Yad Vashem Manipulated?

Israel Chronicle

Posted on 29 September 2019 by Defending History

[most recent update]

Israeli Foreign Policy and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe (1990 — 2020)

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JAN 2019: ARON HELLER IN THE WASHINGTON POST ON NETANYAHU’S “SALE OF HOLOCAUST HISTORY” IN EASTERN EUROPE; SAM SOKOL’S NEW PAPER

 

LOOKING BACK AT 2018-2019:

Historic lowpoint in Israeli diplomacy?

Also: Netanyahu’s Trip to Lithuania. Ten Knesset members call on country’s president to cancel convention center project in old Vilna Jewish cemetery; Interior Minister adds his voice.

A historic highpoint: Israeli ambassador to Ukraine, HE Joel Lion, speaks up with integrity.

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Israel Chronicle

Three Issues for Yad Vashem Conference that Legitimizes “Genocide Center”

Posted on 19 November 2018 by Defending History

OPINION  |  YAD VASHEM MANIPULATED  |  GENOCIDE CENTER

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by Gershon Taitz  (Vilnius)

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I would like to invite the participants of today’s Yad Vashem Conference in Jerusalem, “Jewish Leadership in Lithuanian Ghettos” to consider a number of issues concerning this conference. First, please be aware that Dr. A. Bubnys is the chief historian at the “Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania.” His center of activity  promotes  inaccurate and hostile memory of the Holocaust in Lithuania.

We all recall the controversies ignited by A. Bubnys in his  book  on the Šiauliai Ghetto (Shávler géto). The book was written in such a way as to give the impression that Jews perished principally because of the Jewish leadership in the ghetto, and not because of the German and Lithuanian forces who were the voluntary and enthusiastic perpetrators (a classic case of trying to blame the victims). This makes the Genocide Center’s participation in a Yad Vashem conference on the topic of forced Jewish “leadership” of the ghettos problematic, not least because of the conference’s topic being precisely that nominal Jewish leadership. Indeed, it happens here that blame for the Holocaust is deflected as far as possible on the forced Jewish “leadership” of the ghettos and the “Jewish police” in the ghettos.

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Is Yad Vashem Legitimizing Vilnius “Genocide Center”?

Posted on 19 November 2018 by Defending History

OPINION  |  YAD VASHEM MANIPULATED  |  GENOCIDE CENTER

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 Under Pressure of Israeli Foreign Ministry?

Vilnius Genocide Center: “Legitimized” by 19 Nov. Yad Vashem Conference in Jerusalem?

Its chief historian Dr. A. Bubnys is a major speaker; See DH review of his book on the Vilna Ghetto and report on Jewish community’s response to his publication on the Shavl (Šiauliai) Ghetto. Are pliant “Jewish academics” being flown in and wheeled out to provide cover for the newest chapters in Holocaust revisionism? These include East European state glorification of collaborators and denial of the outbreak of mass violence by the LAF and other “nationalist heroes” against Jewish neighbors before the onset of German administration in the last week of June 1941.

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21st Century Lowpoint for Israeli Diplomacy? Ambassador Poses with Photos of Alleged Holocaust Collaborator

Posted on 15 December 2017 by Defending History

OPINION  |  ISRAEL PAGE  |  ISRAEL SECTION   |  HONORING COLLABORATORS  |  LEGACY OF JOE MELAMED  |  LEGACY OF DOV LEVIN  |  FOREIGN MINISTRIES AND THE HOLOCAUST

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by Dovid Katz (Vilnius)

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PHOTO: DELFI.LT

VILNIUS—Israel may have crossed a red line today when it was flaunted on the major News portal Delfi.lt here, both in Lithuanian and in English, that Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon had found the time this week to stage a demonstrative PR-photographed visit to the chief campaigner for the parliament’s decision less than one month ago to name 2018 in honor of Adolfas Ramanauskas — his daughter in Vilnius, Auksutė Ramanauskaitė-Skokauskienė, who is a prime icon of the ultranationalist camp that often glorifies various collaborators and participants in the Holocaust on the grounds that they were also anti-Soviet activists. The PR move came just after a major political commentator asked what Lithuania is getting in return for its staunch political support for the Netanyahu government.

UPDATES TO THIS ARTICLE: WEEKLY OF VILNIUS COMMENTARY; AMBASSADOR’S BETRAYAL OF HOLOCAUST HISTORY A FIASCO AS LITHUANIA VOTES ANYWAY AGAINST U.S. DECISION TO MOVE ITS EMBASSY (PARTING WITH NEIGHBORING LATVIA)

One of the PR photos released shows the ambassador posing underneath adulatory photos of the 1941 pro-Nazi militiaman (from various other periods in his life). Of course Lithuania has a vast number of inspirational historical heroes, including many anti-Soviet heroes, who were not Holocaust collaborators, and state decisions to honor collaborators cause untold pain to survivors, their families, and the remnant Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. They all send a message that becomes part of the history-revision campaign to downgrade the Holocaust in the context of “Double Genocide” revisionism.

