Lithuania

Museum of The Lost Truth: A Lithuanian Drama

Posted on 5 October 2018 by Defending History

OPINION  |  MUSEUMS  |  SHEDUVA  |  POLITICS OF MEMORY  |  SHTETL COMMEMORATIONS  |  HUMOR (OF SORTS)

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by Evaldas Balčiūnas

Evaldas Balčiūnas informed the English speaking world of a series of state honors for alleged Holocaust collaborators, starting with Jonas Noreika back in 2012. He paid a hefty personal price for it (scroll down his DH section to 2014). 

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PREAMBLE

The Lost Shtetl is a massive, holistic project to reclaim the Lithuanian Jewish heritage of Šeduva (Shádeve, older Shádev). Plans include a multimillion euro state-of-the-art museum complex scheduled to open in 2020 that is slated to become an international tourist attraction. Now is an excellent time for public comment and observers’ contemplation.

“The Lost Shtetl” will not be a generic community of faceless Litvaks. It will make tangible the lives of real individuals. But will we learn about the real individuals from the town and its region who destroyed them? Their names and faces? Or will we simply tuck them away into the phrase: “The Nazis and their local collaborators murdered 664 Šeduva Jews in Liaudiškiai forest”?

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Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl", South Africa | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Museum of The Lost Truth: A Lithuanian Drama

Sept. 23rd Ponár Memorial and Pope Francis’s Visit to Vilna Ghetto Memorial

Posted on 23 September 2018 by Defending History

OPINION  |  EVENTS  |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  HOLOCAUST MEMORIALS  |  VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE

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IMAGE OF THE DAY: Elected chairperson of the Vilnius Jewish Community, Simon Gurevich, was not allowed past the security barrier, barring him from the Pope’s event to commemorate the Vilna Ghetto. At the earlier event at Ponár, he was not allowed to deliver his prepared remarks.

VILNIUS—The two major “September 23rd” events today in Vilnius were the annual commemoration ceremony at the mass murder site Ponár in the forest outside the city, and, later in the afternoon, Pope Francis’s visit to the small monument, its 1990s Yiddish letters faded beyond legibility, commemorating the Vilna Ghetto in an Old Town square opposite the city’s beloved Jewish Cultural and Information Center (JCIC). [See also Andrius Kulikauskas’s appeal to the Pope on the eve of his visit in connection with his visit to Lukiškės Square in central Vilnius.]

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Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Christian-Jewish Issues, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, 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, Politics of Memory, September 23rd Commemorations, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sept. 23rd Ponár Memorial and Pope Francis’s Visit to Vilna Ghetto Memorial

Can Pope Francis, in Vilnius, Heal the Blind at Lukiškės Square?

Posted on 22 September 2018 by Defending History

OPINION  | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH AFFAIRS   |  HISTORY  |  COLLABORATORS HONORED  |  BLAMING THE VICTIMS

 

by Andrius Kulikauskas

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Pope Francis’s two-day visit to Lithuania this weekend includes a symbolic stop at the Vilna Ghetto on his second day, September 23, at roughly 4 PM at Rūdininkai Square. On that day, 75 years ago, Nazi Germans liquidated the Vilna Ghetto, murdering some of its Jews in Paneriai Forest (Ponár), and moving the rest to concentration camps in Latvia, Estonia and Germany. Since 1994, it has been the National Day of Commemoration of the Genocide of Lithuania’s Jews. Now it will surely be linked in the Lithuanian psyche with this visit by Pope Francis, and perhaps some day, Saint Francis.

Pope Francis in the Lithuanian capital

However, his visit is also a chance for him to make plain to the children of God our lack of empathy for Lithuania’s Jews. A very short detour to the “Vilnius Sports Palace” — and a heavenly nod by the Pope — would let us tear down that “Soviet temple”, resurrect the holy Jewish cemetery beneath it, and enjoy a symbol of Litvak and Lithuanian friendship forever. This brings to mind the detour Jesus made in Jericho, when two blind men called out, “Lord, have mercy on us, you son of David!” And Jesus halted the crowd.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Can Pope Francis, in Vilnius, Heal the Blind at Lukiškės Square?

