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Politics of Memory
International Opposition to 2024 Proposals for a Memorial Complex (/Museum), with Seating Capacity for 5000 People, in the Middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, 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
Tagged American Jewish Committee (AJC), Conference of European Rabbis (CER), Good Will Foundation (GWF), human rights & cemeteries, Jewish cemetery at Piramont (Snipiskes/Shnipishok), Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC), Old Vilnius (Vilna) Jewish cemetery
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Ukraine Needs the Vilnius Red-Brown Commission’s ‘Help’ Like a Hole in the Head
OPINION | RED-BROWN COMMISSION: PAGE AND SECTION
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by Dovid Katz
The sacred cause of democratic Ukraine’s success and brutal dictator Putin’s failure must not be comprised by attempted hijacks by far-right Holocaust revisionists who have worked for decades to rewrite the history into “two equal Holocausts” (“Double Genocide”), an insidious form of revisionism whose first corollary is glorification of local Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators (whether Noreika in Lithuania or Bandera in Ukraine, among numerous others). It is alarming to read this week (on the website of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry) that Lithuania’s state-sponsored “Commission for the Evaluation of Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania” (for short: “the Red-Brown Commission”), the cause of so much pain to the last Holocaust survivors and the remnants of Lithuanian Jewry, is now interloping in Kyiv, attempting to insinuate Double Genocide Holocaust revisionism right into the current noble struggle of the free states of NATO and the European Union to ensure the future of free and democratic Ukraine. Resignations over the years from the “Red-Brown Commission” (all on matters of principle) include Sir Martin Gilbert, Professor Konrad Kwiet and Professor Dov Levin.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide, History, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Clemens Heni, Commission on Nazi and Soviet Crimes, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes, Leonidas Donskis, Michael Shafir, Red-Brown Commission, Ronaldas Racinskas, Simon Butt, Sir MartinGilbert, Ukraine & Holocaust history, Vytenis Andriukaitis, Yehuda Bauer
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Vilnius Authorities Boldly Knock Down New Shrine to K. Škirpa, 1941 Planner and Inciter of Ethnic Cleansing of Lithuania’s Jews
DEFENDING HISTORY SUCCESSES | K. ŠKIRPA | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | VILNIUS | SHRINES TO HOLOCAUST COLLABORATORS IN VILNIUS
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VILNIUS—Less than 48 hours of Defending History’s report on the new plaque glorifying J. Škirpa, a planner and instigator of mass murder of Lithuanian Jewry, including incitement of mobs that killed thousands before German Nazi forces even arrived or took over, the municipal authorities, in close touch with the national government of Lithuania, boldly and publicly today smashed the plaque and removed all trace of it. City contractors from “Grinda” were on hand for hours before police removed a handful of far-right protestors, in some cases with force. In a major development, the entire scene was videotaped by 15min.lt and appears online.
THE VIDEO
This is a sharp contrast with the then mayor’s furtive 4 AM removal of the previous Noreika plaque back in 2019 (which was followed by a mob coming to affix a new one in short order). The Defending History community rapidly responded on social media with the words: Bravo Lithuania!
A scene of moral beauty, authority, integrity and justice from the government of 21st century democratic Lithuania
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius
Tagged glorification of Holocaust collaborators, Holocaust in Lithuania, Kazys Škirpa
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Building Sheets Down, Scaffolding Removed, Builders’ Barriers are “Last Stage” for “Noreika section” of National Library of Sciences Facade
OPINION | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | INS AND OUTS OF THE NOREIKA PLAQUE IN CENTRAL VILNIUS | NOREIKA SAGA | U.S.A.
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Latest images (17 June 2024) from the cleaned facade that Lithuania’s friends hope will remain morally clean… This is the Vrublevskis Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in central Vilnius, several moments from Cathedral Square and Gedimino Boulevard.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius
Tagged Jonas Noreika, Noreika Plaque in Vilnius, Vrublevskis' Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Wroblesvski Library
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The European Journey of Belgium’s Roland Binet: Warsaw to Rumbula (near Riga) and Ponár (near Vilnius)
MEMOIRS | OPINION | HISTORY | BELGIUM
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by Roland Binet (De Panne, Belgium)
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Until the age of seventeen I did not know at all that there were Jews. Following from that, I had moreover never heard anything of what happened to the Jews during World War II. My awakening came one evening in the fall of 1962.
