas Čekutis, and Morta Vidūnaitė. You, commenting upon the conversation, expressed this thought:

“But a nationalist [or “ethnic”] state, Morta, is one where government, i.e., sovereignty, belongs to the [ethnic] nation, which is what is written in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania. Not to some sort of ‘citizens’ but to the [ethnic] Lithuanian people. This is also the principle of the supremacy of national law over all transnational formations, such as the EU, into which we were shoved through deceit and forgeries.

“In a nationalist [ethnic] state, for example, characters such as Auštrevičius, Andriukaitis and Karosas would be shot without hesitation, and that would be right, for treason. Well, you’ll see, very soon…”

I wouldn’t want to argue with your thought that they would shoot us, because an opinion is an opinion. But this sentence that “well, you will see, very soon,” understood rather clearly from the context that we will see some shootings has a very different meaning. But more about that a bit later.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages, Vytenis Andriukaitis | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on MP Vytenis Andriukaitis: Open Letter to Genocide Center “Chief Specialist” Ričardas Čekutis

Discussion: Ambassador Linas Linkevičius and Geoff Vasil



O P I N I O N

An  English translation of Ambassador Linas Linkevičius’s recent article on Delfi.lt, followed by Geoff Vasil’s reply on DefendingHistory.com.


When Will We Comprehend the Whole Truth about the Holocaust?

by Linas Linkevičius

10 April 2012

 

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was characterized by diversity of religious belief and religious tolerance. Neither is it any accident that Lithuania was called the Northern Jerusalem for centuries. Cultural tolerance was the pride and strength of our country. Why is it that we have to speak of this in the past tense? Who edited our genetic code?

Continue reading

Posted in Geoff Vasil, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged | Comments Off on Discussion: Ambassador Linas Linkevičius and Geoff Vasil

Light and Darkness Do Not Mix



O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

 

Saulius Beržinis is an astounding filmmaker. Somehow the Lithuanian director of documentaries has a knack for drawing out frank admissions on camera, even from collaborators who recount how they murdered Jews.

Beržinis has a great reputation in Holocaust studies around the world, but, as the saying goes, a prophet is often unrecognized in his native land, and the cloak of invisibility around the Lithuanian Holocaust cast by the activists in the Double Genocide industry has marginalized the documentary maker at home, where his “The Happy Faces of the Murderers” is basically unknown.

Continue reading

Posted in Arts, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Film, Geoff Vasil, News & Views, Opinion, Saulius Beržinis | Tagged | Comments Off on Light and Darkness Do Not Mix

Box Coverage to 6 April 2012: Holocaust Documentary Slammed for ‘Just Telling the Truth’



New documentary by acclaimed Lithuanian film maker Saulius Beržinis, on the Holocaust in Jurbarkas (Yúrberik), is slammed by town’s leaders — for telling the truth, and for “failing” to frame the Holocaust in a Red=Brown obfuscationist framework . . .

Daiva Bartkienė’s “Cat in a Sack” article in local newspaper (18 March 2012)

Erika Baronaitė in Lietuvos rytas (3 April 2012)

Comment by Geoff Vasil (6 April 2012)

Posted in News & Views | Comments Off on Box Coverage to 6 April 2012: Holocaust Documentary Slammed for ‘Just Telling the Truth’

Box Coverage to 29 March 2012: Murder Threat in Vilnius


Three MPs File Petition with Prosecutors

after a “chief specialist” at the state-sponsored Genocide Center in Vilnius, himself a co-organizer of neo-Nazi marches, threatens the MPs by name (on Facebook) for their championing tolerance, inclusiveness and equality of all citizens.

Two of the three threatened MPs are signatories of the Seventy Years Declaration

MP VYTENIS POVILAS ANDRIUKAITIS SPEAKS OUT

MP ANDRIUKAITIS’S EARLIER REPLY TO THE FOREIGN MINISTER

GEOFF VASIL COMMENTS

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, News & Views | Comments Off on Box Coverage to 29 March 2012: Murder Threat in Vilnius

Lithuania’s Embassy in Washington Recruiting “Useful Academics” for Discredited “Red-Brown” Commission


The Baltic state-sponsored political infiltration into supposedly independent academic bodies concerned with Holocaust studies and education came into sharp focus in Washington this week with leakage to the media of a number of letters from Artūras Vazbys, Minister Counselor at the  Lithuanian embassy in Washington DC. The identical letters read:

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Embassy in Washington Recruiting “Useful Academics” for Discredited “Red-Brown” Commission

Some Psycho-Sexual Undercurrents of the Lithuanian Independence Day Nazi March



O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

 

Back in 2008 a friend and I put subtitles to the march by Lithuanian neo-Nazis through the capital, Vilnius, on independence day, and put the video with subtitles up on YouTube. Back then there was almost zero mention of the march where openly fascist youth chanted slogans about attacking and killing Jews and Russians, and the de rigueur “Juden raus.” Following the YouTube posting and as news travelled around the world, certain Lithuanian media figures and politicians felt the need to at least say something. Not much, but something.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Geoff Vasil, Humor (Of Sorts), LGBTQ Equal Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius, Vilnius Jewish Public Library | Comments Off on Some Psycho-Sexual Undercurrents of the Lithuanian Independence Day Nazi March

Will Intellectuals in Western Countries Continue their Silence on Latvia’s Glorification of Hitler’s Waffen SS?



