Monthly Archives: January 2013

2013 Started on Wrong Note in Capitals of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania



WARSAW:  Statue of “Praying Hitler” is unveiled in the Warsaw Ghetto. Reports in the GuardianDaily MailHuffington Post.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, News & Views, Poland, Politics of Memory, Ukraine | Comments Off on 2013 Started on Wrong Note in Capitals of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania

LGBT Equality Protests Removal of July 2013 March from Vilnius’s Central Boulevard


LGBT Equality (the LGL — Lithuanian Gay League) today issued a statement on its website  urging the Vilnius municipality to change its heart over a decision to ban the Baltic Pride march from the capital’s center in the summer of 2013, just as Lithuania will proudly be assuming the rotating chairmanship of the European Union. The statement follows an earlier 16 January statement.

In the meantime, a nationalist website has announced that the March 11th 2013 neo-Nazi march will proceed on the capital’s central boulevard as always, irrespective of any requests from the municipality. The statement is signed by a former long-term high official of the Genocide Research Center who was involved in organizing various neo-Nazi marches and defending them publicly.Continue reading

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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.

Beresniovas and Beresniova Website Banner (2013)

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on US Researcher is Persuaded that the Problem in Lithuania is called “Zuroff and Katz”

New Paper by Per Anders Rudling on the Ukrainian Far Right


An important new paper by Dr. Per Anders Rudling of Lund University, Sweden, has appeared in the new volume, Analysing Fascist Discourse: European Fascism in Talk and Text. The collective volume brought out by Routledge (New York & London) is edited by Ruth Wodak and John E. Richardson.

Dr. Rudling’s paper, entitled “The Return of the Ukrainian Far Right: The Case of VO Svoboda” comprises the sections:

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Posted in Canada, Collaborators Glorified, History, News & Views, Per Anders Rudling, Politics of Memory, Sweden, Ukraine | Tagged | Comments Off on New Paper by Per Anders Rudling on the Ukrainian Far Right

Lithuanian Supreme Court Upholds Algirdas Paleckis Verdict in Freedom-of-Speech Trial; Appeal to Strasbourg Planned


The small courtroom in the building of the Lithuanian Supreme Court a few yards away from the nation’s Seimas, or parliament, was packed with journalists and mostly older generation nationalist opponents of Algirdas Paleckis. Two judges, speaking in different sections, upheld the earlier verdict against him for having proposed a version of events for January 13th 1991 that is at odds with national historiography.

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Red-Brown Commission’s Newest Layer of Obfuscation: Are Names of Members Secret?


The Lithuanian government sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes of Lithuania,” known for short as the “Red-Brown Commission” has recently added a new layer of obfuscation and opacity to its activities.

Its website has deleted the names of the “Members of the Commission” thereby rendering it a kind of “secret society.”

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Red-Brown Commission’s Newest Layer of Obfuscation: Are Names of Members Secret?

A Tale of Two Marches? LGBT Equality Releases Statement on Authorities’ Response to Baltic Pride 2013


LGBT Equality (the LGL — Lithuanian Gay League) today issued a statement on its website concerning the progress of the application to the Vilnius municipality to hold the Baltic Pride 2013 March for Equality on Gedimino Boulevard, the capital’s central avenue, on 27 July 2013.

In the meantime, the municipality, though it has requested that the neo-Nazi march planned for the nation’s March 11th independence day be moved from Gedimino Boulevard (where it has regularly been held since 2008 with participation of right-wing members of parliament and with few or no objections from Western embassies), seems not to be pursuing that request with any verve.

VILNIUS YEARS GONE BY:

Video of the first (2008) neo-Nazi march in the city center

Eyewitness account of 2010 Baltic Pride March across the river

Eyewitness account of 2011 Neo-Nazi March in the city center

Eyewitness account of 2012 Neo-Nazi March in the city center

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Sutzkever Translation Prize: American Poets in Discourse on “Being a Judge in a Judenrat Circumstance”


The New York office of Cross-Cultural Communications Press today released the following statement by its director, poet and publisher Stanley H. Barkan, in response to a 26 Dec 2012 Forward article on the recently announced Abraham Sutzkever Translation Prize competition. Sutzkever (1913-2010), a Vilna Ghetto survivor and Jewish partisan, was a major Yiddish poet and editor.

