Monthly Archives: August 2020

We Travelled from Dublin to Honor our Ancestors in Plungė (Plungyán), Lithuania

Posted on 18 August 2020 by Defending History

MEMOIRS  |  PLUNGYÁN (PLUNGE)  |  COMMEMORATIONS FOR ANNIHILATED COMMUNITIES  |  IRELAND

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by Brendan Gorey (Dublin, Ireland)

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We come from Dublin, Ireland and were born into the Christian community. Our great-grandmother gave birth to our grandmother in Manchester in 1895. Our grandmother was born out of wedlock and we never knew who the father was despite searching the records but always assumed he was British. When we submitted our DNA for analysis on a well-known website we were surprised and delighted to learn we were related closely to Eastern European Jews through our mother’s lineage and through the DNA links we discovered we are related genetically to families who were centred in the Plungė (Yiddish: Plungyán) region. For confidentiality and sensitivity reasons I will not mention their names as they probably don’t know of this branch of the family.

Our journey to the Kausenai massacre site near Plungė was a pilgrimage to honour our murdered Jewish ancestors and to pray for peace and forgiveness for all people who have been subjected to hatred and racism.

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Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Plungyán (Plungė) | Comments Off on We Travelled from Dublin to Honor our Ancestors in Plungė (Plungyán), Lithuania

Heartfelt Plea for Vilnius Jewish Community to Foreign Members of “Good Will Foundation” (& Charming Reply from AJC’s Andrew Baker)

Posted on 14 August 2020 by Defending History

DOCUMENTS  |  OPINION  |  VILNIUS JEWISH COMMUNITY  |  THE STOLEN ELECTION SAGA  |  GOOD WILL FOUNDATION  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY  |  LITVAK AFFAIRS  |  LITVAK IDENTITY THEFT

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The following is the text of the public letter from three elected board members of the Vilnius Jewish Community, posted earlier this week, on 12 August, on Facebook (as PDF), and the reply received today, on behalf of the Good Will Foundation, by the American Jewish Committee’s Rabbi Andrew Baker, who is also a medal awardee of the Lithuanian government and a long-time member of its Holocaust-revisionist “red-brown commission” that has caused decades of pain to Holocaust survivors and their families.

Related:

State medals for ambitious Westerners who cover for Holocaust revisionism

Destruction of Jewish community democracy in Vilnius

Rabbi S. B. Krinsky was first to expose the moral issues at stake

Abusing the identity of the fragile, struggling Litvak heritage

Battle to save Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery from humiliation of convention center

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Arkady Kurliandchik, Lithuania, Lithuania: Textbook Case of East European Restitution (for Lost Jewish Assets) Abused to Dismantle a Vibrant Jewish Community, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Heartfelt Plea for Vilnius Jewish Community to Foreign Members of “Good Will Foundation” (& Charming Reply from AJC’s Andrew Baker)

Осторожно, некошерный бейгл в Вильнюсе!

Posted on 14 August 2020 by Defending History

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Мотке Хабад

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Дорогие мои читатели, приветствую вас в эти летние дни! Разумеется, вы не забыли вашего Мотке – есть Мотке: вечно он говорит с аллегорией, с эдаким вывертом здесь и там, чтобы ты, дорогой читатель, мог наслаждаться жизнью и чудесами невероятного мира, в котором мы живём. Но есть и ещё кое-что. Когда я, Мотке, который знает всё обо всём, что происходит в моём родном городе Вильно, показываю вам документ, вам лучше поверить, что он настоящий. Мотке не станет носиться с фейковыми новостями!

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Posted in Humor (Of Sorts), In Russian | Comments Off on Осторожно, некошерный бейгл в Вильнюсе!

What to Do with Lenin Square and the Sports Palace? Switch Them!

Posted on 11 August 2020 by Defending History

OPINION  | HUMAN RIGHTS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH ISSUES | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO ‘CONVENTION CENTER  IN THE CEMETERY’ PROJECT |INTERNATIONAL PETITION

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

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Professor Vladislovas Mikučianis was the master architect of Vilnius who designed Lenin Square. He also led the commission which deemed that the oldest Jewish cemetery in Vilnius had no historical or aesthetic value. And he wrote the review, in 1972, for “Statyba and Architektūra”, of the newly completed Vilnius Sports Palace, which desecrated the cemetery. We should credit him with a devastating but enduring conception of Vilnius that, like a python’s grip, we have yet to appreciate, and so are needing decades to escape. Lithuanian leaders are intent on repurposing the Sports Palace as a National Convention Center, desecrating the cemetery anew. What to do?

