Obituaries

Ernst Lowenberg (1922 — 2014)



London: Ernst Lowenberg (1922 — 2014)

Ernst-Josef-Lowenberg-300x231

Ernst Josef Lowenberg

(28 December 1922 — 26 August 2014)

In his final months, London Holocaust survivor Ernst Lowenberg, a native of Halle am Saale in Germany, wrote to UK prime minister David Cameron asking the government to take a stand on East European Holocaust revisionism.

Continue reading

Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries | Comments Off on Ernst Lowenberg (1922 — 2014)

Rabbi Dr. Abraham N. Zuroff (1922 — 2014)



Rabbi Dr Abraham Zuroff

Rabbi Dr. Abraham N. Zuroff addresses the audience at his 90th birthday celebration held in Jerusalem in 2012

Rabbi Dr. Abraham N. Zuroff passed away peacefully at the age of 92 in Jerusalem on Sunday August 3rd. He is widely remembered as the legendary founding principal of BTA (Brooklyn Talmudic Academy, or Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Brooklyn, NY).

Rabbi Zuroff built one of the rare educational institutions that was able to synthesize deep authentic Jewish learning with modern cutting-edge and culturally successful American education. In that specific period of American Jewish history, it took the steadfast and uncompromising devotion of the American born Abraham Zuroff to demonstrate that the two could be combined in a way that would attract Jewish youth to the unique fusion of authentic Jewishness and authentic wordliness (rather than a watered down version of either). He was among the few American Hebrew day school principals of his day sympathetic also to Yiddish.

Continue reading

Posted in News & Views, Obituaries | Comments Off on Rabbi Dr. Abraham N. Zuroff (1922 — 2014)

Yankl-Yosl Bunk – Jakovas Bunka (1923 – 2014)



Yankl-Yosl Bunk (Jakovas Bunka), Famed Wood Sculptor, Last Jew of Plungyán (Plungė, Lithuania), Dies at 91

His Art Commemorates the Holocaust in Western Lithuania

Was World War II Red Army Veteran of the War Against Hitler

Yankev Bunk

Yankl-Yosl Bunk (13 July 1923 – 30 July 2014)  Photo: Adam Ellick

Continue reading

Posted in Arts, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries, Plungyán (Plungė) | Comments Off on Yankl-Yosl Bunk – Jakovas Bunka (1923 – 2014)

Aleksandras Bosas (1951-2014)



O B I T U A R Y

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

nuotr2

Aleksandras Bosas (1951 — 2014). Photo: Sandrauga.

Aleksandras Bosas, a respected Lithuanian poet, died unexpectedly on July 24, 2014. The wider Defending History  community extends deepest condolences to the family and friends of our suddenly departed colleague, who is survived by his wife, Natalija, three sons and a daughter.

We have lost a courageously active literary voice against fascism and against the contemporary attempts at high levels to glorify fascism via posthumous honors for collaborators and local perpetrators of the Lithuanian Holocaust.

At the beginning of 2014 his book of poems dedicated to commemorating the Holocaust in Lithuania appeared. It is called Iš ten sugrįžtantiems (“For Those Who Returned from There”).

Continue reading

Posted in Aleksandras Bosas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Legacy of 23 June 1941, News & Views, Obituaries, Opinion | Comments Off on Aleksandras Bosas (1951-2014)

Respublika “Slightly” Edits Efraim Zuroff’s Obituary for Shimon Alperovich



M E D I A   W A T C H

Vitas Tomkus’s daily tabloid, Respublika has, alongside its sister title, Vakaro Žinios (Evening News, also owned by Tomkus) in many views inflicted tangible damage upon Lithuania and its image. The papers leave a long trail of racist, antisemitic, and homophobic invective, not seldom in sensationalistic formats that mirror the 1930s.

The most notorious instance was perhaps the 2004 front page featuring the unseemly cartoon of the The Jew and The Gay holding up a globe under the headline “Who runs the world?” recycled (and again, on page 1), in 2009. Vakaro Žinios (Evening News) even featured a sickening photo montage of the then head of the Jewish community Dr. Shimon Alperovich, and a Soviet-era abacus, with text suggesting the Jews were conspiring to defraud the Lithuanian people. More recently, a front page was devoted to a local rabbi with a headline about Jews not having to pay taxes. The word Žydai (Jews) alone was in massive size type, as on numerous occasions, e.g. when the paper accused “The Jews” of plotting to steal the building housing the Culture Ministry. It is almost all out of a dark satire.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Efraim Zuroff, Media Watch, News & Views, Obituaries, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014) | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Respublika “Slightly” Edits Efraim Zuroff’s Obituary for Shimon Alperovich

Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Statement on the Death of Lithuanian Jewish Community Leader Dr. Shimon Alperovich


 JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office issued this statement today in the wake of the passing of Dr. Shimon Alperovich, the former Chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish community (PDF here):

Wiesenthal Center Mourns the Passing Today of Courageous Leader of Lithuanian Jewish Community

“It is with great sorrow that we learned of the passing last night of Dr. Shimon Alperovich, the venerable leader for many years of the Lithuanian Jewish community. Dr. Alperovich displayed great courage and fortitude in leading the renewed Lithuanian Jewish community and fought bravely against the ongoing efforts to minimize local participation in Nazi crimes and the promotion of the canard of equivalency between Nazi and Communist atrocities.