E Y E W I T N E S S   R E P O R T   /   O P I N I O N

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

RIGA—The day is a festive one despite the gray and low sky. Young pretty girls have bunches of roses which they soon distribute to elderly and solemn gentlemen arriving, row upon row in an interminable procession. Numerous national flags are held in a heraldic and staid way by young men forming a kind of double guard of honor.


Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Roland Binet | Tagged , | Comments Off on Will Intellectuals in Western Countries Continue their Silence on Latvia’s Glorification of Hitler’s Waffen SS?

Seventy Years Declaration Presented to European Parliament President at Strasbourg



On 14 March 2012 in Strasbourg, a delegation presented the Seventy Years Declaration to Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, who spoke about the imperative to guard the accurate memory of the Holocaust in European history and to remain vigilant against denial and renewed extremism.

The delegation included veteran German parliamentarian Gert Weisskirchen; European Parliament vice president Miguel Angel Martinez; Lithuanian MEP Justas Paleckis; and DefendingHistory.com editor Dovid Katz.

European Commission report on the presentation of 70YD

Text of the Seventy Years Declaration

Media Links

Posted in EU, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., News & Views | Comments Off on Seventy Years Declaration Presented to European Parliament President at Strasbourg

1500 Honor the Waffen SS at Riga’s Liberty Monument; Event is Praised by Latvia’s President, Condemned by Council of Europe’s Commission on Racism



E Y E W I T N E S S    R E P O R T  /  O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

 

RIGA—According to most estimates, there were around 1500 participants today in the city-center ceremony honoring the Waffen SS, about 1000 police, and about one hundred protesters who turned out in opposition to the event.

The ongoing campaign by some East European governments to repackage far-right ultranationalist politics and policies (with concomitant antisemitic, racist and Nazi-glorifying undertones) as a wholesome British-conservative-style “center right” has suffered a major blow.  The battleground of ideas has in recent weeks shifted to the annual Waffen SS commemoration ceremony held at Liberty Monument, the symbolic heart of the capital of Latvia, with the blessing of some of the nation’s top leaders.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Racism, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Symbology | Tagged , | Comments Off on 1500 Honor the Waffen SS at Riga’s Liberty Monument; Event is Praised by Latvia’s President, Condemned by Council of Europe’s Commission on Racism

Saying No to “Double Genocide”



O P I N I O N

by Danny-Ben Moshe

This comment appeared today in the Jerusalem Post and is republished here with the author’s permission.


The Israel-South Africa Chamber of Commerce is hosting as guest of honor Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Ažubalis at a gala dinner. Given the current Lithuanian government’s policies towards the Holocaust, it is a bizarre choice.

More than twenty years into their post-Soviet eras, Lithuania and other East European nations are understandably and appropriately seeking international acknowledgment for the suffering inflicted on them by the Soviet regime.

However, rather than commemorating this in its own right, Lithuania has led the campaign to tie this recognition in with the Holocaust, in a policy known as Double Genocide. By so doing, the recognition they seek for their own suffering under the Soviets ipso facto becomes a policy that distorts and downgrades the Holocaust, and undermines and threatens its memory.

Continue reading

Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Danny Ben-Moshe, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, South Africa | Comments Off on Saying No to “Double Genocide”

Over 1000 Neo-Nazis Fill Main Vilnius Boulevard on Lithuanian Independence Day



E Y E W I T N E S S   R E P O R T

by Dovid Katz

Ignoring international pleas (including over two thousand signatures on an online petition) for the withdrawing of permits for this year’s neo-Nazi march, Vilnius authorities mounted a major police presence to keep order during today’s event in the heart of the Lithuanian capital.

This marcher’s handbag featured a designer swastika

The modified SS skull and crossbones and the “Lithuanian swastika” (with added lines) were among the symbols featured in today’s march

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius, Vilnius Jewish Public Library | Comments Off on Over 1000 Neo-Nazis Fill Main Vilnius Boulevard on Lithuanian Independence Day

Once Again, Moral Abdication at the American Embassy in Vilnius?



