Extract (from original posting by François Guesnet, Corob Reader in Jewish History, University College London) from the description of the (foregone?) conclusions of the “No Simples Stories” conference on 6-10 February 2011:
News & Views
An Orwellian Description of the Drive to Revise History in the Direction of Double Genocide
Posted in Documents, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom
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Estonia’s Absence on last Red-Brown Letter Explained by ‘Blizzard’
The foreign minister of Lithuania explained to reporters today the absence of Estonia’s name on the 14 December letter to Viviane Reding of the European Commission, asking for Double Genocide language and sentiment to be inserted into the Stockholm Programme, a move since rejected by the Commission. This journal was among those speculating on a possible change in Estonia’s policy.
But today, the Lithuanian foreign minister, Audronius Ažubalis, explained to reporters that his Estonian counterpart ‘only arrived, because of the blizzard, after the other signatures had been signed, and wished to correct the text. But we didn’t have an opportunity’.
It remains for Estonia to clarify matters.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, EU, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Polish Embassy Releases English Text of Ambassador’s Letter
The Polish Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, today released to DefendingHistory.com the authorized English text of the letter which Ambassador Janusz Skolimowski had published in Veidas, on 26 November 2010, in relation to the Stankeras Affair and Holocaust Denial more generally; it was issued one day after the letter from seven European ambassadors to Lithuania’s leaders.
The English text of Ambassador Skolimowski’s letter is posted here.
It is hoped that release of the Polish ambassador’s letter will make it easier for release to be authorized of the seven other ambassadors’ letter, of 25 November, 2010, as recently proposed in the Commons by MP Denis MacShane.
Posted in EU, News & Views, Poland
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Speculation on Estonia’s Position
This journal notes with satisfaction that the government of Estonia did not sign the 14 December 2010 letter from six East European ambassadors in support of inserting ‘Double Genocide’ language into EU’s new Stockholm Programme. The six are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.
For opponents of the new Far Right’s revisionist history of World War II, it was also a welcome surprise that Estonia’s ambassador to Lithuania did sign the 25 Nov 2010 letter from seven European ambassadors protesting antisemitism in Lithuania and ‘spurious efforts’ to equalize Nazi and Soviet crimes. British parliamentarian Denis MacShane has asked for that letter to made public.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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‘Prague Declaration’ Supporters Inserting ‘Double Genocide’ in the EU’s ‘Stockholm Programme’
According to a December 14th posting on the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry’s website, (reported also on Isria.com and elsewhere), Lithuania’s foreign minister is taking the lead in the latest initiative to insert ‘Double Genocide’ into European Union law and policy, which on this occasion includes his colleagues from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, and Romania. Other media reports here.
It becomes ever more difficult for observers of East European minority rights and Holocaust history issues to keep up, as the Holocaust Obfuscation undertones of the Prague Declaration are gradually infiltrated into the Stockholm Programme. In both cases, observers discern New Accession EU governments’ efforts to insinuate one or another incarnation of ‘Double Genocide’ (in Eurospeak: ‘equal evaluation of totalitarian regimes’) into general European Union consciousness.
Posted in EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Hungary, Latvia, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Does the Road from Prague to Stockholm Go Through Vilnius?
Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry announced on 14 December 2010 that it was the initiator of a new demand from six East European countries ― Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania — to Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, that Double Genocide sentiments, and support for effective criminalization of the view that the Holocaust was a unique genocide, be incorporated in the new Stockholm Programme before the end of 2010. Less than a week earlier, Lithuania’s president took the same demand with her to a meeting in Brussels.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, The Czech Republic
Tagged Double Genocide, Holocaust Politics in the EU, Matthew Newman (EU), Montero Report, Stockholm Programme
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Only in Eastern Europe: Convicted Nazi War Criminal, 96, is the Plaintiff
Judge Viktor Vadasz dismissed the case against the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office director, Dr Efraim Zuroff, some ten minutes after its 8:30 AM start at the District Court of Pest at 25 Marko utca. Defending History.com was in court (with ATV and Hetek).
