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Lithuania
Issues of the Day (Spring-Summer 2026)
Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Jewish issues in Lithuania (2025)
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Updates on Effort to Save Vilnius’s Old Jewish Cemetery from Plans for a National Convention Center
[LATEST UPDATE]
OPINION | YIDDISH INSTRUMENTALIZED FOR EAST EUROPEAN STATE PR | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 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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A Tale of Two Visions for a European Capital’s Old Jewish Cemetery
Which of these two visions for Piramónt (Shnípishok, today’s Snipiskes on modern, beautiful Vilnius) reflects true love of modern Lithuania? The historic cemetery restored or a convention center that would haunt the capital for centuries to come? DH images by Vulovakas of Kaunas (not to scale).
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May 12th Seimas statement and responses by DH (May 13) and state restitution sponsored official LJC (May 22nd):
- Seimas issues 12 May resolution setting in motion process leading to conference
- Rapid response on 13 May by Defending History
- Statement published on official state-sponsored Lithuanian Jewish Community site signed by chairperson.
- But for many years, chairwoman/LJC underpinned the very convention center project now objected to.
- The current LJC position favors the “compromise” of a “museum in the cemetery” which would inter alia have room for thousands at events as per the “Working Group” conclusions, since abandoned. The members of the “Working Group” and Prof. Sid. Leiman’s dissent (umentioned in gov. press materials).
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May 15th 2026 press conference with Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky and DH editor Dovid Katz:
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
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Sadness and Shock, as Famed Opera Singer ‘Sings in Yiddish’ at Free Concert to Promote Vilnius ‘Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery’ Project
OPINION | YIDDISH INSTRUMENTALIZED FOR EAST EUROPEAN STATE PR | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 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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OPINION
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VILNIUS—There was sadness and shock in the international Litvak community this week as news spread that famed Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Judita Leitaitė, a professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, was featured in the program of the free 18 May 2026 concert arranged to promote the project to situate a new national convention center in a Soviet ruin that lies in the middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery where many thousands still lie buried. The Soviets pillaged all the stones, but left untouched the graves that were not under the building of the “Sporto Rumai” building.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Dovid Katz on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Music, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Instrumentalization of Yiddish, Jewish cemetery in Snipiskes (Shnipishok), Judita Leitaite, Leitaite + Jewish music
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Translation of Speech by MP & Former Vilnius Mayor Artūras Zuokas at Concert Supporting ‘Convention Center in Old Jewish Cemetery’
OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 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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DOCUMENTS
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The following is Defending History’s translation of the transcript of the speech made by member of parliament and former mayor of Vilnius Artūras Zuokas at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences on 18 May 2026 (souvenir program). The original Lithuanian speech is available on youtube (courtesy of Willian Adan Pahl). The Defending History community continues to hope that the late London rabbi the former mayor invokes was himself deeply deceived by others in the name-out-of-Orwell “CPJCE” (Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe), a group exposed inter alia by Wikileaks for receiving secret payments for “supervising” the destruction of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, currently via plans for establishment of a convention center in a Soviet ruin where thousands would cheer, clap, drink and flush lavatories surrounded by thousands of Jewish graves, including some of the greatest Lithuanian rabbis of the last half millennium. See one of the historic complaints to the UK Charity Commission. The long-term damage caused by foreign Jewish groups who in effect “sell permissions” to destroy Jewish cemeteries becomes obvious from this citation at this rally all these years later. For the actual international rabbinic consensus see here and here. There is widespread agreement, moreover, that the “convention center in the cemetery” would not be happening if it were a five hundred year old cemetery of the majority ethnicity and religion.