The prize is related to events to be held in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, next summer on the centenary of Sutzkever’s birth. Details of the award and an opinion piece on its problematic aspects appeared earlier, on 6 Dec 2012, in Defending History. The text of Mr. Barkan’s statement first appeared in the Comments section following the Forward report.

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Posted in Double Games, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Stanley H. Barkan, Sutzkever Prize in Lithuania, United States, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Sutzkever Translation Prize: American Poets in Discourse on “Being a Judge in a Judenrat Circumstance”

Wiesenthal Center Welcomes Punishment of Hungary by FIFA for Antisemitic Behavior of Hungarian Fans in August 2012


Jerusalem—The Simon Wiesenthal Center today praised the steps taken earlier this week by the international football federation (FIFA) to punish the Hungarian Football Federation in the wake of the antisemitic behavior of many dozens of Hungarian fans at a friendly match against Israel held this past August 15 in Budapest.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Hungary, Racism | Comments Off on Wiesenthal Center Welcomes Punishment of Hungary by FIFA for Antisemitic Behavior of Hungarian Fans in August 2012

An International Appeal from the Head of the Ukrainian Independent Council of Jewish Women



O P I N I O N

by Eleonora Groisman

The author is president of The Ukrainian Independent Council of Jewish Women, and edits the newspaper Jewish Kiev. Authorized translation into English provided by the author is by Mr. Valery Novoselsky (executive editor of Public Diplomacy Network and of Roma Virtual Network). See: 

http://evreiskiy.kiev.ua
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jewish_Daily_News/message/92
http://www.facebook.com/evreiskiy.kiev.ua


Appeal to the representatives of international governmental and non-governmental organizations by a group of social organizations and citizens of different countries concerned about the growth of antisemitism in Ukraine:

In the 2012 elections to the Verkhovna Rada the far-right nationalist Svoboda party passed. To date, the Svoboda fraction has 37 parliament members, within the total of 450 parliament members.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Eleonora Groisman, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Ukraine, Women's Rights | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on An International Appeal from the Head of the Ukrainian Independent Council of Jewish Women

Instead of Truth about the Holocaust – Myths about Saving Jews



O P I N I O N

by Pinchos Fridberg


Editor’s note [updated 27 January 2013]:
Pinchos Fridberg, a native and resident of Vilnius, is a Holocaust survivor. He graduated from Vilnius University in 1961 and completed his PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics in 1965 and an additional doctoral science degree in radio physics in 1974. From 1961 to 1978 he was chair of the Laboratory of Theoretical Investigations at the Vilnius Scientific Institute of Radio Measuring Devices. In 1978 he joined Grodno State University, where he was named professor. In 1989 he became head of the Department of Theoretical Radio Physics at the Zondas Company in Vilnius.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Games, Double Genocide, Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem and Lithuania | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Instead of Truth about the Holocaust – Myths about Saving Jews

New Year’s Call on the US State Department to Reject Politics of Holocaust Denial



2013: Call on US State Dept to Reject Politics of Holocaust Denial and Appeasement of Eastern Europe’s New Far Right

Shock of 2012: When a NATO-EU Ally Reburied and Glorified its 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister who Signed Orders for Kovno Ghetto

Instead of politely protesting, the US Embassy in Vilnius financed a camouflage symposium on Holocaust issues to deflect attention from the week’s event. Framed to honor T. Snyder’s book Bloodlands, it also featured the head of YIVO.

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Posted in Double Games, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Politics of Memory, United States, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on New Year’s Call on the US State Department to Reject Politics of Holocaust Denial

2013: Call on US State Dept to Reject Politics of Holocaust Denial and Appeasement of Eastern Europe’s New Far Right




Shock of 2012:
 When a NATO-EU Ally Reburied and Glorified its 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister who Signed Orders for Kovno Ghetto

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States, US State Dept Manipulated? | Comments Off on 2013: Call on US State Dept to Reject Politics of Holocaust Denial and Appeasement of Eastern Europe’s New Far Right