I saw Frédéric Rossif’s documentary on the Warsaw Ghetto, Le Temps du Ghetto (‘The Time of the Ghetto’). I came away devastated, particularly shocked by the scenes of the starving children begging in the streets and by the “morning collection” of nude bodies picked up from the pavements and streets of Warsaw and transported by wheelbarrows and carts to a mass grave where the bodies were dumped without any respect. The images were at once revolting and unforgettable.
Screenshot from my ‘first shock’: Frédéric Rossif’s documentary on the Warsaw Ghetto, Le Temps du Ghetto (‘The Time of the Ghetto’)
Posted in Belgium, History, Latvia, Lithuania, Memoirs, Music, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet
Tagged Holocaust in Latvia, Paneriai, Ponár (Ponary, Roland Binet, Rumbula
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Builders’ Curtain Down, Scaffolding Still Up, at Vilnius Science Library’s Facade: Will the Gov. Step in to ‘Just Say No’ to Plaque Glorifying a Collaborator in Genocide of Lithuanian Jewry during the Holocaust?
OPINION | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | INS AND OUTS OF THE NOREIKA PLAQUE IN CENTRAL VILNIUS | NOREIKA SAGA | U.S.A.
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Left: Before renovations. Right: Current stage of renovations. The question: What’s in store for this spot when the long-lasting renovations are finally complete?
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Will the government of Lithuania, a proud, successful and delightful member of the European Union and NATO, stand up and state clearly that the Vilnius city-center plaque glorifying J. Noreika, a brutal Holocaust collaborator, removed a year ago in the run-up to July’s NATO conference (pretext: “renovations of the facade”), will not be put back?
“A state’s moral decisions are vital in determining the path for the future”
The builders’ sheets have come down. The scaffolding is still up. When the plaque was removed for renovations, Delfi.lt reported one year ago that the director of the National Library of Sciences, whose Noreika facade has damaged Lithuania’s standing, gave the plaque to a far-right, pro-fascist youth group “for safekeeping” while assuring the public that “the sign will be put back when the renovation works are completed.” Sources in the government have told Defending History that the plan of the far right is to replicate the “success of 2019” when removal of the plaque was followed by a far-right Nazi-sympathizing group coming by one night with a crowd to put it up (in that instance —to put up a bigger and better plaque with bas relief of the Holocaust collaborator), after which “nobody in the government or municipality would dare defy their fait accompli.”
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, United States
Tagged Ambassador Cara McDonald, Jonas Noreika, Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Vrublevskis Library, Vrublevskių biblioteka
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“Museum of the Lost Shtetl” Forces Removal of Saulius Beržinis’s 5 Minute Youtube Trailer Featured on Yom HaShoah
OPINION | FILM | BOLD CITIZENS | SAULIUS BERŽINIS | SHEDUVA | MUSEUM OF THE LOST SHTETL
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Five Minutes & Six Seconds:
The Satanic Verses of Sheduva, Lithuania?
Our take:
We sincerely regret that the directors, donors, and staff of the “Museum of the Lost Shtetl” in the town of Sheduva, Lithuania have not yet spoken out freely and publicly about removal from Youtube of the five minute and six second trailer to Saulius Beržinis’s classic Holocaust documentary on Sheduva:
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Saulius Beržinis, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl"
Tagged Documentary film "Petrified Time", Holocaust in Lithuania, Lithuania, Museum of the Lost Shtetl, Saulius Berzinis, Sheduva (Seduva)
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Welcoming Springtime in Vilnius with Ever More Repairs at Library of Sciences
J. NOREIKA | NOREIKA PLAQUE IN CENTRAL VILNIUS | COLLABORATOR GLORIFICATION | VILNIUS: 700 YEARS CELEBRATION
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Ides of March 2024:
BUT STILL NO ANNOUNCED DECISION ON FUTURE OF CENTRAL VILNIUS SHRINE TO HITLER COLLABORATOR J. NOREIKA. A SHRINE WITH A RECENT STORIED HISTORY. ONE OF A NUMBER OF PUBLIC-SPACE SHRINES IN VILNIUS GLORIFYING LOCAL HOLOCAUST PERPETRATORS.
