Will Lithuania’s Leaders Let 25th Independence Day be Marred by Neo-Nazis Commandeering Capital’s Center?
Lithuania
Run-Up to the March 11, 2015 Neo-Nazi March in Central Vilnius…
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania, Vilnius
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On Eve of Planned Neo-Nazi March, Statements by Head of Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Simon Wiesenthal Center
VILNIUS—On the eve of the planned neo-Nazi march in central Vilnius, slated for 3 PM on March 11th, Lithuania’s independence day, the chairperson of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, Faina Kukliansky, issued a statement on the community’s website, which was followed within minutes by a statement from the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Director of East European Affairs, Dr. Efraim Zuroff. The full text of both statements follows:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, Efraim Zuroff, Events, Faina Kukliansky, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius
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Arkadijus Vinokuras: Again Twisting the Facts About Those who Stand Up to the Far Right?
O P I N I O N
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VILNIUS—It seems the best way for Jewish wannabees to score points with the ultranationalist and elite-antisemitic establishment here is to throw well-crafted darts at Defending History. Back in 2011, former clown (and outstanding comedian and talented author) Arkadijus Vinokuras, when he was “official advisor to the government on Jewish affairs” accused the editor of this journal of participation in “Goebbels-worthy” misinformation, without citing a single error of fact. At various points in time, he issued personal attacks against the late head of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, Dr. Shimon Alperovich, and more general attacks on the community per se when its opinions happened to differ from the state’s on this or that issue, though such disagreements are quite a prosaic phenomenon in democratic societies.
Posted in Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged Arkadijus Vinokuras
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Icelandic Author Calls on Vilnius Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HRMI) to Break Silence on Neo-Nazi Marches
REYKJAVIK—Dr. Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson, an historian, archaeologist and human rights specialist in Iceland and Denmark, who has in recent years contributed to Defending History, today released to the media his letter to the Human Rights Monitoring Institute asking if the HRMI will again this week maintain its perennial silence about the capital’s annual neo-Nazi marches on the March 11th independence day. The municipality of Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, has been granting the city center on independence day to neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists who have since 2008 been chanting each year exclusivist and exclusionary slogans as well as sporting racist and Nazi signs and symbols. In recent years, they have also featured huge banners honoring a local 1941 Nazi collaborator in the Holocaust who was in 2012 reburied with full honors by the state.
The neo-Nazi marches in central Vilnius on independence day got underway in 2008.
Dr. Vilhjálmsson’s letter reads as follows:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, Vilnius
Tagged human rights + Eastern Europe, Human rights + Lithuania, Human Rights Monitoring Institution (HRMI) in Vilnius, Iceland + Lithuania, neo-Nazi marches, Vilhjalmur Orn Vilhjalmsson
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Efraim Zuroff Appeals to Vilnius Mayor Zuokas to Cancel Neo-Nazi March
JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office today released the following letter from its director, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, to the mayor of Vilnius, Artūras Zuokas, concerning next week’s planned neo-Nazi march slated for the center of the city on the nation’s independence day.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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Translation of a Yiddish Correspondence: The Vilna Holocaust Survivor and the Director of Yivo
D O C U M E N T S
Editor’s note: The following is a translation of the open letter by Professor Pinchos Fridberg, a Holocaust survivor in Vilnius, and the reply by Yivo’s director, Dr. Jonathan Brent. Both were published in the Yiddish Forward (Forverts) on 1 March 2015. Prof. Fridberg has also posted an audio file of his reading his letter aloud in his native Vilna Yiddish. In the case of any issue arising, the Yiddish text is authoritative. For readers’ reference, hyperlinks have been added (by Defending History) to various of the documents and topics cited. See also the Pinchos Fridberg page and section in Defending History, page and section on the state-sponsored commission discussed, and section on Yivo issues.
September 2014 at Ponár, the mass muder site of Vilna Jewry: Three representatives of the controversial state sponsored commission on Nazi and Soviet crimes pay respects in unison: (from left): Dr. Jonathan Brent, Emanuelis Zingeris, Ronaldas Račinskas. Photo: Defending History.
