JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office today released the following letter from its director, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, to the mayor of Vilnius, Artūras Zuokas, concerning next week’s planned neo-Nazi march slated for the center of the city on the nation’s independence day.
Politics of Memory
Efraim Zuroff Appeals to Vilnius Mayor Zuokas to Cancel Neo-Nazi March
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Translation of a Yiddish Correspondence: The Vilna Holocaust Survivor and the Director of Yivo
D O C U M E N T S
Editor’s note: The following is a translation of the open letter by Professor Pinchos Fridberg, a Holocaust survivor in Vilnius, and the reply by Yivo’s director, Dr. Jonathan Brent. Both were published in the Yiddish Forward (Forverts) on 1 March 2015. Prof. Fridberg has also posted an audio file of his reading his letter aloud in his native Vilna Yiddish. In the case of any issue arising, the Yiddish text is authoritative. For readers’ reference, hyperlinks have been added (by Defending History) to various of the documents and topics cited. See also the Pinchos Fridberg page and section in Defending History, page and section on the state-sponsored commission discussed, and section on Yivo issues.
September 2014 at Ponár, the mass muder site of Vilna Jewry: Three representatives of the controversial state sponsored commission on Nazi and Soviet crimes pay respects in unison: (from left): Dr. Jonathan Brent, Emanuelis Zingeris, Ronaldas Račinskas. Photo: Defending History.
D
ear Dr. Jonathan Brent,
I appeal to you in Yiddish. Do you know why? Because I believe, that a person who is the leader of the Yivo institute will understand me. My name is Pinchos Fridberg. I was born in Vilna before the war and am a survivor of the Holocaust. My grandmother and grandfather, and all our relatives on my mother’s side — 28 people — lie [at the mass murder site] Ponár.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Documents, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory, United States, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Dr. Jonathan Brent (Yivo), Emanuelis Zingeris, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Jewish community in Lithuania, Jews in Lithuania, Jonathan Brent, Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Kovno Ghetto, Pinchos Fridberg, Ronaldas Racinskas, Yivo + Vilnius + Lithuania, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Yivo Lithuania, Yivo Vilna Project
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In English Translation: V. Brandišauskas’s Classic Review of A. Liekis
D O C U M E N T S / B O O K S / H I S T O R Y
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The following is an English translation of a book review by Valentinas Brandišauskas of Algimantas Liekis’s Lietuvos laikinoji vyriausybė (1941 06 22–08 05) that appeared in the Lithuanian publication Genocidas ir Rezistencija No. 8, 2000, and is posted online.
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Review: A Doubtful Selection of “Frontists,” or, about One More in a Series of A. Liekis’s “Monographs”: Lietuvos laikinoji vyriausybë (1941 06 22–08 05) [Provisional Government of Lithuania, June 22—August 5, 1941], Vilnius, 2000, 428 pp.
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The negative predictions have been fulfilled, unfortunately, even beyond expectations. That’s what can be said about a news item that appeared in the Lithuanian exile community’s monthly Akiračiai regarding preparations by Lithuanian historian Algimatas Liekis, who did some work at the Lithuanian Studies Research and Studies Center in Chicago, to write a book about the June Uprising of 1941 and the Provisional Government (PG). Recalling the historian’s past (“during the Soviet era […] he was the komsorg [Communist Youth Party minder] in the Soviet navy, Party secretary of the History Institute of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic…”) and doubting his reputation as an academic, it was said that “Frontist successors” to the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) had invited Liekis
“to write a book that would help the Lithuanian parliament push through the legislation needed to ‘legalize’ the Provisional Government and to proclaim the day of the uprising a national holiday.”
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Books, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Valentinas Brandišauskas, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
Tagged Algimantas Liekis, LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front), Liekis + Brandisauskas, Provisional Government of Lithuania (1941), Valentinas Brandisauskas
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Silence in the Past, Silence Now
O P I N I O N
by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud)
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During World War II, numerous proofs of the systematic massacre of the Jews on a large scale had made known to the allied leaders. As the British had very early in the course of the war cracked the Enigma code, their Intelligence Service could read nearly all military dispatches sent by the German units to their headquarters, including those daily reports sent by the Einsatzgruppen leaders who duly sent the daily figures of the Jews and other “enemies” they had killed. One of these reports told of some 30,000 Jews having been killed.[1]
Posted in Latvia, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Roland Binet
Tagged Holocaust in Latvia, Holocaust in the Baltics, Roland Binet
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Translation of Lithuanian News Report on Recent Statements by Genocide Center’s Director
Editor’s note: This article has been translated for our readers at the suggestion of Professor Pinchos Fridberg, whose note to us (here translated from the original Yiddish) reads: “As a Holocaust survivor, I respectfully request that Defending History arrange for translation and publication of this article, in which the director-general of the Genocide Center in Vilnius is quoted as saying that ‘Not all people who contributed to the Holocaust should be considered murderers of Jews’.”
