29 December 2015
INCLUDING REDEFINITION OF GENOCIDE; GLORIFICATION OF HOLOCAUST PERPETRATORS AS “FREEDOM FIGHTERS”; AND CAMPAIGN OF REPUTATION DESTRUCTION AGAINST HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS WHO JOINED THE ANTI-NAZI RESISTANCE
And will Israel ask, howsoever gently, for public apologies for the three Israeli citizens defamed for history by Lithuania’s prosecutors? All three are heroes of the anti-Nazi resistance in the forests of Lithuania, and two are heroes of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. Yitzhak Arad (who has spoken out in Defending History) is still defamed on prosecutors’ website [as PDF] and by a “Human Rights [!] Association”. Hopes rising for 2016 that the Israeli Embassy in Vilnius will rapidly obtain public apologies to the Israeli citizens Yitzhak Arad, Rachel Margolis (1921-2015) and Joseph Melamed.
2009 speech of the late Ambassador of Israel to Lithuania & Latvia HE Chen Ivri Apter. Back then it was clear that Israel could build terrific relations without betraying Israeli citizens, Holocaust survivors, history of the Holocaust, or the integrity of Jewish cemeteries in post-Holocaust Europe.
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24 December 2015
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18 December 2015
Most Lithuanian Citizens Not Aware that State-Sponsored “Genocide Center” (GC) is the only (?) Gov. Body in the EU in the Business of Glorifying Holocaust Collaborators
Defending History led the way in 2010 with page and section exposing the GC (which runs the city-center “Genocide Museum”)
DEFENDING HISTORY WRITER EVALDAS BALČIŪNAS (WHO ALERTED ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD TO NOREIKA MONUMENTS IN 2012) IS REPEATEDLY LUGGED INTO COURT FOR HIS ARTICLES PROTESTING GLORIFICATION OF HOLOCAUST PERPETRATORS AND NEO-NAZI MARCHES. COME SUPPORT HIM AT THE NEXT HEARING: THURSDAY 21 JANUARY 2016 AT VILNIUS COUNTY COURT (LAISVĖS PROSPEKTAS 79A, ROOM 019) AT 1:30 PM (13:30)
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December 2015
Defending Holocaust History Against the New Revisionism:
Reviews of Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth by
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9 December 2015
Assault follows publication of Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė’s new critique of the Genocide Center, published in DH; Neo-Nazi blogger “Zeppelinus”, Lithuania’s top online purveyor of racism, misogyny, homophobia and antisemitism, is alleged to be a high official in the Economy Ministry
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Meanwhile, “Genocide Center” Turns to Antisemitic Slurs in Reply to Critics of its Sanitization of Holocaust Perpetrators
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COME AND SUPPORT EVALDAS BALČIŪNAS THURSDAY 21 JANUARY 2016 AT VILNIUS COUNTY COURT (LAISVĖS PROSPEKTAS 79A, ROOM 019) AT 1:30 PM (13:30)
Left to right: Evaldas Balčiūnas, Milan Chersonski and Darius Pocevičius on Monday 30 Nov. 2015 after another “totally time-wasting” hearing in the case against Balčiūnas and Pocevičius for their articles condemning fascism and the adulation of Holocaust collaborators. A more substantial hearing is now promised for Thursday 10 December, 3:30 PM (15:30), as ever at Vilnius District Court at Laisves prospektas 79a. Hopefully at long last human rights and free speech advocates, and opponents of Holocaust falsification will come to monitor. They are still looking for a pro bono human rights lawyer. For background (for English readers) please see Evaldas’s articles (and the legal harassment he has been enduring) by scrolling to the end and surveying chronologically (upwards) his articles exposing the glorification of Holocaust collaborators.
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16 November 2015
“It just can’t be left to the local NGOs!”
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November 2015
LIVING YIDDISH CULTURE IN VILNIUS
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2 November 2015
IN DRAMATIC REVERSAL ON GENOCIDE CENTER, LITHUANIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY CHAIRPERSON FAINA KUKLIANSKY BLASTS CENTER FOR WHITEWASHING THE HOLOCAUST COLLABORATOR. IN A HISTORIC STATEMENT (BRINGING HER INTO BROAD AGREEMENT WITH DH’S LONGSTANDING CRITIQUE) SHE ASKS WHAT KIND OF “HOLOCAUST EDUCATION” CAN PROCEED IN SUCH A CONTEXT. JEWISH STUDENT LEADER AMIT BELAITĖ SPEAKS OUT WITH SINGULAR COURAGE.