Ten Israeli Knesset Members Call on Lithuania’s President to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 16 September 2018 by Defending History

OPINION  |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION

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JERUSALEM—A 12 September 2018 letter from ten members of Israel’s Knesset (parliament) to Lithuania’s president, Dalia Grybauskaite, was released to the media today. The letter calls on the Lithuanian president to cancel plans for a national convention center in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery and to “find a reasonable alternative” for situating the new convention center.

The Israeli parliamentarians’ letter, at the bottom of this report and available from Defending History as PDF, comes on the heels of the recent appeal by three United States senators, and last year’s call in the same spirit by twelve members of the United States House of Representatives. An international petition initiated by a leading member of Vilnius’s Orthodox Jewish community, Ruta Bloshtein, has to date achieved 44,400 signatures. In addition Litvak (Lithuanian tradition) rabbis and rabbinical organizations internationally, along with many other writers from diverse backgrounds, have put in writing unequivocal opposition to the project. Within Lithuanian society, the two leaders of the movement to save the old Jewish cemetery from the convention center are both non-Jewish citizens whose writings and actions are an international credit to the country and its capacity for robust discourse. See the Andrius Kulikauskas and Julius Norwilla sections in DH.

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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) | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Ten Israeli Knesset Members Call on Lithuania’s President to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Summer 2018 Discourse on Proposed Removal of Plaques & Street Names Glorifying Holocaust Perpetrator Jonas Noreika

Posted on 10 September 2018 by Defending History

COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  |  BOLD LITHUANIAN CITIZENS SPEAK OUT  |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS 

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Lithuanian State Glorification of Holocaust Perpetrator Jonas Noreika Reaches New York Times

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AFTER

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Silvia Foti Boldly Confronts Legacy of her Grandfather, Jonas Noreika

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Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Summer 2018 Discourse on Proposed Removal of Plaques & Street Names Glorifying Holocaust Perpetrator Jonas Noreika

Lingering Discussions of Netanyahu’s 23-26 August 2018 Visit to Lithuania

Posted on 7 September 2018 by Defending History

ISRAEL PAGE  |  ISRAEL SECTION  |  LOWPOINT IN ISRAEL’S PROUD DIPLOMATIC HISTORY?

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Debbie Maimon in Yated Ne’eman on the “Pandora’s Box” Opened; Efraim Zuroff’s Critique of Netanyahu’s Acquiescence to Lithuanian State Holocaust PR Games

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DH’s Israel Page

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Ben Cohen’s Coverage  in Algemeiner.com Cites Three Defending History Suggestions for the “Lithuanian-Israeli Moral Agenda”

(1) Call for letters of apology for three Israeli citizens defamed for posterity by Vilnius prosecutors: Yitzhak Arad (b. 1926) and Rachel Margolis (1921–2015) and Joseph Melamed (1924–2017). All three fought with the Jewish partisans against the Nazis. Two of the three were decorated heroes of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lingering Discussions of Netanyahu’s 23-26 August 2018 Visit to Lithuania

Vilnius Jewish Community Calls on Lithuanian Gov. to Preserve Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery & Other Heritage Sites

Posted on 5 September 2018 by Defending History

LITHUANIAN JEWISH LIFE  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  CEMETERIES  |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH ISSUES

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VILNIUS—The 21 person democratically elected board of the Vilnius Jewish Community, representing the approximately 2,200 Jews resident in the Lithuanian capital, today released an approved English translation of its 29 August 2018 statement on Jewish heritage in partnership with a number of smaller regional Jewish communities throughout the country. The original Lithuanian text is available here, and appears at the end of this report below.