Continue reading

Posted in Efraim Zuroff, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014) | Comments Off on Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Statement on the Death of Lithuanian Jewish Community Leader Dr. Shimon Alperovich

Beloved Leader of Lithuanian Jewry, Simon Alperovich, Dies at 85



Dr. Shimon Alperovich

(Simonas Alperavičius)

11 Oct. 1928 — 27 March 2014

Dr. Simon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavicius) by DefendingHistory.com

דר שמעון אַלפּעראָוויטש זל


Continue reading

Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014) | Comments Off on Beloved Leader of Lithuanian Jewry, Simon Alperovich, Dies at 85

The Last Public Statement of Former Israeli Knesset Member Marina Solodkin


One of the last photos of Dr. Marina Solodkin, who came to protest the Waffen SS march in Riga on March 16th 2013, shortly before her sudden death in her hotel room. Photo by Juris Kaža.

Marina Solodkin (1952 — 2013)

Dr. Marina Solodkin, 60, a Moscow native and former member of the Israeli Knesset, died in her hotel room, of an apparent heart attack or stroke, in Riga, the capital of Latvia, on March 16th. She had come to join activities to protest this year’s Waffen SS march earlier that day. [UPDATE: See now reports in Arutz Sheva, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Jewish PressJTAThe Times of IsraelYNet; a brief biography appears on the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s website.]

A screen-capture of Dr. Solodkin’s final Facebook posting, from Israel on March 15th before setting off for Riga, appears below. It translates:

Continue reading

Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Latvia, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Obituaries | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Last Public Statement of Former Israeli Knesset Member Marina Solodkin

Brazauskas Dies; Builder of Modern Lithuania who Embraced all his Country’s Peoples


Algirdas Brazauskas (1932-2010), visionary first elected president and later prime minister of free Lithuania died today in Vilnius. In each of his land’s highest offices he proved himself a leader in the grand spirit of the multicultural Grand Duchy of Lithuania who will be properly appreciated long after our time.

From the start of Lithuania’s new history as a proud democratic nation, Algirdas Brazauskas understood that it did no good for his country that war criminals had been rehabilitated by ultranationalist officials.

He paid tribute to Jewish partisan veterans for helping to free Lithuania from Nazi tyranny. As president, he  honored Prof Dov Levin. As prime minister, he issued a certificate of recognition to Dr Rachel Margolis.

President Brazauskas’s historic speech to the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem on 1 March 1995 will never be forgotten (full text here). But in modern Litvak collective memory, there is perhaps one incident, that took place one day before, that will be remembered even more. The Lithuanian delegation was met by a picket line of Holocaust survivors near Yad Vashem.  One elderly survivor, Y. Brosh, whose entire family was murdered at Ponar, made his feelings known robustly. Like the other survivors who protested, he was wearing a yellow star on his jacket. President Brazauskas went over to to the man, hugged him and kissed him.

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Human Rights, Israel, Lithuania, News & Views, Obituaries, United States, Vilnius Yiddish Institute | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Brazauskas Dies; Builder of Modern Lithuania who Embraced all his Country’s Peoples

Meir Shub (1924 — 2009)



 

Professor Meir Shub

Holocaust in the Baltics, established on 6 September 2009, is dedicated to the memory of Professor Meir  Shub (1924—2009), pictured at right teaching a class at Vilnius University in the early 2000s.

A historian and philosopher, he dedicated the last decades  of his life to rebuilding Jewish studies in Vilnius, despite severe health issues deriving from his World War II wounds sustained as a Red Army soldier during the struggle against Nazism.

He was determined to inspire and train students of all backgrounds who would freely research Judaic topics, including the Holocaust. He was convinced that the success of these studies depended on the retention of a robust and intellectually free-feeling Jewish community component in such projects in Eastern Europe.

Meir Shub’s booming voice (which grew louder as his deafness worsened), straight talk, and high Litvak expectations of his students were trademarks. He is sorely missed. He played a pivotal role in achieving the first Oxford-Vilnius agreement in Judaic studies, and, in 1991-1992, was a visiting fellow at the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Oxford University. His works include a study of the Gaon of Vilna.

Posted in Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Meir Shub (1924 — 2009)