News & Views

Milan Chersonski on the ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar

Posted on 9 May 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Milan Chersonski


МАРШ ЖИВЫХ. ВПЕЧАТЛЕНИЯ И РАЗМЫШЛЕНИЯ

В календаре памятных дат Государства Израиль есть День памяти Жертв нацизма и Героев сопротивления – Йом а-Шоа вэ а-Гвура. По европейскому календарю он приходится на 19 апреля – день начала восстания в Варшавском гетто в 1943г.. Почти месяц – дольше, чем польская армия, защищавшая страну от нацистов в 1939г., – истощенные голодом и болезнями, плохо вооруженные узники сражались против специально обученных нацистских формирований и их местных нацистских пособников.

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Posted in In Russian, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Comments Off on Milan Chersonski on the ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar

Estonian Nationalists say Holocaust ‘Pales’ by Comparison with Soviet Crimes; Delfi.lt produces its ‘Scorecard’ again

Posted on 9 May 2011 by Defending History

Estonian nationalists demonstrating outside Tallin’s Russian Embassy explained their view that ‘The Holocaust pales before the hundreds of thousands of people who were murdered by the Communists, the annihilation of dozens of ethnicities and the mass deportations!’

The BNS report carried by Delfi.lt (English translation here) which contains the quote also reproduced the image of the ‘red-brown scorecard’.

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Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status | Tagged | Comments Off on Estonian Nationalists say Holocaust ‘Pales’ by Comparison with Soviet Crimes; Delfi.lt produces its ‘Scorecard’ again

Democratic Hungary’s First Nazi War Crimes Trial Opens in Budapest

Posted on 5 May 2011 by Defending History

The courtroom was packed as post-Soviet democratic Hungary finally put one of its own citizens on trial for alleged complicity in the genocide of the country’s Jewish population in the Holocaust. The massive local media coverage pointed to what some observers called a mood of national catharsis breaking a taboo against admission of Nazi-era complicity that has swept much of the new-accession state area in the European Union.

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Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Hungary, News & Views | Comments Off on Democratic Hungary’s First Nazi War Crimes Trial Opens in Budapest

Lithuanian ‘Government Historians’ blame Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz for the Country’s Holocaust Problems

Posted on 5 May 2011 by Defending History

Professor Saulius Sužiedėlis (Millersville University, Pennsylvania), a major historian who has recently been flown to conferences far and wide courtesy of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, and politician Ronaldas Račinskas, deputy chairman of the state-funded ‘Red-Brown commission’ have blasted Dr. Efraim Zuroff and Professor Dovid Katz for being responsible for Lithuania’s international Holocaust issues, in a major panel discussion that appeared in the media both as a sound file and in an edited transcript format. There were also other members of the panel discussion.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Israel, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Lithuanian ‘Government Historians’ blame Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz for the Country’s Holocaust Problems

Three Years Later: Neither Charged nor Cleared

Posted on 5 May 2011 by Defending History

marked three years to the day since police in Vilnius came looking for Holocaust Survivors Dr Rachel Margolis (born 1921, at right of photo) and Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (born 1922) in a ‘war crimes investigation’ that has still not been publicly closed.

Both women were incarcerated in the Vilna Ghetto from 1941 to 1943. Both lost their entire families to the barbarity of the Nazis and their local collaborators. They both escaped, on different days in September 1943, to join up with the anti-Nazi partisans in the forests of Lithuania. The underground forest fort, a half-hour’s drive from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, where Fania lived with another hundred or so Jewish escapees of the Vilna Ghetto, is being allowed to sink into the ground and disappear from history’s view.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Events, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Three Years Later: Neither Charged nor Cleared

Masked Men Throw Smoke Bombs in Small Vilnius Theater, Disrupt Film on Anti-Fascists

Posted on 4 May 2011 by Defending History

On Monday evening 2 May (Yom Hashoah), at about 7 PM, five or six masked perpetrators forced their way into a small theater in Vilnius showing a film about the formation of the anti-fascist movement in France and hurled military-type smoke bombs at the screen. Viewers, including a child, fled in panic and unable to breathe. Some witnesses claimed they saw members of the Lithuanian military participating.

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Posted in Film, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Use and Abuse of Sugihara | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Masked Men Throw Smoke Bombs in Small Vilnius Theater, Disrupt Film on Anti-Fascists

Budapest Judge Throws Out War Criminal’s ‘Libel’ Case against Dr Efraim Zuroff, praises the Holocaust Historian for Pursuing Justice

Posted on 3 May 2011 by Defending History

Budapest judge Viktor Vadasz of the Pest Central District Court ruled today in favor of Dr Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust historian and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, in a case that foreign observers have taken to be emblamatic for the sometimes topsy-turvy world of East European politics: glorification of Nazi war criminals amidst vilification of those who would want them brought to justice and the truth about local Holocaust history told and taught.