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I’m sitting here listening and thinking: how on Earth does one bring such a constellation of musical stars to this hall on a Monday? I mean, Vilius, if you’re starting off like this on Monday, what’s your Friday going to look like? [laughter, applause]
Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, 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, Vilnius
Tagged Snipiskes Jewish cemetery
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Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky and DH Editor Dovid Katz at BNS Press Conference: Calling on Lithuania to Preserve Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery and Cancel ‘Convention Center in the Cemetery’ Project
OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 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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Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky (r.) and Dovid Katz. Photo: Lukas Balandis / BNS
VILNIUS—At a BNS (Baltic News Service) press conference today called by Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Vilnius’s one resident rabbi over the last 32 years, he was joined by Defending History editor Dovid Katz, former professor of Yiddish language, literature and culture at Vilnius University. Both pleaded with the Lithuanian government to preserve the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Shnípishok, modern Vilnius’s Šnipiškės section), where many thousands still lie buried. The oldest recorded stone was from 1487. They called on the government to abandon plans for a convention center and or museum/memorial complex, now planned for a dilapidated Soviet-era building (“Sporto rumai”) on the site.
Rabbi Krinsky pointed out that plans to “commemorate” the cemetery are a conceptual nonsense, given that the cemetery is there and needs to be preserved. Prof. Katz cited Vytautas the Great’s 1389 charter granting equal rights to Lithuania’s Jews, specifically mentioning the permanent status of cemeteries.
The event was covered by 15min.lt, alfa.lt, Bernardinai.lt, delfi, lt., kauno.diena.lt, LRT.lt, Lrytas.lt, madinvilnius.lt, nordisch.info, and vz.lt.
Rabbi Krinsky issued a much-cited statement on the cemetery in March. Dovid Katz’s writings on the subject are online in Defending History.
Posted in Chabad in Vilnius, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky
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Defending History’s Rapid Response to Statement from the Seimas on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGE OF 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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The following statement was circulated to Defending History readers today in response to the statement from the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament, on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Shnípishok, in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius):
Posted in 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 Jewish cemetery in Piramont (Shnipishok, Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, Snipiskes, Vilnius
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Protected: Let Us Together Restore the Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort in Lithuania
Posted in Germany, Gert Weisskirchen, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort
Tagged Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, German 45th Brigade in Lithuania, Gert Weisskirchen, Litauenbrigade
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New Documentary on Holocaust Perpetrator Glorification in Eastern Europe: ‘No Secret Monuments’
OPINION | FILM | ARTS | GLORIFICATION OF COLLABORATORS | HISTORY
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FILM REVIEW
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by Roland Binet (De Panne, Belgium)
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No Secret Monuments. Silent Statues and the Distortion of Truth.
A documentary by Paula Kirman and Adam Bentley.
The film’s website. Trailer on youtube. Announced on Film Freeway.
Having previously produced two documentaries related to monuments in honor of Nazis and their collaborators, Paula Kirman and Adam Bentley journeyed to the three Baltic States and to Finland in order to track and unearth monuments to Nazi collaborators displaying a hero-worship in these countries, eighty years after the war. In their own words, the purpose of the documentary is ‘exposing monuments that commemorate Nazis and their local collaborators.’ In the documentary, of one hour and twelve minutes, Kirman is our guide and narrator.
Posted in Arts, Film, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Roland Binet
Tagged Adam Bentley, Finland and the Holocaust, Holocaust in the Baltics, No Secret Monuments, Paula Kirman, Roland Binet
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Finally, View that ‘a Cemetery is a Cemetery’ Makes it into Lithuanian Media as Debate Sharpens on Fate of Vilnius’s Old Jewish Cemetery
Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky
The following is Defending History’s translation into Lithuanian of Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky’s statement of 11 March 2026, Lithuania’s Independence Day. The original English appeared the same day in DH, and on 17 March it was published in The Times of Israel. See also Professor Sid Leiman’s response from New York. For some weeks, there was no mention of it in Lithuanian language media, a priori rather curious given the rabbi’s thirty-two years of resident service in the Lithuanian capital. But by mid April there were cracks in the efforts to keep from Lithuanian language readership the very existence of the opinion that it is in Lithuania’s interest to honor, not humiliate, the five hundred year Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, not to reconstruct a Soviet ruin where throngs would cheer, drink and flush lavatories surrounded by thousands of extant graves of fellow citizens of Vilna. Would this even be contemplated if it were about a half-millennium old cemetery that was the resting place of the great scholars of the ethnic and religious majority?