D
ear Dr. Jonathan Brent,
I appeal to you in Yiddish. Do you know why? Because I believe, that a person who is the leader of the Yivo institute will understand me. My name is Pinchos Fridberg. I was born in Vilna before the war and am a survivor of the Holocaust. My grandmother and grandfather, and all our relatives on my mother’s side — 28 people — lie [at the mass murder site] Ponár.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Documents, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), In the Era of Yivo's 100th, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory, United States, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Dr. Jonathan Brent (Yivo), Emanuelis Zingeris, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Jewish community in Lithuania, Jews in Lithuania, Jonathan Brent, Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Kovno Ghetto, Pinchos Fridberg, Ronaldas Racinskas, Yivo + Vilnius + Lithuania, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Yivo Lithuania, Yivo Vilna Project
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In English Translation: V. Brandišauskas’s Classic Review of A. Liekis
D O C U M E N T S / B O O K S / H I S T O R Y
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The following is an English translation of a book review by Valentinas Brandišauskas of Algimantas Liekis’s Lietuvos laikinoji vyriausybė (1941 06 22–08 05) that appeared in the Lithuanian publication Genocidas ir Rezistencija No. 8, 2000, and is posted online.
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Review: A Doubtful Selection of “Frontists,” or, about One More in a Series of A. Liekis’s “Monographs”: Lietuvos laikinoji vyriausybë (1941 06 22–08 05) [Provisional Government of Lithuania, June 22—August 5, 1941], Vilnius, 2000, 428 pp.
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The negative predictions have been fulfilled, unfortunately, even beyond expectations. That’s what can be said about a news item that appeared in the Lithuanian exile community’s monthly Akiračiai regarding preparations by Lithuanian historian Algimatas Liekis, who did some work at the Lithuanian Studies Research and Studies Center in Chicago, to write a book about the June Uprising of 1941 and the Provisional Government (PG). Recalling the historian’s past (“during the Soviet era […] he was the komsorg [Communist Youth Party minder] in the Soviet navy, Party secretary of the History Institute of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic…”) and doubting his reputation as an academic, it was said that “Frontist successors” to the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) had invited Liekis
“to write a book that would help the Lithuanian parliament push through the legislation needed to ‘legalize’ the Provisional Government and to proclaim the day of the uprising a national holiday.”
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Books, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Valentinas Brandišauskas, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
Tagged Algimantas Liekis, LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front), Liekis + Brandisauskas, Provisional Government of Lithuania (1941), Valentinas Brandisauskas
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Chairperson of the Jewish Community on the Commemoration Event at Auschwitz
The following statrement appeared today on the website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania:
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Commentary by Faina Kukliansky, chair of the Lithuanian Jewish Community
Auschwitz in the winter, during International Holocaust Day, was as moving as the Holocaust survivors who met here. My thoughts swirled around the people who are still alive. In Lithuania the only still living survivor is Meyshe Preis, who through some sort of miracle survived the Auschwitz, Stutthoff and Dachau concentration camps. His poor health didn’t allow him to attend the commemoration of Auschwitz victims on January 27. Kings, queens and heads of state did attend. I want the people of Lithuania, her politicians and high-ranking civil servants, and especially her decision makers, to understood that a trip to Auschwitz is not the same thing as travelling to Brussels for the usual meeting.
Posted in Faina Kukliansky, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion
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Lithuanian Jewish Community Issues Statement on Feb 16th 2015 March in Kaunas
The following statement appeared today on the website of the Jewish Commnity of Lithuania:
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The Position of the Lithuanian Jewish Community on the Slogan Chanted by the Lithuanian Union of Nationalist Youth, “Lithuania for Lithuanians”
The Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community, deeply upset and concerned by recent anti-Semitic attacks in the Kingdom of Denmark and France and by the rise in neo-Nazi tendencies all over Europe, calls upon the government institutions of the Lithuanian state to take stock of the situation in Lithuania at the current time. By identifying the problem of ethnic hate early, we can prevent possible tragedy in the future.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Faina Kukliansky, Human Rights, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion
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Efraim Zuroff Leads Kaunas Protest
Event Summary and Links to Coverage:
Defending History’s Team of 12 Monitors & Protests Kaunas Independence Day Neo-Nazi March on Feb. 16th
Lithuanian Jewish Community Issues Statement on Feb. 20th
MARCH FEATURED LONG SERIES OF FASCIST-STYLE TAUNTS OF LIETUVA LIETUVIAMS (“LITHUANIA FOR [ETHNIC] LITHUANIANS”) ALONG WITH SWASTIKAS, OTHER FASCIST SYMBOLS AND A HUGE BANNER OF THE 1941 NAZI PUPPET PM WHO COLLABORATED IN THE DESTRUCTION OF HIS CITY’S CITIZENS WHO WERE JEWISH. MAYOR’S OFFICE GAVE PERMITS FOR CITY CENTER TRAVESTY ON NATION’S INDEPENDENCE DAY.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion
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February 16th 2015 in Kaunas…
E Y E W I T N E S S A C C O U N T / O P I N I O N
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
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February 16th in Kaunas. The Kaunas municipal administration was asked by the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff and Defending History’s editor Dovid Katz not to allow this march for a number of reasons. The Kaunas municipality saw no problem and allowed the march to go ahead. As in earlier years, a Defending History team observed the march. The Kaunas Antifa organization decided not to hold a protest this year, so I was at liberty to be present as part of the DefendingHistory team.