Ever more antics to avoid having to permanently remove plaque glorifying the Nazi collaborator (or just to delay announcing any decision)? National Library of Sciences in central Vilnius on the eve of the Ides of March 2024. Defending History photos by William Adan Pahl.
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Critics ask: Is it all to avoid making the bold decision to leave the plaque and bas relief of Noreika away from the building’s facade and right on the junkpile of Hitlerist paraphernalia — where it justly belongs?
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Jonas Noreika, Lithuanian Library of Sciences, Noreika plaque in central Vilnius
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Seimas’s ‘Official Antisemite’ Announces Run to be Lithuania’s President. . .
Lithuanian parliament’s ‘proud antisemite’ announces run for president.
Defending History was first to analyze his statements for Holocaust-based context
The ‘pioneering’ hatemonger is arguably the first elected official in Eastern Europe to synthesize local far-right Holocaust revisionism and inversion with third-world style hatred of Israel
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Vilnius Winter Mystery: When the Curtain Comes Down — Noreika or No Noreika?
J. NOREIKA | NOREIKA PLAQUE IN CENTRAL VILNIUS | COLLABORATOR GLORIFICATION | VILNIUS: 700 YEARS CELEBRATION
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Vilnius winter mystery: When the curtain comes down — Noreika or No Noreika? Have they gone over the top to bury the Noreika Question at Vilnius’s Library of Sciences? In freezing midwinter days, a city, and concerned observers internationally, wonder whether the brutal Holocaust perpetrator’s glory plaque is gone forever as Vilnius comes to embrace Western sensibilities, or whether a powerful clique of far-right antisemitic Holocaust-revisionist officials, academics and operatives will again stand in the way of Lithuania’s progress. Across the river, visible to the right of the Noreika Plaque Curtain are the “two green buildings” erected right on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery earlier this century in a drive to obliterate the storied cemetery, a drive that has now grown to include refurbishment (instead of demolition) of a hated Soviet ruin in its center. DefendingHistory.com photo by William Adan Pahl.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius
Tagged Jonas Noreika, Noreika plaque in central Vilnius, Silvia Foti, Wroblewski Library in Vilnius
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New American Ambassador in Vilnius, HE Kara McDonald, Makes History Rapidly
COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | NOREIKA SAGA | JUOZAS KRIKSTAPONIS MONUMENT | U.S.A.
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America’s new ambassador in Vilnius, HE Kara McDonald, makes a dramatic entrance that will go down in history, citing glorified Holocaust perpetrators Krikštaponis and Noreika by name, in first major interview:
“I will continue to speak out strongly against the glorification of individuals who are known and documented to have participated in the Holocaust. This is part of the definition of antisemitism.”
New US ambassador in Vilnius HE Kara McDonald
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THE INTERVIEW ON BNS/LRT
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?
Tagged American Embassy in Vilnius, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jonas Noreika, Kara McDonald, Krikštaponis, US policy on Holocaust
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A Different Kind of Holocaust Artist: Auschwitz Survivor David Olère’s Unedited and Unabastracted Realism
OPINION | ARTS | BOOKS | HISTORY | POLITICS OF MEMORY
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by Roland Binet (De Panne, Belgium)
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I want to share with our readers a remarkable book with reproductions of paintings and drawings by and about David Olère who had been a member of a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau. But after the war he felt his mission was to bear witness to the truth, including the horrendous scenes he had seen and himself been part of: Vergessen oder Vergeben – Bilder aus der Todeszone by Alexandre Oler and David Olère [= David Oler]; zu Klampen! (Verlag- Springe/Deutschland; originally published in French in 1998 by his son Alexandre Oler: Un genocide en heritage.
Despite the millions of Jews killed by bullets or who died of beatings, pogroms, hunger or ill treatment in Poland and in the Republics of the USSR, the iconic symbols of Nazi evil remain, for a large segment of the world population, the gas chambers and crematories of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the five other extermination camps in Poland. Historians have stressed the fact that the Nazi killers and their helpers sometimes found those mass slaughters by bullets or asphyxiation inside trucks where monoxide of carbon had been injected to be too tedious and harsh to bear for the executioners. So, Nazi Germany switched to mass killings in gas chambers with Zyklon B and – concerned about leaving traces – devised the crematories. Searching for the roots of this industrialization process, Simon Wiesenthal had already come to that conclusion very early (as quoted by Guido Knopp in Die SS – Eine Warnung der Geschichte).