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NEW IN NOVEMBER 2015:
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21 October 2015
Defending the History Brings Results
I
ABUSE OF HOLOCAUST EDUCATION BY DOUBLE GENOCIDE PRACTITIONERS REMAINS A CONCERN IN EASTERN EUROPE. REPORT IN THE JERUSALEM POST.
II
European Union Says NO to Support for “Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery”
Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission:
III
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October 2015
DEFENDING HISTORY WAS THERE SO YOU CAN READ EYEWITNESS REPORTS AND OPINIONS RIGHT HERE
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29 October 2015
Conference press release invokes summaries of views of major foreign heritage specialists who took part in the conference. But their own statements awaited. Click here for a directory of opponents, including Holocaust survivors, heritage specialists and others in Vilnius whom delegates would have enjoyed hearing out.
The official conference summary wholly omits what is actually planned for the site: a $25,000,000 convention center where tens of thousands will cheer, clap, drink at bars and use toilets surrounded by thousands of Jewish graves spanning half a millennium (not the treatment given to Lithuanian Christian cemeteries where thousands of great scholars are buried). It is potentially the worst state-sponsored cemetery desecration in recent history. Observations of chief rabbi, EU president, protestant pastor, Vilna Holocaust survivor, Jewish resident, Kaunas synagogue, Litvak rabbis’ groups, and groups representing thousands of others.
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22 October 2015
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October 2015
FALLOUT CONTINUES FROM 30 SEPTEMBER ANTISEMITISM CONFERENCE IN VILNIUS
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October 2015
INCIDENT OCCURRED AT UKMERGĖ (VÍLKOMIR), WHERE BARGMAN AND COMPANION WERE HEADING FOR COMMEMORATION AT FOREST MASS GRAVE FOR UP TO TEN THOUSAND JEWS OF THE REGION SLAUGHTERED IN 1941. DISTURBINGLY, THE TOWN CONTINUES TO DEDICATE A SQUARE TO THE MEMORY OF A NOTORIOUS HOLOCAUST PERPETRATOR.
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2 October 2015
Litvaks Everywhere Mark the Gaon of Vilna’s 218th Yórtsayt
Eylióhu ben Shlèyme-Zálmen (Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman, 1720−1797)
19 Tíshrey 5776 / 2 October 2015; Some background reading
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1 October 2015
YET ANOTHER EEA SPONSORED “JEWISH LITHUANIA” EVENT WITHOUT A SINGLE LITHUANIAN BORN JEW IN ATTENDANCE
One of the keynote morning speakers (amateur video) at the 30 Sept. conference, known for his documentary films that ignore the alleged Holocaust atrocities of “heroes” as well as for his incessant Israel-baiting (and of late association with far-right antisemitic Ukrainian nationalists), proposes solving Mideast issues and local antisemitism at once by “bringing the Palestinians to Vilnius, Jerusalem of the North” [!]. Israeli ambassador boldly calls him out (see from timecode 13:17) for “rewriting history” of Israel’s struggles. The organizer, the “Human Rights Monitoring Institute” has record of ignoring antisemitism and failing to even mildly protest neo-Nazi marches in city centers on independence days or the abuse of prosecutorial power to harass Lithuanian truth-tellers about the Holocaust and local antisemitism.
CONFERENCE FEATURED EXCELLENT PRESENTATIONS ON HISTORY OF THE HOLOCAUST IN GENERAL, ANTISEMITISM IN GENERAL, AND ISSUES OF ISLAMIST RADICALIZATION IN WESTERN EUROPE. DANGERS OF THE FAR RIGHT DISCUSSED BY SPEAKERS FROM HUNGARY AND NORWAY, IGNORED OR PLASTERED OVER FOR LITHUANIA.
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22 September 2015
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22 September 2015
Ponár (Paneriai) Commemoration on Lithuania’s Annual Holocaust Day is Dejudaicized Even More in “Nationalist Takeover of Litvak Heritage”: No Rabbi, No Cantor, No Kaddish
But ethnic Lithuanian costume and song are featured at the mass grave of Vilna Jewry. Honor guard with bayoneted rifles was a questionable touch.
There were well-received speeches by (among others) Jewish community chairperson Faina Kukliansky; MP Emanuelis Zingeris; survivor and partisan hero Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky; and president of Beit Vilna in Tel Aviv, Mickey Kantor. There was a well-organized laying of stones by schoolchildren at the main monument.