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
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A Russian Observer Replies to Recent Feast of an American Daily Beast
O P I N I O N
by Alex Nosovich (Kaliningrad)
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The governments of the Baltic countries, while cheerleading the introduction of new sanctions against the Russian Federation, are also doing something else that is going unnoticed. They are exploiting tensions between the West and Russia to settle scores with local dissidents, who advocate equal rights for national minorities and oppose glorification of Nazi collaborators. They are prevented from holding events, and impacted at the personal level, while their activities are marginalized so that they might become invisible in the eyes of the international community. This is done with help of American Neocons (neoconservatives), including the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), an organization established in 2009.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Latvia, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Alex Nosovich, Anti-Nazi Group Secretly Helping Kremlin, Daily Beast, Daily Beast + World Without Nazism, James Kirchick, Neocons (Neoconservatives) + antisemitism, Neoconservatives + Holocaust + Russia, World Without Nazism
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Run-Up to the 16 Feb. 2015 Neo-Nazi March in Central Kaunas
Baltic Nazi-Glorifying Marching Season Underway
COME JOIN US IN KAUNAS, MONDAY 16 FEB. at 1 PM (1300), AT RAMYBĖS PARK, TO MONITOR, SILENTLY PROTEST, & REMEMBER THE CITY’S MORE THAN 30,000 MURDERED JEWISH CITIZENS.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Correspondence with Kaunas Mayor’s Office to 13 February 2015
D O C U M E N T S
Below, (1) the text of DH’s letter to the mayor of Kaunas on 3 February, (2) the response received from his office on 11 February, (3) our response of the same date, and (4) the response from the mayor’s office received on 13 February and (5) our response of the same date. The correspondence relates to the annual neo-Nazi march planned for 16 February 2015 in central Kaunas. See also section on previous marches, and our 3 February 2015 correspondence with the Kaunas police. Note that a banner featuring a major Kaunas Holocaust collaborator, the Nazi puppet prime minister Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis (reburied with full honors as a hero in Kaunas, in 2012), is depicted in a 2014 photograph used by the march’s organizers to advertise the 2015 event.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Swastikas in Lithuania
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Kaunas, Mayor Andrius Kupcinskas, neo-Nazi marches in Lithuania
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Correspondence with Kaunas Mayor’s Office to 11 February 2015
D O C U M E N T S
Below, (1) the text of DH’s letter to the mayor of Kaunas, (2) the response received today from his office, and (3) our further response, in connection with the annual neo-Nazi march planned for 16 February 2015 in central Kaunas. See also section on previous marches, and our 3 February 2014 correspondence with the Kaunas police. Note that a banner featuring a major Kaunas Holocaust collaborator, the Nazi puppet prime minister Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis (reburied with full honors as a hero in Kaunas, in 2012), is depicted in a 2014 photograph used by the march’s organizers to advertise the 2015 event.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Documents, EU, Events, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Swastikas in Lithuania
Tagged Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Holocaust in Lithuania, Kaunas neo-Nazi march 2015
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Is the Holocaust Going to Drown in a Sea of “European Tolerance?”
O P I N I O N
by Pinchos Fridberg
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NOTE: The following is an English version of Prof. Fridberg’s Russian op-ed, posted earlier today. In the event of any query or issues, the Russian text alone is authoritative.
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Is the Holocaust drowning in a sea of “European tolerance”? I love humor. Especially black humor.
Yesterday afternoon the largest Russian-language newspaper in Lithuania, Obzor, reprinted the article, “Museum in Tartu, Estonia Invites Visitors to Come Laugh at the Holocaust” [The affair has been covered in English by the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, among others].
