Politics of Memory

Vilius Kavaliauskas Protests Plan for Museum in the Middle of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, Insisting on Congress Center

Posted on 15 April 2026 by Defending History

VILNIUS—Yesterday’s news of a new “agreement” to turn the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery over from the central government to the municipality of Vilnius (see our report) today elicited a forceful response from Vilius Kavaliauskas, leader of the movement to construct a congress center on the site, and convenor of the 18 January 2026 rally at the National Academy of Sciences. Mr. Kavaliauskas is a highly respected and accomplished historian and journalist, and a former advisor to an earlier Lithuanian prime minister.

The rally 18 January rally immediately made it into Jewish history thanks to Rabbi Elchnon Baron’s defining one-minute address (he was greeted with boos and amicably led off the stage by — Mr. Kavaliauskas). Rabbi Baron responded rapidly to yesterday’s developments in Vilnius. See also the Independence Day declaration on the cemetery issued by the city’s resident Chabad rabbi for 32 years, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory | Tagged , | Comments Off on Vilius Kavaliauskas Protests Plan for Museum in the Middle of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, Insisting on Congress Center

President’s Office, Vilnius Municipality, and Ersatz Jewish Community Leader in Yet Another ‘Agreement’ to Effectively Destroy the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 14 April 2026 by Defending History

VILNIUS—Today’s mainstream media reports in Lrt.lt and in m.diena.lt, among others, reported on yet another “agreement” about the fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt in the historic Shnípishok district (today’s thriving Šnipiškės), this time between the president’s office and the municipality and the allegedly “rigged election” leader of the state-sponsored, restitution-fueled ersatz official Jewish community. Aside from a brief oblique mention at the end of the m.diena.lt report, there were no mentions of the vast international (and local bona fide Jewish and rabbinic) opposition to the half-millennium old cemetery being turned into anything other than a cemetery.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on President’s Office, Vilnius Municipality, and Ersatz Jewish Community Leader in Yet Another ‘Agreement’ to Effectively Destroy the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Text of Question and Answer in the German Parliament on Lithuania’s Last Remnants of Jewish Partisan Fort in the Forest (right next door to the new German Army Brigade)

Posted on 9 April 2026 by Defending History

FANIA YOCHELES BRANTSOVSKY | JEWISH FORT IN THE FOREST | BLAMING THE VICTIMS

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BERLIN—The German Bundestag’s 16 December 2025 record of questions-and-answers on the remnants of the last Jewish partisan fort in Lithuania, is now online on the German parliamentary website (and available as separate PDF). The Bundestag followed up with a press release affirming respect for the site. See now Defending History’s evolving page on the subject.

Images of the individual pages:

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Germany, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Text of Question and Answer in the German Parliament on Lithuania’s Last Remnants of Jewish Partisan Fort in the Forest (right next door to the new German Army Brigade)

DH’s Social Media Response to Petition from 53 Elites Calling for ‘Convention Center in the Middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery’

Posted on 6 April 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 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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VILNIUS—The following is the text of Dovid Katz’s post on Facebook today in response to the call by 53 signatories of Lithuania’s declaration of independence for proceeding with a convention center in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish cemetery:

https://defendinghistory.com/53-signatories-of-lithuanias-declaration-of-independence-call-on-president-and-pm-to-proceed-with-a-national-conference-center-surrounded-by-thousands-of-jewish-graves/122914
As Jewish people here in Vilnius, and around the world, were preparing for the first Passover seyder last week, certain powerful forces here arranged for a demand by 53 signatories of Lithuania’s declaration of independence to the president and prime minister to ignore protests from around the world and proceed with the erection of a national convention center in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, where many thousands still lie buried, including some of the major Litvak scholars of the last half-millennium.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, 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 | Comments Off on DH’s Social Media Response to Petition from 53 Elites Calling for ‘Convention Center in the Middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery’

53 Signatories of Lithuania’s Declaration of Independence Call on President and PM to Proceed with a National Conference Center Surrounded by Thousands of Jewish Graves

Posted on 30 March 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 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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VILNIUS—Lithuanian media (including Lrt.lt and Alfa.lt)  reported today that 53 signatories of Lithuania’s 1990 declaration of independence have signed a petition addressed to the nation’s president and prime minister calling on them to proceed rapidly with renovation of an old Soviet ruin in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Shnipishok, today’s Šnipiškės district). They demand preservation of the hated Soviet ruin to commemoration of national Lithuanian heroes of 1990 and 1991 whose universally acclaimed deeds and fate have no connection to this site — where ground radar has shown that thousands of Jewish graves lie undisturbed all around the hated Soviet relic. There is no mention of this, in other words that it is still a cemetery by anyone’s definition. There is however a “concession” that outside the building there would be some memorial to the “former” Jewish cemetery.