The Israeli ambassador’s speech was considered a disappointment by some survivors in attendance. There was no mention of the recent death of Dr. Rachel Margolis (1921-2015), an Israeli-Lithuanian citizen, and Vilna Ghetto and anti-Nazi partisan hero. She discovered and published Kazimierz Sakowicz’s long lost eyewitness diary revealing the gruesome truth about Ponár. She dreamt of one last trip to her native Vilna but was intimidated by the prosecutors’ campaign of defamation against her and other Jewish partisan heroes. It was a sharp and painful contrast with the stirring and unforgettable words of the late Israeli ambassador to the Baltics, Chen Ivri Apter. Margolis’s life was considered worthy of note by, among many others, Lithuania’s late president, Algirdas Brazauskas, former UK prime minister Gordon Brown, the ADL’s Abraham Foxman, the late Sir Martin Gilbert, a British House of Lords member, and five members of the US Congress.
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20 September 2015
Sept-Oct 2015
The Old Jewish Cemetery Gets Pretty Lively in Vilnius
“Only conventions here, with bars, entertainment and toilets. But no concerts allowed! The Jewish graves all around make a cool backdrop for our 2018 national centennial holiday!”
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IS THE COMMITTEE CHOOSING THE NEW CHIEF RABBI REALLY BOUND TO ENSURE HE WILL BE “GOVERNMENT MAN” AND SUPPORT A $25,000,000 CONVENTION CENTER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY’S OLD JEWISH CEMETERY? DE-LEGITIMIZED FROM DAY ONE?
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15 September 2015
Israel Faced Some Delicate Post-Holocaust Issues During Lithuanian PM’s September Visit
CAMPAIGN AGAINST JEWISH PARTISANS NOT EVEN MENTIONED? Does Israel betray its own citizens by not asking apologies for the World War II heroes Yitzhak Arad, (the late) Rachel Margolis and Joseph Melamed? Arad and Melamed are heroes of Israel’s 1948 war of independence. Will there now be a public apology on the prosecutors’ page that still defames him [as PDF] and from the “Human Rights Association”? Apologies to Israeli citizens Rachel Margolis and Joseph Melamed? The 2009 Leivick House (Tel Aviv) speech of the late Ambassador Chen Ivri Apter. What does Dr. Arad think?
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URI CHANOCH
1928 — 2015
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6 September 2015
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4 September 2015
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1 September 2015
BUT GROUP OF NON-LITVAK ULTRA-ORTHODOX LONDON RABBIS issues a 1 Sept. Hebrew proclamation supporting CPJCE, signed by Rabbis E. Schlesinger; A.D. Dunner; Z. Feldman; J. Padwa; B. Bloom; E. Shechter; S. Lew; J.B. Wosner; M.C.E. Padwa. Did they understand what they were signing? Have they seen the unanimous judgments of rabbis internationally? Do they really feel comfortable blessing a convention center surrounded by thousands of Vilna Jewish graves in the face of the judgments issued by top Litvak Rabbis Feinstein, Kotler, Kamenetsky and Soloveitchik (and remarkably, by the highest Satmar hasidic court too)? Would they wish to know about a Vilna Holocaust survivor’s view, or that of an Orthodox woman, both lifetime members of the Jewish community in Vilnius?
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Litvak Rabbis Visit Vilnius to Plea for Cancellation of Plan to Put New Convention Center in City’s Old Jewish Cemetery
They are received by deputy chancellor, mayor of Vilnius, head of Jewish Community
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At the meeting with Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius (right to left): Rabbi David Niederman (Central Rabbinical Congress of the USA and Canada); Rabbi Osher Kalmanowitz (dean of Mir Yeshiva, Brooklyn, N.Y.); Rabbi Avrohom Yaffe Schlesinger (chief rabbi of the Orthodox community in Geneva, Switzlerand); Rabbi Malkiel Kotler (dean of Beth Medrash Govoha, Lakewood, N.J.).
At the old Soviet Sports Palace on the old cemetery (left to right): Rabbi Osher Kalmanowitz, Rabbi Schlesinger, Dr. Schaps, Rabbi David Niederman, Rabbi Chizki Kalmanowitz (Asra Kadisha, Jerusalem).
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THE EU DIMENSION:
CEMETERY BLUES:
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Holocaust perpetrator as national hero?
