Opinion

‘That Awful Summer’ — Conference at Efrata College in Jerusalem

Posted on 30 November 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 Joshua Markovitz (Jerusalem)

It was Thursday November 24th. Thanksgiving. One couldn’t really feel it in Jerusalem, though; the city was bustling as it would on any other crisp autumn morning. I made my way through its fashionable Baka neighborhood, asking several passersby where to find Efrata College. (One of them couldn’t understand my question, and asked me if I spoke English. I happily replied in the affirmative. When one is an immigrant to a faraway land, it’s quite delicious to be mistaken for a native!)

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Posted in Double Games, Events, Israel, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Yiddish Affairs | Comments Off on ‘That Awful Summer’ — Conference at Efrata College in Jerusalem

Owning a Massacre: ‘Ukraine’s Katyn’

Posted on 28 November 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Ivan Katchanovski

 

Preface

Ukrainska pravda, Dzerkalo tyzhnia, Zaxid.net, Den, Gazeta.ua, Glavred, and UNIAN, which all devote either special sections or many publications to such historical issues as newly uncovered World War II era mass graves, refused to publish a Ukrainian-language version of the following Open Democracy article on the misrepresentation of the Nazi mass execution of Jews in Volodymyr-Volynskyi as a Soviet massacre of Poles. The Ukrainian service of Radio Liberty published a Ukrainian version of my article in the op-ed section of their website. However, the article was removed from their website without any explanation a few hours after its online publication. My email to the director and the webmaster of the Ukrainian service of the Radio Liberty got no response. In contrast, a report claiming that the victims uncovered in Volodymyr-Volynskyi were Poles executed by the Soviet secret police remains on the website of this radio station funded by the US government.

Introduction

Such historical issues as Stalin’s policies of mass murder and activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), attract a great deal of the media coverage in contemporary Ukraine. However, the media reporting on these issues is often politically biased, and it even involves a self-imposed censorship concerning the involvement of the OUN and the UPA in Nazi genocide.

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How the Zingeris-Račinskas Red-Brown Commission “Gently” Pushed Along the Conversion of Holocaust Studies into Double Genocide Studies

Posted on 23 November 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Rachel Croucher (Melbourne)

Although not seeking to deny the Holocaust, the ultimate consequence of the movement to redefine genocide is the equalization of National Socialist and Soviet crimes. The characterization of Soviet crimes as genocide is a misrepresentation that hinders authentic remembrance of the Holocaust in Lithuania by helping to obscure the extent and nature of Lithuanian complicity in the killings of the local Jewish population.

The idea that the crimes of Hitler and successive Soviet regimes are in fact equal has been a growing force behind public discourse on the Holocaust since the formulation of the national Holocaust and Genocide Education Program at the sixth meeting of The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania in June 2002.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Australia, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rachel Croucher | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How the Zingeris-Račinskas Red-Brown Commission “Gently” Pushed Along the Conversion of Holocaust Studies into Double Genocide Studies

Strasti za Banderoju (‘Bandera Passion’)

Posted on 20 November 2011 by Defending History

 

B O O K S  /  O P I N I O N

by Franziska Bruder

The 2010 anthology Strasti za Banderoju (Bandera  Passion, alternate translations include Bandera Ecstasy or Bandera-mania), edited by Tarik Syril Amar, Ihor Balyns’kyi and Iaroslav Hrytsak, assembles key contributions to three debates conducted in the years 2009-2010 around the person of Stepan Bandera, leader of the main wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

The first debate, staged on an Internet platform in L’viv in 2009, was occasioned by Bandera’s 100th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his assassination. It was followed in 2010 by another round triggered by then-Ukrainian president Viktor Iushchenko’s decision to convey upon Bandera the title Hero of Ukraine.  The editors divided that second round into two parts: the debate conducted in Ukraine and the debate conducted in North America.

