Politics of Memory

Professor Konrad Kwiet Quits the Lithuanian Government’s ‘Red-Brown Commission’


The Holocaust Obfuscation movement suffered a severe blow today with the public resignation from the Lithuanian government’s red-brown commission of Professor Konrad Kwiet, a major international scholar of the Lithuanian Holocaust. The resignation had been announced verbally at the recent ‘Aftermath’ conference held in Melbourne at the Australian Centre for the Study of Jewish Civilisation.

Professor Konrad Kwiet (right) makes a point to Dovid Katz at the June 2011 Aftermath conference at Monash University in Melbourne. Photo: Ariella Leski.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Australia, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Konrad Kwiet, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Yitzhak Arad | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Professor Konrad Kwiet Quits the Lithuanian Government’s ‘Red-Brown Commission’

Devising a Legend about an ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’ — A Documentary Film financed by Lithuania’s Parliament and its Genocide Research Center, on the 70th Anniversary of the Outbreak of the Lithuanian Holocaust



O P I N I O N

by Milan Chersonski

Milan Chersonski in front of the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas)

 


СОЧИНЕНИЕ ЛЕГЕНДЫ О ВОССТАНИИ ПОРАБОЩЕННЫХ

28 сентября 2010 года  Сейм Литвы объявил, что 2011 год будет называться Годом памяти о сражениях за свободу и великих утрат. Это загадочное название какого-то юбилея прозвучало ровно неделю спустя после объявления того же 2011 года Годом памяти жертв геноцида евреев Литвы.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Film, In Russian, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Comments Off on Devising a Legend about an ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’ — A Documentary Film financed by Lithuania’s Parliament and its Genocide Research Center, on the 70th Anniversary of the Outbreak of the Lithuanian Holocaust

Ponár Desecrated: Authorities Try to Cover Up the Event; No Arrests, No Reaction from Officials


This page has moved. The new URL is

Authorities Cover Up Desecration of Lithuania’s Largest Holocaust Mass-Murder Site

or click here.  Thank you.

Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Comments Off on Ponár Desecrated: Authorities Try to Cover Up the Event; No Arrests, No Reaction from Officials

Authorities Cover Up Desecration of Lithuania’s Largest Holocaust Mass-Murder Site


Over the weekend, foreign visitors discovered offensive desecrations at Ponár (Paneriai), the mass murder site of 100,000 people during the Holocaust, among them 70,000 Jews of the Vilna region.

One major monument was spray painted with a swastika and the Russian for ‘Hitler was right’, all in red. It was signed ‘Solomon’, the pseudonym of a ubiquitous graffiti artist who had not been known previously for antisemitic attempts, leading to suspicion that use of the name could be a decoy. It was likewise widely thought that the use of Russian rather than Lithuanian was a decoy, as well as a likely slight directed at the country’s tiny Jewish community, which antisemitic attacks frequently accuse of disloyalty.

‘Hitler was right’ (in Russian)

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Authorities Cover Up Desecration of Lithuania’s Largest Holocaust Mass-Murder Site

A Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Hitler’s Invasion of Estonia


According to an Lrytas / BNS report (English here), the Jewish Community of Estonia has expressed ‘surprise and displeasure’ over plans to hold an event today to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the arrival of the Nazis in the city Viljandi.

Continue reading

Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Estonia, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on A Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Hitler’s Invasion of Estonia

The Denial that is Part of Holocaust Obfuscation: Second Day of the Lithuanian Parliament’s Conference



by Dovid Katz

The Lithuanian Holocaust broke out in the week of 22 June 1941, when the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union; it is the week when, in many locations, so-called ‘patriots’ and ‘rebels’ in large numbers began to humiliate, plunder, injure and slaughter Jewish neighbors before the first Germans ever arrived. At the conference held yesterday and today in the country’s parliament, this was the Elephant in the Room that reared its head now and again, no matter how hard the political and academic planners worked to ensure that it would disappear in a program dedicated to virtually every other conceivable aspect (translation of original program here; final printed English version of the program here).

SEE ALSO:

Report on the first day of the conference.

Full translation of Mr. Racinskas’s speech.

The plot thickens. These are the very ‘patriots’ and ‘rebels’ who are being honored this week by major state institutions, and to no small degree, at this very conference. As if their launch of the Holocaust, which went on under German rule, and with their continued massive voluntary participation, is either some kind of uncorroborated slander, or, as if this is some very tiny detail in an otherwise glorious campaign of rebellion against Soviet forces (with no mention that the USSR’s troops were actually fleeing the German invasion, not their ‘rebellion’).

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Dovid Katz, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Denial that is Part of Holocaust Obfuscation: Second Day of the Lithuanian Parliament’s Conference

Where does Yad Vashem stand on East European Double-Game Double-Genocide Holocaust Politics?


