The following letter, from UK MP Dr. Denis MacShane, was received today by the office of Lithuanian parliament member Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis:
Opinion
UK MP Denis MacShane’s January 24th 2012 Letter to Lithuanian MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Denis MacShane, News & Views, Opinion, United Kingdom, Vytenis Andriukaitis
Comments Off on UK MP Denis MacShane’s January 24th 2012 Letter to Lithuanian MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis
Dr. Shimon Alperovich, Chairman of Lithuanian Jewish Community, Blasts “Double Genocide” on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Dr. Shimon Alperovich spoke out on the fashionable — and deeply disturbing — “Double Genocide” theory of World War II at the annual 27 January Holocaust Remembrance Day program held at the Jewish Community of Lithuania’s Vilnius headquarters at Pylimo Street 4.
Video, by Defending History, of Dr. Alperovich’s remarks, delivered in Lithuanian, is available on YouTube.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
Comments Off on Dr. Shimon Alperovich, Chairman of Lithuanian Jewish Community, Blasts “Double Genocide” on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Antony Polonsky Returns to Brandeis ‘Knighted’ by Lithuanian President’s Cross of the Officer of the Order — for helping the Baltic State’s Holocaust PR Campaign
C O M M E N T
With the president: Professor Antony Polonsky wearing the Cross of the Officer of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. Photo: Džoja Barysaitė
VILNIUS—Professor Antony Polonsky of Brandeis University, one of the world’s most accomplished scholars of Polish-Jewish history and the long time editor of the seminal Polish Jewish history series Polin, was at the Lithuanian president’s palace today to receive from her excellency the prestigious Cross of the Officer of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. The award, pinned on his chest by President Dalia Grybauskaitė, was not for a lifetime of sterling work on Polish Jewish history, but it seemed, for several years’ staunch and perhaps somewhat naive loyalty to the public relations program of the current government of Lithuania, organized by the local Holocaust revisionism elite’s alleged top handler of “important foreign Jews,” Prof. S.arunas Liekis. The presidential press release, reported in English by Baltic News Service (BNS), put it this way:
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Poland, Politics of Memory, Symbology, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis
Tagged Antony Polonsky, Antony Polonsky + Lithuania, definition of genocide, Holocaust in Lithuania, Polonsky + Cross of the Officer of the Order for Merits to Lithuania, Polonsky + Margolis, prosecution of Holocaust survivors by Lithuanian prosecutors, Rachel Margolis, Sarunas Liekis
Comments Off on Antony Polonsky Returns to Brandeis ‘Knighted’ by Lithuanian President’s Cross of the Officer of the Order — for helping the Baltic State’s Holocaust PR Campaign
UK MP Denis MacShane Rushes to Defense of Lithuanian Parliamentarians who Signed Seventy Years Declaration; Slams Foreign Minister’s Hitler-Stalin ‘Joke’
The following press statement was issued today by the office of UK MP Denis MacShane concerning the response of the Lithuanian foreign minister to the news that eight Lithuanian parliamentarians had signed the Seventy Years Declaration.
News Release 25 Jan. 2012
On the eve of National Holocaust Day, former Europe Minister Denis MacShane MP has written to Lithuanian MPs and MEPs who defied their political establishment to sign a statement on the Holocaust which attacks attempts to devalue the Nazi extermination of Jews by claiming it is no worse than the crimes committed by communists.
The Seventy Years Declaration was issued on 20 January 2012 by seventy European Union parliamentarians (MPs and MEPs) concerned about the return of antisemitism as an issue in contemporary politics. In January 1942, Nazi officials met at a conference at Lake Wannsee close to Berlin to plan the industrially organized extermination of European Jewry.
In recent years, European right-wing politicians have sought to gain acceptance for their view that the suffering under communist rule was the same as the Nazi extermination of Jews. This so-called “double genocide” thesis has been criticized by campaigners against modern antisemitism as leading to a devaluation of the unique specific Jew-hating roots of the Holocaust.