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A Conference for Tolerance Day

Posted on 17 November 2011 by Defending History

 

O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

On Wednesday, November 16th 2011, the Tolerance Center in Vilnius hosted a conference called: Tolerance and Totalitarianism. Challenges to Freedom.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Events, Geoff Vasil, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Conference for Tolerance Day

Algirdas Paleckis Speaks Out at a Vilnius Conference that Obfuscates Antisemitism and Racism

Posted on 16 November 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Algirdas Paleckis

 

Note: Translation of Algirdas Paleckis’s comments from the floor at the conference “Tolerance and Totalitarianism: Challenges to Freedom” held on 16 November 2011 in Vilnius. The comments were contributed following the session on “Antisemitism, xenophobia, racism, discrimination. Totalitarian temptations  and new trials of tolerance.”
The videotape from which this translation was made is available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odd44ZP-hk0. 
See also coverage of the conference by Geoff Vasil and Dovid Katz, and the editor’s comment on prosecutors’ campaign against Mr. Paleckis.

 

“Thank you very much. I should probably introduce myself. I’m Algirdas Paleckis, a  member of the newly-formed Lithuania Without Nazism and  chairman of the Socialist People’s Front.  It’s really encouraging that this conference is taking place, but  Lithuania Without Nazism as an association was founded because  of concerns about double standards.

“The fact is, the Lithuanian courts, the one in Klaipeda, recognized the  swastika as a symbol is a sort of pagan symbol, which can be displayed in public. We do not have a suitably clear reaction to this from our government.

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Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Algirdas Paleckis Speaks Out at a Vilnius Conference that Obfuscates Antisemitism and Racism

Open Debate, Open Society, and Secret Societies

Posted on 9 November 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

Last Thursday, 3 November, an article I’d submitted to the Jerusalem Post for consideration appeared on the op-ed page (PDF of the print edition here). In democratic societies, sending an opinion piece to a respectable publication, signing it with one’s real name, and opening it (and oneself) to further open debate and discussion are rather standard. As usual, I linked to the article on my Facebook page, expecting some to agree and some to disagree, moving debate forward.

But a number of Facebook Friends who did not react on my page, or any other open forum, did for some reason find it appropriate to join a kind of witch hunt against the article and its author on a page of a “Secret Group” called Lietuva be neonacizmo (Lithuania Without Neo-Nazism), located at: www.facebook.com/groups/135816956486382.

 

The original discussion of 3 and 4 November 2011 is available here. A full English translation is appended below and is also available as PDF.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Games, Dovid Katz, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Open Debate, Open Society, and Secret Societies

Is it Science, or Football?

Posted on 4 November 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  /  B O O K S

by Geoff Vasil (Vilnius)

A few friends asked me if I could attend a book presentation in Kaunas, since they couldn’t make it. The book is called Undigested Past: The Holocaust in Lithuania by Robert van Voren. It was published in English first as part of a series by the Rodopi publishing house on Eastern Europe. I’d never heard of van Voren, but people told me he was known for his books on psychiatric abuses in the Soviet Union. The poster for the event proclaimed boldly in Lithuanian that the conference’s official language would be English, which made me smirk, but an English-language version of the poster became available on the morning of the event.

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Lithuania Assaults Holocaust Memory

Posted on 2 November 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Danny Ben-Moshe

NOTE: This op-ed appeared in today’s Jerusalem Post (and in the Jerusalem Report).

 

Recent developments suggest Holocaust remembrance has fallen by the wayside as a key element of Jewish Foreign Policy, at least as far as Lithuania is concerned.

Holocaust remembrance is a central plank of Jewish Foreign Policy (JFP), a term that encompasses how Israel and Diaspora organizations act on issues of common Jewish concern. The establishment of Yad Vashem in 1953 and the Eichmann trial in 1961 showed how central the memory of the Holocaust was to Israeli public and foreign policy.

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Danny Ben-Moshe, Double Games, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Israel, Joseph Melamed, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Lithuania Assaults Holocaust Memory

Volhynia and the Noxious Weed of Antisemitism

Posted on 30 October 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Jared McBride

During my dissertation research in Rivne, I’ve been going through a number of contemporary Volhynian newspapers for articles on a range of historical matters. As a historian of the Second World War, I do not tend to spend as much time with contemporary publications, yet at the end of the day, every activity and research experience is a lesson in some manner when you’re “in country” working.

