Lithuania

Question in the UK Parliament on the Old Jewish Cemetery in Vilnius

Posted on 12 November 2015 by Defending History

UK / P I R A M Ó N T / O P P O S I T I O N / C E M E T E R I E S / D O C U M E N T S

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LONDON—At the initiative of Monica Lowenberg, Defending History’s London correspondent, UK member of parliament Gareth Thomas (Labour) tabled a question in the House of Commons (no. 14144) on 29 October 2015 on the planned desecration of the old Jewish cemetery at Piramónt (in the Šnipiškės district of Vilnius, Lithuania) by construction of a twenty-five million dollar national convention center. His question, and the reply by the current Minister for Europe, David Lidington, of 3 November 2015, are reproduced below (and available online).

Posted in Ambassador Simon Butt, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Gareth Thomas, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), United Kingdom | Comments Off

Vilnius Mayor Plays with Fire: Yiddish, Pilfered Jewish Gravestones, and an Olympics of “Barbarism”

Posted on 11 November 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N / C E M E T E R I E S / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L

by Dovid Katz

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VILNIUS—This city’s dashing young new mayor, Remigijus Šimašius, elected last spring, has now added Yiddish to the previously bilingual (Lithuanian-English) signs, wrought of expensive metal in rounded-edged casement, in times of austerity for pensioners and others in town. These signs are being placed near Soviet-era edifices made of pilfered Jewish gravestones (matséyves) that are a blot on this charming East European capital. This is the latest model featured on the mayor’s office website:

Photo: Vilnius Municipality / Mayor’s Office.

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Reformed Evangelical Church (Vilnius), Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged Jewish cemeteries in Vilnius, Lithuanian-Jewish affairs, mayor of Vilnius, Piramont (Snipiskes), Remigius Simasius | Comments Off

A Latvian-American Journalist in Riga Reflects on a Jewish Cemetery Saga in Vilnius

Posted on 10 November 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N / C E M E T E R I E S / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L

by Juris Kaža

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Riga based journalist Juris Kaža made the following observations in recent Facebook threads. They are collected here with the author’s permission.

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This is incredible. So the Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania became Home Depot for the Soviet-era construction industry? We need some granite blocks? Yo, take the Goldbergas family plot, there are five headstones! By the way, the big stone for Rabbi Whatshisname would make a great plinth, have it dragged here, please. Can’t somebody undo this bizarre mess, gather the stones and make an appropriate memorial?

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This is crazy. The Soviets ravage your cemetery after the Nazis kill your co-religionists and you get this for asking independent Lithuania to stop desecrating graves? They should do their best to restore the burial and memorial place and build their conference center elsewhere, not on the site already desecrated by the Soviets. WTF??

Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Humor (Of Sorts), Juris Kaža, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Comments Off

Lithuania’s State-Sponsored “Genocide Center” Whitewashes Yet Another Nazi Collaborator

Posted on 9 November 2015 by Defending History

[from the day’s front page]

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But many in Vilnius shocked as official Jewish Community website posts the statement with no comment (in English translation with “God’s honest truth” headline (PDF) following the initial Lithuanian report; But mishap could be editor’s error or work of local “mischief maker”. Simon Wiesenthal Center responds. Report in the Jerusalem Post. Jewish Community leadership then replied to critics.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages | Comments Off

Faina Kukliansky, Chair of Lithuanian Jewish Community, Issues Sharp Response to Latest Genocide Center Whitewash of a Local Holocaust Perpetrator

Posted on 7 November 2015 by Defending History

VILNIUS—The website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania today posted a powerful response by chairperson Faina Kukliansky to the statement released earlier in the week by the national state-funded “Genocide Center.” That statement attempted to whitewash the infamous Holocaust perpetrator and Nazi collaborator Jonas Noreika, and itself came as a response to a petition and series of articles last summer calling for removal of one of the public shrines to Noreika in the center of this city, the nation’s capital.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Faina Kukliansky, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Comments Off