Liberal Lithuanian intellectuals petitioning city’s mayor for removal of shrines. But nationalist media considers the very discussion to be “a Russian plot”. Focus of debate is an obscure plaque but main Noreika shrine in the capital is towering engraved stone (above) on the “Genocide Museum” on Gedimino Boulevard, a stone’s throw from parliament.
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6 July 2015
Vilna, 28 October 1921 — Rehovot, 6 July 2015
A Yiddish appreciation from 2008: Part 1 & Part 2
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Summer 2015
≡≡ NEWS ≡≡
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June 2015
Some “Jewish Decisions” Face Vilnius’s New Mayor:
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Spring 2015
Trix & Treats for Londoners in Vilnius?
Above: Prime Minister of Lithuania Algirdas Butkevičius welcomes London-based rabbis from CPJCE who “permitted” a $25,000,000 convention center project for the middle of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery. Below: Government’s top Jewish affairs maestro Lina Saulėnaitė entertains the delegation. PM is 3rd from left. A 2009 document refers to these rabbis being paid $100,000 for “supervising” some “beautification” and “exploratory digging” but what are they being paid this time, for “supervising” construction of the convention and entertainment center?
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— Pastor Michael Maass (Director of the Lithuanian Branch of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem)
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Spring 2015
Inspiring Voices of Courage from Lithuania
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June-July 20152015
Do EU/NATO Countries in Eastern Europe Really Want to Celebrate Anniversaries of Outbreak of the Holocaust?
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July 2015
רחל מאַרגאָליס (מַרְגָלִית) ז″ל
Rachel Margolis
Vilna, 28 October 1921 — Rehovot, 6 July 2015
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Left her safe haven with righteous Christians to join her family in the Vilna Ghetto. Joined the Jewish underground anti-Nazi resistance. Witness to creation of the Yiddish partisan hymn.
Escaped to join the partisans and fought valiantly against the Nazis in the forests of Lithuania. The only one in her family to survive the Holocaust.
Volunteered for the short-lived Jewish museum after the war.
Dedicated half a century to Biology, as PhD and professor, at Vilnius University.
Helped establish the Green House Holocaust museum in Vilnius. Rediscovered, deciphered and published Kazimierz Sakowicz’s diary of Ponár. Author of a remarkable memoir. Beloved guide, lecturer and teacher on Jewish Vilna and the Holocaust. A beloved lecturer at the Vilnius Summer Program in Yiddish untl prosecutors’ threats prevented her coming in 2008 and beyond. Will there be a session honoring her at this summer’s program? Will students be told about her accomplishments?
At 90, she was afraid to return to her beloved Vilna for one last visit she yearned for. The Lithuanian government refused to reach out to her, its ambassadors in Israel would not acknowledge her, while prosecutors repeated threats of kangaroo “war crimes investigation” (most recently for the record in the 2012 documentary “Rewriting History“).
Rachel Margolis (second from right) honored at Tel Aviv’s Leivick House in June 2009. From left to right: Dalia and Ambassador Chen Ivri Apter; Prof. Dov Levin; Prof. Israel Bartal; Prof. Dovid Katz; Leivick House director Daniel Galay.
VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH RACHEL MARGOLIS: 1 and 2
MORE INFORMATION AND TRIBUTES:
Coverage in Defending History:
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Spring 2015
דער אַלטער ווילנער בית⸗עולם אויף פּיראַמאָנט, נעבעך
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Vilnius Holocaust Survivor and Protestant Pastor Speak Out
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June 2015
June 23rd 2016 will mark the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Holocaust in dozens of Lithuanian towns. The Soviet army was fleeing Hitler’s invasion of 22 June 1941 (the largest invasion in human history), not the LAF murderers, but some nationalists, antisemites, Double Genociders and far-right revisionists want to turn Holocaust perpetrators into “anti-Soviet rebels.” See details from the last time around, the 70th anniversary of 2011. Defending History was there to cover it all: The events, the LAF’s intentions, the Jewish Community’s response, the government attempts to play double games. See also Brandišauskas’s classic critique of an earlier attempt by Liekis to turn the reign of Hitlerist terror into a glorious chapter of modern history.
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Spring 2015
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8 May 2015
Lithuania’s President and Entourage Lay Wreaths at Ponár on May 8th…
“Equally” at Monuments for Jewish, Lithuanian and Polish Victims, but Skipping the Stone Commemorating the 7,514 Red Army Prisoners of Various Nationalities Starved and Murdered at the Site.
