Politics of Memory
August and September 2016 Memorials for Destroyed Jewish Communities
Posted in Birzh (Biržai ), Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Malát (Molėtai), Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl", September 23rd Commemorations
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Some High Latvian Politicians Think the Waffen SS Fought for Freedom
OPINION | POLITICS OF MEMORY | GLORIFYING COLLABORATORS | LATVIA | ANNUAL WAFFEN SS MARCHES IN RIGA
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by Aleksandrs Feigmanis (Riga)
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Dr. Aleksandrs Feigmanis (Riga)
There are here in Latvia some high-ranking Latvian politicians who actually believe that the country’s Waffen SS fighters fought for freedom of their country. Every year on the 16th of March Latvian nationalists gather at the Freedom Monument in the heart of Riga, the nation’s capital, and in the cemetery at Lestene, a village some seventy-two kilometers from Riga, to remember and honor (honor!) the living and dead veterans of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen SS.
Established by order of Adolf Hitler on the 10th of February 1943, they fought for Nazi Germany against the Red Army on the Volkhov front near Leningrad, and later in Great River region, Kurzeme (Kurland), in Poland, Germany and elsewhere.
Although the alarming series of annual events commemorating and glorifying the Latvian SS Volunteer Legion events are now officially non-governmental, some MPs and even ministers do not hesitate to not only participate publicly, setting an example for the nation’s youth, but also to publicly refer to Waffen SS legionnaires as heroes and national freedom fighters. Had Hitler won the war, there would have been no Latvia left to become free in 1991. By swearing and oath to Adolf Hitler’s genocidal regime, and then in fact delaying the liberation of the concentration camps by the Allies, they were pawns of the Nazis who do not deserve to be glorified by a modern, democratic member of the European Union and NATO.
Posted in Aleksandrs Feigmanis, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, History, Human Rights, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Aleksandrs Feigmanis, Holocaust in Latvia, Waffen SS
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2016 Deterioration of Holocaust History and of Freedom of Speech in Poland
[UPDATED]
2 Sept 2016: Forward Exposes Rapid Deterioration of Free Speech and Academic Research on the Holocaust in Poland
1 August 2016: Dozens of Scholars of Polish Jewish History Publish a Bold and Historic Open Letter on Polish Government’s Distortions of History on Jedwabne and Kielce
Suspense rising on ultimate decision of master Brandeis scholar Antony Polonsky, who some think may have been manipulated by Lithuanian state honors in that country’s Holocaust politics
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, News & Views, Poland, Politics of Memory
Tagged Antony Polonsky, Free speech in Poland, Holocaust in Poland, Poland
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Baltic Red-Brown “Nazi-Soviet Hunter” Featured at Brazil’s Olympics in Rio
OPINION | RED-BROWN COMMISSION (PAGE) | RB COMMISSION (SECTION) | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | VILNIUS YIDDISH INSTITUTE
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VILNIUS—The news portal Delfi.lt reported yesterday on Lithuanian sharpshooting star Ronaldas Račinskas making a hit at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics not only for his talents with a rifle, but on his work back home for which the headline calls him the “Nazi-Soviet hunter,” in the latest of a long series of Holocaust terms appropriated and ably recast by the Red-Brown movement’s PR wizzards. Besides heading a commission that now includes the gentleman who launched the campaign, a decade ago, to “hunt” Holocaust survivors who joined the Jewish partisans, his “Nazi and Soviet hunting” refers to his role as Director of the Secretariat of that comission, popularly known as the Red-Brown Commission, a state-financed entity that is one of the main European engines for spreading the revisionist far right’s “Double Genocide” model of World War II history. In that history, as an example, those who liberated Auschwitz are declared to be equal in principle to those who committed the genocide there. Moreover the movement’s primary document, the 2008 Prague Declaration (PD), insists that all European “minds” accept the revised history and regard Nazi and Soviet crimes as equal, a stance widely considered to be a camouflage for obfuscating and diminishing the Holocaust. The response in the European arena came in the form of the 2012 Seventy Years Declaration (SYD).