Posted in Arts, Books, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet
Tagged David Olère (Oler) (1902-1985), Holocaust Art, Roland Binet, Sonnderkomando's paintings
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Painfully, Yad Vashem Heads for Vilnius Event, Again ‘Legitimizing’ the ‘Red-Brown Commission’, an Engine of Holocaust Revisionism
OPINION | RED-BROWN COMMISSION (SECTION) | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | LITVAK AFFAIRS | LITHUANIA | YAD VASHEM & LITHUANIA | ISRAEL ISSUES (SECTION)
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Prof. Dina Porat of Yad Vashem will chair the Vilnius event on the Vilna Ghetto this Wednesday 20 Sept. featuring (among others) Ronaldas Račinskas and other officials of the state-funded “Red-Brown Commission” — one of Europe’s major engines of Double Genocide revisionism and the Prague Declaration.
VILNIUS—As long as Lithuanian Holocaust survivors were alive, they protested with their last breath against the motives and agenda of the Lithuanian government financed Red-Brown Commission (officially known, à la Orwell, as the “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes of Lithuania” or ICECNSORL). Readers can visit a page documenting these protests from 1998 onward, reports of the painful episodes and sagas over the decades, and perhaps most painfully, the heartfelt begging by the last survivors, asking Yad Vashem to resist Foreign Ministry pressure and have nothing to do with the commission. Perhaps the best known document is the September 2012 letter to Yad Vashem by the late Joseph Melamed, legendary chairperson of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, the world’s leading and last organization of Lithuanian Holocaust survivors.
UPDATE OF 22 SEPT 2023:
See now Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan’s dramatic and historic speech at the Lithuanian Parliament that turns a new leaf in the pained Lithuanian chapter
Continue reading
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Mažvydas National Library (Issues Arising), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, September 23rd Commemorations, Yad Vashem and Lithuania
Tagged Dina Porat, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of Nazi and Soviet Regimes, Ronaldas Racinskas, Yad Vashem and Lithuania
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B’nai B’rith Australia & New Zealand Issues Press Release on Saulius Beržinis Award
FILM | SAULIUS BERŽINIS | SHEDUVA | BOLD CITIZENS
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VILNIUS—B’nai B’rith Australia & New Zealand today issued the following press release accompanying its lifetime achievement award earlier this month to Lithuanian filmmaker Saulius Beržinis (see also DH’s report on the dramatic saga in the background).
Posted in Arts, Australia, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Film, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Saulius Beržinis, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl"
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Petrified Time (Holocaust), Saulius Berzinis, Sheduva (Seduva)
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B’nai B’rith Australia & New Zealand Honors Filmmaker Saulius Beržinis, Bold Fighter for Historic Truth
Posted in Arts, Australia, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Film, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Saulius Beržinis
Tagged B'nai B'rith Australia, Benny Monheit, Holocaust in Lithuania, Museum of the Lost Shtetl, Petrified Time (film), Saulius Berzinis, Šeduva, Sheduva
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New Public Model of 19th Century Vilna Features Czar’s Military Base, Omits Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OPINION | VILNIUS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY | CEMETERIES | LITVAK AFFAIRS
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by Julius Norwilla (Vilnius)
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Model of 19th century Vilna: Russian citadel — there. Old Jewish cemetery — not there. Just empty moonscape.
VILNIUS—Last month, the major Baltic news service BNS reported that a dynamic new outdoor exhibition, called “Pavilion: Vilnius 200 Years Ago” would open at the National Museum of Lithuania. Indeed, a handsome new webpage on the museum’s website gives more detail.
A model (“maquette”) of the city two hundred years ago is now to be enjoyed at the foot of Gediminas’s Hill, in the square right in front of the museum. The scale model is based on Imperial Russia’s 1830s plans for the development of the city after the suppression of the 1830 uprising, known as the November Uprising.
But instead of the half-millennium old Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery (at Piramónt, in the district right across the river called Šnipiškės, Yiddish Shnípeshok), on the right bank of the Neris River (the Viliya), in front of Gediminas’s castle mount, there is a disproportionately large citadel. The huge cemetery and its numerous mini-housletsare not marked at all. The citadel of the imperial Russian army is the largest and perhaps the most prominent object in the entire layout.
