Politics of Memory

Erasmus Students invited to ‘Exchange Genocide Project’


European exchange students on the Erasmus program in Lithuania have received this email from the program’s local leadership inviting them to join for free an interactive ‘Exchange Genocide Project’ complete with Russian speaking actors and psychological and physical punishment. Participating Erasmus students are required to sign this confirmation form.

There is no mention of any ‘Exchange Genocide Project’ to commemorate the Holocaust or to visit peacefully any of the 202 mass murder sites in the country.

Erasmus is financed by the European Union.

Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, EU, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, Rūta Vanagaitė | Tagged | Comments Off on Erasmus Students invited to ‘Exchange Genocide Project’

Shimon Peres Attacked for holding Nazi and Soviet crimes to be Different


Leading Baltic news portal Delfi.lt attacks Israel’s president Shimon Peres for differentiating Nazi and Soviet crimes. English translation. Peres’s remarks were distorted (see original; English translation). The Delfi piece includes this graphic:

Daiva Repečkaitė replies.

Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Israel, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Leave a comment

Double Genocide Industry Produces Triumphant ‘Football Score Card’


One of the novel forms of antisemitism to emerge from the post-Soviet Baltics revels in diminishing Nazism and ‘growing’ Communism (often regarded as a ‘Jewish plot’) in a macabre equation, to produce a model of ‘equality’ for naive westerners and the European Parliament, while at home gloating at perceived successes in actually presenting Communism as ‘worse’.  At the root of the project is the wish to obfuscate the Holocaust and the dismal Baltic record of collaboration, while seeking to cast aspersions on the victims and the few survivors by tacitly encouraging the canard ‘All Jews are Communists’. This graphic, a less-than-mature red-brown ‘scorecard’ (with the foregone result of the ‘game’ provided: Communism 1, Nazism 0), was offered up yet again by the mainstream news portal Delfi.lt, in the course of an attack on President Shimon Peres of Israel for having expressed his view that Nazism and Communism are not the same (English translation of the Delfi.lt article here). In any case, President Peres’s actual remarks in Lietuvos rytas (English here) were taken out of context and distorted.

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Double Genocide Industry Produces Triumphant ‘Football Score Card’

Lithuania’s Main News Portal Calls Jewish Partisan Hero Fania Brantsovsky a Suspect in a Mass Murder after she is Honored by the President of Germany


Minutes after the German Embassy in Vilnius issued a press release announcing that it had awarded Germany’s Federal Cross of Merit to Holocaust survivor Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (born 1922), Lithuania’s main news portal, Delfi.lt, published a bileful attack replete with libelous and ridiculous accusations about her ‘war crimes’ (in effect trying to blame the Holocaust’s victims, a frequent ploy of the Baltic region’s Double Genocide Industry that is pushing the Prague Declaration in the European Parliament). The campaign against Holocaust survivors was launched by the antisemitic press and picked up by state prosecutors, starting in 2006 (see Blaming the Victims and the 28 Oct 2009 entry on the home page). English translation. The Lithuanian original appeared with this caricature of anti-Nazi resistance veteran Brantsovsky, librarian of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, whose entire family perished in the Holocaust. It is not known why the Yiddish institute’s website contains no mention of the award, or of the unseemly attack against its own beloved librarian, who has been with the VYI since its inception in 2001. Speculation has centered on pressure ‘from above’ and fear of falling into disfavor with powers that be. On a related note, there is growing international interest in preservation of the underground partisan fort where Fania lived from September 1943 until the region’s liberation in July 1944. Authorities in the country seem to wish the fort to disappear. Fania is the country’s last Holocaust survivor who actually lived there. She continues to accompany visitors and students there. The international effort to save this remarkable Holocaust site is spearheaded by Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments site.

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Germany, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute | Leave a comment

German President awards Fania Brantsovsky the Federal Cross of Merit


…Antisemitic Tirade Follows in Vilnius

Antisemitic reaction on Lithuania’s main news portal came within minutes of the German embassy’s press release announcing its award to anti-Nazi Jewish partisan veteran Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, librarian of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute. The award is the president’s Federal Cross of Merit. It was presented to her by Germany’s ambassador to Lithuania Hans-Peter Annen in a ceremony at his embassy in Vilnius. Details at Responses (→ 28 Oct 2009).  [May 2010: Disturbingly, neither Fania’s award nor the antisemitic barrage against her has been mentioned to this day on the VYI website.]

English translation of the report on the Baltic internet portal Delfi, including the remarks of a ruling-party member of  parliament. It appeared with this caricature of the 87 year old Holocaust survivor who had just been honored by Germany’s president. Posted comments that threatened her with violence have now been removed. More details at Blaming the Victims (→ 28 Oct 2009). Daiva Repečkaitė and Milan Chersonski reply.