Now social democratic MPs and MEPs in Lithuania who signed this declaration have been attacked by government officials. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister went so far as to say there was no difference between Hitler and Stalin except the length of their moustache.Continue reading
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Antisemitism & Bias, Denis MacShane, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom, Vytenis Andriukaitis
Comments Off on UK MP Denis MacShane Rushes to Defense of Lithuanian Parliamentarians who Signed Seventy Years Declaration; Slams Foreign Minister’s Hitler-Stalin ‘Joke’
The Waffen-SS as Freedom Fighters
O P I N I O N
by Per Anders Rudling
Despised and ostracized, the Swedish community of Waffen-SS volunteers long gathered in secret on April 14, “The Day of the Fallen,” for obscure ritualistic annual gatherings at a cemetery in a Stockholm suburb.[1]
Since the 1990s, the rituals have not needed to be clandestine: the few, now very elderly survivors now head to Sinimäe, Estonia, where they feel they are now getting the honor to which they are entitled. Here, Swedish, Norwegian, Austrian, German and other Waffen-SS veterans from Western Europe meet up with their Estonian comrades.[2] The annual gatherings include those who volunteered for ideological reasons, and who are today actively passing on the experiences to a new generation of neo-Nazis.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Canada, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Estonia, Germany, History, Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Sweden
Tagged Per Anders Rudling
Comments Off on The Waffen-SS as Freedom Fighters
“Civil” Discourse in Ukraine
O P I N I O N
by Jared McBride
I sent the following op-ed, “Euro 2012: Maydan of hate?” to the Kyiv Post in late December regarding the hate literature that is often sold on Maidan Nezalezhnosti. It was published on 21 December 2011. One can read the comments made on the Kyiv Post‘s website here (taken today from the Comments section following my op-ed).
In response to my op-ed I had my educational background questioned; I was deemed a supporter of Kaganovich, Tabachnyk, and Yanukovych in no particular order; I was given various history lessons that have nothing to do with the letter at hand (and nothing to do with history either); conspiracy theories were shared; and I was called names, not least “son of a bitch.” The last epithet was perhaps the most ironic bearing in mind that I am fortunate to have a mother who raised me to have enough dignity to not insult people on internet forums while hiding behind false names.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Ukraine
Comments Off on “Civil” Discourse in Ukraine
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
Comments Off on The Seventy Years Declaration
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
Comments Off on Jerusalem-Kabul Exchange of Ideas: Dr. Efraim Zuroff, head of Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Office, Replies to EU’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Vygaudas Ušackas
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
Comments Off on Some Worrying Slippage at ‘Bernardinai.lt’?
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
Comments Off on Joseph Melamed Replies to Article in VilNews.com
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
Comments Off on Petras Stankeras Rides Again: Rehabilitating Fascism for the Lithuanian Mainstream
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
Comments Off on Václav Havel and the Prague Declaration
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
Comments Off on Lithuanian Ministry of Defense Honors ‘Lithuanian Activist Front’ (LAF) Nazi Collaborators (announced without comment on ‘Bernardinai’)
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
Comments Off on Why Shouldn’t Lithuanian People See the Monument I Helped Place in Vilnius?
Wyman Brent’s Speech at the Opening of the Vilnius Jewish Public Library
O P I N I O N
by Wyman Brent
Hello Everyone. Thank you for being here today.
No nation has ever become great by embracing racism, prejudice, discrimination, intolerance, and xenophobia. Such a country can only shrink within itself. Its people become small and bitter. No flower ever bloomed brighter nor smelled sweeter after having been dusted with hatred. Such a flower and such a people can only fade away.
Posted in Events, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Wyman Brent
Comments Off on Wyman Brent’s Speech at the Opening of the Vilnius Jewish Public Library
Why I am Translating Rozka Korczak’s Vilna Ghetto Memoir
O P I N I O N
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
The Vilna Ghetto memoir of Rozka Korczak-Marlé (1921–1988) is unfortunately completely unknown to Lithuanians today. I have therefore decided to translate the book into Lithuanian (from the Russian edition that Korczak herself edited), and have published two samples, here and here, on Anarchija.lt.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Books, Evaldas Balčiūnas, History, Litvak Affairs, Memoirs, News & Views, Opinion, Poland, Politics of Memory, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania
Comments Off on Why I am Translating Rozka Korczak’s Vilna Ghetto Memoir
Old Stones Speak to Young Pupils: Jewish Gravestones in the Walls of a Vilnius School Yard
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Photos by Richard Schofield (© R. Schofield)
The Lazdynai Middle School in Vilnius, built in the early 1970s, has an admirable reputation, inter alia for an excellent trilingual policy enabling Polish and Russian to flourish alongside the national language, Lithuanian, in a spirit of multicultural respect and harmony so fitting for the city’s history.