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Comments Off on What to Do with Lenin Square and the Sports Palace? Switch Them!

“Leave in Peace the Graves of Our Great Vilnius Jewish Ancestors”: Plea Leaps from Defending History to Lietuvos Aidas

Posted on 6 August 2020 by Defending History

OPINION  | MEDIA WATCH | HUMAN RIGHTS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH ISSUES | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES  |  OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT | OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT |INTERNATIONAL PETITION

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by Andrius Kulikauskas

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In 2015, Ruta Bloshtein first publicly spoke out against the Lithuanian government’s unseemly decision that Lithuania’s premiere convention center should be the Soviet Sports Palace, a monstrosity which desecrates the oldest Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. Her article  (that appeared (in Lithuanian and in English translation) in DefendingHistory.com included her plea, “Palikite ramybėje mūsų didžių protėvių Vilniaus žydų kapus” (Leave in Peace the Graves of Our Great Vilnius Jewish Ancestors).

On August 1, 2020, her words became the headline of the main article on the front page of Lithuania’s leading nationalist weekly, “Lietuvos Aidas”. The weekly was founded in 1917 by Antanas Smetona, who in 1918 became Lithuania’s first president. It was revived in 1990, controversially, as the state newspaper of newly independent Lithuania, and privatized a few years later. The weekly has grown in quality under editor Rasa Pilvelytė-Čemeškienė and claims a circulation of 7,000.

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Posted in Andrius Kulikauskas, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on “Leave in Peace the Graves of Our Great Vilnius Jewish Ancestors”: Plea Leaps from Defending History to Lietuvos Aidas

Motke Chabad Says: Rabbi Forbids His Own Community’s Bagels in Vilnius — ‘Not Kosher’

Posted on 2 August 2020 by Defending History

 OPINION  | HUMOR (OF SORTS)  |  VILNIUS JEWISH LIFE  |  CHABAD IN VILNIUS

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by Motke Chabad (Vilnius) (Russian version here)

Midsummer greetings to all my readers! Of course you have not forgotten Motke. Sure, Motke may speak like Motke, with an allegory or a little twist here and there, to enable you, dear reader, to enjoy life and the wonders of the incredible world we live in. But there is something else you know about Motke. When I, Motke, who knows everything about what is happening in my old hometown Vilne give you a document, you better believe that the document is real. No sir, Motke does not deal in Fake News!

The document is of course the document that everyone in town is talking about. Just go around town and ask. What is the sensation this week?

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Posted in A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Chabad in Vilnius, Humor (Of Sorts), Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, Motke Chabad, News & Views, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Motke Chabad Says: Rabbi Forbids His Own Community’s Bagels in Vilnius — ‘Not Kosher’

On the Seimas Declaring 2021 to be Year in Honor of Alleged Participant in Lietukis Garage Massacre of 1941

Posted on 2 August 2020 by Defending History

OPINION  |  GLORIFICATION OF COLLABORATORS  |  POLITICS OF MEMORY

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by Evaldas Balčiūnas

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The resolution of the Seimas (Lithuanian parliament) to declare 2021 the “Year of Juozas Lukša” has resulted in heated discussions. They are attentively chronicled by Defending History.

Those who remember the Holocaust and its lessons for history and for life discuss the name Juozas Lukša in conjunction with the LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front) of June and July 1941, including the versions that link him to a barbaric massacre of Jews at the Lietukis Garage in central Kaunas where some seventy innocent Jewish people, caught in the streets, were brutally killed before cheering crowds.

Juozas Lukša looks very similar to one of the murderers in one of the photos (and he was identified by some from a photo of himself after the war). It links him to one of the versions noting that the Garage Massacre was committed largely by prisoners who had been released from a Kaunas jail (we know that Lukša was released from a Kaunas jail). Opponents to those versions claim that Juozas Lukša is innocent and level accusations of slander against those who implicate him. This discussion is not new and there have not really been any new proofs offered on either side since the flare-up of the argument over the last month.

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Posted in Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on Juozas Lukša, Evaldas Balčiūnas, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on On the Seimas Declaring 2021 to be Year in Honor of Alleged Participant in Lietukis Garage Massacre of 1941

Monuments in Public Space that Glorify Hitler Collaborators in Eastern Europe, and — Canada

Posted on 1 August 2020 by Defending History

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APOLOGIES. THIS PAGE HAS MOVED HERE…

Monuments that Glorify East European Hitler Collaborators; Sometimes — in the West

Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites | Comments Off on Monuments in Public Space that Glorify Hitler Collaborators in Eastern Europe, and — Canada