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.
Opinion
A Conference for Tolerance Day
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 Antisemitism in Lithuania, Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Emanuelis Zingeris, Hannah Rosenthal, Holocaust commemoration in the Baltics, Holocaust in Lithuania, Irena Veisaite, Jewish Affairs in Lithuania, Jewish Community of Lithuania, Jews in Lithuania, Litvaks, Markas Zingeris, President Obama's Envoy on Antisemitism, Red-Brown Commission, Ronaldas Racinskas, Sarunas Liekis, Simon Gurevich, Simonas Gurevicius, Tolerance Center
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Algirdas Paleckis Speaks Out at a Vilnius Conference that Obfuscates Antisemitism and Racism
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.
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
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Open Debate, Open Society, and Secret Societies
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.
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 Jewish partisans in Lithuania, Justinas Žilinskas, Lara Lempert (Larisa Lempertiene), Lietuva be neonacizmo, Lithuania Without Fascism, Rachel Margolis, Toleikis + Holocaust, Vytautas Toleikis
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Is it Science, or Football?
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.
Posted in Events, Geoff Vasil, History, News & Views, Opinion
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Lithuania Assaults Holocaust Memory
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.
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
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Volhynia and the Noxious Weed of Antisemitism
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.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Ukraine
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Lithuania Cannot Appease Both World Jewry and Far-Right Extremists
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.
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 Didier Bertin, Double Genocide, Holocaust in Lithuania, Lithuanian-Jewish relations, Olga Zabludoff
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A Strange Hearing at the European Parliament, and a Big Fish called Montero
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.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Events, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform"
Tagged Carlos Montero, Double Genocide, Totalitarian Regimes in Europe
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No Limits to ‘History Shenanigans’?
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.
Posted in Geoff Vasil, History, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Red-Equals-Brown is a Historical Aberration
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.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Latvia, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet
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Nationalists’ Roundtable Discussion Invites Jewish Community Chairman to ‘Speak about Lithuania’
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).
Posted in Geoff Vasil, News & Views, Opinion
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Dr. Shimon Alperovich, chairman of Lithuania’s Jewish Community, Interviewed on Balsas.lt
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.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views, Opinion, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014)
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Faina Kukliansky’s Speech at Ponár (Paneriai) on 23 September 2011
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.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Faina Kukliansky, Opinion, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai), September 23rd Commemorations
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Source Provides Purported Letter from Prosecutor to Dr. Rachel Margolis
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’.
Posted in Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), News & Views, Opinion
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Lithuanian Foreign Ministry’s Two Versions: for a Jewish Audience (Not for Publication) and for ‘General’ (Proudly on Website)
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.
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
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On Science and Evil-Doers: In Reply to Dovid Katz on the Republication of Scholarly Work
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].
Posted in Opinion
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Was Rachel Margolis Honored (or Mentioned) at the “Vilna Ghetto Experience” Yivo Event Sponsored by the Lithuanian Government?
The Yivo concert mounted in memory of the Vilna Ghetto was held on 22 September, a date near the September 23rd anniversary of its liquidation (in 1943). Survivors questioned find it unconscionable that the Yivo evening could not also be utilized as a forum for polite, constructive and appropriate protest at the Lithuanian government’s targeting precisely of Vilna Ghetto survivors (among other Holocaust survivors) for kangaroo ‘war crimes investigations’ that have drawn international protest.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Events, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged Dr. Jonathan Brent (Yivo), Rachel Margolis, Yivo
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What Happened when Holocaust Survivor Joseph Melamed Did Exactly what Historian A. Liekis Suggested?
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
The following is a reprint, with the author’s permission, of his article in London’s Jewish Chronicle this week.
Wreaths Laid, but Doubt Hangs in the Air
Today is Lithuanian Holocaust Day. This is the day the Vilna Ghetto was “liquidated” in 1943, but is not generally known among Lithuanians. It does not even appear on the Wikipedia list of Lithuanian holidays, although Molotov-Ribbentrop Day, August 23, does. September 23 usually receives a few minutes on the evening news — after it’s over.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Celebrations of Fascism, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Geoff Vasil, Joseph Melamed, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged A. Liekis + Holocaust in Lithuania, Geoff Vasil, Joseph Melamed, Joseph Melamed + Holocaust in Lithuania, Liekis + list of perpetrators, Ponar (Paneriai
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Full Statement of the Leyzer Ran Family on Yivo’s Positions on the Lithuanian Holocaust and Current Machinations
NEW YORK—The Leyzer Ran family released this statement, dated 16 September 2011, which appears here in the original PDF format received. To turn pages please use the arrows in the upper left hand corner. Alternatively, the document may be accessed as PDF.
Posted in In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Leyzer Ran Section, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged Leyzer Ran, Yivo, Yivo and Lithuania
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Leyzer Ran Family Writes Collective Open Letter on Yivo Debacle
The surviving family members of the late Leyzer Ran, led by his wife Basheva Ran, today released a statement concerning Yivo’s decision to honor the Lithuanian foreign minister in New York in the absence of apologies for the accusations against Jewish partisan heroes, and in the absence of progress on widespread antisemitism including legalized swatikas and Holocaust distortionism. Details and a PDF of the letter are available here.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Basheva Ran & Family, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Leyzer Ran Section, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States
Tagged Dr. Jonathan Brent, Leyzer Ran, Prof. Faye Ran
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