I spent time working through what I already understood to be the right-wing nationalist newspaper, Volyn’, which is a Rivne oblast’ level paper that comes out once a week. The paper sees itself as the reincarnation of the Nazi occupation newspaper of the same name, which was edited by Volhynian writer Ulas Samchuk, if that tells you anything about the orientation just to start out.

When one orders a run of a paper, you get an entire year at once bound together. I’ll now take you through some of what I saw in the collection for 2002.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Ukraine | Comments Off on Volhynia and the Noxious Weed of Antisemitism

Lithuania Cannot Appease Both World Jewry and Far-Right Extremists

Posted on 22 October 2011 by Defending History

 

O P I N I O N

by Olga Zabludoff

 

I commend Didier Bertin’s knowledgeable and sensitive observations in his article “Lithuania and the Memory of the Holocaust.” My comments here are more in the form of a PS to Mr. Bertin’s words. My take-off point is his reference to the term “Double Genocide,” a government-endorsed concept that has been bandied about in Lithuanian political circles in recent times. But more about this later. Mr. Bertin borrows the term for application in a different dual context: the original genocide of the Jewish people and the current movement on the part of the Lithuanian government to neutralize if not to obliterate the remembrance of the Holocaust.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Lithuania Cannot Appease Both World Jewry and Far-Right Extremists

A Strange Hearing at the European Parliament, and a Big Fish called Montero

Posted on 19 October 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 Dovid Katz

Today’s “EPP Hearing on the Commission’s Report: The Memory of the Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes in Europe” (PDF) at the European Parliament in Brussels was a polished and triumphal affair that has reconfirmed — if reconfirmation is necessary — how right MEP Edward McMillan-Scott was in 2009 when he refused to accede to his then party, the British Conservatives, entering the political European Parliament tent of the far-right ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists), when the latter chose as leader a politician with a record of antisemitism and Holocaust Obfuscation, one for whom “Jewish apologies for communism” was a condition for recognition of the facts of the Holocaust.

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Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Events, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform" | Tagged , , | Comments Off on A Strange Hearing at the European Parliament, and a Big Fish called Montero

No Limits to ‘History Shenanigans’?

Posted on 18 October 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil (Vilnius)

According to a recent report on Delfi.lt, Lithuanian MP Gintaras Songaila, who has expressed support for the neo-Nazi marches through central Vilnius on Lithuania’s Independence Day, has recently begun disseminating a brochure to his fellow Lithuanian parliamentarians about alleged Polish atrocities against Lithuanians from before and during World War II. The brochure is based on a book by Algimantas Liekis called Black Pages in Lithuanian History.

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Red-Equals-Brown is a Historical Aberration

Posted on 13 October 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Roland Binet (Belgium)

The European Union has as one of its main tasks the promotion of cordial understanding between the peoples of Europe and, consequently, it must be careful about the history of the continent as it is being taught.  One of the reasons for the foundation of the Union was to bring together peoples that were previously enemies, in two world wars and numerous other conflicts.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Latvia, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet | Comments Off on Red-Equals-Brown is a Historical Aberration

Nationalists’ Roundtable Discussion Invites Jewish Community Chairman to ‘Speak about Lithuania’

Posted on 10 October 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

Medieval Lithuania was a colonial power in Europe stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. After the sixteenth-century union with Poland and the eighteenth-century partitions by other European powers that reduced Poland to nothing, Lithuania reemerged as a modern state in the aftermath of World War I based largely on the ethnic boundaries of the Lithuanian population. Then there was the contested region around the capital, Vilnius, the majority of whose population identified themselves as Poles (or Jews, or Belarusians, and others).