The ice started to break with veteran journalist Arvydas Jockus’s article in Alfa.lt (16 April), a survey of views that exposed the misimpression that the state-financed official “Lithuanian Jewish Community” is somehow representative of Jewish views (whether local or international). Then, the Vilnius-area Vilniaus kraštas published a translation, on 22 April, albeit with a classic “biased headline” implying that the “purpose of the Jews” is to take away the Soviet Sports Palace. This was somewhat rectified by the publication of a Lithuanian translation with the correct author’s title, carried as a press release by BNS (Baltic News Service) and by Elta.lt, among others, on 24 April. Since 2015, Defending History has offered a section in Lithuanian on these issues.
Posted in 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, Vilniaus senosios žydų (Piramonto) kapinės Šnipiškėse
Tagged Arvydas Jockus, Piramont Shnipishok cemetery, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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Welcoming New Director of Lithuania’s State Jewish Museum
OPINION | MUSEUMS | VILNIUS | LITVAK AFFAIRS
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OPINION
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VILNIUS—For several decades, the Defending History community has been providing commentary on Jewish and history related museums in Lithuania and the wider region, primarily in our Museums section, initiated nearly eighteen years ago. Here in Vilnius, we have endeavored to give voice to sectors of modern Jewish (and sometimes non-Jewish) life whose views have had no other channel, especially since the closure, over a decade and a half ago, of the Jewish community’s long-beloved quadrilingual Jewish newspaper, Jerusalem of Lithuania, that was home to open and vigorous debate for decades, under the inspired editorship of the late Milan Chersonski. Ultimately, it was replaced by a PR type website dedicated to one view only, that of the tiny clique in control of the tens of millions of euros in restitution funding that has excluded the interests of today’s Jewish community, and its healthy diversity of views.
Posted in Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius
Tagged Emanuelis Zingeris, Jewish partisan fort (Lithuania), Jewish State Museum of Lithuania, Milan Chersonski, Sergejus Kanovicius, Sergey Kanovich, The Green House (Vilnius), Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History
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Back in the News: Remnants of Lithuania’s Last anti-Nazi Jewish Partisan Fort, Next Door to New German Army Brigade (Panzerbrigade 45)
[LAST UPDATE]
JEWISH FORT IN THE FOREST | FANIA YOCHELES BRANTSOVSKY | DR. RACHEL MARGOLIS | BLAMING THE VICTIMS
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It was known as “the Jewish fort” (or “the Yiddish speaking fort”) within the network of anti-Nazi Soviet partisan forest enclaves (the only de facto resistance to Hitler’s occupation of Lithuania, then in alliance with Great Britain, the United States, and the other Allies). It’s 100 or so occupants were all Vilna Ghetto escapees whose families were murdered and who went on to survive, and to become decorated heroes of the free world in the anti-Nazi resistance.
Then, after the rise of free, democratic Lithuania in 1990/1991, they become major educators whose last wish was that the Jewish fort’s remnants be preserved.
Whether coincidence or by sheer majesty of history (or: Higher Powers), the beloved remnants of the Jewish partisan fort have ended up abutting the massive new training ground of the German Army’s 45th Panzer Brigade arriving in Lithuania in the democratic context of NATO and the free world. It is a magnificent opportunity for Germany, and the thousands of young troops being sent “back east” to be educated and educate others about the Holocaust in Lithuania and beyond. Including — the extraordinary saga of Jewish resistance.
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Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (1922-2024) shows us where she and 99 other Jewish escapees from certain death in the Vilna Ghetto lived and fought the Nazis in this underground fort in the forest now right next door to the German Army’s new Brigade in Lithuania. Click on image for 2007 video. Fania explains that this was known as “the Jewish fort” within the wider partisan movement, and is so known in Holocaust resistance history. Yiddish was the everyday language of its 100 or so occupants.
