Opinion

Arūnas Degutis, Signatory of Lithuania’s 1990 Declaration of Independence, Voices View on the Holocaust

Posted on 10 March 2016 by Defending History

O
n February 26, 2016, Arūnas Degutis posted his thoughts on Lithuanian-Litvak relations at the Minciu Sodas discussion forum, one of the longest running public Internet forums in Lithuanian, which I founded in 1999. Degutis writes that Lithuanians as a nation should empathize with Jewish victims of the Holocaust, especially those murdered by Lithuanians, and indeed should make a moral apology. Degutis was one of the signers of the declaration of Lithuania’s independence on March 11, 1990. In 1984, he was thrown out of work for his ties with anti-Soviet dissidents. In the summer of 1988, he became a key organizer of the Lithuanian Reform Movement “Sąjūdis,” especially as an editor of “Sąjūdžio žinios.”

Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Christian-Jewish Issues, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off

Sugihara Abused? Red-Brown Commission Ropes In Japanese Embassy for 11 Feb. Event

Posted on 4 February 2016 by Defending History

OPINION | EVENTS | JAPAN | RED-BROWN COMMISSION | POLITICS OF MEMORY

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VILNIUS—Over the past decade, few foreign embassies in Lithuania have done as much as Japan’s to help ensure that the Holocaust in Lithuania is never forgotten and indeed, that remembrance events and educational programs feed into both national and international efforts to raise awareness and sensitivities in the cause of averting future massacres of innocent civilians.

Japan’s Holocaust remembrance achievements in Lithuania are manifold. From 2008, when state prosecutors connected to the Genocide Center began defaming local Holocaust survivors, Japan’s embassy joined with others in giving honor to the wrongly accused, including the 2009 “Walk in the Rain” organized by then Norwegian ambassador Steinar Gil. More well known are the embassy’s activities in commemoration of Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara, the inspirational Japanese humanist who saved thousands of lives by issuing visas in Kaunas in 1940 (enabling those people to flee Soviet rule directly, and indirectly from what was to come a year later, in 1941, with Hitler’s invasion and the massive local collaboration in genocide). One of the most important goes back to the turn of our century when the embassy participated actively, and generously, in setting up Sugihara House in Kaunas.

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Japan, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Use and Abuse of Sugihara | Tagged Chiune Sugihara, Embassy of Japan in Vilnius, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes, Japan and Holocaust issues, Red-Brown Commission, Vytautas Magnus University | Comments Off

Why Do I Find the So-Called Heroes from the Latvian Waffen SS So Despicable?

Posted on 3 February 2016 by Defending History

OPINION | HISTORY | LATVIA | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED

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

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Introduction

Next month, the European Union and NATO will again be faced with the annual city-center march in Riga, the Latvian capital, glorifying the country’s Hitlerist Waffen SS. I had of course for years heard about the infamous March 16th marches in Riga when old members of the Latvian Waffen SS, their sympathizers and those who feel nostalgic about the good old time under Nazi rule proudly parade through the central streets of the beautiful capital of Latvia, ending their solemn march in front of the Freedom Monument, where they – solemnly and hierarchically – lay bundles of flowers at the foot of the monument and sing the national anthem.

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Belgium, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, History, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Roland Binet | Tagged Holocaust in Latvia, Latvian WWII Legionnaires, Riga, Roland Binet, Waffen SS (Latvia), World War II | Comments Off

An Open Letter to Holocaust Scholars and Educators in the Francophone World

Posted on 18 January 2016 by Defending History

OPINION | FRANCE | RED-BROWN COMMISSION | GENOCIDE CENTER

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Dear Colleagues:

Re: Conference on the Lithuanian Holocaust scheduled for this week in Vilnius

The newest Lithuanian “Double Genocide Industry” outreach to the French speaking academic world of Holocaust and World War II studies, this week’s conference in Vilnius, combines a number of truly outstanding scholars and papers with a political agenda of finding Francophone legitimization for Baltic Holocaust revisionism. The French component includes outstanding personalities from Mémorial de la Shoah, from Institut d’Histoire du Temps présent, and from the French Embassy in Lithuania. The strategy has recently evolved following a protracted collapse of US/UK/Israeli confidence in both the “Red-Brown Commission” (page) and the “Genocide Center” (page), both of which have been extensively exposed in recent months. Participants from Lithuania include one of the Double Genocide movement’s main “attack dogs” who makes fine hay of smearing local Lithuanian truth tellers as stooges of Moscow or useful idiots, especially when attempting to discredit honest multi-sided conferences (e.g. last April’s Vilnius conference).

Will the European Commission and the Claims Conference ever see the light on how their generosity is abused by Baltic nationalist Holocaust revisionism?

Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Events, France, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged Claims Conference, Conference on Jewish Material Claims, European Commission + Holocaust, French Embassy in Vilnius, Genocide Center Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust Studies in France, Institut d’Histoire du Temps présent, International Comission for the Evaluation, Mémorial de la Shoah, Red-Brown Commission | Comments Off

Let’s Dismantle the Sports Palace and Revoke the “Revocation of Hospitality”

Posted on 4 January 2016 by Defending History

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | PAPER TRAIL | OPPOSITION | CEMETERIES

by Andrius Kulikauskas

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I am inspired by the deep feelings which have been stirred amongst Litvaks regarding the fate of the Vilnius Sports Palace built on top of the Jewish cemetery. I wish for our state of Lithuania to do its utmost on behalf of Lithuanians to restore the Jewish cemetery in Vilnius as a symbol of our aspiration for the closest friendship between Lithuanians and Jews. I realized that it would be most helpful for me to present my thoughts in Lithuanian.

“From the top of Gediminas Castle, do we want to see and cherish, for hundreds of years to come, what the Communist Party Chief saw (the Sports Palace) or what the Grand Duke of Lithuania saw (the Jewish cemetery)?”

Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Antisemitism & Bias, Citizenship, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Symbology, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged Andrius Kulikauskas, Birute Burauskaite, Christian-Jewish relations, Jews in Lithuania, Lithuanian-Jewish relations, Litvak Affairs, Piramont (Snipiskes), Piramont Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Sporto rumai | Comments Off

When Both Law Enforcement and Politicians Cover Up Racism

Posted on 24 December 2015 by Defending History

HUMAN RIGHTS | RACISM | ROMA | OPINION

by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

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Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

A Nigerian citizen was attacked with a knife and injured in Kaunas, Lithuania, earlier this month. Trying hard to avoid describing the assault as a racially motivated hate crime, law enforcement officials and the mainstream media alike explained that the incident was purely part of a private dispute. Strange to tell, reading through official statistics you would rapidly come to the conclusion that racist and xenopohobic crimes in Lithuania stand at about zero. And, that neo-Nazi minded youth are “just patriotic.”

It is no great secret in this part of the world that law enforcement officials and some politicians like to beautify the statistics, or to terminate or redefine proceedings brought in respect of racial or xenophobic hatred. One example comes to mind from 2011, when MPs J. Narkevičius and E. Zingeris appealed to the General Prosecutor’s Office to do something about the neo-Nazi ideology espoused in the song “Diktatūra” by the group “Šalčininkų rajonas” (Šalčininkai District).

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Human Rights, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Roma, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė | Tagged Diktatūra, Human rights in Lihtuania, neo-Nazis in Lithuania, Racism in Lithuania, Roma in Lithuania, Šalčininkų rajonas, Vilma Fiokla Kiure | Comments Off

Lithuania’s Liveliest Cemetery

Posted on 22 December 2015 by Defending History

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | PAPER TRAIL | OPPOSITION | CEMETERIES

by Dovid Katz

Editor’s note: Reprint from The Times of Israel, where this op-ed appeared on 13 December 2015.

