Politics of Memory

Panzerbrigade 45, Repeatedly Citing Cemetery Cleaning in its PR, Fails to Mention Even Once the Next-Door Sinking Jewish Partisan Fort

Posted on 2 September 2026 by Defending History

LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EUROPE | LATEST REPORTS  ON THE FORT| 20-YEAR CAMPAIGN TO DEFAME THE VILNA JEWISH PARTISANS | HISTORY | GERMANY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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OPINION

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VILNIUS—In the present context, we are limiting this survey to the official German governmental and Bundeswehr public-relations apparatus active in connection with Panzerbrigade 45 in Lithuania. We are therefore not including serious journalistic treatments carried by institutions such as the Goethe-Institut, which is legally independent and has mixed public and self-generated funding, even where such treatments importantly discuss the Jewish partisan fort. Our concern here is narrower: what Germany’s own military and governmental communications machinery chooses to publicize about Panzerbrigade 45 and Jewish history in Lithuania, while not uttering  a syllable about the Jewish partisan fort right near its own training ground. As detailed in earlier reports, the arrival of the Panzerbrigade’s massive military infrastructure has already badly damaged the fort’s accessibility and has been responsible for rapid deterioration.

Given the solemn respect that both the Bundestag and the current German government have shown in repeated statements, it seems that there is a disturbing dissonance with the Lithuanian-related PR coming entirely out of the German state’s budget.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Christian-Jewish Issues, Germany, History, Human Rights, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Panzerbrigade 45, Repeatedly Citing Cemetery Cleaning in its PR, Fails to Mention Even Once the Next-Door Sinking Jewish Partisan Fort

German Bundestag and Government Statements on the Rapidly Sinking Remnants of the Last Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Posted on 2 September 2026 by Defending History

LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EUROPE | 20-YEAR CAMPAIGN TO DEFAME THE VILNA JEWISH PARTISANS | HISTORY | GERMANY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

 

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Berlin speaks of respect for the last remnant of Jewish partisan resistance, and particularly the partisan fort where the Vilna Jewish Partisans, all escapees from the Vilna Ghetto, lived and fought the Nazis, most famously after the ghetto’s liquidation on 23 September 1943 and right up to the end of Nazi occupation in July 1944.

But the German army’s new Panzerbrigade 45 is the new factor causing the fort’s rapid deterioration. In spite of all the laudable German government statements and commitments set out below (with links to sources), the remnants of Lithuania’s last surviving Jewish partisan fort from the resistance to Nazi rule — in the historic Rudnitsk Forest, today Rūdninkai Forest — have been deteriorating rapidly since the arrival immediately nearby, in the same forest, of Germany’s new NATO-affiliated Panzerbrigade 45 (“Litauenbrigade”).

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Christian-Jewish Issues, Documents, EU, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Germany, History, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on German Bundestag and Government Statements on the Rapidly Sinking Remnants of the Last Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Journalist Shira Li Bartov Breaks Jewish Media Silence on the Fate of the Jewish Partisans’ Sinking Fort in a Lithuanian Forest

Posted on 28 August 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | MEDIA WATCH | LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EUROPE | HISTORY | BLAMING THE VICTIMS | GERMANY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

 

VILNIUS—The following is an adapted version of Dovid Katz’s comment on Facebook today on Shira Li Bartov’s article, “In a forest where Jews fought the Nazis, a German military base and Lithuanian politics encroach on memory” that appeared in JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) yesterday, and is being reposted in other Jewish news media that use JTA feeds.

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BRAVO to Shira Li Bartov on her balanced and much-researched JTA article on the Jewish partisan fort remnants in the Lithuanian forest. These precious relics are now in danger of imminent disappearance due to the construction next door of the massive barracks and shooting grounds for Germany’s new 45th Panzerbrigade (the saga in DH’s section on the fort).

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Posted in Germany, Human Rights, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Journalist Shira Li Bartov Breaks Jewish Media Silence on the Fate of the Jewish Partisans’ Sinking Fort in a Lithuanian Forest

Blaming the Victims: Documents from a 20 Year Campaign to Defame and Decommemorate the Jewish Partisan Resistance against the Nazis

Posted on 27 August 2026 by Defending History

LAST UPDATE
(originally published 21 Aug. 2010). See also (older, not updated) Responses page.

