“Red-Brown Commission”


Section on the Lithuanian government sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania” that is housed in the prime minister’s office. For background please see:
(1) https://defendinghistory.com/red-brown-commissions
(2) https://defendinghistory.com/red-brown-commissions/critiques
(3) https://defendinghistory.com/chronology-of-a-debate

Sugihara Abused? Red-Brown Commission Ropes In Japanese Embassy for 11 Feb. Event



OPINION  |  EVENTS  |  JAPAN  |  RED-BROWN COMMISSION  |  POLITICS OF MEMORY

VILNIUS—Over the past decade, few foreign embassies in Lithuania have done as much as Japan’s to help ensure that the Holocaust in Lithuania is never forgotten and indeed, that remembrance events and educational programs feed into both national and international efforts to raise awareness and sensitivities in the cause of averting future massacres of innocent civilians.

Japan’s Holocaust remembrance achievements in Lithuania are manifold. From 2008, when state prosecutors connected to the Genocide Center began defaming local Holocaust survivors, Japan’s embassy joined with others in giving honor to the wrongly accused, including the 2009 “Walk in the Rain” organized by then Norwegian ambassador Steinar Gil. More well known are the embassy’s activities in commemoration of Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara, the inspirational Japanese humanist who saved thousands of lives by issuing visas in Kaunas in 1940 (enabling those people to flee Soviet rule directly, and indirectly from what was to come a year later, in 1941, with Hitler’s invasion and the massive local collaboration in genocide). One of the most important goes back to the turn of our century when the embassy participated actively, and generously, in setting up Sugihara House in Kaunas.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Games, Double Genocide, Events, Japan, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Use and Abuse of Sugihara | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Sugihara Abused? Red-Brown Commission Ropes In Japanese Embassy for 11 Feb. Event

Lithuanian Translation of Dovid Katz’s 17 April 2015 Vilnius Conference Lecture


O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

Note: This text is the Lithuanian translation, provided by the Being a Jew project, of the written text of a lecture from the 17 April 2015 conference on the Holocaust in Lithuania organized by Rūta Vanagaitė. The original English is here.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", 70 Years Declaration, Dovid Katz, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), EU, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Lithuanian Translation of Dovid Katz’s 17 April 2015 Vilnius Conference Lecture

Double Genocide in Action? Victims and Perpetrators Interchangeable



O P I N I O N

VILNIUS—Ronaldas Račinskas, executive director of the Lithuanian-government financed “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania,” widely known for brevity as the “Red-Brown Commission,” has revealed — on camera, to the producers of the documentary film Liza Ruft — his thoughts about the “war crimes investigation” into Fania Brantsovsky. The video clip of his statement was released today on Youtube.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Games, Double Genocide, EU, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Double Genocide in Action? Victims and Perpetrators Interchangeable

A New Book on the Kaunas (Kovno) Ghetto by Arūnas Bubnys



O P I N I O N   /   B O O K S

by Geoff Vasil

This small book, brought out in three separate editions (English, Lithuanian, Russian) by the state-supported Genocide Center, looks more like a brochure than anything else. The cover features the author’s name, in small type, above all else, then a larger Kaunas Ghetto, then a line with the years 1941-1944, against a backdrop of a computerized dark blue sky above a “tasteful” black-and-white picture of Jews lined up in columns inside Kaunas ghetto. The computerized dark blue wraps around the spine to the back cover where some vague lines comprise a hand-drawn map of the streets making up Kaunas ghetto, an ISBN number in white above UPC Bookland barcode featuring the same number again, and then a web address, www.genocid.lt.  I found myself staring at the internet address and wondering what language that was supposed to be. Lithuanian is always “genocidas” and “genocid” isn’t possible as any permutation or declension of the noun, and of course English is “genocide.” Perhaps it’s Russian in Latin-letter transcription? But that would contradict the nationalist and ethnic bias of the publisher, the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Lithuanian Residents where Arūnas Bubnys is a leading figure. Perhaps “genocid” is someone’s notion of a non-English and yet international form of the word, formed by reducing it from the Lithuanian nominative case ending -as? I checked my favorite search engine, and of course the Lithuanian organization’s webpage came up first, but was soon followed by a wikipedia and wiktionary entry for the Croatian word.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Bold Citizens Speak Out, Books, Double Games, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Geoff Vasil, History, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on A New Book on the Kaunas (Kovno) Ghetto by Arūnas Bubnys

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.

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Documents, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory, United States, Yiddish Affairs, Yivo Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Translation of a Yiddish Correspondence: The Vilna Holocaust Survivor and the Director of Yivo

Meilach Stalevich (1923 — 2014)



O B I T U A R I E S

by Dovid Katz

Vilnius has just lost one of its most powerful and authentic Litvak personalities, and one of the last Vilna-born prewar Jews still resident in the city. Meilach Stalevich, who was born on June 28th 1923 passed away peacefully during the night of 8 t0 9 November this month, in the middle of his ninety-second year, following a heart attack several days earlier.