Posted in Evaldas Balčiūnas, Events, Kaunas, Lithuania, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Swastikas in Lithuania
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Translation of Lithuanian News Report on Recent Statements by Genocide Center’s Director
Editor’s note: This article has been translated for our readers at the suggestion of Professor Pinchos Fridberg, whose note to us (here translated from the original Yiddish) reads: “As a Holocaust survivor, I respectfully request that Defending History arrange for translation and publication of this article, in which the director-general of the Genocide Center in Vilnius is quoted as saying that ‘Not all people who contributed to the Holocaust should be considered murderers of Jews’.”
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
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Defending History’s Eyewitness Report on Kaunas, February 16, 2015
Wiesenthal Center – Defending History Team of 12 Monitors & Protests Kaunas Independence Day Neo-Nazi March
UPDATE:
Lithuanian Jewish Community Issues Statement on Feb. 20th
MARCH FEATURED LONG SERIES OF FASCIST-STYLE TAUNTS OF LIETUVA LIETUVIAMS (“LITHUANIA FOR [ETHNIC] LITHUANIANS”) ALONG WITHSWASTIKAS, OTHER FASCIST SYMBOLS AND A HUGE BANNER OF THE 1941 NAZI PUPPET PM WHO COLLABORATEDIN THE DESTRUCTION OF HIS CITY’S CITIZENS WHO WERE JEWISH. MAYOR’S OFFICE GAVE PERMITS FOR CITY CENTER TRAVESTY ON NATION’S INDEPENDENCE DAY.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Kaunas, Lithuania, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania
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Run-Up to the 16 Feb. 2015 Neo-Nazi March in Central Kaunas
Baltic Nazi-Glorifying Marching Season Underway
COME JOIN US IN KAUNAS, MONDAY 16 FEB. at 1 PM (1300), AT RAMYBĖS PARK, TO MONITOR, SILENTLY PROTEST, & REMEMBER THE CITY’S MORE THAN 30,000 MURDERED JEWISH CITIZENS.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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A Baltic Month of Neo-Nazi Events (from February 16th to March 16th)
Baltic Nazi-Glorifying Marching Season Underway
COME JOIN US IN KAUNAS, MONDAY 16 FEB. at 1 PM (1300), AT RAMYBĖS PARK, TO MONITOR, SILENTLY PROTEST, & REMEMBER THE CITY’S MORE THAN 30,000 MURDERED JEWISH CITIZENS.
WIESENTHAL CENTER’S EFRAIM ZUROFF FLYING IN TO MONITOR EVENT AND LEAD PEACEFUL PROTEST; HIS LETTER TO KAUNAS MAYOR; OBZOR; DELFI.LT; KAUNO DIENA; ALKAS.LT
DH’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH KAUNAS MAYOR’S OFFICE. FOR THE RECORD:ISRAELI HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS’ LETTER OF 2013.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Estonia, EU, Kaunas, Latvia, Lithuania, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, Swastikas in Lithuania
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Correspondence with Kaunas Mayor’s Office to 13 February 2015
D O C U M E N T S
Below, (1) the text of DH’s letter to the mayor of Kaunas on 3 February, (2) the response received from his office on 11 February, (3) our response of the same date, and (4) the response from the mayor’s office received on 13 February and (5) our response of the same date. The correspondence relates to the annual neo-Nazi march planned for 16 February 2015 in central Kaunas. See also section on previous marches, and our 3 February 2015 correspondence with the Kaunas police. Note that a banner featuring a major Kaunas Holocaust collaborator, the Nazi puppet prime minister Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis (reburied with full honors as a hero in Kaunas, in 2012), is depicted in a 2014 photograph used by the march’s organizers to advertise the 2015 event.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Swastikas in Lithuania
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Kaunas, Mayor Andrius Kupcinskas, neo-Nazi marches in Lithuania
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Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff Writes to Mayor of Kaunas on Neo-Nazi March
JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office here today released the text of a letter sent by director Dr. Efraim Zuroff to the mayor of Kaunas, Lithuania, Andrius Kupčinskas, concerning the neo-Nazi march scheduled for February 16th. See also Defending History’s correspondence with the mayor’s office and our background summary.