2006    2007    2008    2009    2010    2011   2012    2013    2014    2015    2016    2017   2024   2025   2026

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The campaign of defamation by Lithuanian state prosecutors and allied elites (particularly in the Genocide Center and the antisemitic right-wing press) has resulted in a number of cherished Holocaust Survivors being smeared as “war criminals” without a single charge ever having been leveled against anybody. Launched in 2006, the campaign, abusing tools such as “pre-trial investigations” and leaks to the media, have sought to brand as “war criminals” the heroes of the war against Hitler. It grew in 2011 with the addition of equally perverse  “libel charges,” launched with fanfare when Interpol (!) was sent to disturb in Tel Aviv the elected head of the last active group of Litvak Holocaust survivors in the world. Then, in 2013, the state’s “red-brown commission” defamed one of Vilnius’s last survivors on equally perverse grounds, all the while putting on “Holocaust events” for naive Western audiences, usually funded by the (unknowing) Lithuanian taxpayer, in venues  including London, New York, Toronto, and Vilnius.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Documents, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Germany, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Blaming the Victims: Documents from a 20 Year Campaign to Defame and Decommemorate the Jewish Partisan Resistance against the Nazis

The Magic Wand for Making Holocaust Perpetrators into Heroes in Lithuania — While Jewish Resistance Heroes become ‘Enemies of The State’ …

Posted on 8 July 2026 by Defending History

LITHUANIA | POLITICS OF MEMORY | BLAMING VICTIMS | GLORIFYING PERPETRATORS | LAST REMNANT OF JEWISH PARTISAN RESISTANCE IN THE FORESTS OF LITHUANIA | HISTORY

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OPINION

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by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

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  • “Soviet rule has disappeared. The Jews are left behind as fair game.”
  • Entry of July 7, 1941. From  Surviving the Holocaust: Kovno Ghetto Diary, by Avraham Tory.
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In the late sixties while working in a small company in Brussels my Jewish boss who had been “geschmuggelt’’ out of the ghetto in Lvov (former Lemberg, now Lviv, Ukraine) in a truck, before it was liquidated in 1942, had repeatedly told me that after his escape he had repeatedly tried to join with partisan groups in the area, mostly Polish or Ukrainian. Had they known that he was Jewish, he would have been killed outright. His luck was that he could pass himself off as a Pole as he spoke the language well. He had been fifteen years old at the time. I remembered these words recently on the occasion of the scandal that has erupted these past months regarding the Jewish Partisan Fort in the Rūdninkai Forest (Yiddish; Rudnitsker vald) which is now in danger of being erased due to the presence in that zone of the new German NATO Panzer Brigade (Litauenbrigade).

EFFECTS OF THE LITHUANIAN GOVERNMENT’S ‘MAGIC WAND’? Left: Public monument to Holocaust collaborator Juozas Krikštaponis (photo: Seimas). Right: One of the collapsing bunkers at Lithuania’s only relic of the Jewish anti-Nazi resistance that sits next door to Germany’s new Panzer brigade and may soon disappear (photo: DefendingHistory.com).

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Collaborators Glorified, Germany, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Magic Wand for Making Holocaust Perpetrators into Heroes in Lithuania — While Jewish Resistance Heroes become ‘Enemies of The State’ …

Averting an imminent grave error on the ruins of the Great Vilna Synagogue. Finding a happy, ethical solution.

Posted on 28 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE SAGA | TEXTBOOK CASE OF RESTITUTION GONE AWRY | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | THE LJC | THE AJC | THE GWF | USCPAHA

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OPINION

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by Dovid Katz

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I have argued that Jewish diaspora history comprises a permanent, central religious spine, a tree trunk if you will, characterized by “secular outbursts” that produce magnificent contributions both to Jewish and to world culture, arts and sciences. The recurring and harmonious patterning includes the great religious treasures remaining precious also to the secularists, be it the Bible, or a wall in Jerusalem or a synagogue in Prague. There has also been bidirectional cross-fertilization of achievements and their use, without either group wanting to usurp the other’s treasures, but rather to benefit from them. One of the outcomes is that great Jewish religious sites around the world, including synagogues and cemeteries, have become invaluable survivals of a rich and varied diaspora history that have a profound meaning for the non religious or not-so-religious — as well as for wider, multiculturalist non-Jewish society.

UPDATE

Please consider signing Ruta Bloshtein’s new petition.

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilna's Great Synagogue & its Courtyard (Shúlheyf) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Averting an imminent grave error on the ruins of the Great Vilna Synagogue. Finding a happy, ethical solution.