Director of the Secretariat of the state-sponsored International Commission on the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania (known for short as the “Red-Brown Commission”) is a sharpshooting star at the Rio Olympics. He has rapidly brought red-brown politics into the apolitical environment of the Olympic Games. His views on the Holocaust feature in a new German documentary.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Double Genocide, International Commission for the Evaluation of Nazi and Soviet Crimes (Vilnius), Prague Declaration, Red-Brown Commission, Rio Olympics and Baltic politics, Ronaldas Racinskas, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
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Lithuanian State Bank and Major UK Firm Seem Deeply Involved in Vilnius Jewish Cemetery Scandal
PAPER TRAIL | REGISTRY OF OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | DH SECTION
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VILNIUS—Turto Bankas, the state bank here whose main mission is to “organize and coordinate renewal of state-owned real estate,” has again revealed itself to be deeply involved in the international scandal of constructing a new National Congress Center in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery, whose graves date back to the fifteenth century and include some of the leading European Jewish scholars of the last millennium. The project continues to attract opposition from various parts of the world, including major Lithuania-descended rabbis internationally and some members of Lithuania’s small Jewish community. Moreover, Protestant and Catholic authors have pointed out that this would not likely be the fate of an analogous medieval vintage Christian cemetery.
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory
Tagged Commission for Preservation of the Heritage, Eric J Rymer, Lesley Weiss, Piramont Snipiskes cemetery, The Right Solution (UK), Turto Bankas, US commission on heritage abroad, USCPAHA, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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Vilnius City Council “Defers” Decision on Street Honoring Hitler Collaborator
[LAST UPDATE]
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I24’s 14 July 2016 report. Background in DH on British-born city council member, Mark Harold Splinter, who proposed the change (his statement in English). Samples from elsewhere in Lithuania. Wider issue in Eastern Europe. Within “Double Genocide” theory. Related 24 July 2016 report by JTA.
FOR MORE BACKGROUND ON KAZYS ŠKIRPA (CENTER) SEE DH ARTICLES BY ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS, EVALDAS BALČIŪNAS, AND MILAN CHERSONSKI; PROF. T. SNYDER’S BLOODLANDS: “Škirpa used this suffering in his radio broadcasts to spur mobs to murder. Some 2,500 Jews […]” … (p. 192)
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, History, Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Mark Harold Splinter, Museum of Applied Arts and Design in Vilnius, Skirpos al., Vilnius
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When Yiddish is a Prop for Holocaust Revisionism
NEWS, VIEWS, QUIPS AND SHMIPS FROM SUMMER 2016
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Yiddish summer course again features American author Ellen Cassedy as lecturer on Holocaust topics; her 2012 book, part-funded by the Tides Foundation (a Soros beneficiary), was launched by the Lithuanian Embassy in Washington DC.
But will students be informed of critical reviews of the book (e.g. by Allan Nadler, Olga Zabludoff, Efraim Zuroff, Dovid Katz) or about the peaceful protest that awaited her at London University?
Will organizers invite, for balance, Ruta Vanagaite and Efraim Zuroff to discuss their 2016 book (recently featured in Newsweek)?
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Double Games, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis
Tagged Bloomington + Vilnius, Borns Jewish Studies Program, Dov-Ber Kerler, Efraim Zuroff, Richard Maullin, Ruta Vanagaite, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Summer Program, אידיש אין ווילנע, יידיש אין ווילנע
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Defending History Writer Evaldas Balčiūnas Is Found ‘Not Guilty’
22 July 2016 Defending History Eyewitness Report
VERDICT IN: EVALDAS BALČIŪNAS NOT GUILTY (AFTER 4 YEARS OF HARASSMENT AND A DOZEN 450 KM ROUND TRIPS FROM HOME — BUT COURT ALLOWS FAR RIGHT “PLAINTIFF” 20 DAYS TO APPEAL)
Posted in Evaldas Balčiūnas, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prosecutors & Police 'Investigate' DH Author Evaldas Balčiūnas, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika
Tagged Evaldas Balciunas, Free speech in Lithuania
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Is There Still A Breeding Ground for Ustaša in Croatia?