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Events, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Germany, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute | Leave a comment

Rachel Margolis turns 88


also marked Dr Rachel Margolis’s 88th birthday. Dr Margolis, anti-Nazi partisan veteran, historian and biologist, lives in Rechovot, and feels unable to return to Vilnius because of the situation. Birthday greetings at Responses (→ 28 Oct 2009, II). [Added Sept 2010: See now the later report of 27 January 2010 on the letter sent by five senior members of the United States Congress to the prime minister of Lithuania concerning Dr Margolis and the other Holocaust Survivors defamed by the far right’s ‘Double Genocide’ industry in the Baltics.]

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Leave a comment

Guardian Report Notes Vilnius Yiddish Summer Course’s “Secret Lectures in Students’ Homes”


Jonathan Freedland’s article in today’s Guardian includes the sad tale of the founder of the  Vilnius Yiddish Institute having to give his lectures at students’ homes after being banned by the (non-Yiddish-specialist) government operative installed as  “director” after state prosecutors launched proceedings against Holocaust survivors for their “crime” of having escaped the ghetto to join up with anti-N azi Soviet forced who were, in alliance with the United States and Great Britain during the Holocaust, the only force seriously fighting the Nazis in Lithuania and the rest of Eastern Europe.

Is the Vilnius Yiddish Institute about to become a PR unit of the government agencies responsible for Holocaust manipulation and the ongoing investment in Yiddish and Jewish projects as cover for history manipulation?

The article, by Jonathan Freedland is available here.

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs | Comments Off on Guardian Report Notes Vilnius Yiddish Summer Course’s “Secret Lectures in Students’ Homes”

Slanted ‘Baltic Times’ Coverage of Lithuanian Parliament’s Work on new Red-Brown Jailtime Law


Supposedly impartial Baltic Times coverage of a later version of the proposed law that would max out at just two years of imprisonment for disagreeing with the state’s version of ‘Soviet and Nazi genocide’.

The BT report also gloats that ‘Earlier this year, the members of the European Parliament decided that Stalin’s USSR and Hitler’s Germany were equal’ (cf. materials on the Prague Declaration page). [14 September 2010: On the law eventually passed, in June 2010, see here].


Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Free Speech & Democracy, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Slanted ‘Baltic Times’ Coverage of Lithuanian Parliament’s Work on new Red-Brown Jailtime Law

Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors Release 1998 Letter on the “Red-Brown Commission”


The Tel Aviv office of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, one of the world’s last active organizations of Holocaust survivors hailing from Lithuania, today authorized HolocaustInTheBaltics to publish its 6 November 1998 letter to the president of Lithuania protesting the establishment of the “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.” The letter first appeared in facsimile form in the book Crime and Punishment, edited by the association’s chairman, Tel Aviv attorney Joseph A. Melamed. The letter follows.

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Seminars in Secret at the Annual Summer Program in Yiddish when the Topic is Holocaust Obfuscation


Seminars on Holocaust Obfuscation had to be held in private apartments during the Summer Program in Yiddish Language and Literature. [UPDATES added in later months as these materials appeared: Memoirs have been published by  Julia Blaukopf (Photographic Interiors, Pennsylvania); Jana Hock (Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch); Michael Cohen (more recent article here); Josh Markovitz (both UCLA). There have been comments in the Guardian and the Nation.]

The Vilnius Yiddish Institute staff list distributed to summer course students was purged of staff who spoke out publicly on behalf of the accused survivors and against ‘Double Genocide’. Lectures were convened at private apartments on August 10, 17, 19, 20 (more details at: Events). Image from 17 August; first and last slides; slide on European Parliament issues; more at Jamie Ehrenpreis’s Facebook siteGroup of participants after the 19 Aug. presentation; more by J. Ehrenpreis here.

Austrian Holocaust museum volunteer Adalbert Wagner set up power-point facilities, generously lent by the Green House Holocaust Museum. The organization of these lectures was assisted by VYI summer course participants  Dr Judy Freier, Dr Ilya Levin, Prof Abraham Lichtenbaum, Daniel Nemenyi, Dr Shimon Samuels, Berti Wagner. Larry Mandel, Daniel Nemenyi and  Martina Ravagnan for opened up their homes to one lecture each.

It is thought that the ‘Dirty Tricks Department’ of the Lithuanian government unit aiming to manipulate Jewish issues is planning for the Yiddish institute to become a PR tool of the government, with the Yiddish professor of Bloomington, Indiana brought over summertime and for select events to provide the necessary Yiddish Studies Cover for several weeks a year.