Barbarossa Plus One: The 85th Anniversary of June 23rd 1941 in Lithuania

Posted on 23 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | LEGACY OF 23 JUNE 1941 | 2011 ATTEMPTS TO SANITIZE THE LAF  |  LAF’S INTENTIONS IN WRITING | ŠKIRPA’S PLANS | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | LITHUANIAN JEWISH AFFAIRS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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OPINION

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by Dovid Katz

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In the opinion of every Lithuanian Holocaust survivor interviewed, the magnificent six-century record of tolerance and enlightened coexistence, including the years of the successful interwar Lithuanian Republic, were in a single day, June 23rd 1941, replaced by the eruption of barbaric mass murder that is all too well documented. It is “Barbarossa Plus One” (the major killing started one day after Hitler’s invasion was launched, in survivors correct memory: the Monday after the Sunday). The far right’s history department, sometimes rewriting history on an industrial scale with support from certain state agencies (most infamously, the “Genocide Center”), has attempted to “fix” this by ignoring the facts and claiming that this was actually the LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front) leading an “uprising” which drove out the Soviet army and restored independence.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Legacy of 23 June 1941, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Barbarossa Plus One: The 85th Anniversary of June 23rd 1941 in Lithuania

The Holocaust: A Schizoid Legacy?

Posted on 20 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | POLITICS OF MEMORY | BELGIUM | LITHUANIA

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by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

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In chapter five of his major book on the Holocaust in Lithuania published last year, Professor Saulius Sužiedėlis discusses theatrical productions that Jakob Gens had proposed to introduce into the Vilna Ghetto at the end of 1941. Here are some quotes: “Kruk reacted with disgust (…) Members of the Bund announced a boycott and leaflets were distributed stating “You don’t make theater in a graveyard”.

I do not share the opinion that theatre should not have been played in the ghettos. On the contrary, to me, the sometimes vivid cultural life in the ghettos under Nazi and collaborators’ rule, in all its hues and colors, had undoubtedly been a bonding link, a source of some kind of normalcy and hope for the persecuted Jews, and a necessary psychological rampart against fear, boredom, stress, anguish, that all inhabitants of these hells on earth had to go through during days, weeks, months, sometimes years, perpetually living in the mortal fear for one’s life perhaps extinguished from one moment to the next or after a lengthy walk to a killing pit, naked, alone, forlorn.

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Posted in Belgium, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The Holocaust: A Schizoid Legacy?

Respect Cemeteries Issues Brochure for Campaign to Inspire Seimas to Respect and Preserve the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 15 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The Respect Cemeteries group (Gerbkime kapines), based here in the Lithuanian capital, today released its new brochure with members of the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament, in mind. They will be voting this autumn on whether to (mis)invest substantial state assets in a national convention center or memorial complex in the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Shnípishok, today’s Šnipiškės in modern Vilnius) or, as Respect Cemeteries (and the Defending History community) hope, discard both plans in favor of the ethical solution (supported by tens of thousands internationally who have signed petitions) — restoration of the major Jewish cemetery in the historic Lithuanian lands. Thousands still lie buried there.

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Respect Cemeteries Issues Brochure for Campaign to Inspire Seimas to Respect and Preserve the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

New Brussels Monument (‘An Echo in Time’): A Ruse to Bring Double Genocide Holocaust Revisionism to the Gates of the European Parliament?

Posted on 13 June 2026 by Defending History

 DOUBLE GENOCIDE | EU  | PRAGUE PLATFORM | PRAGUE DECLARATION | THE SEVENTY YEARS DECLARATION

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OPINION

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VILNIUS—The Double Genocide movement’s long-held wish of major legitimization at or near the European Parliament in Brussels via a huge monument effectively equalizing Nazi and Soviet crimes has come a step closer. This journal’s opinion has been consistent for some eighteen years, since these issues were forced on to the European Parliament’s agenda by some eastern member states (normally, in democratic alliances of sovereign states, it is understood that freedom of speech and thought includes healthy debates on history within each state). Our take: 1. Brussels needs a major new monument to the victims of Communism and its brutality, including mass murder and horrendous crimes against humanity. 2. Brussels does not need a mix-and-match monument for victims of Nazism and Communism together which is a ruse of the red-equals-brown (Double Genocide) revisionism movement, emanating from the East European far right, and seeking to downgrade (and relativize) the Holocaust, criminalize those who joined the anti-Nazi resistance, and glorify local killers in the east as freedom fighters (they were after all “anti-Communist”). The effects of “Double Genocide” pressure on various European museums has been manifest for years.