OPINION | CROATIA | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED
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by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud/Belgium)
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Croatia is a nation that has been bathed in blood during numerous conflicts, as the victim of the odious Serbian aggression during the recent civil war, and for its football team proudly wearing the red and white checkered reproduction of the national flag. Happily, it is nowadays chiefly known as a tourist destination.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Croatia, EU, History, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet
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Defending History Responds to Vilnius Architects’ Three “Visualizations” for “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery”
Architects Publish Three Visualizations for National Convention Center Planned for Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, Where Thousands Still Lie Buried
But critics warn that property magnates, politicians, and their foreign Jewish shmendriks will be haunted for generations by a rather different visualization…
Vulovak / DefendingHistory.com
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, EU, Human Rights, Humor (Of Sorts), Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory
Tagged Christian-Jewish relations (Lithuania), Emanuelis Zingeris, Lithuanian-Jewish relations, Litvak news, Piramont, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish cemeteries, Vytautas Landsbergis
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Latest Judicial Abuse of An East European Country’s Redefinition of “Genocide” to Obfuscate the Holocaust
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DEFINITION OF GENOCIDE | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | DOUBLE GENOCIDE SECTION | THE GENOCIDE CENTER IN VILNIUS | GLORIFICATION OF COLLABORATORS
Kaunas Court Affirms Sentence of Two Years “Restricted Freedom” for “Facilitation of Genocide” by Former KGB Officer for Arresting Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas in 1956
SEE OBZOR REPORT THAT CITES BNS; REPORTS CONFIRMED BY LITHUANIAN COURT OF APPEAL AND TIESOS.LT; HOLOCAUST ASPECTS REPORTED BY ISRAELI RUSSIAN LANGUAGE NEWS PORTAL IZRUS
Ramanauskas-Vanagas was an Alleged Nazi Collaborator Implicated in Holocaust Crimes
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Israel, Joseph Melamed, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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In Reponse to the Media: 9 July 2016
Western Mainstream Media Fails to Mention that East European Allies of the West are Investing in Glorification of Hitler’s Local Collaborators
Huffington Post Piece on Stepan Bandera Worship in Ukraine Omits his Organization’s Responsibility for Hundreds of Thousands of Murders of Poles and Jews; Landmark Historical Book on Bandera Still Goes Unmentioned by Most Mass Media
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", 70 Years Declaration, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Efraim Zuroff, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rūta Vanagaitė
Tagged Battle of the Declarations, Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes, Efraim Zuroff, Prague Declaration, Ruta Vanagaite, Seventy Years Declaration, Stav Gil in Newsweek, Stepan Bandera
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Now We [Who Lie Buried in the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery], Know…
PAPER TRAIL | REGISTRY OF OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | DH SECTION
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VILNIUS—The following is a reprint of the article published on 2 July 2016 in Yated Ne’eman, authored by the eminent scholar, Professor Bernard Fryshman. The title refers to the accompanying illustration which considers the views of the many thousands of Jews buried at Piramónt, Vilna’s old Jewish cemetery in the Šnipiškės (Shnípishok) district, in active use from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. See also background to the article, PDF of the original article, the catalogue of international opposition, the paper trail, the DH section, and our editor’s summary of the issue published in December 2015 in The Times of Israel.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Professor Bernard Fryshman, US State Dept Manipulated?, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad)
Tagged Benzion Shalom Eliezer Freshwater
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Defending History Brings Results
VILNIUS—Five years ago in 2011, on the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Lithuanian Holocaust on 23 June 1941 and the following days — nationalist murderers killed thousands of Jewish neighbors before the first German forces arrived or assumed control — the state sponsored an array of activities honoring the “rebels” (an historic nonsense, the Soviet occupying forces were fleeing Hitler’s invasion, the largest in human history, not the local Jew-killers).
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Celebrating (!) 75th Anniversary of Start of the Lithuanian Holocaust (23 June 2016)?
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VILNIUS—For the tiny and dwindling group of Holocaust survivors in this part of the world, the indelibly cursed day the genocide began was June 23rd 1941, when hordes of young local “nationalists,” some affiliated with the fascist Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) — which had put in writing its intentions for Jewish fellow-citizens beforehand — began to murder, plunder and rape their neighbors in at least forty locations before the first German soldiers even got there, as confirmed by numerous historians and eyewitnesses. Within a few days, most would don white-armbands.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust in the Baltics, LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front), Vytautas Magnus University
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DH Writer Lugged into Court Again for Critique of State Honors for Holocaust Collaborators
FREE SPEECH | HUMAN RIGHTS | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | BOLD CITIZENS
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VILNIUS—The latest in a long line of court appearance demanded by summons of Defending History author Evaldas Balčiūnas, will be held this Monday, 13 June, at 1:30 PM (13:30) at Vilnius County Court at Laisves Prospektas 79A, courtroom 019.