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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 | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on 53 Signatories of Lithuania’s Declaration of Independence Call on President and PM to Proceed with a National Conference Center Surrounded by Thousands of Jewish Graves

Professor Sid Leiman: ‘Superb Declaration by Vinius’s Devoted Rabbi, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky’

Posted on 12 March 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 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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Professor Sid Leiman, the Distinguished Professor of Jewish History and Literature at Touro University’s Graduate School of Jewish Studies, reacted today to Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky’s declaration on the fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery in the following letter to the editor. See also Prof. Leiman’s earlier publications in Defending History.

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Superb declaration by Vilnius’s devoted Rabbi, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, of why Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery needs to be preserved and restored, and not buried under a Sports Stadium, or a Convention Center, or a Museum of any kind — whether Lithuanian or Jewish.

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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), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Sid (Shnayer) Leiman | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Professor Sid Leiman: ‘Superb Declaration by Vinius’s Devoted Rabbi, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky’

Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky Issues Powerful Statement on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery on Occasion of Lithuania’s Independence Day

Posted on 11 March 2026 by Defending History

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Undoing a Soviet Wrong: Preserving the Šnipiškės Jewish Cemetery

by Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky

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Posted in Chabad in Vilnius, 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, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky | Comments Off on Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky Issues Powerful Statement on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery on Occasion of Lithuania’s Independence Day

Paupys, Paupers, and Depauperates

Posted on 25 February 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | MEMOIRS | LITVAK AFFAIRS | LITHUANIA | POLITICS OF MEMORY

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by Harry Gorfine

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Prologue

Fašistai and fashionistas

“Pakelk galva pakelk galva! Paupių piliečiai”

Emigrating from Czarist Vilna to Petticoat Lane – escaping pogroms to reside near Jack the Ripper

From the Ripper to the high seas, heading for the Land Downunder

Returning to Lita – a vicarious journey of ancestral discovery and historical revelation

What now?

Epilogue

Bibliography

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Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Memoirs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Paupys, Paupers, and Depauperates

International Opposition to ‘New’ Proposals for Conference-Memorial Complex, with Seating Capacity for Thousands — in the Middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 16 January 2026 by Defending History

[last update]

Videos Online:

Rabbi Elchonon Baron’s one-minute bombshell at the Jan. 2026 conference-center rally at the Academy of Sciences in central Vilnius. How did the audience react? Video.

Rabbi Baron at the July 2024 Vilnius Jewish Community protest demonstration.

Rabbi S. J. Feffer in English (May 2024). Supplement.

Ecstasy on Jewish graves: Pro conference-center demonstrations shout nationalist slogans right on top of vast area with intact Jewish cemetery graves.

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Written statements:

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, 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 , , , , , , | Comments Off on International Opposition to ‘New’ Proposals for Conference-Memorial Complex, with Seating Capacity for Thousands — in the Middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

In Historic One-Minute Speech, Rabbi Elchonon Baron Shakes up Conclave of ‘Grave Robbers’ at Academy of Sciences in Central Vilnius

Posted on 14 January 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER |  2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO THE NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE 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 | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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VILNIUS—This evening’s rally dedicated to reconstruction of the ruin of the old and hated Soviet “Sports Palace” built in the middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, entailing de facto permanent desecration of the five hundred year old cemetery, was shaken by a powerful one minute address by Rabbi Elchonon Baron, scion of Lithuanian heads-of-yeshiva who now heads Jewish Heritage in Lita, in his imitable classic Litvak rabbinic style.

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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, Rabbi Elchonon Baron | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on In Historic One-Minute Speech, Rabbi Elchonon Baron Shakes up Conclave of ‘Grave Robbers’ at Academy of Sciences in Central Vilnius

Lithuanian Artist’s Cartoons Illustrate Two Possible Fates for Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 14 January 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER |  2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO THE NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE 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 | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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I: City in Love with Its Grand Duchy Heritage, Multicultural Values and Harmony of its Peoples

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II: City Intent on Obliterating and Humiliating its Jewish Heritage for Benefit of Some Greedy Business Interests

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UPDATES

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I

What did the Grand Dukes of Lithuania see looking down from Gediminas’s Hill?

