Politics of Memory
“ISTME” Conference Slated for Cracow in September is Funded under EU’s “Science and Technology”
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, News & Views, Poland, Politics of Memory
Tagged COST - ISTME, Double Genocide Movement, In Search of Transcultural Memory in Europe (ISTME), Politics of Memory, Red-Brown movement
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A Lively Conference in Riga
[updated 12 June 2013]
Was a goodwill opportunity squandered when the director general of the Vilnius based “red-brown” commission used his lecture time (at the Riga conference on Holocaust commemoration in post-Communist countries) for personal remarks (with inaccurate comments about the editor of Defending History)?
MULTIMEDIA RECORD OF EVENTS: VIDEO OF RONALDAS RAČINSKAS’S (28 MAY) LECTURE (in Russian) IN RESPONSE TO DOVID KATZ’S (27 MAY) LECTURE (PDF OF HIS PP; VIDEO PROVIDED BY THE CONFERENCE; PARTIAL IPHONE VIDEO [BY JOE KOREN] ).
UPDATES:
Edward Jacobs in the Huffington Post (31 May 2013)
More materials (including videos of the entire conference) posted by conference organizers; videos also on YouTube (12 June 2013)
In the meantime there has been no apology to the Vilnius Holocaust Survivor the state-sponsored commission called a liar on its website (in 2013), or to its own founding member Yitzhak Arad. Resignations on principle from the commission and its associated committees include Sir Martin Gilbert, Prof. Gershon Greenberg, Prof. Konrad Kwiet, and Prof. Dov Levin. The state-sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania” continues to flaunt the Prague Declaration on its website, in both Lithuanian and English.
SEE ALSO: Milan Chersonski’s Riga conference paper (27 May) “Rehabilitation of the Past as a Tool of Modern Politics” (authorized English translation). Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij) edited the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper Jerusalem of Lithuania from 1999 to the paper’s demise in 2010-2011. See our Milan Chersonski section. His publications in Defending History represent his own views.
RELATED:
Critiques of the commission
DH section on the commission
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Collaborators Glorified, Events, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Latvia, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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British Updates
British Foreign Office on Latvia’s National Waffen SS Fest:
UK’S MINISTER FOR EUROPE ENTERS THE FRAY
MONICA LOWENBERG IN THE LONDON JEWISH NEWS
ANNA SHEINMAN IN THE JEWISH CHRONICLE
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom
Tagged David Lidington, Michal Kaminski, Waffen SS (Latvia)
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Lithuanian Government’s 2013 Vilna Ghetto PR Jamboree
Vilna Ghetto is Back in Focus
But Will “Vilna Ghetto Fest” Include Public Apologies to Defamed Vilna (and Kovno) Ghetto Anti-Nazi Jewish Partisan Heroes? Invitations to Come Join the Party?
UPDATES:
1. The Secret “Big-Bucks Vilna Ghetto Disneyland Theme Park” Project (minus the Jewish community, minus apologies to the Partisans of Vilna, minus removals of memorials to local Holocaust perpetrators).
2. Renewed International Petition.
3. Ghetto survivors who joined the anti-Nazi resistance have been criminalized.
4. Government delegation in South Africa trying to pry Disneyland “investment” from unsuspecting South African Jews.
SEVEN SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Events, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, South Africa
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Estonian Fascist Admirers Preparing Midsummer Waffen SS Fest
O P I N I O N
by Leena Hietanen
Estonian ultranationalists traditionally celebrate Hitler’s victory on the Sinimae Hillls in eastern Estonia annually at the end of July. This year is no exception. The festivities are slated to start on the 27th of July at Sinimae.
As usual, the Estonian government is quietly giving its blessing to the proceedings. Old Estonian Waffen SS Legionaries gather on the hills to commemorate their participation on the Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany. In the battles of Sinimae Hills during the spring and summer of 1944 Estonian Waffen SS soldiers together with their fellow pro-Nazi combatants from Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland and Germany halted the progress of the Allied/Soviet front for half a year in the Eastern part of Estonia postponing the collapse of Nazi-Germany and condemning untold civilians to ongoing Nazi atrocities. Almost half of a million Hungarian Jews lost their lives in Auschwitz thanks to Estonian Legionaries. They would have survived had the Soviet advance not been tied up the Germans’ prime allies among the Estonian fascists.Continue reading
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Estonia, Human Rights, Leena Hietanen, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Wikipedia Entry for Seventy Years Declaration Rapidly Sabotaged
The recently entered Wikipedia entry on the Seventy Years Declaration has been rapidly distorted by the usual right-wing Baltic nationalism operatives who use the free on-line encyclopedia to foster the misimpression that Prague Declaration politics are “neutral” while its opponents who oppose glorification of Nazism in Eastern Europe are “left wing.” Moreover numerous inaccuracies and impertinent points have been introduced in an obvious attempt to render the entry untenable and have it removed, while the far-right’s Prague Declaration politics continue to be propagated on Wikipedia with the energy of a full-time PR team.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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“Rewriting History” on the Road in the USA
Rewriting History: New Documentary Film on the Shocking New Holocaust Revisionism in Eastern Europe
REVIEWS OF REWRITING HISTORY
Film’s website ◊ Sign the Seventy Years Declaration ◊ Donate HERE
◊
April 28th 2013 in LA
Continue reading
Posted in Arts, Danny Ben-Moshe, Events, Film, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States
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The Wehrmacht: One of Hitler’s Killing Machines
by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium)
Some people interested in military history have perhaps kept in mind a picture of the German Army during World War II – the Wehrmacht – as having been an army not essentially different from other belligerent armies, although, admittedly, it acted brutally and, sometimes, at the limit of what would have been deemed acceptable in times of war.