C O M M E N T

In contrast to its potent and convincing public response to neo-Nazi events in the center of  Vilnius in earlier years, the current leadership of the American embassy in the Lithuanian capital has followed a pattern disturbing to many Americans, of failing to even mention what America’s values are in commenting in official communications on both a neo-Nazi march and a pro-tolerance march, both scheduled for tomorrow, Lithuania’s independence day.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, The OSCE, United States, US State Dept Manipulated? | Comments Off on Once Again, Moral Abdication at the American Embassy in Vilnius?

Seventy Years Declaration in European Languages



THE TEXT

Early history and coverage of the Seventy Years Declaration (Jan-Feb 2012)

Presentation at European Parliament (March 2012)

The documentary film Rewriting History now available free onlinelaunched in Australia (Sept 2012) and in the United States (April 2013)

The film Defending Holocaust History (Spring 2013)

The SYD website

Defending History section on the Seventy Years Declaration

Historians’ mentions: Dan StoneGareth Pritchard & Desislava Ganeheva

Continue reading

Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Comments Off on Seventy Years Declaration in European Languages

Holocaust Survivors Picket TA ‘Gala’ Where South African Bigwigs Honor Lithuanian Right-Wing Politician


Kovno Ghetto Survivor and Resistance Hero Joe Melamed, 87, Leads March 5th 2012 Picket Line Against “Sellout Gala” at the Tel Aviv Dan Panorama

MORE IMAGES

Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Brothers Zingeris are Greeted by Protesting Holocaust Survivors

A FIRST-TIME PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN LEYVIK HOUSE YIDDISH CULTURE CENTER, THE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER ISRAEL OFFICE AND THE ASSOCIATION OF LITHUANIAN JEWS IN ISRAEL

Report on YNET.  The Times of Israel.  15min.lt.  Itongadol.com.  Agencia Judia.  Forverts (Yiddish Forward).    Background.  More.

Holocaust survivors Shlomo Cheskov (left, from Shavl/Šiauliai), and Joseph Melamed (from Kovno/Kaunas) at the Tel Aviv demonstration. Mr. Cheskov’s sign says (in Yiddish) “With our partisan heroes, against neo-Nazism. We are here!” Mr. Melamed’s (in Hebrew) addressed to the South African businessmen diners at the gala dinner: “Dear Diners! Where is your conscience? Your solidarity with Holocaust survivors and resistance fighters and partisans?” Photo: Bella Bryks-Klein.

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Boxes, Israel, Joseph Melamed, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, South Africa, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Holocaust Survivors Picket TA ‘Gala’ Where South African Bigwigs Honor Lithuanian Right-Wing Politician

Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors Protest Tel Aviv “Gala”


Kovno Ghetto Survivor and Resistance Hero Joe Melamed, 87, Leads March 5th 2012 Picket Line Against “Sellout Gala” at the Tel Aviv Dan Panorama

Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Brothers Zingeris are Greeted by Protesting Holocaust Survivors

A FIRST-TIME PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN LEYVIK HOUSE YIDDISH CULTURE CENTERTHE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER ISRAEL OFFICE AND THE ASSOCIATION OF LITHUANIAN JEWS IN ISRAEL

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Efraim Zuroff, Israel, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, South Africa | Comments Off on Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors Protest Tel Aviv “Gala”

Images from a Survivor Demonstration at the Dan Panorama in Tel Aviv


Most counts put at eighteen the number of participants in a small, polite but determined picket line outside the Dan Panorama Hotel in Tel Aviv this evening. The protesters, Holocaust survivors from Lithuania and their supporters, sported signs in English, Hebrew and Yiddish taking to task the government-manipulated gala evening being held inside the hotel by “Yisrael Lita” at which the Lithuanian foreign minister, a determined opponent of accurate Holocaust comemmoration, was “guest of honor.”

Continue reading

Posted in Events, Israel, Joseph Melamed, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Images from a Survivor Demonstration at the Dan Panorama in Tel Aviv

Monica Lowenberg in Dialogue with Latvia’s Ambassador to the UK



D E B A T E

From the 2009 Waffen SS march in Riga. Photo Ilmars Znotins.

Monica Lowenberg is the creator of the international petition against this year’s Waffen SS march scheduled for 16 March 2012 in the heart of Riga, Latvia’s capital city. The petition has to date attracted some six thousand signatures from every part of the planet.

Its author approached the Latvian ambassador to the UK for support.

Below is his letter of 1 March (as PDF here). It is followed by the text of Monica Lowenberg’s 5 March reply, supplied to DefendingHistory.com for publication.

 

I: The Latvian Ambassador to Monica Lowenberg (1 March 2012)

Continue reading

Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Kingdom | Comments Off on Monica Lowenberg in Dialogue with Latvia’s Ambassador to the UK