The Seventy Years Declaration
on the Anniversary of the Final Solution Conference at Wannsee
News & Views
The Seventy Years Declaration
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, EU, History, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, definition of genocide, Double Genocide, Holocaust in European Parliament, Last Monday in Tel Aviv, Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), Opposing Holocaust obfuscation & distortion, Prague Declaration, Seventy Years Declaration, SYD, Waffen SS (Estonia), Waffen SS (Latvia), Wannsee Conference
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Free Speech Reaffirmed by Vilnius Judge in Algirdas Paleckis Case
O P I N I O N / E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T
by Dovid Katz
One of the placards carried by pro-Paleckis demonstrators outside the Vilnius courthouse
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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The Seventy Years Declaration
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.
On January 20, 1942, the Nazi leadership gathered in a villa on the outskirts of Berlin and adopted the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” The Wannsee Conference, as this became known, from the suburb where the meeting was held, formalized the process that exterminated so much of European Jewry.
As we mark the seventieth anniversary of that 90-minute meeting in which fifteen people condemned millions to death, there are many crucial lessons to learn from the Holocaust. I wish to highlight two.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Danny Ben-Moshe, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged 2008 Prague Declaration on European Conscience, Danny Ben-Moshe, Double Genocide, Seventy Years Declaration, Wannsee Confererence
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Box Coverage on Algirdas Paleckis case to Midday 18 January 2012
Free Speech on Trial?
DefendingHistory.com was there. . .
Paleckis Verdict, Postponed to 30 Dec, Postponed again to 18 January 2012 (3 PM)
BACKGROUND: HERE AND HERE
Moacir P. de Sá Pereira comments
◊
Algirdas Paleckis’s critique of legal neo-Nazi parades, legalized swastikas and military personnel participating in Nazi activities — at the November 2011 conference on tolerance in Vilnius: video; translation; report.
Posted in Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views
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Mainstream Daily ‘Lietuvos rytas’: A New High-End Home for Antisemitism in Lithuania?
[Updated 8 February 2012] On January 15th, the Lietuvos rytas website (Lrytas.lt) published a massive article by veteran Holocaust denier Petras Stankeras, who was forced out of his Interior Ministry post in November 2010 after writing in a popular weekly that the murder of six million Jews is a ‘legend’. The new article features a flattering vintage framed photo of Hitler and is written in the form of an objective historic survey of the book’s history. It was a republication of an article by Stankeras that had earlier appeared in the elite magazine Kultūros barai.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Media Watch, News & Views
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Jerusalem-Kabul Exchange of Ideas: Dr. Efraim Zuroff, head of Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office, Replies to EU’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Vygaudas Ušackas
THE DEBATE (IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)
Background on DefendingHistory.com:
2 January 2012 report
13 January 2012, from Efraim Zuroff (Jerusalem):
EXCERPT FROM OP-ED IN HAARETZ. FULL TEXT HERE.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, EU, Israel, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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The Seventy Years Declaration (Summary Page)
[last update 20 Jan. 2015]
THE ORIGINAL ENGLISH 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 online; launched 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 Stone; Gareth Pritchard & Desislava Ganeheva
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Some Worrying Slippage at ‘Bernardinai.lt’?
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
Andrius Navickas, a religious studies expert and editor-in-chief of the Bernardinai.lt website, published a rather strange editorial at the end of 2011 taken from a speech he gave over Lithuanian Radio.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Christian-Jewish Issues, Geoff Vasil, History, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Andrius Navickas, Bernardinai.lt, Geoff Vasil
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Estonian Defense Ministry Denies Glorifying Nazi Collaborators, but Statement Fails to Mention Country’s Waffen SS
At a recent Waffen SS celebration in Estonia
In the face of mounting Western concern, the Estonian Ministry of Defense issued a statement on 5 January 2012 refuting a 27 (/28) December 2011 Delfi news portal story that reported on Russian Federation criticism, among other things, of the Baltic states’ policies of honoring their countries’ Nazi collaborator forces and militias.
The Defense Ministry’s refutation declares that “the government of the Republic of Estonia has not drafted nor will it draft something as absurd as a bill that would allow for honors to be given to Nazi collaborators.”
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Estonia, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Daily Mail + Estonia, Double Genocide + Estonia, Estonia, Estonia + Waffen SS, Estonian Defense Ministry, Mart Laar
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Joseph Melamed Replies to Article in VilNews.com
The following letter to the editor from attorney Joseph Melamed, chairman of the Assoiation of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, appeared today in VilNews.com.
Dear Editor,
The recent article by Dr. Irena Veisaite agreeing with the antisemitic establishment’s evaluation of the life’s work of Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office and a leading historian of the Lithuanian Holocaust, has been a cause of great dismay to us, the world’s last active organization of Lithuanian Holocaust survivors and their descendants.
Posted in Joseph Melamed, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Dr. Irena Veisaite, Holocaust in Lithuania, Joseph Melamed
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EU Ambassador to Afghanistan Writes in the Wall Street Journal that Nazi Rule in Lithuania was “A Few Years’ Respite from the Communists”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office today released a statement in which its director, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, calls for an apology from the European Union’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Vygaudas Ušackas, for insensitive and misleading remarks on the Lithuanian Holocaust in a 6 December 2011 Wall Street Journal article. A letter of protest by Jack Zwanziger of Chicago appeared in the WSJ on 14 December 2011.