Those following the saga of attempts to humiliate the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery by situating a national convention center in its heart, will be encouraged by the explicit language concerning the project contained in the statement:

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, EU, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Vilnius Jewish Community Calls on Lithuanian Gov. to Preserve Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery & Other Heritage Sites

Grant Gochin Exposes Noreika’s Criminal Gang

Posted on 20 August 2018 by Defending History

OPINION  |  HISTORY  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

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Lithuanian citizen Grant Gochin, a Litvak born in South Africa and living in California, has relentlessly challenged Lithuania’s Genocide Center to tell the truth about Jonas Noreika, whom the Center maintains can be considered an anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi hero despite his role as a Holocaust perpetrator. Gochin’s 40 page Query Regarding Jonas Noreika’s criminal gang, submitted on June 15, 2018, is available in a PDF file which includes the Lithuanian original (pages 49-89), the English translation (pages 1-45), and an extensive list of source materials (pages 90-100). Jonas  Noreika’s granddaughter Silvia Foti also contributed a letter in support of Grant’s query (pages 47-48). The Genocide Center has posted its 18 page response in Lithuanian. On its website it warns that “G.A.G Gochin’s ‘investigation’ of J. Noreika, without providing substantial proof, possibly violating the Republic of Lithuania’s Constitution and the Republic of Lithuania’s Criminal Code, accuses many individuals […]”.

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Grant Gochin Exposes Noreika’s Criminal Gang

Mound of Gravel Appears at the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt

Posted on 21 July 2018 by Defending History

  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

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Photo: Julius Norwilla / Defending History

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Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Mound of Gravel Appears at the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt

Turto Bankas Discusses the Terms for Desecrating Vilnius

Posted on 15 July 2018 by Defending History

 OPINION  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

 

On July 2, 2018, at 11 AM, Lithuania’s state property bank, Turto Bankas, led an open meeting to discuss the rental terms for the operator of the Vilnius Concert and Sports House, previously known as the Soviet Sports Palace (Sporto rūmai), which the Soviets built on Vilnius’s oldest Jewish cemetery. The search for an operator is part of a plan by the Lithuanian government to remake the decrepit building as a modern convention center and a symbol of Vilnius. According to critics, the plan is senseless and the symbol shameful.

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Bold Citizens Speak Out, 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 | Comments Off on Turto Bankas Discusses the Terms for Desecrating Vilnius

Prime Minister’s Office Gloats Over “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery” Project in Reply to Plea from Vilnius Native Ruta Bloshtein

Posted on 15 July 2018 by Defending History

 HUMAN RIGHTS  |  LITHUANIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION

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VILNIUS—In March of 2017, Vilnius native and resident Ruta Bloshtein, author of the international petition on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that has achieved 44,000 signatures to date, presented a copy of the petition with a full list of signatures to the office of the prime minister. In June of 2017, she received a reply from the government restating the supposed justification for desecrating the five hundred year old Jewish cemetery on the basis of “permissions” obtained from the (allegedly corrupt) “grave-trading CPJCE rabbis” of London, who are currently under investigation in London.

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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), Politics of Memory, Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein | Comments Off on Prime Minister’s Office Gloats Over “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery” Project in Reply to Plea from Vilnius Native Ruta Bloshtein

Herbert Block Issues Public Statement on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 11 July 2018 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  USCPAHA  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION  |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  CEMETERIES

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by Herbert Block

 

I have been involved in Jewish community, heritage and Holocaust-restitution issues in Lithuania for almost two decades, through various professional and personal capacities. While I have worked on these matters in other European countries, I have a special interest in and bond with these subjects as almost all my family came to America from Litvak areas. In the past few years I have spent a lot of time on the issue of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery in Šnipiškės (Piramónt) and the future plans for the Sports Palace building which has been on that site for decades. I met with many rabbis and community leaders with vastly different views and no meeting or photo should be interpreted as an endorsement of any position.