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Back in 2009, a rancorous dispute over the old Vilna Jewish cemetery was ostensibly solved. Two new buildings, despite worldwide protests, would be allowed to remain, and in return, no more land would be pilfered from the cemetery at Piramónt, in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The burial ground goes back to the late fifteenth century, at least. After the Holocaust, with virtually no descendants left to worry about, Soviet authorities helped themselves to the gravestones for use in building projects, but left many thousands of graves intact. A galaxy of eminent European rabbinic scholars and authors were buried there. But once the 2009 “Peace of Piramónt” was brokered (with help from Western embassies here), emotions cooled as all sides got on with their lives.

Future symbol for a capital city in the European Union? by VULOVAK / DefendingHistory.com

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Citizenship, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Games, Dovid Katz, Dovid Katz on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad) | Tagged Beata Nemcova, Commission on Lithuanian-Jewish Heritage, CPJCE, Dovid Katz, Feinstein, Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, Jews in Lithuania, Kotler, Lithuanian-Jewish relations, Litvak Affairs, Piramont (Snipiskes), Snipiskes, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Soloveichik, Tomasz (Tomek) Wiśniewski, US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, Vilnius national convention center | Comments Off

Documents Which Argue for Ethnic Cleansing (by Kazys Škirpa, Stasys Raštikis, Stasys Lozoraitis and Petras Klimas in 1940-1941 and by Birutė Teresė Burauskaitė in 2015)

Posted on 18 December 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N / H I S T O R Y

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2023 update: Readers experiencing difficulty accessing sources linked are referred to the archived version where original links are operative.

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

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As of October 28, 2015, the home page of the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania has a link to an authorative statement by General Director Birutė Teresė Burauskaitė about Kazys Škirpa. She responds to a request for information by the City of Kaunas, which has a street in Škirpa’s name. Škirpa was Lithuania’s representative in Berlin, the leader of the Lithuanian Activist Front, organizer of Lithuania’s anti-Soviet rebellion and Prime Minister of Lithuania’s Provisional Government in 1941. In bold letters she emphasizes:

Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, History, Human Rights, Kazys Škirpa, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Comments Off

It’s Not Just About Old Jewish Cemeteries

Posted on 14 December 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L / O P P O S I T I O N / C E M E T E R I E S

by Milan Chersonski

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Translated from the Russian by Ludmila Makedonskaya (Grodno); English version approved by the author, Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij), longtime editor (1999-2011) of Jerusalem of Lithuania, quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. He was previously (1979-1999) director of the Yiddish Folk Theater of Lithuania. The views he expresses in Defending History are his own. See also Milan Chersonski section. Photo © Jurgita Kunigiškytė.

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There were many festive occasions celebrated once Lithuania declared its independence in 1990. So many hopes and expectations were inspired by the sweet word freedom. Free-ee-dom! Laisvė! Had it ever been possible to even imagine beforehand, taking one example, that Lithuania would hold a celebration to honor Israeli Independence Day, dear to Jews all over the world? The new state organized a large event at the Palace of Culture of the Trade Unions in Vilnius in honor of a faraway state, which in Soviet times was mentioned only as “the aggressive state of Israel.”

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged Jewish cemeteries Vilna, Milan Chersonski, Milan Chersonskij, Piramont Snipiskes cemetery, Snipiskes cemetery | Comments Off

Why Would the “Genocide Center” in Vilnius Manipulate History and Glorify Murderers?

Posted on 7 December 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N / C O L L A B O R A T O R S G L O R I F I E D / G E N O C I D E C E N T E R

by Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė

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“I am a former Lithuanian soldier myself and have a personal remark to make. Nobody will ever force me to wear the uniform of another country’s armed forces, because I am a Lithuanian patriot. I will not wear the uniform of Russia or of Mozambique.”