For some who didn’t know him personally, he will forever be celebrated for his extraordinary soundbite in Wendy Robbins’ BBC radio documentary in 2010, when he was asked what he thought of the idea that the Nazi and Soviet regimes were similar in nature. In a few seconds, in the rich Yiddish tones of a Vilna native, he was able to debunk the current array of Holocaust revisionists rather more effectively than perhaps all of the academic efforts underway taken together.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Meilach Stalevich (1923 — 2014)

Defending History Brings Results: Yivo to Honor Arad (at Fundraising Banquet)



For First Time, NY Yivo to Honor (on Dec. 17) a Holocaust Resistance Hero Defamed by Lithuania’s Prosecutors

Event is for NY Yivo fundraising, but no Yiddish text included

HOPES RISE FOR LITHUANIAN GOVERNMENT PUBLIC APOLOGY TO DR. YITZHAK ARAD, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR, HERO OF THE ANTI-NAZI RESISTANCE AND ISRAEL’S WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, MAJOR HOLOCAUST SCHOLAR AND FORMER DIRECTOR OF YAD VASHEM

Yivo leaders manipulated by Lithuanian government PR operatives? Chronology of a crisis of confidence, 2011-2014 (in reverse chronological order)

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States, Yivo Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Defending History Brings Results: Yivo to Honor Arad (at Fundraising Banquet)

Could WJC get Ensnared in “Yiddish” as Cover for Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania?



O P I N I O N

A recent report, also available as PDF, suggests sudden and deep involvement of the World Jewish Congress in the Lithuanian government’s repeatedly documented use of Yiddish, Judaic studies and even Holocaust studies as means to advance — or cover for — state-sponsored Double Genocide revisionism with respect to the essential narrative of the Holocaust. The report has proven to be disturbing for the wider Holocaust survivor community and its supporters.

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, South Africa, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, World Jewish Congress (WJC) and ORT, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Could WJC get Ensnared in “Yiddish” as Cover for Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania?

Olga Zabludoff’s Comment on a February 2014 Yivo Symposium


 


The following 7 March 2014 comment by Olga Zabludoff on the video posted of the 14 February 2014 event at Yivo appears in the Comments section for her earlier article in the Algemeiner Journal, where readers can follow the entire discussion.


Many thanks to Yivo for posting the video of the discussion “Unresolved History: Jews and Lithuanians after the Holocaust.” In my opinion, the champion panelist was Leonidas Donskis who opened his heart with conviction and courage. As a Jewish Lithuanian his understanding of and sympathy for both Jews and Lithuanians have generated wise insights and pervasive truths. Among his magnitude of analytical comments to be applauded, Donskis explained that the Far Right in Lithuania has managed to get close to the center of power where they have been “mainstreamed” rather than marginalized. He also reflected on how difficult it is for Lithuanians who have decided to tell the truth. As a nation “we lack the political courage,” he remarked.

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Politics of Memory, The Great SLS About-Face, United States, Yivo Manipulated? | Comments Off on Olga Zabludoff’s Comment on a February 2014 Yivo Symposium

Pinchos Fridberg Takes On a State Commission in Lithuania…



VILNIUS—Professor Pinchos Fridberg today posted a Youtube video replying to attacks on himself by the executive director of the Lithuanian government’s International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Humor (Of Sorts), News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg | Comments Off on Pinchos Fridberg Takes On a State Commission in Lithuania…

Pinchos Fridberg Interviews Pinchos Fridberg


The following is a reprint of Pinchos Fridberg’s article in today’s Russian-language Мы здесь.


Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Bold Citizens Speak Out, In Russian, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on Pinchos Fridberg Interviews Pinchos Fridberg

Monica Lowenberg’s Discussion with Ronaldas Racinskas in NY’s Algemeiner Journal (Feb. 17-19 2014)



The following, in reverse chronological order, is the text of Monica Lowenberg’s two comments to Ronaldas Racinskas’s comment, all in the discussion following Olga Zabludoff’s article in the Algemeiner Journal on the Holocaust in Lithuania and a Yivo symposium in New York. These and other comments appear in the AJ‘s comments section.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Lithuania, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Opinion | Comments Off on Monica Lowenberg’s Discussion with Ronaldas Racinskas in NY’s Algemeiner Journal (Feb. 17-19 2014)

Another Panel at Yivo, Neo-Nazi Marches in Lithuania, and American Silence on Glorification of Nazi Collaborators



 

O P I N I O N

by Olga Zalubdoff

The following is the text of Olga Zabludoff’s op-ed published on 13 February 2014 in the Algemeiner JournalComments by readers are available at the original site of publication.


 

Yivo, Lithuania, The Holocaust

Nobody could love or respect the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research more than I do. It was founded as the Yiddish Scientific Institute in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1925. Yivo remains a symbol for all who cherish our Yiddish heritage and, now, its last prewar survivors. Through the years I have spent many wondrous hours at Yivo, digging, discovering, and learning about my Litvak ancestors, their shtetlakh, and their culture. Being there always felt like being home. The books and documents I handled seemed almost sacred. Memories of conversations with Yivo’s’s revered librarian Dina Abramowicz still make me smile. . .