No Surprise: Lithuania’s State-Sponsored “Genocide Center” Whitewashes Yet Another Nazi Collaborator

Posted on 6 November 2015 by Defending History

But many in Vilnius shocked as official Jewish Community website posts the statement with no response or comment (in English translation as well as the original Lithuanian); But mishap could be editor’s error. Simon Wiesenthal Center responds. Report in the Jerusalem Post. Community’s leadership replies.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Comments Off

Wiesenthal Center “Shocked at Whitewash of Lithuanian Holocaust Perpetrator”

Posted on 5 November 2015 by Defending History

JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized the website of the Lithuanian Jewish Community for what it termed a “brazen whitewash of the Holocaust crimes of one of the perpetrators of the annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry.”

REPORT IN THE JERUSALEM POST

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Efraim Zuroff, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Comments Off

Dr. Beata Nemcová, Slovakian Scholar at Vilnius Rothschild Conference, Speaks Out on Fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 4 November 2015 by Defending History

CEMETERIES OPPOSITION PAPER TRAIL ROTHSCHILD DH SECTION EU ASPECTS

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VILNIUS—Slovakian scholar, author and Jewish heritage specialist Dr. Beata Nemcová, a delegate at last week’s Rothschild Foundation London (Hanadiv) conference on Jewish cemeteries, has issued a statement calling on authorities here to move the state’s $25,000,000 convention center project away from the old Vilna Jewish cemetery, known as Piramónt, in today’s Šnipiškės district, to another location. The statement reads as follows (followed by a facsimile).

Posted in 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, Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues | Tagged Beata Nemcova, Piramont, Rothschild Foundation conference on Jewish cemeteries, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Vilnius Jewish cemetery | Comments Off

Strange Debate Over State-Sponsored Honors for Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika

Posted on 2 November 2015 by Defending History

Vytautas Landsbergis, Hero of Lithuanian Independence, Shocks Many with “Defense” of Holocaust Perpetrator Jonas Noreika

Icon of freedom struggle now attacks journalist Rimvydas Valatka (who supported a petition last summer for removal of a Vilnius shrine to the Nazi collaborator) and Defending History regular Evaldas Balčiūnas (for asking why Lithuania honors such Nazist figures). Balčiūnas’s rapid reply. Earlier DH appraisal of Landsbergis’s 21st century positions.

Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Comments Off

Rothschild Conference on Jewish Cemeteries Issues Press Release

Posted on 29 October 2015 by Defending History

Triumphant Press Release on Conclusion of Rothschild’s Jewish Cemeteries Conference Whitewashes Lithuanian Gov. Plan to Desecrate Old Jewish Cemetery with $25,000,000 Convention Center

KAUNAS RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY ISSUES PROTEST

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, Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues | Comments Off

Statement of the Kaunas Jewish Religious Community Regarding the Old Piramónt Jewish Cemetery in Šnipiškės

Posted on 29 October 2015 by Defending History

KAUNAS—Moushe Beirakas (Moyshe Beirak), head of the Kaunas Jewish Religious Community, which administers the city’s historic Choral Synagogue, issued the following statement today. The original is in Lithuanian, and the translation was approved by the author. [Update: A version of the English text appears on the community’s Facebook page.]

As Rothschild Conference Winds Up in Vilnius, Kaunas Religious Jewish Community Issues Statement of Defiance

Posted on 29 October 2015 by Defending History

VILNIUS—The controversial Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) London conference on Jewish cemeteries wound up here in the Lithuanian capital yesterday afternoon with a triumphant press release that seemed to suggest that there are no serious objections to a $25,000,000 convention center in the middle of the old Jewish cemetery (the release says little about most of the diverse topics and academic contributions that made up the bulk of the actual academically and culturally rich event). A dozen delegates contacted by DefendingHistory.com had no idea from one-sided conference presentations that there was a highly specific, budgeted-for decision taken for the multimillion dollar facility not necessarily appropriate for a historic cemetery where thousands of people’s remains are interred. They were under the impression that there is some consultative, respectful dialogue between the different sides. There was much more they were not told about.

Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues | Comments Off

Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaitė Completes Official Visit to Israel

Posted on 22 October 2015 by Defending History

LITHUANIA TRIBUNE / DELFI; JERUSALEM POST

Hopes Dashed She Would Announce Cancellation of “Vilnius Convention Center in the Old Jewish Cemetery” and Promise to Remove Public Memorials for Holocaust Collaborators

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok) | Comments Off

Asra Kadisha Calls on Lithuanian President, After Yad Vashem Visit in Jerusalem, to Cancel “Convention Center in the Vilna Jewish Cemetery”

Posted on 21 October 2015 by Defending History

NEW YORK—The Brooklyn based office of the international NGO Asra Kadisha that works to preserve Jewish cemeteries worldwide from desecration has released the following statement to coincide with the official visit to Israel of Lithuania’s president Dalia Grybauskaitė. Titled “World Jewry Hopes that Lithuanian President’s Visit to Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem will Result in Government’s Cancellation of Development Plans on Vilnius Cemetery,” it calls on the president to cancel the mass desecration of the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Lithuanian capital by a convention center where crowds would cheer, sing and drink surrounded by many thousands of Jewish graves. The old cemetery is in the Šnipiškės (Shnipishok) district, and is known in Vilna Yiddish culture as Piramónt. The Asra Kadisha statement reads as follows:

Posted in Appeals to the European Commission on Piramónt, 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 Asra Kadisha, Dalie Grybauskaite, Jewish-Lithuanian issues, Piramont (Snipiskes), Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, Rabbi Lazar Stern, Snipiskes Jewish cemetery, Yad Vashem | Comments Off

As Lithuania’s President Visits Israel

Posted on 18 October 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

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Posted in Dovid Katz, Events, Human Rights, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion | Comments Off

Rothschild (of London) Finances “Closed” Conference (in Vilnius) on Jewish Cemeteries (That May be Cover for Most Painful Desecration Yet of Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery)

Posted on 14 October 2015 by Defending History

OPPOSITION PAPER TRAIL HIGH INTRIGUE DH SECTION EU ASPECTS

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VILNIUS—Not for the first time, outstanding scholars and professionals are happy to accept a gracious invitation to a Jewish-topic international conference in this beautiful East European capital city that has for centuries been a symbol of the resilience of various minority cultures, including stateless cultures, to thrive side by side.

“HISTORY IN THE MAKING”

Delegates to a conference on Jewish cemeteries, held in Vilnius in 2015, can get to read the statement in 2015 on a certain Jewish cemetery by the Chief Rabbi of Lithuania of 11 years’ standing, for which he was dismissed a couple of months before the conference. Would the conference not wish to hear from the rabbi too?

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Christian-Jewish Issues, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory, Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues, Symbology, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad) | Tagged Alminas Maciulis, Anna Klein, Annemarie Grosse-Juette, Beata Nemcova, Carsten Wilke, Connie Webber, David Malkiel, Falk Wiesemann, Herbert Block, Joachim Jacobs, Jonathan Webber, Lesley Weiss, Lucia Apostol, Michael Brocke, Michael Lozman, Michael Studeman HaLevy, Monika Krawczyk, Philip Carmel, Philippe Pierret, Rabbi Abraham Ginsberg, Romas Jarockis, Rudolf Klein, Ruta Anulyte, Ruth Ellen Gruber, Sally Berkovic, Samuel D. Gruber, Stephen Reece, Susan Sandler, Tobias Ruetnik, Tudor Drambarean, William Gross, Witold Wrzosinski, Zuzana Berankova | Comments Off

Šeduva (Shádov): The Memorial Events of Friday 9 October 2015

Posted on 12 October 2015 by Defending History

E V E N T S / O P I N I O N

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

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On Friday 9 October 2015, the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund Society presented the results of their work on the project Lost Shtetl. There were, taken together, over two hundred visitors on the day. They included pupils of Vilnius’s Sholem Aleichem school and of the Šeduva high school, representatives of the Jewish community of Šiauliai (Shavl), Lithuanian Jewish Community chairperson Faina Kukliansky, the mayors of nearby towns, a deputy minister of foreign affairs, and ambassadors or embassy representatives of many countries, including the Netherlands, Japan, Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, and Ukraine.

Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Events, Japan, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl" | Comments Off

Run-Up to a Vilnius Rothschild Foundation (London) Conference

Posted on 12 October 2015 by Defending History

CONCERN SPREADING OVER “CLOSED [SECRET?] CONFERENCE” IN VILNIUS 25-28 OCTOBER FINANCED BY ROTHSCHILD FOUNDATION (HANADIV LONDON)! LIST OF SPEAKERS INCLUDES SPOKESMAN OF THE LONDON CPJCE “GRAVE TRADER RABBIS” BUT NOT ONE FROM THE MASSIVE INTERNATIONAL OPPOSITION

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, CPJCE (London), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Rothschild Foundation Europe (Hanadiv): Lithuanian Issues, USCPAHA (US Commission for Preservation of the American Heritage Abroad) | Comments Off

Lithuanian Government Announces Construction of a $25,000,000 Convention Center in the Center of Vilna’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Posted on 12 October 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N / H I S T O R Y / P I R A M O N T / C E M E T E R I E S

by Sid Leiman

The following is a reprint, with Professor Leiman’s permission, of his essay originally published on 13 September 2015 (Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah 5776) in The Seforim Blog. He is Professor Emeritus of Jewish History and Literature at Brooklyn College in the City University of New York. Russian versions have to date appeared twice, here and here.

Posted in 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), Politics of Memory, Sid (Shnayer) Leiman | Tagged Benzion Shalom Eliezer Freshwater, Faina Kukliansky, Jewish Community of Lithuania, Professor Sidney Leiman, Sid Leiman | Comments Off

Impressions of the 11 October 2015 Memorial Program in Svintsyán (Švenčionys)

Posted on 11 October 2015 by Defending History

VILNIUS—The following is an informal report on today’s Jewish memorial events in the Svintsyán (Švenčionys) region, posted by Dovid Katz on his Facebook page:
Continue reading

Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Dovid Katz, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Svintsyán (Švenčionys), Yiddish Affairs | Tagged Svencionys + Jewish history, Svintsyan + Jewish history | Comments Off

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O P I N I O N / C E M E T E R I E S / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L

by Dovid Katz

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O P I N I O N / C E M E T E R I E S / P I R A M Ó N T / P A P E R T R A I L

by Juris Kaža

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Riga based journalist Juris Kaža made the following observations in recent Facebook threads. They are collected here with the author’s permission.

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[from the day’s front page]

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Vytautas Landsbergis, Hero of Lithuanian Independence, Shocks Many with “Defense” of Holocaust Perpetrator Jonas Noreika

LITHUANIA TRIBUNE / DELFI; JERUSALEM POST

Hopes Dashed She Would Announce Cancellation of “Vilnius Convention Center in the Old Jewish Cemetery” and Promise to Remove Public Memorials for Holocaust Collaborators

O P I N I O N

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“HISTORY IN THE MAKING”

E V E N T S / O P I N I O N

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

CONCERN SPREADING OVER “CLOSED [SECRET?] CONFERENCE” IN VILNIUS 25-28 OCTOBER FINANCED BY ROTHSCHILD FOUNDATION (HANADIV LONDON)! LIST OF SPEAKERS INCLUDES SPOKESMAN OF THE LONDON CPJCE “GRAVE TRADER RABBIS” BUT NOT ONE FROM THE MASSIVE INTERNATIONAL OPPOSITION

O P I N I O N / H I S T O R Y / P I R A M O N T / C E M E T E R I E S

by Sid Leiman

**Scholars & journalists: When you use DH, please cite DH.**