Updates to May 2013:
Return visit to the Stones of Lazdynai
♦
Updates to 15 December 2011
Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art and Monuments
Facebook discussion thread
Work in Progress: A Cultural Dictionary of Lithuanian Jewish Gravestones
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Symbology
Tagged cohen hands, fate of Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, Jewish gravestones, Jewish sites in Vilnius, Lazdynai, Lazdynai Middle School, Olandu Jewish cemetery, use of gravestones in walls with letters showing, Uzupis Jewish cemetery, Zaretshe Jewish cemetery
Comments Off on Old Stones Speak to Young Pupils: Jewish Gravestones in the Walls of a Vilnius School Yard
Suspense in Vilnius as Paleckis Verdict Day Nears
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Suspense is growing in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, concerning the verdict in the free speech trial of the flamboyant, controversial young left-wing politician, Algirdas Paleckis. The court’s ruling will be read from the bench next Wednesday 14 December 2011 at 2 PM at the First District Court at Laisves 79, Vilnius. The charge carries a possible one-year prison sentence if Mr. Paleckis is found guilty. A press release was received today from the Lithuania Without Nazism organization (not to be confused with the ‘secret’ internet group ‘Lithuania Without Neo-Nazism’, that some believe to be a manipulated group, somewhat sophomoric, or both).
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Algirdas Paleckis, European Union free speech Lithuania, Free speech in Lithuania, Holocaust in Lithuania, Lithuania without Nazism, Lithuania without neo-Nazism, NATO Lithuania free speech, OSCE Lithuania
Comments Off on Suspense in Vilnius as Paleckis Verdict Day Nears
Main Lithuanian Paper Caves In to Antisemitic Sentiment as Economy Sours
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
A colleague sent me a link to an article on the webpage of Lietuvos rytas that appeared in their Sunday edition during the first week of December, 2011 (PDF of the print version; full English translation; report in Defending History.com). The heading on the email said the article was antisemitic.
Lietuvos rytas (“Lithuanian Morning”) has been Lithuania’s main newspaper pretty much since independence from the Soviet Union. The quality of the newspaper has varied over the years, but they at least usually refrain from printing overtly antisemitic material, whereas competing newspapers and their editors-in-chief have made this their bread and butter at certain periods, especially Lietuvos aidas and Respublika, although Lietuvos aidas has all but disappeared as a real newspaper and Respublika appears to have turned into an advertising-driven newspaper distributed for free.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Geoff Vasil, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged Andrius Kubilius, Antisemitism in Lithuania, Arkadijus Vinokuras, Arkady Vinokur, Audronė Urbonaitė, Emanuelis Zingeris, Geoff Vasil, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jewish restitution in Lithuania, Lietuvos rytas, Tomkus, Vakaro zinios, Vilius Kavaliauskas
Comments Off on Main Lithuanian Paper Caves In to Antisemitic Sentiment as Economy Sours
‘Day and Night’ is an Epoch-Making Play for Modern Lithuania
O P I N I O N / R E V I E W
by Birutė Ušinskaitė
Cover of playbill
It was just another rainy and not overly cold evening in early December of the year 2011, but the play I was privileged to see at the Kaunas Chamber Theatre, Day and Night, proved to me, a proud Vilnius native and resident, that not all that is bold and brilliant originates in our capital.
For the first time in modern Lithuanian history, in my experience at any rate, a Lithuanian play on the Holocaust did not try to deflect attention ― or responsibility ― to the Germans or to some pseudo-objective forces of society, or to stick to some “kosher” theme like the dilemmas of Gens and the Judenrat in the Vilna Ghetto in order to avoid talking about what is frankly the main point for our country: the voluntary participation of many of our countrymen in the mass murder of the Jewish citizens of our own country, in some cases before the Nazis even arrived.
Posted in Arts, Birutė Ušinskaitė, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Events, Film, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, VilNews.com
Comments Off on ‘Day and Night’ is an Epoch-Making Play for Modern Lithuania