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?, Yiddish Affairs, Yivo Manipulated? | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Another Panel at Yivo, Neo-Nazi Marches in Lithuania, and American Silence on Glorification of Nazi Collaborators

The “Double Genocide” Backdrop to Current Disarray of the Red-Brown “Platform”


This week has seen a further public and, in most assessments, vitriolic attack, from the president of the (Prague-based) “Platform of European Memory and Conscience,” the European Union financed body responsible for “enacting” the 2008 Prague Declaration, against one of its own founding constituent members, the (Prague-based) “Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes.”

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide, EU, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform", Sweden, The Czech Republic | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The “Double Genocide” Backdrop to Current Disarray of the Red-Brown “Platform”

New “National Council of Historical Memory” to Control Thought About History in Lithuania?


VILNIUS—Among other news portals in Lithuania, 15min.lt reported on 23 December that a group of nationalists in the Seimas (parliament) had proposed establishment of a new institution, the “National Council of Historical Memory” to set the “indisputable truth about historic events.” Coming on top of the 2010 red-brown criminalization of opinion law that has brought alarm from human rights circles in the European Union, this latest layer of state establishment of alleged historic truth would compound the damage.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , | Comments Off on New “National Council of Historical Memory” to Control Thought About History in Lithuania?

Raising Cain on the Resurrection of Abel



O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

 

And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Genesis 3:13

And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. Genesis 4:10

Driving east out of Rokiškis, fields give way to forest, and the lake country leads on to strange and wild hills in an abandoned quarter of the country bordering Latvia. The lake country is beautiful, almost alpine in its effect, and spotted with small settlements and villages of varying sizes, some even boasting gas stations and schools.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Arts, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Geoff Vasil, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rákishok (Rokiškis), Symbology | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Raising Cain on the Resurrection of Abel

Facebook Discussion (3 to 11 Dec. 2013) on a Nov. 2013 University of Toronto Event



Dovid Katz shared a link.
Friends in TORONTO and CANADA: Some links relating to the recent “Holocaust in Lithuania” symposium at the University of Toronto: https://defendinghistory.com/summary-coverage-of-toronto-24-nov-2013-symposium-on-the-holocaust-in-lithuania/61406 Toronto | DefendingHistory.com defendinghistory.com
Js Kopstein I was there. It was actually an excellent discussion. Lots of disagreement, lots of back and forth. Whatever the motives of the Lithuanian government, you really can’t characterize the event as one sided.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Canada, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Facebook Discussion (3 to 11 Dec. 2013) on a Nov. 2013 University of Toronto Event

Summary Coverage of Toronto 24 Nov. 2013 Symposium on the Holocaust in Lithuania



University of Toronto’s Centre for Jewish Studies is latest target of Lithuanian Government’s one-sided roadshow featuring the “Red Brown Commission”; Recent gigs in VilniusBerlin, LALondonPhiladelphia

But in addition to THREE Commission members, announced  panel also included Kovno Ghetto survivor and scholar Prof. Sara Ginaitė who challenged ongoing revisionism re outbreak of the Holocaust in the week of 22 June 1941

Continue reading

Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Canada, Double Games, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , | Comments Off on Summary Coverage of Toronto 24 Nov. 2013 Symposium on the Holocaust in Lithuania

“Higher Mathematics” of the Lithuanian Holocaust



O P I N I O N

by Pinchos Fridberg

NOTE: This English version of a recent piece by Professor Pinchos Fridberg (of Vilnius), translated by Lumilla Makedonskaya (of Grodno), is for our readers’ information. In the case of any doubt or matter arising, the original Russian text alone is authoritative.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Genocide Center (Vilnius), Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg | Comments Off on “Higher Mathematics” of the Lithuanian Holocaust

Vilnius Genocide Center Releases a New Graywash on the Vilna Ghetto



B O O K S    /    O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

The unfortunate and wasteful campaign of Holocaust obfuscation waged by certain East European state institutions continues apace. The level of investment continues to strike outsiders as puzzling, given current economic and cultural issues and the younger population’s clear focus on the future and a better life for all in the new and multicultural European Union. Here in Lithuania, the first victims of the government’s (rather Soviet-style) “genocide industry” are the hard-working people of the country who deserve more judicious disbursement of their nation’s resources. The state-sponsored Genocide Center has just released three simultaneous editions (English, Lithuanian and Russian) of a new book on the Vilna Ghetto by historian Arūnas Bubnys, its own “director of the Genocide and Resistance Research Department.”

 Dr. Bubnys is also a member of the state-sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania” (known for short as the “red-brown commission”). He was one of a minority of members of the Commission who refused to sign the (in the opinion of some, inadequate) letter of 14 October 2013 to Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Books, Double Games, Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), EU, Genocide Center (Vilnius), History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Poland, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Vilnius Genocide Center Releases a New Graywash on the Vilna Ghetto