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, 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), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , | Comments Off on Lithuanian Artist’s Cartoons Illustrate Two Possible Fates for Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Offers Premises for 14 Jan. Rally Set on Permanent Desecration of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 11 January 2026 by Defending History

OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER |  2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO THE NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE 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 | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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Top: The “convention center in the Jewish cemetery” project slated for approval by the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences on Jan. 14th includes an annex (right of image) built right on top of Jewish graves going back half a millennium. Bottom: Alternative narrative of this choice of venue for a new national convention center.

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Posted in 2023-2024 'Working Group' on the Future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, Conference of European Rabbis (CER), 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, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad) | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Offers Premises for 14 Jan. Rally Set on Permanent Desecration of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

The Prague Declaration and the Double Genocide Theory

Posted on 27 October 2025 by Defending History

PRAGUE DECLARATION | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | HISTORY | LITHUANIA

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OPINION

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by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

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In his book Crisis, War and the Holocaust in Lithuania, which I recently reviewed on these pages, historian Saulius Sužiedėlis virulently attacked those who in the past had opposed the Prague Declaration of 2008. When I read the list of signatories to the Prague Declaration signed in 2008, it makes me think of prisoners or detainees becoming free after having spent 45 years between four closed walls.

Getting free in the outside world and knowing next to nothing that has happened in the world at large during their detention. Most of these signatories, people of esteem, some of them heroes in their fight against Communist yoke, have suffered greatly and they yearn for recognition as victims of totalitarian crimes. But the only tangible contemporary phenomenon with some kind of kindred inhuman similitude they want to equate it with is — the Holocaust. So, oblivious to the manifold scourges the twentieth century has known worldwide, they signed on to the conclusion that “both the Nazi and Communist totalitarian regimes should be considered to be the main disasters, which blighted the 20th century” and “recognition of Communism as an integral and common part of Europe’s common history.” The declaration contains the word “same” five times, in support of the declaration’s underlying thesis that Nazi and Soviet crimes are absolutely — the same.

Is it possible to be so self-centered on one’s suffering as to become blind to history?

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Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform", Roland Binet | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The Prague Declaration and the Double Genocide Theory

Rabbi Elchonon Baron Warns Lithuanian Gov. that ‘Blessings’ Will Not Come to the Country from Construction of Conference Center in Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 23 July 2025 by Defending History

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

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Rabbi Elchonon Baron speaking to Lithuanian media at the Vilnius Jewish Community’s protest at the cemetery last year. DH Photo: William Adan Pahl.

VILNIUS—Rapidly following upon the announcement today by Lithuania’s prime minister that he is ordering revival of the project to remodel a hated Soviet ruin in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery into a new national conference center, the office of Rabbi Elchonon Baron, president of JHL (Jewish Heritage in Lita), released his letter to the prime minister in both Lithuanian and English. They appear just below in PDF format.

During a protest at the cemetery coordinated with the Vilnius Jewish Community last summer, Rabbi Baron gave a powerful interview to Lithuania media (video), which was however not included in the evening news coverage (see report). Defending History’s reaction to the prime minister’s statement appeared earlier today.

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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, Vilnius | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Rabbi Elchonon Baron Warns Lithuanian Gov. that ‘Blessings’ Will Not Come to the Country from Construction of Conference Center in Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Lithuania’s Prime Minister Throws Out Gov’s Own ‘Working Group’ Proposals. Announces Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery will Become a National Convention Center

Posted on 23 July 2025 by Defending History

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

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VILNIUS—The following is the text of Defending History’s emailed letter to readers today concerning news of the Lithuanian prime minister’s statement announcing that the derelict Soviet building in the middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, instead of being torn down to make way for the cemetery’s loving restoration would be restored and rebuilt to become Vilnius’s new national convention center. There was, for all intents and purposes, no mention of the recent “Working Group” and its non-starter recommendation for it to become a museum. The Defending History community will continue to pursue peaceful and appropriate public-discourse means to defend the dignity of the thousands of Vilna Jews buried there over half a millennium of Litvak history.
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Dear Readers

Lithuania’s Prime Minister has just announced full reversion to the convention center project in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that would prove so damaging and tragic for Lithuania’s standing in the world. The many thousands of Vilna citizens buried there have no local descendants to defend their graves because of the Holocaust. Moreover, the unique hand of East European antisemitism is in play (and an antisemitic party lamentably forms part of the PM’s coalition). The simple tests: (a) all other hated Soviet monstrosities are (rightfully!) dismantled; and (b) this would never happen to a five hundred year old city center cemetery of the ethnic/religious majority in the country. Both EU and US congressional law clearly designate the sacrosanct rights of minority cemeteries internationally.