UPDATES HERE


Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Seminars in Secret at the Annual Summer Program in Yiddish when the Topic is Holocaust Obfuscation

Rachel Margolis Honored in Tel Aviv


A certificate of appreciation for Dr Rachel Margolis, issued by Great Britain’s Lord Janner of Braunstone, was delivered at the Dr Rachel Margolis event chaired today at Leivick House in Tel Aviv by its director, composer Daniel Galay.

The keynote speaker was Israeli ambassador to Latvia and Lithuania, Chen Ivri Apter, who awarded Dr Margolis a certificate of merit from the Israeli embassy in Riga. Tel Aviv schoolchildren who study Yiddish with Hannah Pollin-Galay presented a cultural program of song, and a gift of flowers to Dr Margolis. Other speakers included professors Israel Bartal, Dov Levin (Jerusalem) and Dovid Katz (Vilnius).

Images: Dr Margolis addresses the audience. After the event. Dr Margolis with Ambassador Apter. Photos by Leyzer Burko. Leivick House report on the event.

Posted in Dov Levin (1925 - 2016), Events, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Litvak Affairs, Lord Janner of Braunstone, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Yiddish Affairs | Leave a comment

Vilna Ghetto Victims Substituted for War Criminals List in the Baltic Times; VYI Chief calls the Association of Lithuanian Jews ‘Extreme Right-Wingers’


Part of a list of Jewish victims of the Vilna Ghetto (including fallen resistance hero Yechiel Sheinboim) appears in the Baltic Times instead of the captioned list of alleged Nazi-allied murderers (zoom-in).

The young foreign reporter was wholly innocent; a still unidentified source provided the wrong list. An obscure and ambiguous correction appeared the following week.

Moreover, director of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute Sarunas Liekis is quoted (misquoted?) in the article (column 2), as calling the last active group of Litvak Holocaust survivors in the world (the ALJ in Tel Aviv) ‘extreme right-wingers’, adding that ‘scholars don’t talk to them’. Although now aged, these survivors’ ranks still include prominent Holocaust scholars.

The Baltic trend to delegitimize Holocaust survivors and their supporters is part of the wider series of attempted conceptual realignments deemed ‘necessary’ to propagate the Double Genocide bandwagon, and obfuscation of the Holocaust, within the context of regional unltranationalism.


Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute | Comments Off on Vilna Ghetto Victims Substituted for War Criminals List in the Baltic Times; VYI Chief calls the Association of Lithuanian Jews ‘Extreme Right-Wingers’

Dovid Katz: The “Prague Declaration”: A European attempt to equate Communism with Nazism will falsify history



O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz

Reprinted from the Jewish Chronicle (London), 21 May 2009


Not many have heard about the Prague Declaration, which is currently making the rounds at the European Parliament. Proclaimed last June in Prague (but cooked up in the Baltics), its innocuous theme is “European Conscience and Communism”. Now who would oppose that? The heinous crimes of Communist regimes clearly merit full exposure. Victims deserve recognition. When the grand jamboree of freedom, fun and prosperity got under way for us lucky westerners in 1945, entire nations ceded to Stalin were condemned to totalitarian rule.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dovid Katz, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), EU, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Dovid Katz: The “Prague Declaration”: A European attempt to equate Communism with Nazism will falsify history

Parliamentarians Explain that Red-Brown Criminalization Law is Necessary to ‘equate the crimes of Soviet Genocide with the Nazi Genocide’


Delfi.lt reports that ‘in the Lithuanian legal system, acts regarding the the crimes of Soviet genocide, i.e. their denial or justification, are not criminalized, and, experts say, this is an obstacle in attempting to equate the crimes of Soviet genocide with the Nazi genocide’.  Full English translation.  BNS’s English summary.


Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Comments Off on Parliamentarians Explain that Red-Brown Criminalization Law is Necessary to ‘equate the crimes of Soviet Genocide with the Nazi Genocide’

Lithuanian Government’s Holocaust Conference in Jerusalem



by Dov Levin

This opinion piece, under the heading “Lithuanian Hypocrisy” appeared today in Haaretz. It reappears here by permission of the author, Professor Dov Levin of Jerusalem.

Last week I was caught in a debate with myself: whether or not to appear, despite the feeling of nausea, in a discussion with Lithuanian historians, writers and poets at the International Book Fair in Jerusalem. The idea made me so sick that in the end I decided to stay away and I also convinced my friend, former partisan and former chairman of Yad Vashem Yitzhak Arad, to excuse himself from the discussions.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dov Levin (1925 - 2016), Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yitzhak Arad | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Lithuanian Government’s Holocaust Conference in Jerusalem

Concept Inflation and the Criminalization of Debate



O P I N I O N

by Leonidas Donskis

This English version of the essay (the original Lithuanian text appeared in Lietuvos aidas, 28 November 2008) first appeared in the English edition of Jerusalem of Lithuania (Oct-Dec 2008, PDF here) and is republished here with the author’s and editor’s permission.