Posted in Bandera, Estonia, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged Bandera, Hollywood-Holocaust / Bandera-Bandit, Holocaust Drowning in Sea of European Tolerance, Holocaust in Estonia, P'inchos Fridberg + Holocaust, Pinchos Fridberg, Pinchos Fridberg + Bandera, Pinchos Fridberg + Estonia
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Run-Up to the Annual February 16th Neo-Nazi March in Kaunas
WILL LITHUANIA’S LEADERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST GRANTING MAJOR CITY CENTERS ON INDEPENDENCE DAYS TO NEO-NAZI MARCHES THAT ADULATE 1941 HOLOCAUST COLLABORATORS?
WILL “BAGEL SHOP” AND OTHER FUNDED MONITORS ISSUE A MORALLY DIGNIFIED STATEMENT? A MEMBER OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY SPEAKS OUT; HIS EARLIER VIDEOTAPED INTERVIEW IN RICHARD BLOOM’S DOCUMENTARY.
Posted in EU, Events, Human Rights, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Swastikas in Lithuania
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How Did Lithuanians Wrong Litvaks?
O P I N I O N / H I S T O R Y
by Andrius Kulikauskas
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Iwill speak about painful things, and so I understand if some of you won’t want to listen and will step out.
It is most important that we empathize with the victims of the Holocaust, and yet we must also empathize with the perpetrators if we wish to understand what happened and who was responsible for what. Litvaks outside of Lithuania feel hurt that Lithuanians shirk responsibility for the Holocaust.
I won’t be indifferent. I am a deliberate Lithuanian. I was born in the diaspora. I chose to be Lithuanian. Is the Lithuanian worldview harmful? I must investigate.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Andrius Kulikauskas, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Andrius Kulikauskas, Holocaust in Lithuania
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The Bubnys Event at the 2015 Jewish Community Auschwitz Commemoration
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Julius Norwilla
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This year much of the world commemorates the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945. The day of its liberation, January 27th, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. To mark the day this year, on the 26th of January, the Jewish Community of Lithuania organized three events, as reported in Defending History.
The final event of the day was the book launch for The Šiauliai Ghetto featuring as sole announced speaker its author, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys, director of the Genocide and Resistance Research Department of the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania; for a critical view of the Genocide Center, as it is known for short, see Defending History’s page and news section on the institution.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Books, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Events, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Arunas Bubnys, Faina Kukliansky, Genocide Center Vilnius, Holocauast in Lithuania, Jevgenija Sedova, Jewish Community of Lithuania, Jewish museum (Vilnius), Julius Norwilla, Siauliai (Shavl) Ghetto
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Jewish Community’s Formal Reply to Dr. Efraim Zuroff
The following statement appeared today on the website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania:
STATEMENT BY THE JEWISH (LITVAK) COMMUNITY
It is not surprising that experienced journalists and politicians as well as leaders of well-known Jewish institutions, who are following Ms. Kukliansky’s activities devoted to expose Nazi criminals as well as to fight Neo-Nazism, were left in a complete state of confusion after reading Mr. Zuroff’s so called protest.
Posted in Events, Faina Kukliansky, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Arunas Bubnys, Efraim Zuroff, Faina Kukliansky
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Wiesenthal Center Blasts Vilnius Genocide Center’s Involvement in Jewish Community’s Holocaust Remembrance Day Event
The Simon Wiesenthal Center today issued a statement expressing dismay that Vilnius’s state-sponsored Genocide Center (full name: Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania) was included in the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s annual program marking Holocaust Remembrance Day. The third of three events was dedicated entirely to a book produced by the Center. The only announced speaker for the event, the book’s author, is known for rejecting known elements of the historic narrative of the annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry, for his support for monuments for pro-Hitler forces, and for participation in far-right pro-fascist journals.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Efraim Zuroff, Faina Kukliansky, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Arunas Bubnys, Efraim Zuroff, Faina Kukliansky, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Lithuania, Shimon Alperovich, Simon Wiesenthal Center + Lithuania
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Three Holocaust Remembrance Day Events in Vilnius on 26 January 2015
O P I N I O N
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For some reason held on 26 January, a day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, three events were announced together in a flyer posted by the Jewish Community of Lithuania and disseminated by other interested organizations in Vilnius.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Arunas Bubnys, Evgenia Sedova, Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania, Genocide Center Vilnius, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Liberation of Auschwitz commemorated, Shavl (Siauliai) Ghetto
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No Cover-Up at Auschwitz!