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Dr. Shimon Alperovich, chairman of Lithuania’s Jewish Community, Interviewed on Balsas.lt

Posted on 9 October 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

Translation from Balsas.lt, Interview of the Week, 26 September — 2 October 2011. PDF of the original available here.

Antisemitism Still Felt in Lithuania

September 23rd is the Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews.
The victims of the Vilna Ghetto liquidated in 1943 are honored on this day.

[Interview by] Julija Kiško

During the war the Nazis essentially exterminated the Jewish community of Lithuania and the unique culture they created. Chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Simon Alperovich shares his thoughts on the past and present.

Assessing the Holocaust

What hasn’t the Lithuanian Government, in your opinion, yet done in assessing the Holocaust and its aftermath? Balsas.lt Week asked S. Alperovich.

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Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views, Opinion, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014) | Comments Off on Dr. Shimon Alperovich, chairman of Lithuania’s Jewish Community, Interviewed on Balsas.lt

Faina Kukliansky’s Speech at Ponár (Paneriai) on 23 September 2011

Posted on 3 October 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Faina Kukliansky

The following is the approved text of the speech by Faina Kukliansky at the September 23rd commemoration ceremony at Ponár (Paneriai), the mass murder site near Vilnius where some 70,000 Jews from the city and its surrounding areas, and around 30,000 non-Jews, were murdered by the Nazis and their local partners. A prominent attorney and constitutional specialist, Kukliansky is chairperson of the Vilnius Jewish Community and deputy chairperson of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. The text was translated from the Lithuanian by Geoff Vasil and approved by the author.

In 1994 September 23rd was declared the day of commemoration for Lithuanian Jewish genocide victims, dedicated to honoring the victims. The Vilna Ghetto was liquidated on 23 September 1943 when the last surviving Jewish residents of the Lithuanian capital were murdered or sent to concentration camps abroad.

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Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Faina Kukliansky, Opinion, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai), September 23rd Commemorations | Comments Off on Faina Kukliansky’s Speech at Ponár (Paneriai) on 23 September 2011

Source Provides Purported Letter from Prosecutor to Dr. Rachel Margolis

Posted on 2 October 2011 by Defending History

A usually knowledgeable source has today made available  to DefendingHistory.com what purports to be a letter from a prosecutor in Lithuania to Dr. Rachel Margolis in Rechovot dating from spring of 2011. According to the source, who asked not to be identified by name, it is this letter that has been the basis of claims by the current Lithuanian government, and its foreign apologists on Jewish issues, that the case is ‘closed’.

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Posted in Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), News & Views, Opinion | Comments Off on Source Provides Purported Letter from Prosecutor to Dr. Rachel Margolis

Lithuanian Foreign Ministry’s Two Versions: for a Jewish Audience (Not for Publication) and for ‘General’ (Proudly on Website)

Posted on 28 September 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

The most recent of journalist Paul Berger’s four meticulously balanced reports in the Forward on Yivo-Lithuania issues (I, II, III, IV) appeared on the paper’s website today. Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and often considered the leading contemporary human rights champion in the struggle against antisemitism and other forms of prejudice, was among those asked by the reporter to comment upon the text of the Lithuanian foreign minister’s address, read out by a local consulate official, to the 22 September audience at a Lithuanian government sponsored concert at Yivo in New York to mark the ‘Vilna Ghetto Experience’. This journal’s editor was also among those asked to comment for the record, and we were asked by the Forward not to publish the text on DefendingHistory.com, a request naturally honored.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion | Comments Off on Lithuanian Foreign Ministry’s Two Versions: for a Jewish Audience (Not for Publication) and for ‘General’ (Proudly on Website)

On Science and Evil-Doers: In Reply to Dovid Katz on the Republication of Scholarly Work

Posted on 28 September 2011 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Alexander Gogun

After my response[1] to Rossoliński-Liebe[2] appeared on DefendingHistory.com, the discussion unexpectedly changed direction when the editor stepped into the debate[3].

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Posted in Opinion | Comments Off on On Science and Evil-Doers: In Reply to Dovid Katz on the Republication of Scholarly Work