DefendingHistory.com reported June 7th on Yad Vashem’s announced participation in the Lithuanian parliament’s 29-30 ‘International Conference: The Beginning of the Soviet-German War in the Baltic States in 1941’.

We commented on the pain caused to Lithuanian Holocaust survivors and their families by a decision to confer legitimacy, via the sterling name of Yad Vashem — the world’s premier Holocaust museum and research institution — on a conference held on the seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Lithuanian Holocaust. The agenda of the Lithuanian-government sponsored event has appeared to be yet another cover for the massive local violence that unleashed the Holocaust here, and to attempt yet again to recast the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), the Provisional Government (PG) and other fascist bodies as supposedly heroic freedom fighters.

Continue reading

Posted in Israel, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem and Lithuania | Comments Off on Where does Yad Vashem stand on East European Double-Game Double-Genocide Holocaust Politics?

Gert Weisskirchen: On Blackwashing History


 


O P I N I O N

by Gert Weisskirchen

In several places in Europe, particularly in the new-accession states, there are discernible efforts to ‘blackwash’ history.

Far-right forces are hard at work to obfuscate the Holocaust, in part by defaming the victims and in part by glorifying the local perpetrators and collaborators.

Continue reading

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Germany, Gert Weisskirchen, History, Lithuania, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Gert Weisskirchen: On Blackwashing History

Eyewitness Account of the Screening of ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’



by [NAME WITHHELD ON REQUEST]

The premiere of the Lithuanian-language film Pavergtųjų sukilimas, or Uprising of the Enslaved, was held in Vilnius in the early evening of 22 June 2011, timed to coincide with the anniversary of what is commonly called the “June Uprising”.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Film, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Comments Off on Eyewitness Account of the Screening of ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’

The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine



O P I N I O N

by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (Berlin)

On 8 June 2011, the internet journal Maidan announced that “on 30 July [2011] at 11 AM exactly a flash mob will read the Act of Renewal of the Ukrainian State simultaneously in seven places in Kiev”.  The “flash mob” in Kiev will be commemorating the 70th anniversary of the proclamation of the Ukrainian state by the leading OUN-B politician Iaroslav Stets’ko, who in the evening of 30 June 1941 read out the “Act of Proclamation of a Ukrainian State” during a meeting in the hall of the Prosvita Society in the market place in L’viv, the center of western Ukraine.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bandera, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, G. Rossoliński-Liebe, History, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Act of 30 June 1941, and its 2011 Commemoration in Ukraine

Litvaks and their Descendants Issue Public Letter Calling for Change in Lithuanian Government’s Holocaust Policies


 


Text of the public letter follows. Queries may be sent to Professor Danny Ben-Moshe at: Danny.Ben-Moshe@vu.edu.au.  UPDATES: Covered by JTA and the Jewish Chronicle.


We the undersigned Litvaks — Jews of Lithuanian origin and their direct and immediate descendants — hereby express:

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dov Levin (1925 - 2016), Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Lord Janner of Braunstone, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, The Great SLS About-Face | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Monash University’s ‘Aftermath’ Conference concluded in Melbourne


The international conference Aftermath: The Politics of Memory concluded this evening with a final keynote speech by Shoah Foundation director and Beth Shalom founder Dr. Stephen Smith who made repeated reference to the growing problem of Holocaust Obfuscation. His central point was the need for the history of the Holocaust to sensitize humanity, and indeed, western governments, to the need to care in real time about any subsequent genocide.

One of the conference’s dramatic moments came when Professor Konrad Kwiet (Macquarie University, Sydney and resident historian at the Sydney Jewish Museum) asked to come to the podium to announce his public resignation from the Lithuanian government sponsored International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithaunia.

Continue reading

Posted in Australia, Konrad Kwiet, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Monash University’s ‘Aftermath’ Conference concluded in Melbourne

DefendingHistory.com announces Media Chronicle of Opposition to the 2008 ‘Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism’


DefendingHistory.com has announced the free availability of a frequently updated resource page that provides links for select major expressions of opposition to the 2008 Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.  The page is available here or by visiting:

Continue reading

Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on DefendingHistory.com announces Media Chronicle of Opposition to the 2008 ‘Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism’

Can Timothy Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’ be Appropriated by East European Nationalists?



O P I N I O N

by Per Rudling

The great strength of Professor Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands (Basic Books, 2010) is that it contextualizes the violent 1930s and 1940s in Eastern Europe.

FOR MORE SEE DEFENDING HISTORY’S PAGE ON RESPONSES TO TIMOTHY SNYDER

Continue reading

Posted in Books, History, News & Views, Opinion, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Tagged | Comments Off on Can Timothy Snyder’s ‘Bloodlands’ be Appropriated by East European Nationalists?