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The new German Army 45th Brigade in Lithuania is right next door to the fort in the Rūdninkai forest (Yiddish: Rudnítsker vald)
Posted in 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
Tagged Ambassador Donal Denham, Ambassador Simon Butt, German Embassy in Vilnius, German Holocaust remembrance, Germany and the Holocaust, Germany's 45th Battallion in Lithuania, Jewish World War II partisans, Maceva, Rudninkai Jewish partisan fort, S. Kanovicius (Kanovich)
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Vilius Kavaliauskas Protests Plan for Museum in the Middle of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, Insisting on Congress Center
OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGE OF 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
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.
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 Old Vilnius Jewish cemetery (Snipiskes), Shnipishok (Shnipishok) Jewish cemetery at Piramont
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President’s Office, Vilnius Municipality, and Ersatz Jewish Community Leader in Yet Another ‘Agreement’ to Effectively Destroy the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGE OF 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
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.
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 Old Vilna Jewish cemetery (Snipiskes, Piramont (Shnipishok, Snipiskes (Shnipishok) Jewish Cemetery, Snipiskes cemetery
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Blaming the Victims: Documents and Sources
LAST UPDATE
(originally published 21 Aug. 2010). See also (older, not updated) Responses page.
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2025
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Preface
The campaign of defamation by Lithuanian state prosecutors and allied elites (particularly in the Genocide Center and the antisemitic right-wing press) has resulted in a number of cherished Holocaust Survivors being smeared as “war criminals” without a single charge ever having been leveled against anybody. Launched in 2006, the campaign, abusing tools such as “pre-trial investigations” and leaks to the media, have sought to brand as “war criminals” the heroes of the war against Hitler. It grew in 2011 with the addition of equally perverse “libel charges,” launched with fanfare when Interpol (!) was sent to disturb in Tel Aviv the elected head of the last active group of Litvak Holocaust survivors in the world. Then, in 2013, the state’s “red-brown commission” defamed one of Vilnius’s last survivors on equally perverse grounds, all the while putting on “Holocaust events” for naive Western audiences, usually funded by the (unknowing) Lithuanian taxpayer, in venues including London, New York, Toronto, and Vilnius.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Documents, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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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)
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:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Germany, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Remnants of Europe's Last Jewish Anti-Nazi Partisan Fort
Tagged Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, German Army 45th Brigade in Lithuania, Last Jewish Partisan Fort in Lithuania, Rachel Margolis, Rudninkai Jewish Fort Remains and German Army
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DH’s Social Media Response to Petition from 53 Elites Calling for ‘Convention Center in the Middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery’
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.
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
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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
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.
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 Shnipishok), Snipishok (Snipiskes) Jewish cemetery, Snipiskes, Vilna Jewish cemetery (Piramont, Vilnius Old Jewish Cemetery
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Ruta Bloshtein Asks: ‘Dear Mr. Yatom (Yusem): Did This Defamatory Circular Really Come from You?’
OPINION | VILNIUS | LITVAK AFFAIRS | STOLEN-DEMOCRACY OFFICIAL COMMUNITY | CHABAD IN VILNIUS
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by Ruta Bloshtein
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As a member of the very small religiously observant (Orthodox) Jewish community of Vilnius, and as someone born here in Vilnius, I at times feel it important to speak out publicly on current issues of Jewish life. I am writing this open letter first and foremost to express my public question as to whether a shameful document very widely circulated for several months now, purporting to come from the office of the official Head of the “Vilnius Jewish Religious Community” was indeed written by or approved by the personage whose name appears on top: Mr. Shmuel Yatom (whom I recall previously using the spelling Yusem), the official head of this “Vilnius Religious Jewish Community” that is financed by the restitution-fueled official so-called “Jewish (Litvak) Community of Lithuania” which has done so much damage to genuine Jewish life here in Vilnius, not least by dismantling its longtime democratic structure.
Could this libelous screed really have originated from the office of Mr. Yatom (Yusem), official head of the “religious community”?
Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Chabad in Vilnius, Lithuania, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein, Vilnius
Tagged Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community, Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Ruta Bloshtein, Shmuel Yatom, Vilnius Religious Jewish Community, Vilnius synagogue
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