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Posted in 2023-2024 'Working Group' on the Future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, 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 Lithuania’s Prime Minister Throws Out Gov’s Own ‘Working Group’ Proposals. Announces Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery will Become a National Convention Center

2025 Plans for new ‘Collegium’ (and Seimas Law) to Glorify Holocaust’s June 1941 LAF Killers of their Jewish Neighbors

Posted on 21 July 2025 by Defending History

[LAST UPDATE. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 19 MARCH 2025]

A Vilnius professor, a former foreign minister, and group of Conservative (Homeland Union) parliamentarians announce ‘collegium’ to glorify 1941 LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front / ‘White-Armbander’ ) Hitlerists who murdered their neighbors — effectively ‘initiating on the ground’ the Lithuanian Holocaust

25 June 2025 update: Member of the Seimas proposes law to legitimize the “declaration of independence” of the LAF and Hitler’s puppet “provisional government” by an act of parliament (reports in Lrytas.lt, 15mins.lt, and BNS). Also: publication of statement by former energy minister claiming that without the genocidal, local-Holocaust-initiating LAF there would be no 11 March 1990…. DH’s take? Classic instances of ultranationalist politicians working to turn perpetrators into heroes, smearing the actual history as “Soviet” though it is the proven Western narrative.

The professor. Official announcement on website of the Seimas. Article citing former foreign minister. Article explaining that a new Seimas law will mandate spending on far-right history revisionism to smear the historic narrative (the Western narrative, the Holocaust history narrative) as Kremlin-inspired (!) while glorifying the killers of thousands of innocent Jewish neighbors. Far from helping the name of today’s free and democratic Lithuania, this Seimas proposal brings self-inflicted damage of the worst sort — glorifying the perpetrators of the early days and weeks of the Lithuanian Holocaust.

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OUR TAKE

Leonidas Donskis answers Prof. Girnius from the grave:

‘When will the truth finally set us free?’

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NOW IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on 2025 Plans for new ‘Collegium’ (and Seimas Law) to Glorify Holocaust’s June 1941 LAF Killers of their Jewish Neighbors

Updates to the New German Brigade Near the World War II Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Posted on 20 June 2025 by Defending History

EUROPE’S ONLY SURVIVING JEWISH PARTISAN FORT

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VILNIUS—There have been two new developments in the saga of Germany’s Forty-Fifth Armoured Brigade, to be established in the forests adjacent to the remains of Europe’s last Jewish partisan fort, where around one hundred escapes from the Vilna Ghetto lived and fought the Nazis and their local collaborators during the Holocaust. See report.

The 20 June updates:

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort | Comments Off on Updates to the New German Brigade Near the World War II Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania

Chris Heath’s ‘No Road Leading Back’ on Ponar and on How we Remember the Holocaust

Posted on 31 May 2025 by Defending History

BOOKS | PONAR | LITHUANIA

 

BOOK REVIEW

by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

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Chris Heath, No Road Leading Back: An Improbable Escape from the Nazis and the Tangled Way We Tell the Story of the Holocaust, Schocken Books, 2024.

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In 2016, Chris Heath read an item in the New York Times about a tunnel that had been discovered “at a Holocaust killing site”. It was referring to  Ponar near Vilna (Yiddish Ponár, Polish Ponary, today’s Paneriai outside Vilnius, capital city of Lithuania). It is around ten kilometers (six miles) southwest of Vilnius city center. This caught his attention and he decided to write a book about this heroic feat. The main title is borrowed from two lines that Shmerke Kaczerginski had written in his poem “Shtiler, Shtiler” (Quieter, quieter) that was put to music and sung in the Vilna Ghetto.

Ponar: 100,000 persons killed by bullets from summer 1941 to spring of 1944, about 70% of them Jews including women, children, and the elderly. 