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Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform" | Tagged , , | Comments Off on New Brussels Monument (‘An Echo in Time’): A Ruse to Bring Double Genocide Holocaust Revisionism to the Gates of the European Parliament?

Document Discovered: Soviet Act of 22 Oct. 1940 Seizing (Stealing) the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery from Vilnius Jewish Community

Posted on 12 June 2026 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—A deeply ethical and conscientious Vilnius scholar, flabbergasted by the local “mainstream” media’s rehashing of the mantra (and sheer antisemitic nonsense) that “the Jews sold the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery to the czar in 1830” decided to look in the archives. When he succeeded to find the document, issued by Stalin’s USSR on 22 October 1940 ordering the confiscation (i.e. theft) of the Jewish cemeteries under the aegis of the Vilnius Jewish Community, he just did the right thing and released it to the public domain. That Stalinist order came very soon after the summer 1940 forcible annexation of Lithuania and its two Baltic state neighbors, into the Soviet Union.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, Vilnius | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Document Discovered: Soviet Act of 22 Oct. 1940 Seizing (Stealing) the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery from Vilnius Jewish Community

Text of Rabbi Elchonon Baron’s Letter to the Chancellor of the Office of Lithuania’s President

Posted on 3 June 2026 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS | OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The office of Rabbi Elchonon Baron, president of Jewish Heritage in Lita (JHL), today released this letter to Petras Zapolskas, Chancellor of the Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania. English text of the letter follows. For the Lithuanian text, please use the page-turning handle at upper left.

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rabbi Elchonon Baron | Tagged , | Comments Off on Text of Rabbi Elchonon Baron’s Letter to the Chancellor of the Office of Lithuania’s President

Poster for the Macabre June 3rd Demo Planned by Ultranationalists at Vilnius’s Old Jewish Cemetery (Slated to become a National Conference Center)

Posted on 1 June 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | USCPAHA (UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD) | THE CPJCE (COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF JEWISH CEMETERIES IN EUROPE) | THE AJC (AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE) | THE CER (CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS) | THE GWF (GOOD WILL FOUNDATION) | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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The poster for the June 3rd 2026 demonstration at the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery calling for the building the Soviets plonked in its center to become the new national conference center

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VILNIUS—The poster in question invites people to a protest action on June 3 at the Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports. Three prominent public figures and their quotes are depicted:

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Poster for the Macabre June 3rd Demo Planned by Ultranationalists at Vilnius’s Old Jewish Cemetery (Slated to become a National Conference Center)

Please Email Lithuania’s Seimas Committee on Culture to Defend Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 31 May 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

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Inset from photo below by E. Kulikauskas

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On March 18, 2026, twenty-three members of Lithuania’s parliament, Seimas, sponsored a bill to Promptly Renovate the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace. On April 21, twenty-five members, representing all of Lithuania’s political parties, with the support of President Gitanas Nausėda, sponsored a revised bill On the Further Utilization of the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace, cherishing it as a masterpiece of 20th century brutalist architecture which must be revived and exploited as a conference center and tourist site.

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Please Email Lithuania’s Seimas Committee on Culture to Defend Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Sadness and Shock, as Famed Opera Singer ‘Sings in Yiddish’ at Free Concert to Promote Vilnius ‘Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery’ Project

Posted on 21 May 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | YIDDISH INSTRUMENTALIZED FOR EAST EUROPEAN STATE PR | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | USCPAHA (UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD) | THE CPJCE (COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF JEWISH CEMETERIES IN EUROPE) | THE AJC (AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE) | THE CER (CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS) | THE GWF (GOOD WILL FOUNDATION) | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS

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OPINION

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VILNIUS—There was sadness and shock in the international Litvak community this week as news spread that famed Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Judita Leitaitė, a professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, was featured in the program of the free 18 May 2026 concert arranged to promote the project to situate a new national convention center in a Soviet ruin that lies in the middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery where many thousands still lie buried. The Soviets pillaged all the stones, but left untouched the graves that were not under the building of the “Sporto Rumai” building.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Dovid Katz on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Music, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Sadness and Shock, as Famed Opera Singer ‘Sings in Yiddish’ at Free Concert to Promote Vilnius ‘Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery’ Project

Translation of Speech by MP & Former Vilnius Mayor Artūras Zuokas at Concert Supporting ‘Convention Center in Old Jewish Cemetery’

Posted on 21 May 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION |  2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | USCPAHA  (UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD) | THE CPJCE (COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF JEWISH CEMETERIES IN EUROPE) | THE AJC (AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE) | THE CER (CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS) | THE GWF (GOOD WILL FOUNDATION) | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS

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DOCUMENTS

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The following is Defending History’s translation of the transcript of the speech made by member of parliament and  former mayor of Vilnius Artūras Zuokas at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences on 18 May 2026 (souvenir program). The original Lithuanian speech is available on youtube (courtesy of Willian Adan Pahl). The Defending History community continues to hope that the late London rabbi the former mayor invokes was himself deeply deceived by others in the name-out-of-Orwell “CPJCE” (Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe), a group exposed inter alia by Wikileaks for receiving secret payments for “supervising” the destruction of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, currently via plans for establishment of a convention center in a Soviet ruin where thousands would cheer, clap, drink and flush lavatories surrounded by thousands of Jewish graves, including some of the greatest Lithuanian rabbis of the last half millennium. See one of the historic complaints to the UK Charity Commission.  The long-term damage caused by foreign Jewish groups who in effect “sell permissions” to destroy Jewish cemeteries becomes obvious from this citation at this rally all these years later. For the actual international rabbinic consensus see here and here. There is widespread agreement, moreover, that the “convention center in the cemetery” would not be happening if it were a five hundred year old cemetery of the majority ethnicity and religion.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius | Tagged | Comments Off on Translation of Speech by MP & Former Vilnius Mayor Artūras Zuokas at Concert Supporting ‘Convention Center in Old Jewish Cemetery’

Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky and DH Editor Dovid Katz at BNS Press Conference: Calling on Lithuania to Preserve Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery and Cancel ‘Convention Center in the Cemetery’ Project

Posted on 15 May 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION |  2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | USCPAHA  (UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD) | THE CPJCE (COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF JEWISH CEMETERIES IN EUROPE) | THE AJC (AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE) | THE CER (CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS) | THE GWF (GOOD WILL FOUNDATION) | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS

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Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky (r.) and Dovid Katz. Photo: Lukas Balandis / BNS

VILNIUS—At a BNS (Baltic News Service) press conference today called by Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Vilnius’s one resident rabbi over the last 32 years, he was joined by Defending History editor Dovid Katz, former professor of Yiddish language, literature and culture at Vilnius University. Both pleaded with the Lithuanian government to preserve the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Shnípishok, modern Vilnius’s Šnipiškės section), where many thousands still lie buried. The oldest recorded stone was from 1487. They called on the government to abandon plans for a convention center and or museum/memorial complex, now planned for a dilapidated Soviet-era building (“Sporto rumai”) on the site.

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Posted in Chabad in Vilnius, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky | Comments Off on Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky and DH Editor Dovid Katz at BNS Press Conference: Calling on Lithuania to Preserve Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery and Cancel ‘Convention Center in the Cemetery’ Project

Defending History’s Rapid Response to Statement from the Seimas on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 13 May 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGE OF 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION |  2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | USCPAHA  (UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD) | THE CPJCE (COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF JEWISH CEMETERIES IN EUROPE) | THE AJC (AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE) | THE CER (CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS) | THE GWF (GOOD WILL FOUNDATION) | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS

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The following statement was circulated to Defending History readers today in response to the statement from the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament, on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Shnípishok, in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius):

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Defending History’s Rapid Response to Statement from the Seimas on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Protected: Let Us Together Restore the Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Posted on 11 May 2026 by Defending History

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Posted in Germany, Gert Weisskirchen, History, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Protected: Let Us Together Restore the Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort in Lithuania

New Documentary on Holocaust Perpetrator Glorification in Eastern Europe: ‘No Secret Monuments’

Posted on 8 May 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | FILM | ARTS | GLORIFICATION OF COLLABORATORS | HISTORY

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FILM REVIEW

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by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

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No Secret Monuments. Silent Statues and the Distortion of Truth.

A documentary by Paula Kirman and Adam Bentley.

The film’s website. Trailer on youtube. Announced on Film Freeway.

 

Having previously produced two documentaries related to monuments in honor of Nazis and their collaborators, Paula Kirman and Adam Bentley journeyed to the three Baltic States and to Finland in order to track and unearth monuments to Nazi collaborators displaying a hero-worship in these countries, eighty years after the war. In their own words, the purpose of the documentary is ‘exposing monuments that commemorate Nazis and their local collaborators.’ In the documentary, of one hour and twelve minutes, Kirman is our guide and narrator.

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Posted in Arts, Film, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on New Documentary on Holocaust Perpetrator Glorification in Eastern Europe: ‘No Secret Monuments’