“Red-Brown Commission”
Part of the Red-Brown Commission Writes to Yitzhak Arad
Keep the Local History Out of Mind?
REVIEW OF KEEP ME IN MIND
by Geoff Vasil
The Contemporary Art Center’s reading room in Vilnius is hosting an unusual-for-Lithuania Holocaust event called Keep Me in Mind. Briefly, visitors are invited to wander among different tables where good-looking and polite people await them with small boxes and sheaves of papers. When you sit down the narrator at the table tells the story of an individual Holocaust survivor, from childhood to the present. Almost all of the survivors seem to now live in Haifa, Israel. One survivor, Benjamin Ginzburg, came from Vilnius.
An Old Jew From Vilna Writes a Letter to Moshe Rabeinu
O P I N I O N
by Pinchos Fridberg
Some facts
In 1998 the “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania” was established by Lithuanian presidential decree.
The commission is directed in tandem by Emanuelis Zingeris and Ronaldas Račinskas. The former is the commission’s chairman and a Conservative MP in the Lithuanian Seimas, while the latter is the commission’s executive director. The Lithuanian Jewish Community has no representation on the commission.
Seno vilniečio žydo laiškas Mošai Rabeinu
Pinchos Fridberg
Keletas faktų
1998 metais Lietuvos Respublikos Prezidento dekretu buvo įkurta „Tarptautinė komisija nacių ir sovietinio okupacinių režimų nusikaltimams Lietuvoje įvertinti“. Komisijai vadovauja tandemas E.Zingeris — R.Račinskas: pirmasis iš jų — pirmininkas, Lietuvos Seimo narys, konservatorius, antrasis — vykdantysys direktorius. Lietuvos žydų bendruomenė komisijoje neturi savo atstovo.
Red-Brown Commission’s PR Roadshow Heads for Philadelphia PA Gig on November 10th
Three members of the Lithuanian government’s renewed “Red-Brown Commission” are to headline its next American PR event, scheduled for Philadelphia on 10 November. The Commission is widely seen as one of the politico-academic engines of Holocaust revisionism in the European Union in the spirit of “Double Genocide.” Moreover the body publicly supports the (2008) Prague Declaration, the “bible” of the Double Genocide movement. Its website does not mention existence of the European parliamentary rejoinder, the (2012) Seventy Years Declaration, signed by seventy-one EU parliamentarians, including six courageous MPs and MEPs from Lithuania.
Яд Вашем и «Два геноцида»
O P I N I O N
Authorized translation into Russian by Milan Chersonski of Danny Ben-Moshe’s op-ed, Yad Vashem and the “Two Genocides” in the 26 August 2013 edition of Jerusalem Report.
Данни Бен-Моше
Яд Вашем и «Два геноцида»
Восточно-европейские политики, переписывая историю Холокоста, создают «двумя геноцидами» угрозу деятельности Яд Вашем по сохранению памяти о Холокосте
Я помню своё первое посещение Яд Вашем, когда 16-летним подростком я оказался в Иерусалиме. Он произвел на меня глубокое впечатление, можно сказать, потряс меня. Когда я уходил оттуда, к лацкану моего пиджака был приколот значок со словом «Захор», что на иврите значит – «Память».
Correspondence on a Forthcoming Event in Vilnius
Editor’s note: Professor Pinchos Fridberg today released for publication the following email exchange. His most recent publication on the issue at hand is “Lithuania paying with its image for an official’s ambitions” which has appeared in Russian (English translation here; background).
Translation into English of Professor Pinchos Fridberg’s Article of 9 April 2013
The following, for readers’ reference, is a translation of Professor Pinchos Fridberg’s article that appeared in Russian in Zman.com (on 9 April 2013). It was reprinted in Obzor and Shofar7.
Lithuania is Paying with its Image for an Official’s Ambitions
Lithuania Propaganda Agency is On The Road Again
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
This opinion piece and eyewitness report by Geoff Vasil relates to the July 10th event in honor of the Red-Brown Commission held at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library. See related reports on the library’s instrumentalization as a PR platform for the Commission and the more or less contemporaneous announcement of the Commission’s resumed activities, in the absence of apologies to Yitzhak Arad, Pinchos Fridberg, and the other accused Holocaust survivors.
A Library with an Agenda? Bringing American Naifs On Board the Ultranationalists’ Baltic Holocaust Distortion Train?
SUMMARY COVERAGE OF “VILNIUS JEWISH PUBLIC LIBRARY” EVENTS TO 19 JULY 2013:
Wyman Brent’s prophecy fulfilled?
Vexed Revival of “Red-Brown Commission”
State-sponsored Zingeris-Račinskas “red-brown commission” (officially: International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania) in Vilnius posts new list of members.
See also:
Page on the commission
Critiques of the commission and its associated Prague Declaration
DH section on the commission.
Resignations to date from Commission-related bodies include Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Sir Martin Gilbert (London), Prof. Gershon Greenberg (Washington DC), Prof. Konrad Kwiet (Sydney) and Prof. Dov Levin (Jerusalem).
Holocaust survivors themselves have stood up to express disquiet about some aspects of the commission: Yitzhak Arad, Pinchos Fridberg (more), Dov Levin (more), Joseph Melamed (more), Basheva Ran, the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Jewish Community of Lithuania / Union of Ghetto Survivors. A decade and a half of issues.
Chief Lithuanian Bureaucrat/Historian Rehabilitates Nation’s Quislings, Again
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
In an interview posted on the Delfi website on June 21, 2013, Lithuanian government historian Arūnas Bubnys, head of department for the Orwellian- or even Kafkaesque-sounding Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of the Residents of Lithuania, once again lent support to the pro-Nazi Lithuanian Quisling government that seized power on June 23, 1941.