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
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The following text is the original draft, submitted on 20 January 2015 at the invitation of the London Jewish Chronicle. An edited version (processed with all courtesies to the author) appeared in the JC on 22 January. This version is posted here simply to emphasize the author’s belief that ceremonies at Auschwitz that do not address the current massive campaign by eastern EU states to downgrade and obfuscate the Holocaust are unwittingly part of a cover-up of the very unique historical phenomena they are meant to accurately preservce and pass on. The related issue of whether Russia’s leaders will be invited to the ceremonies has been analyzed in recent pieces by Efraim Zuroff and Pinchos Fridberg.
No Cover-Up at Auschwitz!
The heralded 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz approaches, amidst a grand oblivion to what is happening before our very eyes to the actual history of the Holocaust. If we fail to speak out about the irksome issues too, the pomp and circumstance ipso facto morph into an unsavoury cover-up.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, 70 Years Declaration, Dovid Katz, EU, Events, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Auschwitz commemorations, Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, Holocaustw Remembrance Day, Prague Declaration, Seventy Years Declaration
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Wiesenthal Center Slams Latvian Veto of Holocaust Exhibition at UNESCO
JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized steps taken by the Latvian delegation to UNESCO which effectively cancelled an exhibition about the Holocaust in Latvia scheduled to open this coming Sunday at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
SEE ALSO JTA REPORT
In a statement issued here by its Israel director, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center called the action by the Latvians “an outrageous and ultimately futile attempt to hide the extensive Latvian collaboration with the Nazis in perpetrating Holocaust crimes” and urged UNESCO officials to consider steps to enable the exhibition, titled “Stolen Childhood: Holocaust Victims Seen by Child Inmates of the Salaspils Nazi Concentration Camp,” to be shown to the public.
According to Zuroff:
“This step by the Latvians is part of a systematic effort by the Baltic countries to hide the truth about the extensive collaboration with the Nazis of Balts in the implementation of the Final Solution in their native countries, as well as in Poland and Belarus. Instead of complaining that the exhibition risked damaging her country’s reputation, Latvia’s chief delegate to UNESCO should have welcomed an effort to expose the wartime collaboration of so many Latvians as part of an honest confrontation with her country’s bloody Holocaust past.”
For more information: 972-50-721-4156
www.operationlastchance.org or www.wiesenthal.com
Posted in Efraim Zuroff, EU, Events, France, Free Speech & Democracy, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust in Latvia, Holocaust Obfuscation in the Baltics, Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office, UNESCO + Holocaust Denial
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Can Latvia Veto a Holocaust Exhibition in Paris?
Freedom of Expression in France & at UNESCO:
JTA: Latvia Vetoes UNESCO Holocaust Exhibit in Paris
Simon Wiesenthal Center critiques the Latvian Government’s sabotage of exhibition that was supposed to open this week in the French capital
Posted in France, Free Speech & Democracy, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Two “C Words” for Holocaust Museums: Center of Town, and — Collaboration
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
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Christmas-time congratulations are due to the four architects who have won the Vilnius state Jewish museum’s competition for plans to build a Holocaust museum at the mass murder site known as Ponár in Yiddish, Ponary before the war in Polish, and currently Lithuanian Paneriai. It is a short ride outside the capital city Vilnius. The victory of the foursome, Jautra Bernotaitė, Ronaldas Pučka (team leader), Andrius Ropolas and Paulius Vaitiekūnas, is announced on the museum’s website (and on Mr. Ropolas’s site). The competition was jointly run with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. The elaborate description of the project’s conception, by the Union of Architects, includes many sophisticated concepts, with multiple learned citations, from Freud to Foucault. Just one rather simpler word, a word (and exhibit) needed for any Holocaust museum, is missing from the text: collaboration.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
Tagged Andrius Ropolas, Holocaust memorials, Holocaust museums, Jautra Bernotaitė, Jewish State Museum of Lithuania, Kazimierz Sakowicz, new museum at Ponar, Paneriai, Paulius Vaitiekūnas, Ponar, Ponary), Rachel Margolis, Ronaldas Pučka
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