- UPDATE:
- Jerusalem-Kabul debate
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust Obfuscation, Holocaust Trivialization, Lithuanian Foreign Minister + Holocaust, Lithuanian government + Holocaust, Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office, Vygaudas Ušackas
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2012 New Year’s Resolution for the Prime Ministers of the Baltic States
For 2012
“As long as I am prime minister of this great nation, there will be no neo-Nazi marches, no parades or events glorifying Nazi collaborators, no racist marches offensive to any citizens of our country of whatever background or belief, in the center of our cherished capital city, least of all on our national independence day or other holidays, when we celebrate independence, freedom, equality of all people, respect between all our communities, democracy and hope for our future. I will not stand idly by as our country’s proud name is defamed in the four corners of the earth by those who espouse fascism, racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, homophobia and other forms of hatred. Period.”
From back in 2011
Some of the shameful city center pro-Nazi events that went ahead in 2011 in Baltic capitals with legal permits (and support of some political elites):
Riga
Vilnius
Tallinn
Posted in Estonia, News & Views, Riga's Waffen SS Marches
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Petras Stankeras Rides Again: Rehabilitating Fascism for the Lithuanian Mainstream
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
Petras Stankeras appeared on the pages of DefendingHistory.com in late November 2010, after publishing on 14 November 2010 in the mainstream Lithuanian weekly magazine Veidas an article in which he called the Holocaust “a myth”, described Ribbentrop’s hanging as a lamentable case of “victor’s justice” (also praising the Nazi foreign minister for conducting himself heroically), and called the Nuremberg Trials “a farce”. A full translation of the article is available here. A subsequent comment piece appeared in this journal early this year.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Geoff Vasil, Human Rights, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion
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Václav Havel and the Prague Declaration
O P I N I O N
by Efraim Zuroff
I hate to spoil the Havel and the Jews festival in the wake of his demise, but I feel that it is important to point out a terrible mistake Havel made which directly relates to Jewish affairs. I am referring to his signing the Prague Declaration of June 3, 2008 (along with 39 other East European politicians and intellectuals), which basically equates Communist crimes with those of the Nazis, warns that “Europe will not be united unless it is able to unite its history [and] recognize Communism and Nazism as a common legacy”and seeks to deny the Holocaust its deserved status as a unique case of genocide.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Events, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Have + Prague Declaration, Havel + Jewish + Prague Declaration, Havel + Jews, Prague Declaration, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Vaclav Havel
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Popular Daily has Full Front Page Spread on ‘The Jews’
European and North American human rights activists may have thought that Vakaro žinios (‘The Evening News’) could not outdo its past antisemitic sensations, but today’s full front page with a huge banner headline ‘THE JEWS’ may herald a new low in the series of 1930s grade dissemination of hate against Lithuania’s tiny and shrinking Jewish minority. Around 95% of the country’s Jewish population was killed during the Holocaust.
The front page article (PDF here; English translation here) continues on to pages 3 and 5. The outrage caps a December of mainstream publication antisemitic articles. This is the first to ‘feature’ Chabad rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky. Earlier in the month, long articles appeared targeting Dr. Shimon Alperovich, elected head of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, first in Lithuania’s most prestigious newspaper, Lietuvos rytas (report), and then in the same Vakaro žinios (report).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Chabad in Vilnius, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views
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Lithuanian Ministry of Defense Honors ‘Lithuanian Activist Front’ (LAF) Nazi Collaborators (announced without comment on ‘Bernardinai’)
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
The campaign to distort World War II history in the direction of East European far-right models and to glorify local Nazi collaborators and perpetrators continues apace.
Bernardinai.lt, usually a bastion of tolerance and resistance against racism and ultranationalism, today published without comment a press release from the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense verbatim, about yesterday’s ministry activities honoring the Nazi-collaborating Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), on the occasion of an anniversary of the killing of some of its leaders and members by Soviet forces.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Dovid Katz, Events, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Holocaust collaboration in Lithuania, Lithuania Ministry of Defense, Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), Nazi collaborators glorified
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Mainstream Lithuanian news portal, Delfi.lt, Again Publishes Antisemitic ‘Ethnographic History’
Expanding on his earlier antisemitic-spirited article — ‘Jews in the Service of Hitler‘ — Česlovas Iškauskas has now published ‘Jews in Service to the Bolsheviks’ on Delfi.lt, a mainstream Lithuanian news website. The article is available here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Why Shouldn’t Lithuanian People See the Monument I Helped Place in Vilnius?
O P I N I O N
by Shelly Rybak Pearson
The project occurred to me when I was present during the earthquake in Mexico City in 1984, while visiting my family there. I decided that I wanted to do something to provide a fitting memorial to the destruction of over 95% of the Jewish community of Lithuania during the Holocaust.
My negotiations with the government authorities in Vilnius to erect the monument lasted over six years. During that time, the Lithuanian Embassy in Washington, DC informed me that they had lost the documents which I had submitted to them requesting approval for the installation of the monument. I had to start anew.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Shelly Rybak Pearson
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‘Double Genocide’ Permeates Local Antisemitic Discourse in Report on Efraim Zuroff’s Operation Last Chance II in Berlin
Following a week of major international coverage of the Berlin launch of Operation Last Chance II, the popular antisemitic Vilnius-based daily Vakaro žinios (‘Evening News’) ran a short article on the subject on the International page of its weekend edition. The purpose of Operation Last Chance is to locate remaining Nazi war criminals so that they can be brought to justice and have a fair trial in their own country (see www.OperationLastChance.org).
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Media Watch, News & Views
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