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Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė

One of the main Lithuanian dailies Lietuvos žinios (Lithuanian News) reported in an article on 24 November 2015 that the council of the celebrated Sajūdis organization (famed for its role in resisting the USSR and helping to achieve Lithuanian independence), had now, in 2015, decided to apply to prosecutors to take legal action over an article that had appeared in the 13 October 2015 edition of Laisvas laikraštis (Free Newspaper).

Sajūdis “decided” that the author had violated the law because he mentioned that Lithuanian postwar militants Vytautas Žemaitis, Jonas Noreika (Vėtra), Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas and others might have been personally involved in Holocaust atrocities. [Editor’s note: See articles by Evaldas Balčiūnas on the alleged Holocaust involvement of Žemaitis, Noreika, and Baltūsis -Žvejas.]

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Free Speech & Democracy, History, Human Rights, Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Sweden, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Birute Burauskaite, Genocide Center Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust Obfuscation, Jonas Noreika, Jonas Öhman, Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė, Vytautas Žemaitis | Comments Off

Roma in Lithuania: But What Does the Government Need To Do?

Posted on 16 November 2015 by Defending History

R O M A / H U M A N R I G H T S / O P I N I O N

by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

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Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

“Which social group in the EU is most generally evicted from housing?” This was the question cheerfully posed by the host of the Good Morning Lithuania show on our national television. The viewer who called in said “Roma” and won a prize.

It can be pleasant to drink morning coffee while tuned to a TV quiz, but this time it was quite something else. The program’s entertaining format and the host’s frequent jokes are not very funny at all when such painful social issues are the subject of entertainment. But the episode well illustrates the public attitude towards the Roma here. Many Roma are still deemed to be distant, exotic and mysterious people, an object rather than a living community. Maybe because there is a lack of empathy and understanding in dealing with Roma integration problems and there are various language issues too.

Posted in Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Roma, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė | Comments Off

Vilnius Mayor Plays with Fire: Yiddish, Pilfered Jewish Gravestones, and an Olympics of “Barbarism”

Posted on 11 November 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N / C E M E T E R I E S / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L

by Dovid Katz

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VILNIUS—This city’s dashing young new mayor, Remigijus Šimašius, elected last spring, has now added Yiddish to the previously bilingual (Lithuanian-English) signs, wrought of expensive metal in rounded-edged casement, in times of austerity for pensioners and others in town. These signs are being placed near Soviet-era edifices made of pilfered Jewish gravestones (matséyves) that are a blot on this charming East European capital. This is the latest model featured on the mayor’s office website:

Photo: Vilnius Municipality / Mayor’s Office.

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Reformed Evangelical Church (Vilnius), Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged Jewish cemeteries in Vilnius, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, mayor of Vilnius, Piramont (Snipiskes), Remigius Simasius | Comments Off

A Latvian-American Journalist in Riga Reflects on a Jewish Cemetery Saga in Vilnius

Posted on 10 November 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N / C E M E T E R I E S / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L

by Juris Kaža

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Riga based journalist Juris Kaža made the following observations in recent Facebook threads. They are collected here with the author’s permission.

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This is incredible. So the Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania became Home Depot for the Soviet-era construction industry? We need some granite blocks? Yo, take the Goldbergas family plot, there are five headstones! By the way, the big stone for Rabbi Whatshisname would make a great plinth, have it dragged here, please. Can’t somebody undo this bizarre mess, gather the stones and make an appropriate memorial?

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This is crazy. The Soviets ravage your cemetery after the Nazis kill your co-religionists and you get this for asking independent Lithuania to stop desecrating graves? They should do their best to restore the burial and memorial place and build their conference center elsewhere, not on the site already desecrated by the Soviets. WTF??

Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Humor (Of Sorts), Juris Kaža, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Comments Off

Dr. Tomasz Wiśniewski, Polish Documentary Film Maker and Judaica Specialist at Vilnius Rothschild Conference, Speaks Out on Fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 9 November 2015 by Defending History

CEMETERIES OPPOSITION PAPER TRAIL ROTHSCHILD DH SECTION EU ASPECTS

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VILNIUS—Polish scholar, author, film maker and Jewish heritage specialist Dr. Tomasz (Tomek) Wiśniewski is renowned as a world specialist on the culture and remnants of numerous erstwhile centers of East European Jewish life, most famously Białystok (in Poland, but in Jewish culture within the Litvak north of Jewish Eastern Europe). He was a delegate at last month’s Rothschild Foundation London (Hanadiv) conference on Jewish cemeteries, held here in Vilnius. Following the event, he issued a statement on his Facebook page concerning the fate of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery, known as Piramónt, in today’s Šnipiškės district. A slightly revised version was translated from Polish by Julius Norwilla and the translation approved by the author. It reads as follows:

Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Film, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Poland, Politics of Memory, Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues | Tagged Piramont, Rothschild Conference Jewish cemeteries, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Tomasz Wiszniewski, Tomek Wisniewski | Comments Off

Faina Kukliansky, Chair of Lithuanian Jewish Community, Issues Sharp Response to Latest Genocide Center Whitewash of a Local Holocaust Perpetrator

Posted on 7 November 2015 by Defending History

VILNIUS—The website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania today posted a powerful response by chairperson Faina Kukliansky to the statement released earlier in the week by the national state-funded “Genocide Center.” That statement attempted to whitewash the infamous Holocaust perpetrator and Nazi collaborator Jonas Noreika, and itself came as a response to a petition and series of articles last summer calling for removal of one of the public shrines to Noreika in the center of this city, the nation’s capital.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Faina Kukliansky, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Comments Off

Wiesenthal Center “Shocked at Whitewash of Lithuanian Holocaust Perpetrator”

Posted on 5 November 2015 by Defending History

JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized the website of the Lithuanian Jewish Community for what it termed a “brazen whitewash of the Holocaust crimes of one of the perpetrators of the annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry.”

REPORT IN THE JERUSALEM POST

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Efraim Zuroff, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Comments Off

Dr. Beata Nemcová, Slovakian Scholar at Vilnius Rothschild Conference, Speaks Out on Fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 4 November 2015 by Defending History

CEMETERIES OPPOSITION PAPER TRAIL ROTHSCHILD DH SECTION EU ASPECTS

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VILNIUS—Slovakian scholar, author and Jewish heritage specialist Dr. Beata Nemcová, a delegate at last week’s Rothschild Foundation London (Hanadiv) conference on Jewish cemeteries, has issued a statement calling on authorities here to move the state’s $25,000,000 convention center project away from the old Vilna Jewish cemetery, known as Piramónt, in today’s Šnipiškės district, to another location. The statement reads as follows (followed by a facsimile).

Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues | Tagged Beata Nemcova, Piramont, Rothschild Foundation conference on Jewish cemeteries, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish cemetery | Comments Off

As Lithuania’s President Visits Israel

Posted on 18 October 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

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Posted in Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion | Comments Off

Another “Conference on Antisemitism” in Lithuania

Posted on 1 October 2015 by Defending History

Human Rights / Antisemitism / Opinion

by Defending History Staff

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The well-organized conference “Antisemitism, Radicalization and Violent Extremism” was held on 30 September 2015 at Vilnius’s Novotel Hotel by the Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HMRI) with partners (see program). It will go down in history as one of the most remarkable capers yet in the fraught local “Dead Jew Business,” as it is increasingly becoming known. The biggest shock of the day was that one of the three keynote morning session speakers was Swedish-born Lithuania-resident filmmaker Jonas Ohman, known in town for his (far right style) glorification of postwar resistance fighters — one of the most painful issues of Baltic antisemitism in the twenty-first century — without the slightest mention of the alleged Holocaust perpetrator background of the precise figures glorified.