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Editor’s Comment on a Yad Vashem Group Visiting Lithuania

Posted on 11 September 2016 by Defending History

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The following comment appeared on Facebook today:

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Dovid Katz

YAD VASHEM’S “political department” and the group that visited Lithuania last week:

Thanks to both members of the group who quietly reached out to the Defending History team for a meeting. As you saw, nothing but good comes from relaxed, pleasurable, respectful and frank exchange of ideas and knowledge, over a cup of coffee. It was sad that the group was (again) hermetically sealed from “The Second Opinion” here in Vilnius (and those Holocaust survivors who hold such opinions), as if Israeli citizens cannot be trusted to cope with a rich tapestry of opposing views when they visit Eastern Europe. (That various “Yiddish” institutions gleefully, at times, play the role of gatekeeper of ideas here is another issue.) For background on the issues from our team’s perspective, please see:
https://defendinghistory.com/…/political-pressure-on-yad-vas…
https://defendinghistory.com/israel-debates/43340
https://defendinghistory.com/blaming-the-victims
https://defendinghistory.com/category/israel

Over the years some amazing Israeli heroes of truth and courage have indeed spoken out.

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Appeal to Conscience of the “Red-Brown Commission”

Posted on 28 April 2016 by Defending History

[updated]

Appeal to the conscience of the members of the renewed state-financed “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania”

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Israel’s Foreign Ministry Faces a Lithuanian Dilemma

Posted on 26 February 2016 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | ISRAEL | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | RED-BROWN COMMISSION | GENOCIDE CENTER

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As the Lithuanian government-sponsored “Red-Brown Commission” (popular moniker for the “International Commission for Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes of Lithuania“), quiet on the international front for a time, announces a comeback global conclave for 17-19 March 2016, suspense is rising as to whether various Jewish organizations, including Yivo and the AJC, but above all the Israel Foreign Ministry, will again be coming on board to legitimize the body that is the midwife of the Double Genocide movement in the European Parliament.

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Yad Vashem and the “Two Genocides”

Posted on 18 August 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Danny Ben-Moshe  (Melbourne)

This op-ed was first published in Jerusalem Report in August 2013.

I remember my first visit to Yad Vashem as a 16-year-old visitor to Jerusalem. It had a profound, and indeed formative, effect on me. I left there with a badge clipped to my lapel inscribed with the motto, zakhor, the Hebrew word for remember.

Yet for all its splendid work, Yad Vashem whose formal title is The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, I am sorry to say, is now dramatically failing both the martyrs and heroes of the country where the percentage of the Jewish community annihilated in the Holocaust was higher than anywhere else in Europe – Lithuania.

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Instead of Truth about the Holocaust – Myths about Saving Jews

Posted on 1 January 2013 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

by Pinchos Fridberg

Editor’s note [updated 27 January 2013]:
Pinchos Fridberg, a native and resident of Vilnius, is a Holocaust survivor. He graduated from Vilnius University in 1961 and completed his PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics in 1965 and an additional doctoral science degree in radio physics in 1974. From 1961 to 1978 he was chair of the Laboratory of Theoretical Investigations at the Vilnius Scientific Institute of Radio Measuring Devices. In 1978 he joined Grodno State University, where he was named professor. In 1989 he became head of the Department of Theoretical Radio Physics at the Zondas Company in Vilnius.

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Kristallnacht Becomes PR Hook for Double Genociders at Berlin Events of the “Prague Process Platform”

Posted on 9 November 2012 by Defending History

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience is the name of one of the main European engines of Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation. Apparently funded by the European Union in part (or more), its name is inspired by the full name of the 2008 “Prague Declaration” (on European Conscience and Communism), which is prominently advertised on its home page. Informally it is referred to as the “Prague Process Platform” (PPP)  and is based in the Czech Republic.

THE REPORT FROM THE “PLATFORM”

Kristallnacht, 74 years ago tonight, was the Night of Broken Glass, in which widespread coordinated violence against Jewish citizens of Germany, supported by the Nazi regime, resulted in at least 91 deaths, 30,000 arrests and transfers to concentration camps, and over a thousand synagogues burned down. The event was a major harbinger of the imminent genocide of European Jewry.

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Outgoing Lithuanian PM, Red-Brown Commission and Genocide Center Joining Forces for Mid-November Vilnius Conference Promoting “Double Genocide”

Posted on 7 November 2012 by Defending History

With the recent Lithuanian elections barely out of the way, and the ruling right-wing Homeland Union Conservatives the undisputed losers, the ultranationalist right is losing no time in pressing ahead aggressively with the Double Genocide “red-equals-brown” agenda, reverting to one of the movement’s original slogans: “United Europe — United History.” For pro-tolerance and liberal forces, the profoundly undemocratic message implied is that a united Europe has to also be united (i.e. have one opinion) on questions of history, and that Double Genocide and its central document, the 2008 Prague Declaration, are inviolable truths.