SEE EXTENDED COVERAGE ON PAGE 1
The text of the letter is as follows:
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February 12, 2015
Meras Andrius Kupčinskas
Laisves al. 96 201 kab.
Kaunas
LITHUANIA
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Dear Mayor Kupčinskas,
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Events, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged Andrius Kupcinskas, Efraim Zuroff, February 16th in Kaunas, Holocaust in Lithuania, Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, mayor of Kaunas, neo-Nazis in Lithuania, Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office
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Correspondence with Kaunas Mayor’s Office to 11 February 2015
D O C U M E N T S
Below, (1) the text of DH’s letter to the mayor of Kaunas, (2) the response received today from his office, and (3) our further response, in connection with the annual neo-Nazi march planned for 16 February 2015 in central Kaunas. See also section on previous marches, and our 3 February 2014 correspondence with the Kaunas police. Note that a banner featuring a major Kaunas Holocaust collaborator, the Nazi puppet prime minister Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis (reburied with full honors as a hero in Kaunas, in 2012), is depicted in a 2014 photograph used by the march’s organizers to advertise the 2015 event.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Documents, EU, Events, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Swastikas in Lithuania
Tagged Ambrazevicius Brazaitis, Holocaust in Lithuania, Kaunas neo-Nazi march 2015
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Is the Holocaust Going to Drown in a Sea of “European Tolerance?”
O P I N I O N
by Pinchos Fridberg
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NOTE: The following is an English version of Prof. Fridberg’s Russian op-ed, posted earlier today. In the event of any query or issues, the Russian text alone is authoritative.
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Is the Holocaust drowning in a sea of “European tolerance”? I love humor. Especially black humor.
Yesterday afternoon the largest Russian-language newspaper in Lithuania, Obzor, reprinted the article, “Museum in Tartu, Estonia Invites Visitors to Come Laugh at the Holocaust” [The affair has been covered in English by the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, among others].
Posted in Bandera, Estonia, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged Bandera, Hollywood-Holocaust / Bandera-Bandit, Holocaust Drowning in Sea of European Tolerance, Holocaust in Estonia, P'inchos Fridberg + Holocaust, Pinchos Fridberg, Pinchos Fridberg + Bandera, Pinchos Fridberg + Estonia
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Последняя книга поэта А.Босаса
МНЕНИЕ
Милан Херсонский
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Вянваре прошлого, 2014-го года из печати вышла новая книга стихов литовского поэта, публициста, члена Международной ассоциации «Литва без нацизма» Александраса Босаса под названием «IŠ TEN SUGRĮŽTANTIEMS. Apie ŠOA RIMTAI IR SU IRONIJA» («ТЕМ, КТО ВОЗВРАЩАЕТСЯ ОТТУДА. О ШОА СЕРЬЁЗНО И С ИРОНИЕЙ». 
Далее «Тем, кто возвращается оттуда» – М.Х.). А.Босас стал первым в истории литовской литературы поэтом, который не только обратился к самой болезненной и негласно табуированной теме в истории Литвы – к теме Шоа, – но и посвятил ей не одно и не несколько стихотворений, а всю третью, к сожалению, последнюю книгу. В ней поэт не шопотом и не намёками, а «во весь голос» открыто и откровенно заявил о своём отношении к трагедии Шоа и так называемого «окончательного решения еврейского вопроса».
В годы нацистской оккупации германские нацисты при активной добровольной помощи весьма значительного количества организованных и вооружённых местных гражданских лиц, вступивших в военизированные подразделения полиции, уничтожили почти всю еврейскую общину, которая до Второй мировой войны была самой знаменитой и высокоразвитой общиной всемирной еврейской диаспоры в первой половине ХХ века. Евреи представляли в Литве самое многочисленное национальное меньшинство населения. Еврейская община жила в мире и согласии с местным литовским, польским, русским населением, с другими национальными группами.
Posted in Arts, In Russian, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021)
Tagged Aleksandras Bosas, Holocaust in Lithuania, Milan Chersonski, Александрас Босас, Милан Херсонский
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