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Herbert Block, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad) | Comments Off on Herbert Block Issues Public Statement on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Three U.S. Senators Appeal to Pres. Grybauskaitė to Spare Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 6 July 2018 by Defending History

CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION

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WASHINGTON DC—Three United States senators, Benjamin L. Cardin (Maryland, D.), Pat Roberts (Kansas, R.), and  James E. Risch (Idaho, R.) today wrote to Lithuania’s president, Dalia Grybauskaitė, appealing to her to move the planned national convention center away from the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery to another venue. It follows a similar appeal by twelve members of the American Congress last summer, a wide range of religious, community and religious figures and institutions internationally, and a recent statement to The New York Times by the elected head of the Vilnius Jewish Community, representing the vast majority of Lithuania’s surviving Jewish citizens. Vilnius native and resident Ruta Bloshtein, a prominent figure in Lithuania’s small Orthodox Jewish community, initiated a petition signed by close to 44,000 people internationally.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, United States | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Three U.S. Senators Appeal to Pres. Grybauskaitė to Spare Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Environment as Spiritual Capital: Restoring Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 5 July 2018 by Defending History

 CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  HUMAN RIGHTS  |  CEMETERIES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

Text of the abstract for a paper for the First Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences (BALTEHUMS), Oct 8-9, 2018, Riga, Latvia.

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We develop a concept of “spiritual capital” which has suggested itself in the public debate regarding the future of the Vilnius Sports Palace, a large forum which the Soviets built in the 1960s on a Jewish cemetery which is the oldest in Vilnius and perhaps all of the Baltic states. This concept of spiritual capital is relevant for analyzing cultural surroundings but could also perhaps ground a healthy human relationship with natural surroundings.

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, 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, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Environment as Spiritual Capital: Restoring Vilnius’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Landsbergis and Pavilionis Address June 23rd Rally in Central Vilnius

Posted on 23 June 2018 by Defending History

  JUNE 23rd MEMORIALS  |  EVENTS  |  OPINION  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  |  ANTISEMITISM

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by Julius Norwilla

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Today’s central Vilnius event celebrated the 77th anniversary of the 23 June 1941 “uprising.” Between fifty and sixty people took part. Half of them are members of the motorbike  club. The event was organized by the Lithuanian Seimas (parliament). The Seimas was represented by three MPs – Žygimantas Pavilionis, former ambassador to USA; Audronius Ažubalis, former foreign minister; and Laurynas Kasčiūnas. One of the speakers was the Roman Catholic priest and motorbiker Egidijus Kazlauskas who spoke about the suffering and the perseverance of Lithuanians when persecuted by deportations to the eastern Soviet Union. Vilnius city Mayor Remigijus Šimašius was not present, but he has sent his greetings via advisor Mindaugas Kubilius.

A guest of honor was Vytautas Landsbergis, the elder statesman who was modern democratic Lithuania’s founding head of state. In the new century he became a European parliamentarian dedicated to revision of World War II history, most famously via the Prague Declaration which he signed. The event was co-organized by the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Union (Lietuvos laisvės kovotojų sąjunga).

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, History, Julius Norwilla, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , | Comments Off on Landsbergis and Pavilionis Address June 23rd Rally in Central Vilnius

Meeting with Vilnius City Officials on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 21 June 2018 by Defending History

OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION   |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CEMETERIES

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by Julius Norwilla

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Earlier today, I had the honor to be one of three individuals from very different backgrounds who partnered to visit with the highest city authorities we could reach to plead for the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery. In the current situation, that means, pleading with authorities to move the national convention center projects away from the thousands of Jewish graves going back to the fifteenth century, so as to enable this amazing site in modern Vilnius to be restored to the city’s great benefit and reputation.

The meeting was initiated by Ruta Bloshtein, author of the international petition asking the Lithuanian government to move the convention center project (it has achieved around 44,000 signatures to date). The third participant was Rabbi Samuel Jacob Feffer, a major scholar of the Gaon of Vilna, who has been based in Vilnius for over a quarter of a century. He is co-editor of dozens of books of the works of the Gaon of Vilna.