‘Prague Process’ Crowd, with Lithuanian Jewish politician for cover (as usual), now proceeding with plans to ‘overhaul European history textbooks’ for Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation


The Prague Declaration proponents in European Parliamentary circles, having renamed their movement the ‘Prague Process’, are triumphantly reporting on their latest initiative to bring to fruition yet another of the movement’s stated objectives: to overhaul all the history textbooks in Europe to reflect the supposed ‘equality’ of Nazi and Soviet crimes, in other words to continue with the far right’s revision-of-history project to downgrade the Holocaust in the course of Double Genocide ideology.

As ever, the group is able at critical moments to wheel out Lithuania’s right-wing Jewish MP, Emanuelis Zingeris, himself a signatory of the Prague Declaration, who publicly resigned from his country’s Jewish community many years ago, but continues to run the ‘Jewish track’ of a complicated double-game policy that has led, in 2011, to the absurdity of a year to remember the Holocaust as well as a year to commemorate some of its local perpetrators who are glorified as ‘anti-Soviet heroes’ (see here, here and here).

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on ‘Prague Process’ Crowd, with Lithuanian Jewish politician for cover (as usual), now proceeding with plans to ‘overhaul European history textbooks’ for Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation

Milan Chersonski on the ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar



O P I N I O N

by Milan Chersonski


МАРШ ЖИВЫХ. ВПЕЧАТЛЕНИЯ И РАЗМЫШЛЕНИЯ

В календаре памятных дат Государства Израиль есть День памяти Жертв нацизма и Героев сопротивления – Йом а-Шоа вэ а-Гвура. По европейскому календарю он приходится на 19 апреля – день начала восстания в Варшавском гетто в 1943г.. Почти месяц – дольше, чем польская армия, защищавшая страну от нацистов в 1939г., – истощенные голодом и болезнями, плохо вооруженные узники сражались против специально обученных нацистских формирований и их местных нацистских пособников.

Continue reading

Posted in In Russian, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Comments Off on Milan Chersonski on the ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar

Estonian Nationalists say Holocaust ‘Pales’ by Comparison with Soviet Crimes; Delfi.lt produces its ‘Scorecard’ again


Estonian nationalists demonstrating outside Tallin’s Russian Embassy explained their view that ‘The Holocaust pales before the hundreds of thousands of people who were murdered by the Communists, the annihilation of dozens of ethnicities and the mass deportations!’

The BNS report carried by Delfi.lt (English translation here) which contains the quote also reproduced the image of the ‘red-brown scorecard’.

Continue reading

Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status | Tagged | Comments Off on Estonian Nationalists say Holocaust ‘Pales’ by Comparison with Soviet Crimes; Delfi.lt produces its ‘Scorecard’ again

Lithuanian ‘Government Historians’ blame Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz for the Country’s Holocaust Problems


Professor Saulius Sužiedėlis (Millersville University, Pennsylvania), a major historian who has recently been flown to conferences far and wide courtesy of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, and politician Ronaldas Račinskas, deputy chairman of the state-funded ‘Red-Brown commission’ have blasted Dr. Efraim Zuroff and Professor Dovid Katz for being responsible for Lithuania’s international Holocaust issues, in a major panel discussion that appeared in the media both as a sound file and in an edited transcript format. There were also other members of the panel discussion.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Israel, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Lithuanian ‘Government Historians’ blame Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz for the Country’s Holocaust Problems

Three Years Later: Neither Charged nor Cleared


marked three years to the day since police in Vilnius came looking for Holocaust Survivors Dr Rachel Margolis (born 1921, at right of photo) and Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (born 1922) in a ‘war crimes investigation’ that has still not been publicly closed.

Both women were incarcerated in the Vilna Ghetto from 1941 to 1943. Both lost their entire families to the barbarity of the Nazis and their local collaborators. They both escaped, on different days in September 1943, to join up with the anti-Nazi partisans in the forests of Lithuania. The underground forest fort, a half-hour’s drive from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, where Fania lived with another hundred or so Jewish escapees of the Vilna Ghetto, is being allowed to sink into the ground and disappear from history’s view.

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Events, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Three Years Later: Neither Charged nor Cleared

Budapest Judge Throws Out War Criminal’s ‘Libel’ Case against Dr Efraim Zuroff, praises the Holocaust Historian for Pursuing Justice


Budapest judge Viktor Vadasz of the Pest Central District Court ruled today in favor of Dr Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust historian and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, in a case that foreign observers have taken to be emblamatic for the sometimes topsy-turvy world of East European politics: glorification of Nazi war criminals amidst vilification of those who would want them brought to justice and the truth about local Holocaust history told and taught.

Continue reading

Posted in Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Budapest Judge Throws Out War Criminal’s ‘Libel’ Case against Dr Efraim Zuroff, praises the Holocaust Historian for Pursuing Justice