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Time for France’s Embassy in Vilnius to Just Say ‘Non!’ to French Bookstore that Features Books Glorifying Lithuanian Holocaust Collaborators
[UPDATED 29 MAY]
OPINION | GLORIFICATION OF COLLABORATORS | FRANCE | THE ‘FRENCH BOOKSTORE’ IN VILNIUS
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by Dovid Katz
VILNIUS—The French bookstore located in the building housing the Institut français / French Cultural Center, all part of the French Embassy compound here in Lithuania’s capital, has for many years been featuring smack in the middle of its prominent show window at Didžioji St. No. 1 in Vilnius Old Town, in the row of books closest to the viewer outside, books in English or Lithuanian (nothing to do with France or French) that are dedicated to glorifying Holocaust collaborators who supported and enabled the genocide of 96.4% of Lithuanian Jewry.
Jump to author’s memoir
Whenever, over the years, this issue has been brought up to French Embassy diplomats, French Institute leadership, the answer has been the same, along the lines of “It is not our bookshop, it is a private French-themed bookshop that simply rents the space from us. We are not responsible. The French Embassy is not responsible, the French Institute is not responsible, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs is not responsible.” Nevertheless, we would like to pay tribute to French diplomats who did make an effort over the years. On 7 May 2020, for example, the then ambassador, HE Claire Lignières-Counathe took action. She reported back: “The French book shop on Didžioji gatvė is not part of the French Institute. But we pointed out to the owner that to present this book in the shop window could hurt people. He agreed and removed the book from the shop window.”
One week later, the book was back. And that goes to the heart of how a far-right, Holocaust-revisionist, Hitler collaborator glorifying (hence ipso facto antisemitic) enterprise has been, as one midlevel French diplomat put it to us off the record, “making a monkey out of our embassy in the third decade of the twenty-first century.”
In the city’s everyday life, and all the more so for thousands of tourists from around the world, the details of ownership are unknown and of little interest. It is the universal public perception that comes into play when a French themed bookshop is housed in the building of the French Embassy compound in Vilnius, just to the right of the French Institute’s handsome blue sign.
Visitors to town can be forgiven for thinking the French bookshop is affiliated with the Institut français (blue sign at left). Photo: Defending History.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, France, French bookstore housed in Institut français & French Embassy compound in Vilnius, likes to feature (English) titles glorifying local Holocaust collaborators. What gives?, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Ambassador Claire Lignières-Counathe, Ambassador Francois Laumonier, France + Holocaust, French bookshop in Vilnius, French bookstore in Vilnius, French Embassy in Vilnius, French Institute in Vilnius, Institut francaise in Vilnius, LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front)
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Israel Chronicle
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Israeli Foreign Policy and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe (1990 — 2023)
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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem and Lithuania, Yitzhak Arad
Tagged Amir Maimon (Lithuania), Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Efraim Zuroff, HE Ambassador Amir Maimon, HE Ambassador Chen Ivri Apter, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust in the Baltics, Israel + Holocaust, Israel and the Holocaust, Israeli Embassy in Vilnius, Israeli Foreign Ministry + Lithuania, Israeli Foreign Ministry + Yiddish, Israeli Lithuanian, Israeli policy on Holocaust (Baltics), Joel Lion, Lithuania, Lithuanian Israeli, Menachem Begin, Menachem Begin + Vilna / Wilno / Vilnius, Yad Vashem, Yad Vashem + Lithuania
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Could the Israeli Foreign Ministry be More Sensitive to Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture in Eastern Europe? Latest from Vilnius
OPINION | YIDDISH AFFAIRS | LITVAK ISSUES | ISRAEL CHRONICLE | ISRAEL SECTION
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by Dovid Katz
VILNIUS—The lovely idea to name a square in modern Vilnius for the State of Israel is a fine gesture of friendship between the two countries and their foreign ministries. Today’s LRT report informs readers that Israel Square will adorn the neighborhood known as Naujamiestis (the New Town, or the New City).
There is a problem.
Posted in Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Algirdo Street in Vilnius, Israel and Yiddish, Israel Square in Vilnius, Israeli Embassy in Vilnius, Naujamiestis, Vilnius names square for Israel, Yiddish in Vilnius
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