NO WREATHS HERE. Presidential wreaths for all but this one: modest plaque in memory of 7,514 Red Army prisoners-of-war, of various nationalities, starved and murdered.
The Lithuanian monument bewreathed on May 8th is not for Lithuanian civilians or anti-Nazis, but for a group of volunteers for pro-Nazi service who were then shot for alleged desertion. The one Jewish MP paid tribute there as well.
May 8th (Western Europe) and May 9th (Eastern Europe) Commemorate the Allied Victory over Hitler in Europe. But the government’s commemoration activities offered zero mention of the sacrifices of the forces that defeated Hitler and brought an end to the genocide at Ponár.
ANOTHER SHOCK FOR VETERANS AND SURVIVORS, AND FOR OBSERVERS OF THE CAMPAIGN TO USURP THE MASS MURDER SITE OF VILNA JEWRY — AND THE HOLOCAUST — FOR CURRENT POLITICAL ENDS
But no government officials turned up at the later event commemorating Jewish partisans and war veterans at the Jewish cemetery
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May 2015
Lithuanian Government’s New Jewish Heritage Commission Completes First Meeting
Sincere Efforts on Preserving Cemeteries and Mass Graves Reported; Real Progress Seen in Central Government Efforts to Overcome Local Resistance
Press Release Mentions Politically Explosive Foreigners’ Demands for Changes in Citizenship and Private Property Restitution Laws
4 May 2015
Where the way into church is to trample on looted gravestones…
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3 May 2015
Article followed her April 17 conference; Then, Vanagaitė teamed up with Jewish community’s Simon Gurevich to debate opponents on Lithuanian TV’s “The Naked Truth” on May 4. One of them was J. Panka, leader of annual neo-Nazi march in Kaunas that flaunts banner of a major Nazi collaborator.
Rūta Vanagaitė and Simon Gurevich on Lithuanian television’s “The Naked Truth” on May 4th.
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22 April 2015
Moment of Truth at Ponár
REACTION:
Brantsovsky (Brancovskaja), who turns 93 next month, lost her entire family in the Holocaust. She is one of a number of Jewish partisan heroes publicly defamed by Lithuanian prosecutors for years. No charges were ever filed against any, and “investigations” were dropped in the face of international reaction. But in the absence of written apologies, defamation continues apace into the history books.
BUT IN SHOCK TO YIDDISH AND HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR CIRCLES, DIRECTOR OF N.Y. YIVO, FOUNDED IN VILNA 90 YEARS AGO, REMAINS A MEMBER OF THE COMMISSION, AND DEFENDS IT IN JEWISH MEDIA. OTHER FOREIGN JEWISH MEMBERS JOINED UP, AT TIMES UNDER POLITICAL PRESSURE. SOME HAVE RECEIVED PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS. A VILNA HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR APPEALED TO YIVO’S DIRECTOR IN VILNA YIDDISH (AUDIO).
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April 2015
Tomas Venclova addresses conference at Vilnius City Hall on 17 April 2015. Photo: Julius Norwilla.
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9 April 2015
JOSEPH LEVINSON (1917-2015)
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20 March 2015
Attempts to “Fix” Holocaust History with Far Right’s “Double Genocide” Politics?
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European taxpayers’ money squandered by traveling exhibits to downgrade the Holocaust by mix-n-match with Soviet crimes? Geoff Vasil reviews exhibit.
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While a real Holocaust exhibit in Paris, for UNESCO, is vetoed by Latvia? Latest from Paris.
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Free thought in East European academia: Dissenters to “Double Genocide” dismissed, then accused of being non-academics? Coming soon: Prof. Michael Shafir’s “Deflection and Obfuscation.” Also: Times of Israel report.
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16 March 2015
In the East of EU-NATO-Land: Again, Latvian Authorities Grant Riga Old Town and its “Liberty Monument” on March 16th to 1500 Worshippers of Hitler’s Waffen SS Latvian Divisions
All Waffen SS members swore an oath to Adolf Hitler, some were recycled Holocaust killers. Lithuania’s far-right leaders J. Panka and R. Čekutis, fresh from neo-Nazi march in Vilnius, were on hand as honored guests; British neo-Nazis came for the event. For the second year in a row, the prime minister forbade ministers from attending. The antisemite who went around seeking Jewish observers to “enlighten” them (video).
Top left: Sea of flowers placed at Liberty Monument to honor Waffen SS. Top right: throng marches through historic old town. Bottom from left: heavy police presence; an antisemitic poster distributed by one of the event’s supporters.
Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Dr. Efraim Zuroff leads a silent, peaceful protest of Just 2 (SWC and Defending History)
Dr. Zuroff’s one-month odyssey took him to all four far-right or pro-Nazi events in the Baltics: Kaunas Feb 16, Tallinn Feb 24, Vilnius March 11, and Riga March 16.
Top: Dr. Efraim Zuroff is besieged by a throng of media. Bottom: He and Dovid Katz made for an on-site protest of just 2; Famous Latvian Jewish tour guide and genealogist Alex Feigmanis makes an appearance too.
Separate protest by “Latvia Without Nazism” was allowed after event’s conclusion, with members carrying symbolic fumigation gear to Liberty Monument after Waffen SS admirers’ departure. Monica Lowenberg’s international petition reaches 6700 mark.
Once the main event was over and the “Waffen SSers” had left, a small contingent from “Latvia Without Nazism” (affiliated with the controversial “World Without Nazism”) was allowed to protest. Led by the ever colorful Joe Koren (top), the group dressed as fumigation & disinfection specialists, with full gear and uniforms, to symbolically clear away the pro-Nazi residue of the marchers.
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12 March 2015
Latest Poster from “Zeppelinus” Who is Alleged to be High Official at Lithuania’s Economy Ministry
NEWEST EFFORT MOCKS LOVE OF COUNTRY BY ROMA, LEFTISTS, JEWS, BLACKS, POLES AND LGBT. SELECTION OF EARLIER PRODUCTIONS HERE. “FULL DISCLOSURE” — HE HAS ALSO DEDICATED MONTAGES TO DH EDITOR.
“Lithuania for Everyone. But where, then, is the country of the Lithuanians?” The signs read “I am Lithuania” with symbols interpolated, based on the actual sign (center) carried by head of the Union of Jewish Students at last Wednesday’s neo-Nazi march in central Vilnius.
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The poster’s theme, mocking the inclusivist “Lithuania for Everybody [visiems]” (the common reply to the neo-Nazis’ “Lithuania for Lithuanians” [Lietuviams]) is taken from the courageous anti-Nazi demonstration by the head of the Union of Jewish Students in Lithuania at the city-center neo-Nazi event allowed by authorities on the nation’s independence day. See next story.
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11 March 2015
1,500 Neo-Nazis and Far-Right Extremists Again Given Vilnius’s Main Boulevard on Nation’s March 11th Independence Day; They Parade from Cathedral Square to Nation’s Parliament with Fascist Symbols and Chants of “Lietuva Lietuviams” (Lithuania for [Pure] Lithuanians)
Section of the march gets underway at Vilnius’s Cathedral Square on the March 11th independence day event organized by neo-Nazi and far-right elements with state acquiescence.
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Flag with Swastika Hoisted Outside Nation’s Parliament for Over an Hour
Photo: Geoff Vasil
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For First Time, Leaders of Jewish Community, Including Chairperson Faina Kukliansky, and Jewish Student Union Come Out to Monitor and Protest the Vilnius March; Community Issues Statement; But No Sign of “Human Rights Monitoring Institute” or Bagels.
Amit Belaitė, president of Jewish Students’ Union boldly approaches far-right figure Ričardas Čekutis with sign that reads (in Lithuanian): “I am [star-of-david] Lithuania”. For years, Mr. Čekutis was a high official of the Genocide Center. Photo: DefendingHistory.com.
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Continuing to flank the fascist spokesman (right), Ms. Belaitė is supported by Simas Levinas (left), head of the Jewish Religious Community of Lithuania. Photo: DefendingHistory.com.
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Wiesenthal Center’s Dr. Efraim Zuroff Leads Group of Seven Protesters in Partnership with Defending History; Part of Zuroff’s One Month Odyssey to All Four Baltic Neo-Nazi Events; SWC Statement; Photo galleries by Julius Norwilla and by Bill Pahl.
Left to right: Julius Norwilla, Markus Pollak, Dovid Katz, Simas Levinas, Pinchos Fridberg, Efraim Zuroff, Milan Chersonski. For a dozen years (1999-2011), Mr. Chersonski edited the Jewish community’s quadrilingual newspaper, Jerusalem of Lithuania. Photo: DefendingHistory.com.
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Once again, thousands of fascists march past the “Jewish Public Library” and once again, not one member of staff came out to politely protest the glorification of fascism in a city whose 60,000 Jews were massacred. Photo: DefendingHistory.com.