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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), Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Meeting with Vilnius City Officials on Fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Vilnius Municipality Endorses Old Town Motorcycle Gala to Celebrate June 23rd

Posted on 21 June 2018 by Defending History

  JUNE 23rd MEMORIALS  |  EVENTS  |  OPINION  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  |  ANTISEMITISM

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With “extraordinary insensitivity” Vilnius Municipality again endorses Old Town motorcycle gala to celebrate June 23rd, day the Lithuanian Holocaust broke out (initiated by the LAF “heroes” being celebrated)

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Vilnius Municipality Endorses Old Town Motorcycle Gala to Celebrate June 23rd

Sources in London: Legal Action in Preparation Regarding CPJCE’s Betrayal of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 8 June 2018 by Defending History

UK  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT  |  PETITION   |  CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS  |  CPJCE

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LONDON—Reliable sources in London reported this morning that solicitors are being instructed by a group of international clients whose ancestors lie buried in the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt, in today’s Snipiskes district of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. For years, the Lithuanian government’s justification for planning to situate in the cemetery its new national convention project, confirmed on numerous occasions in writing, is the “permission of the CPJCE in London,” a group of renegade rabbis who have ignored the pleas of all other rabbinical groups, and all major Litvak (Lithuanian origin) rabbis internationally, to give “permission” for the convention center in the heart of the cemetery. When Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, the then chief rabbi of Lithuania dared speak up in opposition, in 2015, he was rapidly dismissed. In late 2016, Rabbis Kalev Krelin and Sholom-Ber Krinsky were among the first to sign the international petition (see also Rabbi Krinsky’s blog and DH section). Rabbi S. J. Feffer, author of dozens of learned books on the Gaon of Vilna, based in the city for a quarter century and head of its Litvak rabbinic authority, published a powerful ruling in 2017.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), 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), United Kingdom | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sources in London: Legal Action in Preparation Regarding CPJCE’s Betrayal of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

100 Jews from Across Lithuania Peacefully Protest Undemocratic Hijack of Official Jewish Community

Posted on 28 May 2018 by Defending History

VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE  |  GOOD WILL FOUNDATION

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VILNIUS—As covered sequentially by DH over the past year, the official “Lithuanian Jewish Community” (LJC) saw its democracy abruptly dismantled in the spring of 2017 with the mid-campaign rule-change whereby the three thousand or so surviving Jews of Lithuania were disenfranchised and their voting rights replaced by a roomful of “Jewish oligarchs,” most of whom are beneficiaries of funds allocated by the government’s Good Will Foundation. Some have two or three votes, some represent defunct organizations, and one, who has two votes actually lives in Brussels. Western observers have compared it with some irony to the original Zero Mostel version of the Hollywood film The Producers. In any case, the “election” was ruled illegal by the Lithuanian courts in a case that brought their judicial independence to the fore, to the nation’s great credit.

UPDATES: JTA REPORT

Observers have pointed to the dangers of restitution settlements with East European governments that end up destroying communities’ democracy and independence in the direction of becoming “Jewish PR” units for the state with massive glories falling upon one or a handful of “court Jews” who serve to showcase state policies to the outside world.

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), 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, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Comments Off on 100 Jews from Across Lithuania Peacefully Protest Undemocratic Hijack of Official Jewish Community

Professor Pinchos Fridberg Turns 80 in Vilnius

Posted on 25 May 2018 by Defending History

Happy 80th Birthday to Professor Pinchos Fridberg

Vilna-born Holocaust survivor, prominent physicist, author, Yiddish literature scholar, satirist, longtime director of a foundation for helping the Christian Righteous of Lithuania, Jewish community icon, and

Defender of History: DH’s 2014 Person of the Year

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Posted in Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Pinchos Fridberg | Comments Off on Professor Pinchos Fridberg Turns 80 in Vilnius