The Faith Church of Hungary, led by Pastor Sándor Németh, a major figure in the battle against antisemitism and Holocaust revisionism in the region, supported Dr Zuroff steadfastly throughout the saga. The hearing was also attended by representatives of the Novi Sad Municipal Assembly along with the former president of the Novi Sad Jewish community, Dr Ana Frenkel, who represented the community at the hearing. Novi Sad, Serbia, is the site of the murder of many of the victims of the alleged Nazi war criminal who brought this case.
Posted in Events, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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MP Denis MacShane Calls for Release of 7 Ambassadors’ Letter on Antisemitism and the ‘Double Genocide’ movement in Lithuania
The following exchange between human rights advocate MP Denis MacShane and the government’s Minister for Europe, David Lidington, was reported today in the House of Commons:
Mr MacShane:To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish the letter of 25 November 2010 sent by the UK and other ambassadors in Lithuania concerning the growing manifestations of anti-Semitism in Lithuania. [29665]
Mr Lidington:It has not been the practice of successive Governments to publish letters sent by diplomats in a confidential capacity. It is important for the effective conduct of international relations for diplomacy to be able to take place on a confidential basis where necessary.
The letter referred to was reported in this journal on 25 November 2010.
Posted in Ambassador Simon Butt, Denis MacShane, Estonia, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom
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Jewish and Holocaust Polemics Flare up in Vilnius
There has been a two-pronged assault today in the mainstream mass media in Lithuania on the tiny but vibrant Jewish Community of Lithuania. The community has been busy in recent days with concluding Chanukah festivities and moving on one day later to a photography contest for young people. The judges include some of the top Lithuanian art photographers, and the event, popular on Facebook, features Jewish and Lithuanian photography lovers enjoying themselves together in harmony.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, News & Views, Yitzhak Arad
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Lithuanian Jewish Community Counters Disinformation Campaign
The Jewish Community of Lithuania today issued a statement, a full translation of which follows:
On November 15, 2010, the Russian Federation news website Komsomolskaya Pravda posted an article by Nijole Stablingyste called ‘Lithuanian history textbooks: distorted facts and animosity towards Russia’ which contains the inaccurate information that the book The Power of Historical Truth [Istorijos tiesos jėga] was launched at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. The same information was repeated on November 17 on the webpage Zepelinus under the title ‘Why is a Breakthrough on the Stereotype of the Lithuanian Judeo-Bolshevik Being Insinuated?’
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Pro-Fascists Stage Demo for Stankeras of Vilnius — in Budapest
by Mihály Kálmán (Budapest)
Special to DefendingHistory.com
A demonstration was mounted Saturday, 4 December 2010 in Budapest, in support of Petras Stankeras, the recently resigned ‘specialist’ at Lithuania’s Interior Ministry who called the Holocaust ‘a legend’ and the Nuremberg Trials ‘a farce’ (details here). Protesters gathered in front of the Lithuanian Embassy in Budapest.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Hungary, News & Views
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US Embassy’s ‘Secret’ Holocaust Conference is ‘Fiasco’
The Survivor community and its supporters, Holocaust studies and commemoration circles, and numerous members of the Lithuanian Jewish community felt betrayed by the largely secret Holocaust education conference organized by the US embassy in Vilnius from 29 November to 3 December 2010, in close cooperation with local state-sponsored ‘Double Genocide’ proponents. The event included excellent individual scholars and educators, both from Lithuania and abroad, alongside notoriously obfuscationist local institutions, including the ‘Red-Brown Commission’ and the Genocide Research Center.
The American embassy’s conference in Vilnius was the subject of comment in The Tablet (US), and in the London Guardian (by Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz).
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Lithuania, News & Views, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?
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Prime Minister’s Advisor Demands a Correction — From One Fine Word to Another…
Letter from Arkadijus Vinokuras
Vilnius, 29 November 2010
Dear Editor,
I do appreciate your apology. As you have said, notwithstanding differences of opinion, the facts cannot and must not be twisted deliberately nor by mistake. I see no possibility but to suspect that translators of my text deliberately twisted my words, by improper translation changing the meaning of some passages. This is not acceptable.