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Right-wing party politician Emanuelis Zingeris unexpectedly bumps into the SWC / Defending History crowd near the march. He was warm and chatty, but when invited to be photographed together with our team, says “Bye” and heads down Gedimino Boulevard via express. Photos: DefendingHistory.com. However, thanks to Julius Norwilla’s camera, the image of a cetain threesome was captured. SEE ALSO: Geoff Vasil’s take on the encounter.
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Scenes from the day….
Photomontage by DefendingHistory.com
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From the monitors…
Photomontage by DefendingHistory.com
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16 February 2015
Wiesenthal Center – Defending History Team of 12 Monitors & Protests Kaunas Independence Day Neo-Nazi March
MARCH FEATURED LONG SERIES OF FASCIST-STYLE TAUNTS OF LIETUVA LIETUVIAMS (“LITHUANIA FOR [ETHNIC] LITHUANIANS”) ALONG WITH SWASTIKAS, OTHERFASCIST SYMBOLS AND A HUGE BANNER OF THE 1941 NAZI PUPPET PM WHO COLLABORATEDIN THE DESTRUCTION OF HIS CITY’S CITIZENS WHO WERE JEWISH. MAYOR’S OFFICE GAVE PERMITS FOR CITY CENTER TRAVESTY ON NATION’S INDEPENDENCE DAY.
ZERO PUBLIC REACTION FROM GOV. OFFICIALS OR DOMESTIC HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS. THE WIESENTHAL CENTER, DEFENDING HISTORY AND THE COUNTRY’S JEWISH COMMUNITY TO DATE THE ONLY PUBLIC VOICES.
Monitoring team was a project of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office in partnership with the Vilnius-based Defending History team.
Dozen protesters (vs. a march of up to 500) included five members of Lithuanian Jewish community (in private capacity), but no sign of any Bagels or other funded antisemitism (or human rights) monitors.
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Images from the neo-Nazi march in the center of Kaunas on 6 February 2015
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10 February 2015
Baltic Nazi-Glorifying Marching Season Underway
COME JOIN US IN KAUNAS, MONDAY 16 FEB. at 1 PM (1300), AT RAMYBĖS PARK, TO MONITOR, SILENTLY PROTEST, & REMEMBER THE CITY’S MORE THAN 30,000 MURDERED JEWISH CITIZENS.
Presidents, Mayors, Cardinals, Professors, Editors —
“A splendid opportunity for Baltic leaders to just speak up”
CITY-CENTER NEO-NAZI MARCHES THAT GLORIFY WARTIME HITLER COLLABORATORS NOW SCHEDULED FOR ALL THREE BALTIC STATES; ESTONIAN & LITHUANIAN EVENTS ARE ON NATIONS’ INDEPENDENCE DAY HOLIDAYS
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3 February 2015
Sir Martin Gilbert
25 October 1936 — 3 February 2015
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MAGNIFICENT HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR, DEAR FRIEND, LOYAL AND UNDAUNTED CHAMPION OF HISTORIC TRUTH
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Sir Martin Gilbert in Vilnius in 2009. Photo: DefendingHistory.com
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January 2015
SEE ALSO PAGE AND SECTION HONORING LITHUANIAN CITIZENS WHO STAND UP AGAINST HOLOCAUST DENIAL / OBFUSCATION, RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM. PROPHET AMOS AWARDS.
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27 January 2015
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DR. ZUROFF’S ARTICLE IN (THE ORIGINAL) ENGLISH, GERMAN, AND RUSSIAN. PROF. FRIDBERG’S IN ENGLISH, GERMAN, AND (THE ORIGINAL) RUSSIAN.
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23 January 2015
Roundup
Croatia: Zuroff on church’s latest honors for Nazi collaborators; on the need for Brussels to respond to the latest events
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Lithuania: Will officials speak out against planned neo-Nazi and collaborator-glorifying events in Kaunas (Feb 16th) and Vilnius (March 11th)? After deputy foreign minister goes to Brussels to “fight antisemitism” Efraim Zuroff tweets, challenging him to denounce both neo-Nazi marches back home. Also: Melee on launch of Holocaust museum project miles from the city center
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Latvia: Will the government stop gifting the capital’s center for the March 16th celebrations of the country’s Waffen SS?