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Posted in Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Budapest Judge Throws Out War Criminal’s ‘Libel’ Case against Dr Efraim Zuroff, praises the Holocaust Historian for Pursuing Justice

Eyewitness Report: ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar Killing Site near the Lithuanian Capital

Posted on 2 May 2011 by Defending History

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

by Geoff Vasil

I attended the March of the Living today at Ponár (Polish Ponary, Lithuanian Paneriai), the mass killing site outside Vilnius, Lithuania. It is Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. I had been to Ponár only once before, because a friend of mine was afraid she would get lost taking the city buses there and back.

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Games, Geoff Vasil, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Comments Off on Eyewitness Report: ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar Killing Site near the Lithuanian Capital

March of the Living at Vilnius Mass-Murder Site: Sergey Kanovich Speaks Out

Posted on 2 May 2011 by Defending History

Sergey Kanovich

Vilnius-born author Sergey Kanovich (Sergejus Kanovičius) published in today’s issue of Bernardinai a short and powerful statement for the ceremony later today at Ponár (Paneriai), the mass-murder site outside Vilnius where 100,000 civilians, among them 70,000 Jews, were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Most of the actual shooting was carried out by local Lithuanian units sometimes nowadays glorified as ‘anti-Soviet heroes’ by certain establishment circles, even as a parallel series of Holocaust commemoration activities are produced during this year’s parallel years of commemoration proclaimed in late 2010 by the Lithuanian parliament (see here and here) for 2011, which marks the seventieth anniversary of the events.

“They took your life away. And there are those who continue to try to assassinate your memory — again, today, almost without resistance and with impunity, now and again, the spirit of swastikas and the white armbands of the LAF casts a shadow over Jerusalem of Lithuania. And today there are those who still desire to see your executioners as heroes.”

— SERGEY KANOVICH

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Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Sergey Kanovich | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on March of the Living at Vilnius Mass-Murder Site: Sergey Kanovich Speaks Out

War Criminal’s ‘Libel Case’ against Holocaust Historian headed for Verdict This Tuesday in Budapest

Posted on 28 April 2011 by Defending History

By most accounts, it could only happen in the ‘Eastern European Union’ region, where powers that be often spare no effort to use (or abuse) the law (‘lawfare’) and state institutions in the cause of Holocaust Obfuscation. Anything that can enhance the status of the Holocaust’s perpetrators and diminish that of the victims, survivors and their current advocates is pursued with a sense of convinced national purpose that by most accounts would have been considered inconceivable at the time of European Union and NATO accession.

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Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Hungary, News & Views | Comments Off on War Criminal’s ‘Libel Case’ against Holocaust Historian headed for Verdict This Tuesday in Budapest

Neo-Nazis Amok in Lithuania; Arrests at ‘Straight Zero’

Posted on 22 April 2011 by Defending History

In apparent homage to the April 20th birthday of Adolf Hitler, neo-Nazis hoisted Nazi flags high over the heart of Vilnius atop the former Labor Palace building on Tauro Hill. Details here.

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, News & Views | Comments Off on Neo-Nazis Amok in Lithuania; Arrests at ‘Straight Zero’

Obfuscationists planning Vilnius Holocaust Museum miles away from the City Center

Posted on 17 April 2011 by Defending History

Rumors are flying in the Lithuanian capital about plans to induce foreign institutions and governments to support the building of  a new Holocaust Museum at  the mass-murder site Ponár (Paneriai), where no unsuspecting tourist or visitor to Vilnius would ever see it, more than six miles out of town, unless they have prior special interest that would motivate the hiring of a taxi for that purpose.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Museums, News & Views, Poland, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Obfuscationists planning Vilnius Holocaust Museum miles away from the City Center

Education Ministry and Association of Museums Encourage Activities to Commemorate the Activities of ‘Partisans’ including the Murderers who Unleashed the Lithuanian Holocaust; No mention of anti-Nazi partisans…

Posted on 15 April 2011 by Defending History

At the behest of Lithuania’s Education Ministry, the Association of Lithuanian Museums today canvassed museums and other institutions asking for information about what is being done concretely to commemorate the celebration of local fascists who collaborated with Hitler, including the killers who unleashed the Lithuanian Holocaust (Lithuanian Activist Front or LAF), and the collaborationist Provisional Government (PG).