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“Red-Brown Commission” is Formal Member of Revisionists’ “Platform of European Memory and Conscience”

Posted on 1 November 2012 by Defending History

It was today confirmed by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience that the Lithuanian government’s “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes of Lithuania” (known for brevity as the “Red-Brown Commission”) is a formal member of the “Platform.” This is further confirmed on the Platform’s website under the list of “Platform Members” (right hand column).

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Lithuanian President’s Decree on “Red-Brown Commission” is Re-issued with “New Sentence”

Posted on 17 October 2012 by Defending History

Baltic News Service (BNS) has just released yet more convoluted news on the renewal of the “red-brown commission” by, it appears, yet another revised presidential decree. Full text of the BNS report follows below.

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US Documentary Film Maker Releases Correspondence with Yad Vashem on Alliance with Lithuanian “Red-Brown Commission”

Posted on 16 October 2012 by Defending History

The American documentary film maker Richard Bloom, who has produced a number of documentaries on the Holocaust, today released for publication his recent correspondence with Yad Vashem. He said his decision was taken after he failed to receive substantive replies to his recent queries about Yad Vashem rejoining the Lithuanian government’s “red-brown commission.”

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Yad Vashem Sinking Deeper in Lithuanian “Commission” Morass with Political Campaign for Compensation from Russia

Posted on 26 September 2012 by Defending History

The polite fiction that the renewed Lithuanian state sponsored “Red-Brown Commission” will advance Holocaust research and research on Soviet crimes strictly at the academic and educational levels took a big hit today, before even its first meetings.

A BNS report released today confirms that the Commission, officially known as The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, is one of the bodies that will be involved with demanding compensation from Russia for Soviet crimes against Lithuania.

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Red-Brown Commission Renewed: Box Coverage to 15 September 2012

Posted on 15 September 2012 by Defending History

Lithuanian President Refinances Red-Brown Commission

Yad Vashem is Pressed by Foreign Ministry to Join as Holocaust Survivors Protest, after Years of Dissent; Rapid Descent into Morass of Lithuanian-Russian Politics

INTERNATIONAL REACTION: DefendingHistory; Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors in Israel issue statement and open letter; Survivor families (USA); Dr. Clemens Heni (Berlin).

BUT VILNIUS US EMBASSY’S JONATHAN BERGER ISSUES STATEMENT PRAISING THE COMMISSION.

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Families of Holocaust Survivors in the US Release Public Letter on Renewal of Lithuanian Government’s Red-Brown Commission

Posted on 9 September 2012 by Defending History

The following is the text of the statement released today by the signatories enumerated below.

Welcome to Holocaust Halloween: The Political Obfuscation of the Holocaust in Lithuania by Lies, Masquerades, Tricks, and Treats

The Soviet occupation of Lithuania is a painful part of its history.

The mass murder of approximately 95% of Lithuania’s Jewish population (noted by historians as the highest percentage of any European country) during World War two is an abomination and blot on the history of Lithuania and its citizenry.

The two events are not equal. Historical sufferings are not identical.

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English Text of Joseph Melamed’s Letter to Yad Vashem

Posted on 3 September 2012 by Defending History

The following is a translation of the Hebrew letter from Tel Aviv attorney Joseph Melamed, head of the Association of Lithuanian Jews, to Avner Shalev, director of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, in reaction to news reports reporting that Yad Vashem would rejoin the Vilnius-based red-brown commission. In addition, the Association issued a statement to the media today.

Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel
1 King David Boulevard
Tel Aviv 64953
Telephone +9723 696-4812
Fax +9723 695-4821
www.lithuanianjews.org.il
litjews@bezeqint.net

Tel Aviv, 3 September 2012

Hon. Avner Shalev
Chairman, Yad Vashem
The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority
P.O.B. 3477
Jerusalem 91034

 

Shalom, Avner,

The Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel was left in shock by the decision of Yad Vashem to renew its activities in the “International” Commission [for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania].

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Joseph Melamed, Head of Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors’ Association, Releases Letter to Director of Yad Vashem

Posted on 3 September 2012 by Defending History

TEL AVIV—The office of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel today released the text of the Hebrew letter which the ALJ’s chairman, Tel Aviv attorney Joseph Melamed, sent today to Avner Shalev, the director of Yad Vashem. Images of the letter’s two pages follow (signed letter as PDF). English translation here.

See also the separate English statement which the ALJ released to the media earlier today, following the recent news about the Lithuanian government renewing a much enlarged red-brown commission with the ostensible participation of Yad Vashem.

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Holocaust Survivors, Based in Tel Aviv, Issue Statement on Renewal of the Red-Brown Commission

Posted on 3 September 2012 by Defending History

TEL AVIV—The following public statement was received at 2:15 PM Tel Aviv time from the offices of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel at King David Boulevard 1. In addition, the ALJ today released the letter written by its chairman to the head of Yad Vashem (English translation here). Background.

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