But the film maker chosen for the morning session manages at the same time to also be a (far left style) Israel baiter, whose current “humanitarian project” is a petition asking the mayor of Vilnius to sack a Jewish (Israeli-Lithuanian) advisor on the basis of social media “silly photos” that become bacteriologically antisemitic when recycled in his own petition, and beyond, in its recontextualized, politically charged incarnation. Far from doing the same to counter officials and advisors with neo-Nazi links, he boasted in his talk (amateur video) of his links to Right Sector and other Ukrainian groups that adulate wartime Holocaust perpetrators. When he was trashing Israel, the Israeli ambassador to Lithuania, Amir Maimon, sitting in the hall, boldly called out a question: “Are you rewriting the history?” (at time code 13:31).

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, History, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Norway, Opinion, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Conference on antisemitism in Lithuania, EEA Grants, HMRI (Vilnius), Human Rights Monitoring Institute, Leonidas Donskis, Saulius Suziedelis | Comments Off

Vilnius Names Street for Beloved Lithuanian Rescuer Ona Šimaitė

Posted on 25 September 2015 by Defending History

E V E N T S / O P I N I O N

by Defending History Staff

VILNIUS—For many years it has been a source of deep pain to many Lithuanians, Jews and others that the capital (and cities and towns around the country) continue to have street names honoring Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators but none for the true heroes of the Lithuanian Holocaust — the Lithuanian rescuers, who risked their and their families’ lives to “just do the right thing” and rescue some person or persons of a minority marked for rapid murder on the basis of Jewish birth. In the Baltics, the rescuers had to have much more courage even than in many other countries, because they were regarded as enemies of nationalist patriotism, as then constructed, not only as defiers of the German occupying forces’ program of extermination. They were regarded here as “enemies of Lithuania” (or Latvia, or Estonia), and sympathizes of communism who could expect no mercy if found out either by the German authorities or the local Lithuanian forces.

In 2013, Defending History objected to the plan to name a street for Ona Šimaitė in the boondocks and pressed for her street to be right in the city center.

Posted in CPJCE (London), Events, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius | Comments Off

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Latest

Opinion

by Andrius Kulikauskas

OPINION | EVENTS | JAPAN | RED-BROWN COMMISSION | POLITICS OF MEMORY

OPINION | HISTORY | LATVIA | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED

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

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Introduction

OPINION | FRANCE | RED-BROWN COMMISSION | GENOCIDE CENTER

Will the European Commission and the Claims Conference ever see the light on how their generosity is abused by Baltic nationalist Holocaust revisionism?

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | PAPER TRAIL | OPPOSITION | CEMETERIES

by Andrius Kulikauskas

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“From the top of Gediminas Castle, do we want to see and cherish, for hundreds of years to come, what the Communist Party Chief saw (the Sports Palace) or what the Grand Duke of Lithuania saw (the Jewish cemetery)?”

HUMAN RIGHTS | RACISM | ROMA | OPINION

by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

OPINION | PIRAMÓNT | PAPER TRAIL | OPPOSITION | CEMETERIES

by Dovid Katz

Editor’s note: Reprint from The Times of Israel, where this op-ed appeared on 13 December 2015.

O P I N I O N / H I S T O R Y

2023 update: Readers experiencing difficulty accessing sources linked are referred to the archived version where original links are operative.

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

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O P I N I O N / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L / O P P O S I T I O N / C E M E T E R I E S

by Milan Chersonski

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O P I N I O N / C O L L A B O R A T O R S G L O R I F I E D / G E N O C I D E C E N T E R

by Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė

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R O M A / H U M A N R I G H T S / O P I N I O N

by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

O P I N I O N / C E M E T E R I E S / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L

by Dovid Katz

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O P I N I O N / C E M E T E R I E S / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L

by Juris Kaža

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Riga based journalist Juris Kaža made the following observations in recent Facebook threads. They are collected here with the author’s permission.

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O P I N I O N

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Human Rights / Antisemitism / Opinion

by Defending History Staff

E V E N T S / O P I N I O N

by Defending History Staff

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