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Education Ministry and Association of Museums Encourage Activities to Commemorate the Activities of ‘Partisans’ including the Murderers who Unleashed the Lithuanian Holocaust; No mention of anti-Nazi partisans…

Foreign Ministry’s Crack-Team Holocaust-event Professors Heading for Warsaw

Posted on 10 April 2011 by Defending History

Professors Saulius Sužiedėlis (Millersville University, Pennsylvania) and Šarūnas Liekis (Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius University, Vytautas Magnus University, etc), two excellent historians with impressive track records, have again been engaged by the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry to present a Holocaust program abroad for foreign consumption.

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Posted in Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, News & Views, Poland, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Foreign Ministry’s Crack-Team Holocaust-event Professors Heading for Warsaw

Catherine Chatterley leads Opposition to Holocaust Obfuscation campaign in Canada

Posted on 7 April 2011 by Defending History

Dr. Catherine Chatterley, founding director of the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism

In a bold op-ed published in the Winnipeg Free Press on 2 April, Dr. Catherine Chatterley has spoken out against attempts by some elements in Canada’s Ukrainian-heritage community to derail a planned Holocaust exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) on the grounds, broadly speaking, that such an exhibit would unduly emphasize Jewish suffering and cause to be underrepresented Ukrainian suffering in Stalin’s murderous state-caused famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s.

The campaign has been accompanied by the printing and wide distribution in Canada of offensively and antisemitically manipulated versions of an illustration that had appeared in a 1947 Ukrainian edition of George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm.

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Posted in Canada, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Catherine Chatterley leads Opposition to Holocaust Obfuscation campaign in Canada

Has LRG Media (UK) been Compromised?

Posted on 6 April 2011 by Defending History

The prestigious British-based LRG Media, a multimedia company with an impressive record of achievements and awards, has apparently been targeted by certain elements in Lithuanian government circles as the latest ‘Naive Useful Foreign Entity’ to help make respectable internationally the state-sponsored campaigns for Double Genocide, Holocaust Obfuscation, and selective toleration of current antisemitism.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Arts, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Film, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Has LRG Media (UK) been Compromised?

Lithuanian government’s ‘Jewish Affairs Advisor’ calls TV interview of DH.com editor ‘Goebbels-worthy’

Posted on 4 April 2011 by Defending History

Arkady Vinokur (Arkadijus Vinokuras), official Advisor on Jewish Affairs to the prime minister of Lithuania, published an article in today’s Lietuvos rytas expressing the view that a television interview given by this journal’s editor is ‘worthy of Goebbels’.

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Has the Forward Association abandoned Elementary Ethics?

Posted on 3 April 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

On February 25th, the Yiddish Forverts in New York published a defamatory ad-hominem attack on this journal’s editor.

The article was signed by ‘Jacob London (Oxford)’, the pseudonym of Sovetish Heymland veteran Gennady Estraikh who was secretary to the Soviet magazine’s editor Aaron Vergelis for many years. Now, a resident of New York, he is listed as the paper’s editor for its ‘European Bureau’. It is quite shocking for many readers that the paper’s editor-in-chief, Boris Sandler, himself a Sovetish Heymland veteran, allows for the paper’s abuse for fake-name, fake-place vicious attack on colleagues in the field of Yiddish Studies.

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Kevin Hamilton, Canada’s Chargé d’affaires in Vilnius, Stands Up Against Far-Right Slander

Posted on 1 April 2011 by Defending History

Kevin Hamilton, Canada's Chargé d'affaires in Vilnius

Kevin Hamilton, Canada’s chargé d’affaires at its embassy in Vilnius, published a bold letter today in the daily Respublika, in response to a typically homophobic article in the popular newspaper. The original article (published 25 March), in the spirit of contemporary East European far-right discourse, tried to intentionally confuse Equal Rights for sexual minorities with pedophilia, and to give the impression that Canada supports the latter too.

Moreover, the force of his letter compelled Respublika to issue a rare (if rather half-hearted) retraction, printed in the form of a reply underneath his letter. For a sampling of Respublika’s homophobia and antisemitism, see an image of their 2009 front page caricature of The Jew and The Gay holding up the world (here), and, the way in which the editor handled criticism of that effort (here).

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Delfi.lt publishes (pseudonymous) defense of neo-Nazi youth

Posted on 29 March 2011 by Defending History

Delfi.lt, Lithuania’s principal internet news portal, publishes on its website pseudonymously signed long comments in the format of proper news and opinion pieces. Such items, sometimes bereft of any actual author’s name (and responsibility), are thereby given the higher status of signed articles that carry the aura of an editor’s hand or editorial approval, in contrast to the free-for-all characteristic of numbered comments or talkbacks added at the end of a proper article. In other words, such items ascend to higher respectability, irrespective of Delfi.lt’s disclaimer confirming that opinion pieces represent only the writer’s views.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views | Comments Off on Delfi.lt publishes (pseudonymous) defense of neo-Nazi youth