Ponar: List of twelve escapees from Ponar who survived (April 1944): Josef Bielic, Abraham Blazer, Yitzhak Dogin, Yuli Farber, Shlomo Gol, David Kantorovich, Zalman Matzkin, Lejzer Owsiejczyk, Konstantin Potanin, Motke Zeidel, Adam Zinger, Peter Zinin

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Posted in Books, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Poland, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai), Roland Binet | Comments Off on Chris Heath’s ‘No Road Leading Back’ on Ponar and on How we Remember the Holocaust

Germany’s New Brigade in Lithuania (‘Panzerbrigade 45’): Right Near Remnants of the Last Anti-Nazi Jewish Partisan Fort in Europe

Posted on 26 May 2025 by Defending History

[LAST UPDATE (SEE AT END): 20 JUNE 2025]
LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EASTERN EUROPE | POLITICS OF MEMORY | GERMANY | FANIA YOCHELES BRANTSOVSKY | LITVAK AFFAIRS

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OPINION

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VILNIUS—International media has reported in detail on last week’s military ceremonies in Vilnius celebrating the permanent installation of thousands of German soldiers as part of NATO forces in Lithuania, southernmost of the three Baltic republics. The new entity is “Germany’s 45th Armoured Brigade” (Panzerbrigade 45) that is also known as the “Lithuania Brigade”.

The Defending History community is a staunch supporter of the values and security needs of the European Union, NATO, the Western alliance of free and democratic nations, and has from day one condemned the medieval, barbaric February 2022 invasion and unleashing of mass death and destruction upon Ukraine by Putin’s Russian Federation forces. Our support includes reproducing a statement that has appeared for over a decade on p. 1 of DefendingHistory.com (right hand column). As stated there, adherence to the democratic values of the EU and the NATO alliance includes cherishing the free-speech right to criticize: efforts to rewrite Holocaust history by Eastern Europe’s ultranationalist far right; efforts to defame the victims, including Jewish partisans who fought valiantly against the Nazis; efforts to disseminate Double Genocide revisionism in the realm of Holocaust and World War II history; efforts to glorify Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators; efforts to curtail free speech by criminalizing or delegitimizing views that oppose these efforts.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Germany, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Germany’s New Brigade in Lithuania (‘Panzerbrigade 45’): Right Near Remnants of the Last Anti-Nazi Jewish Partisan Fort in Europe

Prof. Girnius Tries Again to Glorify the LAF that in 1941 Killed Thousands of Jewish Neighbors, Unleashing the Lithuanian Holocaust

Posted on 19 March 2025 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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The eminent Harvard and Univ. of Chicago educated American-Lithuanian professor and public affairs analyst, Kęstutis Girnius, tried a decade and a half ago to mobilize support for a far-right inspired dry-clean of the “Lithuanian Activist Front” (LAF, Lietuvių aktyvistų frontas, “white armbanders”) which was the 1941 organization that did not shoot a rabbit when the Soviets were in power (1940-1941) but began to murder thousands of innocent Jewish neighbors the moment the Soviet army started its panicked flight eastward, and there was no authority to stop them. Hitler’s local henchmen declared an “independence” that included the oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, the commitment to rid Lithuania of all its Jews, and the unleashing of barbaric murder before the Germans even arrived or set up their control. Any true friend of Lithuania will understand that this is the kind of pro-fascist revisionism that beautiful, modern, tolerant, democratic Lithuania needs like a hole in the head.

Girnius’s gushing public announcement of the new initiative to whitewash the LAF was announced in an article in Delfi.lt this week, heralding the formation of a group of Conservative (Homeland Union party) members of parliament who are forming a “collegium” for this  task. If that’s correct, it would, in one fell swoop, undermine the magnificent contributions of so many great truth-telling Lithuanian ethicists of the past three and a half decades, including Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Saulius Beržinis, Aleksandras Bosas, Valentinas Brandišauskas, Algirdas Brazauskas, Leonidas Donskis, Silvia Foti, Andrius Kulikauskas, Liudas Truska, Rūta Vanagaitė, Nida Vasiliauskaitė, Tomas Venclova, Linas Vildžiūnas, and numerous others.

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Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Prof. Girnius Tries Again to Glorify the LAF that in 1941 Killed Thousands of Jewish Neighbors, Unleashing the Lithuanian Holocaust