It is also not correct to present my person (as it is in the translation) as a government official. It is wrong. I am the public advisor to the Prime Minister of Lithuania on the issue of Compensation of Religious Jewish Property. A public advisor is not on the payroll of the state. The public consultant’s responsibility first of all is to defend the public interest.
Posted in Media Watch, News & Views
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Ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden protest Antisemitism in Lithuania; Red-Equals-Brown Movement is Noted
BNS reported today that the Vilnius-based ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, France, Finland, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have written in no uncertain terms to the president and other major officials of Lithuania to express concern over the growing manifestations of antisemitism.
Two of the signatories confirmed privately to Defending History that the initiative had come from British ambassador HE Simon Butt, who also drafted the letter. Ambassador Butt had in 2008 organized a letter in moral support of Dr. Rachel Margolis, a walk through the Vilna Ghetto with Ms. Fania Brantsovsky, and had, together with other senior Western diplomats stationed in Vilnius, visited the decaying Jewish partisan fort in the forest.
“Spurious attempts are made to equate the uniquely evil genocide of the Jews with Soviet crimes against Lithuania, which, though great in magnitude, cannot be regarded as equivalent in either their intention or result.”
Excerpt from a letter to the president of Lithuania from the ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, 25 November 2010
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Ambassador Simon Butt, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, EU, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, France, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., News & Views, Norway, Poland, Politics of Memory, Swastikas in Lithuania, Sweden, Symbology, United Kingdom, United States
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Opposition to the 2008 ‘Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism’
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, News & Views
Tagged Double Genocide, Evaluation of Totalitarian Regimes, Holocaust Obfuscation, Prague Declaration, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, Prague Process, Red-Brown movement
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Interior Ministry ‘Specialist’, writing in a Mainstream Publication, calls the Murder of Six Million Jews ‘a legend’
The mainstream Lithuanian magazine Veidas (Veidas.lt), a glossy publication available at every news stand in the country, published on its website on 14 November an article under the rubric of ‘History’ titled ‘The Nurnberg Military Court Tribunal: The Biggest Legal Farce in History’. Original here. Full English translation here.
Posted in Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors ask U.S. Embassy in Vilnius to Clarify 64,000 Euro Holocaust Education Grant
Joseph A. Melamed
The Tel-Aviv based Association of Lithuanian Jews, the world’s most active association of Holocaust Survivors from Lithuania and their progeny, today released to the media the letter which its chairman, Joseph A. Melamed, sent on 16 September 2010 to Anne E. Derse, America’s ambassador to Lithuania. Mr Melamed, a Tel Aviv attorney and former Israeli diplomat, told DefendingHistory.com that his office hopes to receive a reply “in the nearest future”. The full text of Mr Melamed’s 16 September letter:
Posted in Joseph Melamed, Lithuania, News & Views, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?
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Shifting Dates for the ‘Public Meeting’ to ‘Overhaul’ European Textbooks for Red-Brown Equivalence
November 16th 2010 has come and gone, but the ‘Public Meeting’ which the Red-equals-Brown lobby in the European Parliament announced extensively the old fashioned way — by disseminating a flyer that is not posted on the internet — seems to have been postponed. The flyer, echoing both the language and spirit of the Prague Declaration, called for overhaul of (all?) European Union textbooks ‘so that children and young people could learn and be warned about Communism and its crimes in the same way as they have been taught to assess the Nazi crimes’.
A sanitized formulation that is posted on the web, in a style uncharacteristic for Brussels exactitude, notes that the public meeting is ‘scheduled for November’ and makes reference to a group meeting held on 22 September.
An even more sanitized formulation announces the event for the 29th of March 2011, referring to a ‘group meeting’ held on 10 November.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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‘Jerusalem of Lithuania’ Editor Blasts Red-Brown Jailtime Law
Milan Chersonski, editor of the quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) Jerusalem of Lithuania, official publication of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, has published a bold new essay, History: Education or Modern Politics.
The author opposes the Lithuanian government’s attempt to monopolize and dictate the ultranationalist version of history by effectively criminalizing the opinion that the Holocaust was the one genocide that occurred in the country in the twentieth century.
The law passed by the Lithuanian parliament and signed by the president last June, and which came into effect in July 2010, imposes jail sentences of up to two years for those who might dissent.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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