 

I have already written that we live in a period of not only monetary inflation, but of concept and value inflation as well. In our time oaths have become worthless, while formerly a person who broke one lost not only all of his own power, but the capacity to represent his values and to participate in the public sphere as well. Nothing, other than his own person and his private life, remained. He no longer had the right to speak on behalf of either his group, his nation, or his society.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Human Rights, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Concept Inflation and the Criminalization of Debate

State Prosecutors Defame Anti-Nazi Resistance Hero Yitzhak Arad while Closing Part of ‘Investigation’; Anonymous ‘Expert Historian’ Attacks Arad’s Book as Public is Asked to Provide ‘Evidence’


While closing ‘part’ of its ‘investigation’ against Holocaust survivor and eminent historian Dr Yitzhak Arad, the Prosecution Service of the Republic of Lithuania issues a public call ‘to the society [public] for assistance’ searching for ‘people who can give evidence or have important information’. More incredibly, the prosecutors’ press release attacks Dr Arad’s famous memoir The Partisan, a classic of Holocaust resistance memoir literature, on the basis of an anonymous ‘Doctor of Humanitarian Sciences (expert-historian)‘. And so, the prosecution service that never achieved the slightest punishment of a single Nazi war criminal in connection with the genocide of 200,000 Lithuanian Jews, leaves for posterity its call to the public for ‘evidence’ against the anti-Nazi resistance hero Yitzhak Arad along with a gutless attack on the scholar’s book based on an anonymous trasher. Perhaps the prosecutors’ mysterious ‘Doctor of Humanitarian Sciences (Expert-Historian)’ will muster the courage to come forward and identify himself for history?

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages, Yad Vashem and Lithuania, Yitzhak Arad | Comments Off on State Prosecutors Defame Anti-Nazi Resistance Hero Yitzhak Arad while Closing Part of ‘Investigation’; Anonymous ‘Expert Historian’ Attacks Arad’s Book as Public is Asked to Provide ‘Evidence’

Jewish Community and Union of Ghetto Survivors Speak Out Again on Harassment of Holocaust Survivors who Joined the Resistance



O P I N I O N

by Shimon Alperovich and Tuvia Jafet


VILNIUS, 1 SEPTEMBER 2008

AN OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY VALDAS ADAMKUS, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA

ČESLOVAS JURŠĖNAS, SPEAKER OF THE SEIMAS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA

GEDIMINAS KIRKILAS, PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA

ALGIMANTAS VALANTINAS, PROSECUTOR GENERAL OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA

 

The Lithuanian Jewish Community did not fail to notice the quite rapid reaction of the country’s President and Prime Minister, who urged law enforcement authorities and special services to find as quickly as possible the criminals (and their masterminds) who organized the attack on the LJC building in Vilnius on August 9-10.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Shimon Alperovich (1928 – 2014) | Comments Off on Jewish Community and Union of Ghetto Survivors Speak Out Again on Harassment of Holocaust Survivors who Joined the Resistance

British Ambassador to Lithuania Organizes Vilna Ghetto Walk Led by Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky


At the initiative of the UK’s ambassador to Lithuania, HE Simon Butt, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, one of the Jewish partisan veterans being subjected to “war crimes investigations” by Lithuanian prosecutors, was asked to give a talk and lead a walk through the streets of what had been the Vilna Ghetto during the Holocaust in Lithuania. Fania was incarcerated in the ghetto from its first day, 6 September 1941, through to its last, 23 September 1943, when she and Dobke Develtov (now of Los Angeles) escaped through a hole in the wall to join up with the Jewish veterans in the forests where both women fought heroically against the Nazis and their collaborators.

The participants in today’s event to honor Fania Brantsovky and, by extension, the Jewish partisans generally, were:

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UK Ambassador Simon Butt Organizes Letter from Nine Ambassadors to Rachel Margolis


The British Embassy in Vilnius today released a letter, organized by the British ambassador, HE Simon Butt, signed by nine ambassadors to Lithuania, to Dr. Rachel Margolis, now resident in Rehovot, Israel. The initiative comes in response to Lithuanian prosecutors’ campaign of defamation, harassment and attempted prosecution of Dr. Margolis and other heroes of the Jewish resistance against Nazi forces and their allies during the Holocaust.

The nine participating embassies are those of  Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ireland, Sweden the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

The letter is available as PDF and follows below.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Ambassador Simon Butt, Documents, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom | Comments Off on UK Ambassador Simon Butt Organizes Letter from Nine Ambassadors to Rachel Margolis