Posted in History, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet
Tagged Armies and genocide, Roland Binet, Wehrmacht and the Holocaust
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UK’s Minister for Europe Refuses to Criticize Baltic Glorification of Nazism
British Foreign Office on Latvia’s National Waffen SS Fest:
Minister for Europe Enters the Fray; Of Churchill’s Party, He Seems to Forget Great Britain’s Heroism in Bringing Down Hitler and — Scourge (and Historic Result) of Nazi-Worship in the Baltics
Anna Sheinman Reports in the London Jewish Chronicle
Images from the 2013 Waffen SS events in Central Riga
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Kingdom
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Seventy Years Declaration (SYD) Website is Launched
The new SYD-dedicated website www.SeventyYearsDeclaration.org was launched today.
The website marks a new phase in the international effort to halt the progress of the East European far right’s “Double Genocide” campaign across Europe and beyond. For more background on the Seventy Years Declaration (SYD) see the dedicated page, European languages page, and section in Defending History.
BACKGROUND:
SYD in European languages.
Early history and coverage (Jan-Feb 2012), including the eight bold Lithuanian parliamentarians (all social democrats) who signed the SYD.
Presentation at European Parliament (March 2012).
The documentary film Rewriting History launched in Australia (Sept 2012) and in the United States (April 2013).
The film Defending Holocaust History (Spring 2013).
Defending History section on the Seventy Years Declaration.
Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, Human Rights, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Charles Adès Fishman Adds Voice, on Yom Hashoah, to Sutzkever Prize Fracas
O P I N I O N
by Charles Adès Fishman
Dear Ed,
I could hardly believe it when I was told that you were participating in the Sutzkever Translation Prize competition as a judge. The Ed Hirsch whose work I’ve read and admired for years—the Ed Hirsch I’ve admired for years—wouldn’t allow himself to be used in a way that will help the Neo-Nazi forces in Lithuania remove the stain of antisemitism from its persecution of individuals who served as Jewish partisans during the Holocaust years.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Sutzkever Prize in Lithuania, United States
Tagged Charles Adès Fishman, Ed Hirsch, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jewish partisans in Lithuania, SLS, Sutzkever Prize in Lithuania
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Arthur Dobrin’s Open Letter to Ed Hirsch
O P I N I O N
by Arthur Dobrin
I am writing to you because it has come to my attention that you are to be the judge in the Avrom Sutzkever Poetry Translation Prize. Many years ago I came across a book of Sutzkever and have used several lines from his poems in a book of mine on bereavement. I was deeply touched by his work and wanted to share it with others.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Sutzkever Prize in Lithuania, United States
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Images from the March 16th 2013 Annual Glorification of Latvian Waffen SS in Riga
by Monica Lowenberg
Riga, 1943: Latvian soldiers proudly march with a Latvian flag and a Nazi flag. Some of the men were conscripted into the Waffen SS, but a number were volunteers.
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Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches
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One-Sided Coverage in the “Lithuania Tribune”?
M E D I A W A T C H / O P I N I O N
A month has now elapsed since the online Lithuania Tribune took a defamatory press release as God’s-honest-truth news, in absence of the slightest attempt to obtain a quote from the victim, or indeed anyone with a contrasting view. The press release came not from a news agency, but the highly partisan executive director of the “Red-Brown Commission” (the full and rather Orwellian name of which is “The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania”). The Commission is highly controversial to say the least, and resignations to date (all on principle) from its associated bodies include Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Sir Martin Gilbert (London), Prof. Gershon Greenberg (Washington, DC), Prof. Konrad Kwiet (Sydney) and Prof. Dov Levin (Jerusalem). Moreover, while putting forward an educational image to donors, it is in fact the ultranationalist political engine of a sizable part of the Double Genocide movement in Eastern Europe today, and this dubious role has been brought to light repeatedly. Major statements on the Commission’s activities came in 2012 from its former member Yitzhak Arad, and from the world’s last active association of Holocaust survivors from Lithuania.