COME SUPPORT EVALDAS BALČIŪNAS MONDAY 13 JUNE 2016, 1:30 PM (13:30), VILNIUS COUNTY COURT, LAISVĖS PROSPEKTAS 79A, ROOM 019
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prosecutors & Police 'Investigate' DH Author Evaldas Balčiūnas, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika
Tagged Abuse of Judiciary in the Baltics, Democracy in Eastern Europe, Evaldas Balciunas, Free Speech and Holocaust Discourse, Free speech in Lithuania, human rights in Lithuania
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Ruta Bloshtein Discovers 1935 Vilna Rabbis’ Condemnation of Plans to Desecrate Old Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt
DOCUMENTS | PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER | CEMETERIES
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VILNIUS—In a strictly private capacity, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, a Vilnius born member of Lithuania’s small Jewish community, whose maternal ancestors hail from the shtetl Tríshik (Tryškiai), has released to the media a remarkable Yiddish public poster issued by the Vilna Board of Rabbis on 30 Nissan 5695 — the Jewish calendar date corresponding with 3 May 1935 — that she discovered in Lithuania’s central state archive. It is an impassioned plea by the Board of Rabbis asking the then Polish authorities in the city to abandon their plans for a sports stadium on the site of Piramónt (in the Šnipiškės district), the old Vilna Jewish cemetery that goes back to the late fifteenth century, and where thousands of luminous Litvak scholars lie buried.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, Human Rights, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein
Tagged CPJCE, Piramont, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, US Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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San Francisco Examiner — Bamboozled?
MUSEUMS | MEDIA WATCH | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | POLITICS OF MEMORY
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VILNIUS—Yet another major American newspaper, this time the San Francisco Examiner, has done a fine travel report on Vilnius, the beautiful capital of Lithuania, but with perhaps naive and uncritical treatment of one of the city’s less savory sites that is a product of the far-right history revisionism of the ultranationalist camp. It is the city center’s so-called “Museum of Genocide Victims” that is mostly dedicated to the genocide that did not happen in Lithuania (during the dictatorial Soviets’ misrule), while making national heroes of some of the local collaborators including actual killers) in the Holocaust — the genocide that did take place, resulting in the annihilation of 96.4% of Lithuanian Jewry, the highest percentage in Holocaust-era Europe. The conceptual backdrop is the thriving Double Genocide movement in this part of the world.
The Examiner article reports that “Gediminas Avenue, the main artery through the city […] ends up at the Museum of Genocide Victims, the location of the 20th century Soviet KGB prison. […] The Museum is a very powerful statement to the horrors mankind can inflict on humanity.” Not a word about the fact that the same building was also a Gestapo headquarters during the Holocaust where the murders of 100,000 citizens at nearby Ponár (Paneriai) were coordinated, nor about the massive glorification of Holocaust collaborators throughout the building.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged 36 Hours in Vilnius, Genocide Museum in Vilnius, Holocaust museums, Jonathan Rome, New York Times on Lithuania, San Francisco Examiner on Lithuania, Sarah Khan, The Old World Charm of Vilnius
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“Prague Platform” Ensnares “European Shoah Legacy Institute” in Double Genocide
“Prague Platform” and Slovak government announce partnership with the “European Shoah Legacy Institute” (!) in organizing:
EU Competition for a New Red-Brown, Mix-n-Match Memorial in Brussels; Students Aged 16-21 Eligible
CAMPAIGN TO EXPORT DOUBLE GENOCIDE FROM EAST EUROPEAN NATIONALISTS TO THE WIDER EU?
Will the red-equals-brown street-shows of Eastern Europe now be exported to Brussels under cover of a “Jewish” organization dedicated to Holocaust justice?
“Guidelines” include the requirement that “the memorial must be inclusive of the victims of National Socialism, Fascism and Communism”
LONG RECORD OF USE OF JEWISH, YIDDISH, OR HOLOCAUST PROJECTS AS A KIND OF PR COVER FOR HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM
ALSO: EU funded “Prague Platform” exhibit that spews Double Genocide revisionism of the Holocaust arrives in Budapest; More on the “Platform” and the exhibit that circles the globe (courtesy of EU taxpayers) to underpin Eastern European far-right revisionism; Still, Platform’s director insists that nobody is erecting monuments for Nazi collaborators — Unaware of news from Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine? More…
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform"
Tagged Double Genocide, ESLI, ESLI.org, European Shoah Legacy Institute, Holocaust Obfuscation, Holocaust Politics, Prague Declaration, Prague Platform
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Vilnius City Council Member Decries Memorials for Nazi Collaborators
VILNIUS—Briton Mark Adam Harold, also known as Mark Splinter, this city’s sole foreign elected City Council member, spoke out in an interview published today in 15min.lt calling for the city to accept the 2015 petition of a group of intellectuals to remove plaques honoring Holocaust collaborator Jonas Noreika. In his reply to a pointed question, he also added that the city-center street named for Nazi collaborator Kazys Škirpa be renamed for Righteous of the Nations (rescuers of civilians targeted for death by the Nazis and their local partners). He also challenged the city’s mayor, implying that there might be an element of cowardice in failure to undertake simple measures that would immeasurably improve the international reputation of Lithuania’s storied capital.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Honoring Holocaust collaborators, Mark Adam Harold, Mark Splinter, Vilnius, Vilnius City Council
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