Full English Translation of Lithuanian Parliament Member Žemaitaitis’s Antisemitic Post that Revives Holocaust Era Tropes for Modern Lithuania




ANTISEMITISM | HUMAN RIGHTS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | LITHUANIA | LITVAK AFFAIRS

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VILNIUS—Instead of apologizing after unusually rapid responses by both the official Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Israeli Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas) member Remigijus Žemaitaitis issued the following statement on Facebook on 8 May (English translation followed by screen shot of original from Facebook, taken 9 May at 14:30 from the 8 May FB post).

11 May update: Have any Lithuanian leaders, Western leaders, international Jewish organizations and human rights advocates, antisemitism watchdogs etc. yet publicly called for the immediate resignation of a parliamentarian in an EU/NATO national parliament whose published post (not “locker room talk”) revives local Hitler-era anti-Jewish hate speech equating Jews with Communism and Russian domination? “Wasting digital ink replying to the hater’s ‘arguments’ at Twitter and Bacebook is just not the same as a public statement calling for the hatemonger’s immediate resignation — as would be the case in any Western country. Lithuanian citizens deserve the same standard.”
12 May: Prime Minister Ingrida Sionyte boldly calls for impeachment inquiry. Can this rapidly be sharpened to a call for immediate resignation as in any other Western country?

As Defending History readers know from our antisemitism section, this is not the first time Middle Eastern and Israeli-Palestinian issues have been used by local bigots to smear Lithuania’s 700 year old Jewish community, of which over 96% were murdered in the Holocaust. But it is perhaps novel that the “triple whammy” of (1) antisemitism plus Middle Eastern issues have been added to (2) the Red Libel, the association made by Eastern European antisemitism, that the Jews in general were, are, and will always be associated above all with Communism; (3), a third implied pillar: the charge of disloyalty of the nation’s Jewish citizens (before the Holocaust a minority, now a tiny remnant under three thousand persons nationally).

The Lithuanian parliamentarian’s post evokes the “mentally exciting” scenario of a western Lithuanian town (since the Holocaust — with a Jewish population of zero percent) being bombarded by Putin using a purported Israeli argument of proximity in geography to the enemy. “No end to the antisemitic imagination,” said one of Vilnius’s last Holocaust survivors. The icing on the cake is the parliamentarian’s proud invoking of an old antisemitic song about the Jew being knocked off the ladder, that came to international attention during the 2008 neo-Nazi parade permitted on the capital’s main boulevard (which contributed to the launch of Defending History).

This becomes extraordinarily explosive in light of the current barbaric and medieval invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia, the very real threat posed to such neighboring peaceful democracies as Lithuania (a proud and successful member of both the European Union and NATO), and the power of an East European far right that poses as a center right, including prominent members of parliament whose duties include representation of Lithuania on the global stage.

By attributing “Putinism” to Israeli government explanations of military actions, taking Lithuanian territory as analogy, the member of parliament is in effect — and this will be lost to many Westerners far from the region’s sensibilities and realities — reinvigorating the original Red Libel of 1941 which stirred up so many previously peaceful citizens to initiate the Lithuanian Holocaust on 23 June 1941. To add to the malign series of hate-fueled juxtapositions, this is all done on 8 and 9 May, the days celebrated by the civilized world as anniversary of the defeat of Hitler by the Allies. Pride held by so many Lithuanian and Jewish families in relatives who fought in the Red Army against Hitler during the Holocaust (there were no American or British forces here, during the crucial years of the anti-Hitler Anglo-American-Soviet alliance) has zero to do with support for the barbaric, murderous and deranged dictator Putin, whose regime poses the greatest threat to world peace in our times. Defending History is proud to have supported Ukraine from day one.

Some have said that initial foreign Jewish organizations’ failure to call explicitly for the offender’s rapid resignation (keeping it to “pious statements”) is tied to the massive investment in “Jewish things” to cover for history revisionism focused on the Holocaust. From the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Theological Seminary on down, prominent Jewish figures have been wined and dined, glorified and republished, and brought to Lithuania for lavish events, photo-ops and blue-ribbon commissions. Is it now awkward for them to call for this parliamentarian’s resignation? Within Lithuania, elite antisemitism starting with the Genocide Center and Genocide Museum and the various cleansed-of-second-opinions history departments and institutes, plays its role.

The following English translation contains added explanatory material in square brackets [] and in footnotes.


Remigijus Žemaitaitis [Member of the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament; one of the leaders of the “Laisvė ir Teisingumas” (Freedom and Justice) party]

Apparently, for our journalist and local Lithuanian Jews[1], demolition of schools in Palestine is yet another frivolity?!

On a similar principle, Putin is having fun in Ukraine with the local schoolchildren and their future!

Truly impressive EU INSTITUTIONS give money to build a school in Palestine, with goals of educating the youth and contribute to a civil society, and then our druzhinniki[2], start explaining that the SCHOOL WAS BUILT TOO CLOSE [to Israel]!

THE SCHOOL WAS BUILT TOO CLOSE, because, you see, the Israeli Jews decided that it will be used to attack Israel 😉 😉 😉

It would be interesting to see Faina’s[3] reaction if Putin would bomb schools in the Šilutė District [in western Lithuania], and would thenld explain it to his 143 million inhabitants that THEY WERE TOO CLOSE TO THE RUSSIAN BORDER, so they needed to be removed?

What are these PRINCIPLES OF UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD ORDER

What kind of an idiot could even come up with such arguments?

Apparently, local druzhenniki have learned a lot from Putin, who has bombed not only schools, kindergartens, theaters, but also hospitals in Ukraine (a) because they WERE TOO CLOSE TO RUSSIA?

Perhaps the next time Israel will drop a bomb on a Palestinian hospital with a note on it, we bombed it because we were afraid that they would attack us 🙉🙈🙊

Now I understand why the Israel’s Jewish[4] Prime Minister went to see Putka[5] on Shabbos, on March 5, 2022, i.e. 6 days after his invasion to Ukraine 😞

P.s. Although, during Shabbos, a Jew wouldn’t even wash his cup, he can’t work 😉

I WANT TO GIVE YOU A CHANCE DEAR ISRAELI JEWS TO APOLOGIZE TO PALESTINE AND THE EU, FOR YOUR DESPICABLE ACTIONS IN A FOREIGN LAND

And I repeat “After such events, one must no longer wonder, why such sayings were born: A Jew was climbing a ladder and accidentally fell. Children, take a stick and kill that Jew[6]

https://www.15min.lt/naujiena/aktualu/lietuva/lietuvos-zydu-bendruomenes-lydere-duokime-zemaitaiciui-sansa-atsiprasyti-56-2049876

______________

[1] The word used is “žydukai”, the deminutive of “žydai” (“Jews”), which has a derogatory connotation in Lithuanian.

[2] Druzhinniki (in Lithuanian, “draugovininkai”): members of the Voluntary People’s Guard in the USSR, counterparts of the contemporary “community police supporters.”

[3] Faina Kukliansky, chairperson of the “Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community.”

[4] “Žydukas”, again.

[5] A Lithuanian derogative for Vladimir Putin, similar to the jargon name for a female reproductive organ.

[6] Originally an antisemitic Lithuanian children‘s song: “Lipo žydas kopėčiom ir nukrito netyčiom. Imkit, vaikai, pagaliuką ir užmuškit tą žyduką”.

https://www.15min.lt/naujiena/aktualu/lietuva/lietuvos-zydu-bendruomenes-lydere-duokime-zemaitaiciui-sansa-atsiprasyti-56-2049876


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