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, VilNews.com
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Cameron’s Latvian Liaison, One Woman’s Petition and One SS March
O P I N I O N
by Monica Lowenberg
If you walked through a busy EU city today and came across Eichmann Allee, Hitler Strasse or even Goebbels Gasse you would initially think that someone was pulling your leg or you would start to raise, and rightly so, serious questions regarding the ruling government that would allow such blatant glorification of mass murderers to take place. You can therefore imagine how I felt, the daughter of a German Jewish refugee whose paternal Latvian Jewish family had all been brutally murdered in the Libau massacres of 1941 and Riga ghetto, to discover in 2011, that each and every 16 March, since 1998, SS veterans are glorified in the capital city of Riga in Latvia an EU and NATO country since 2004.
My name is Monica Lowenberg; I was born on a cold winter’s day in 1964, in ear shot of Bow Bells.
On January 20, 2012, I set up a petition to stop the 16th March marches in Riga, ninety years to the day from the date of birth of my uncle Paul Theodor Loewenberg who at age 19 was sent to the Riga Ghetto on 4 October 1941. The petition is as much an act of commemoration of the victims of Nazism as it is a tribute to the European parliamentarians, including a number from Latvia, who wisely and courageously signed on the 20 January last year 2012, the Seventy Years Declaration, commemorating Wannsee, a declaration which specifically rejects glorification of Latvia’s Waffen SS, along with Estonia’s Waffen SS and the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) in Lithuania.
Posted in Aleksandrs Feigmanis, Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Kingdom
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Isn’t it Time for the Author of the Myth to Apologize?
O P I N I O N
by Pinchos Fridberg (Vilnius)
Editor’s note: This article was first published by Professor Fridberg in Russian in Мы здесь. The following translation, by Ludmila Makedonskaya, was commissioned by Defending History, and it appears with Professor Fridberg’s permission, and with Defending History’s sole responsibility for the translation. The original text is authoritative in any instance of doubt or nuance.
Dear Editor,
On December 13th, 2012, the portal Zman.com published my article (in Russian) “Instead of the Truth About the Holocaust — Myths About Saving Jews.” It was republished by a number of websites including Newswe.com. I sent a picture and added one important phrase specifically for your site. The fundamental point: the article was republished (in Russian and in English) by the official site of the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC).
Instead of an immediate public apology for providing unreliable information and closing the matter, they started looking for a way to discredit me personally. You will ask why? My answer is because the article ends with three not very convenient questions. I should pay tribute to the Lithuanian journalist Račas who did not remain in the background, but answered very straightforwardly and simply:
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory
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Strength Through Joy “Hitler Youth” Events Sponsored by the City of Vilnius on March 11, 2013
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
This March 11, the day in 1990 when the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic declared Lithuania sovereign and separate from the Soviet Union, was celebrated in Vilnius in the usual manner: neo-Nazis, skinheads, their young and naive followers and a gaggle of elderly politicians—both serving MPs and has-beens—assembled and marched up the main boulevard chanting nationalist and anti-minority slogans, scaring children and generally making the streets unsafe for normal activities.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Geoff Vasil, Human Rights, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius
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Vilnius Street Name Proposed for Rescuer Out in Boondocks; But Please Remove Nazi Collaborators from City Center!
O P I N I O N
The Defending History community welcomes today’s news that a street (and/or square) in the Verkiai district, Vilnius’s northernmost neighborhood (and popularly considered to be just north of the city), may be named for Ona Šimaitė, the enormously courageous librarian who defied the Nazis and their local collaborators by risking her life to save Jewish citizens of the country. But this is a confusing signal that can easily be construed to send the wrong message. Her street deserves to be right in the city center! Šimaitė’s life has recently come to new and deserved attention thanks to Julia Sukys’s important recent book, Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Simaite.
RELATED:
MORE STREETS, PLAQUES AND MONUMENTS HONORING HOLOCAUST COLLABORATORS
MUSEUM THAT HONORS PERPETRATORS
“PEACE PARK” THAT HONORS PERPETRATORS
INTERNATIONAL PETITION
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Kazys Škirpa, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Julia Sukys, Kazys Škirpa, Ona Simaite, Streets named for Holocaust collaborators
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Background Reading on the Shift in US Foreign Policy on Holocaust Denial from c. 2009
BUT
Groups of members of the US Congress have continued to speak out with courage: 1 Aug 2008; 3 Dec 2009; 25 Sept 2012.
SEE ALSO SECTION ON US POLICY ON THE BALTIC HOLOCAUST AND RELATED ISSUES
Efraim Zuroff, “The Threat of Baltic Ultra-Nationalism” in the Guardian, 3 April 2010.
Efraim Zuroff, “No Tolerance for False History” in the Jerusalem Post, 1 May 2010.
Marc Tracy, “Rosenthal Lays Off Lithuania” in Tablet, 3 May 2010.
Posted in Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Politics of Memory, The OSCE, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?
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Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
A month ago my article “A Mine for the Myth” was published in the international magazine Мы здесь (We Are Here). I mentioned the solemn ceremony of the reburial of the former prime minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania Juozas Ambrazevičius Brazaitis. I’d like to quote the last paragraph.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory
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