The interview, titled “Lithuanian Historian: June Uprising was Rehabilitation for Shameful Surrender to Soviets,” is available here. An English translation is provided here.
What follows is my commentary on that interview.
A Lively Conference in Riga
[updated 12 June 2013]
Was a goodwill opportunity squandered when the director general of the Vilnius based “red-brown” commission used his lecture time (at the Riga conference on Holocaust commemoration in post-Communist countries) for personal remarks (with inaccurate comments about the editor of Defending History)?
MULTIMEDIA RECORD OF EVENTS: VIDEO OF RONALDAS RAČINSKAS’S (28 MAY) LECTURE (in Russian) IN RESPONSE TO DOVID KATZ’S (27 MAY) LECTURE (PDF OF HIS PP; VIDEO PROVIDED BY THE CONFERENCE; PARTIAL IPHONE VIDEO [BY JOE KOREN] ).
UPDATES:
Edward Jacobs in the Huffington Post (31 May 2013)
More materials (including videos of the entire conference) posted by conference organizers; videos also on YouTube (12 June 2013)
In the meantime there has been no apology to the Vilnius Holocaust Survivor the state-sponsored commission called a liar on its website (in 2013), or to its own founding member Yitzhak Arad. Resignations on principle from the commission and its associated committees include Sir Martin Gilbert, Prof. Gershon Greenberg, Prof. Konrad Kwiet, and Prof. Dov Levin. The state-sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania” continues to flaunt the Prague Declaration on its website, in both Lithuanian and English.
SEE ALSO: Milan Chersonski’s Riga conference paper (27 May) “Rehabilitation of the Past as a Tool of Modern Politics” (authorized English translation). Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij) edited the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper Jerusalem of Lithuania from 1999 to the paper’s demise in 2010-2011. See our Milan Chersonski section. His publications in Defending History represent his own views.
RELATED:
Critiques of the commission
DH section on the commission
Isn’t it Time for the Author of the Myth to Apologize?
O P I N I O N
by Pinchos Fridberg (Vilnius)
Editor’s note: This article was first published by Professor Fridberg in Russian in Мы здесь. The following translation, by Ludmila Makedonskaya, was commissioned by Defending History, and it appears with Professor Fridberg’s permission, and with Defending History’s sole responsibility for the translation. The original text is authoritative in any instance of doubt or nuance.
Dear Editor,
On December 13th, 2012, the portal Zman.com published my article (in Russian) “Instead of the Truth About the Holocaust — Myths About Saving Jews.” It was republished by a number of websites including Newswe.com. I sent a picture and added one important phrase specifically for your site. The fundamental point: the article was republished (in Russian and in English) by the official site of the Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC).
Instead of an immediate public apology for providing unreliable information and closing the matter, they started looking for a way to discredit me personally. You will ask why? My answer is because the article ends with three not very convenient questions. I should pay tribute to the Lithuanian journalist Račas who did not remain in the background, but answered very straightforwardly and simply:
Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
A month ago my article “A Mine for the Myth” was published in the international magazine Мы здесь (We Are Here). I mentioned the solemn ceremony of the reburial of the former prime minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania Juozas Ambrazevičius Brazaitis. I’d like to quote the last paragraph.
A Counter-Question to Lithuanian Journalist Artūras Račas
O P I N I O N
by Pinchos Fridberg
Editor’s note [with updates to 3 March 2013]:
On his personal blog, Artūras Račas, director of Baltic News Service (BNS), attacked the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, as well as the prominent Vilnius-born, and currently Vilnius-resident Holocaust survivor and retired professor of radio physics, Dr. Pinchos Fridberg. A full English translation of Mr. Račas’s article is included in Defending History’s coverage of the sensational outburst by the head of Lithuania’s major news agency.
Tolerance Education? State-Sponsored Commission Uses its Website to Call Holocaust Survivor a “Liar” & to Demand “Apology from Jewish Community”
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Educators, diplomats, historians and journalists thought they had seen it all when it came to Holocaust-in-Lithuania issues in recent times. But an online attack by the state sponsored “history commission” on a local Holocaust survivor, Professor Pinchos Fridberg, who is deeply involved in honoring righteous Lithuanians who saved a Jewish neighbor, because he expressed his views against distortion of the Holocaust? That is a bit much even for here.
UPDATE of 21 February 2014:
One year later: Defamation continues on Commission website;
See Chronology of a Debate and what Pinchos Fridberg actually said…
Professor Fridberg’s Question about Mr. Zingeris to Dr. Alperovich, and Dr. Alperovich’s Reply…
Vilnius native and life-long resident Professor Pinchos Fridberg sent the following question to the leadership of the Jewish Community of Lithuania (JCL), and received the following answer. These official English translations, accepted by JCL, are reprinted verbatim, with permission from the website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, where the question appears here and the reply here.
Why Christine Beresniova is Out of Order
O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
I’ve never met Christine Beresniova, but I’ve followed her career, so to speak, through the media and mutual acquaintances, and wish her only the best. She first came to my attention after apparently making some very limited and not very public criticisms of Lithuanian Holocaust education, which sufficiently pissed off the Holocaust Obfuscation establishment ensconced within the corridors of state power for them to label her some kind of Russian agent in informal conversations.
US Researcher is Persuaded that the Problem in Lithuania is called “Zuroff and Katz”
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
The blog Christine Beresniova and Rokas Beresniovas recently published the article “A lamentable absence of sexy scandals.” We will refrain from comment on their understanding of the concept “sexy scandals” and stick to the work of fellow human rights advocates, which entails standing up to powerful establishments on behalf of minorities, victims of prejudice, and in the case of Eastern Europe, the victims (and handful of survivors) of genocide. Those who stand up know all too well that to do so is not all that often convenient, easygoing or self-serving.