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USA: What happened to Rep. John Conyers’ amendment to the military appropriations bill? The incredible UN vote. Triumphant American tour of a documentary that glorifies a Nazi collaborator’s postwar activity without mentioning the “slight problem of 1941”…
Heat of Debate: Dan Lazare’s critique of Timothy Snyder’s alleged rubbishing of the anti-Nazi partisan resistance crops up in the “New Republic” fallout. Did the US State Dept. (via Vilnius embassy) pour money into SLS to influence the Holocaust history debates? On Poland & Ukraine: Gebert (2) and Katz in Jewish Review of Books. Have the Tides Foundation & George Soros been manipulated to support “rigged Holocaust discussions”?
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In DH: Genrich Agranovski, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Roland Binet, Frank Brendle, Milan Chersonski, Pinchos Fridberg, Sebastian Hager, Peter Jukes, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė, Jacob Piliansky, Tomas Venclova
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21 January 2015
Freedom of Expression in France & at UNESCO
Simon Wiesenthal Center critiques the Latvian Government’s sabotage of exhibition that was supposed to open this week in the French capital
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8 January 2015
President of the Czech Republic Breaks EU’s Wall of Silence on Ukrainian Gov’s Worship of Nazi-Era Fascists
Milos Zeman, president of the Czech Republic
“Unfortunately, I cannot congratulate Ukraine on such national heroes.”
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More on Ukraine: Kiev center is scene of worshipful Bandera march on new year’s day; Jerusalem Post reports. Then, Ukrainian PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk explained that the “USSR invaded Germany and Ukraine” in World War II. Bryan Macdonald reports. William Blum in Foreign Policy Journal on US policy being “dumb and dumber”…
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1 January 2015
New Book
Poses Question for US and EU Foreign Policy. Should the West not demand, as matter of ethics, values and history, the abandonment of allies’ state glorification of major Holocaust collaborators?
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22 November 2014
A Historic Low for US (and Canadian) Foreign Policy?
Resolution, offered by Russia, seen as inherently flawed by Putinist machinations, Russia-Ukraine crisis & East-West feuding; EU abstains, as Baltic nationalists gloat (Delfi.lt)
The State Department’s idea of American moral leadership?
Text of the Resolution
Are unchecked Neo-Con politics behind the failure to Just Say No to the adulation of Nazi collaborators?
The Real Question: Should the US, UK, Canada, the EU and the rest of the free world not sponsor their own resolution combating the glorification of Nazism which is a real problem in the eastern EU and Ukraine?
Related: Why did US Congressman John Conyers’ amendment restricting aid to pro-Nazi groups in Ukraine fail to pass? Max Blumenthal’s (unproven) allegations.
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20 November 2014
The Face of Roma in Vilnius
Does a Program of “Integration” Undermine the Roma Community in Lithuania’s Capital?
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Autumn 2014
Seventy Years Declaration (SYD) Relaunched for 2015
PROF. DANNY BEN-MOSHE LAUNCHES DECLARATION’S NEW WEBSITE ◊ RELAUNCH FOR JANUARY 2015 HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY ON 70th ANNIVERSARY OF LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ ◊ NEED UNDERLINED BY THE BALTIC-NATIONALIST INSPIRED RESOLUTION SLIPPED INTO THE US CONGRESS LAST JUNE
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October 2015
Defending History Brings Results…
For First Time, NY Yivo to Honor (on Dec. 17) a Holocaust Resistance Hero Defamed by Lithuania’s Prosecutors
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
Dr. Arad is a victim of a state-sponsored campaign of defamation. When forced by international outcry to abandon their “pre-trial investigation,” prosecutors published a further defamatory page on their own website. It’s still there!
צי האָט דער איצטיקער ניו⸗יאָרקער ייוואָ אינגאַנצן אַרויסגעוואָרפן יידיש פון דער היינטצייטיקער טעטיקייט? וואָס וואָלטן דערויף געזאָגט דינה אַבראַמאָוויטש, אוריאל וויינרייך, מאַקס וויינרייך, יודל מאַרק, חנה מלאָטעק, שלמה נאָבל, נחום סטוטשקאָוו, אברהם סוצקעווער, נח פּרילוצקי, זעליג⸗הירש קלמנאָוויטש, זלמן רייזען, צמח שאַבאַד, מרדכי שעכטער?
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Five Holocaust survivors, and the year the campaign against each was launched by government units in Lithuania. From left to right: Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Dr. Rachel Margolis, Ms. Fania Brantsovsky, attorney Joseph Melamed, and physicist Professor Pinchos Fridberg. Many bold Lithuanian citizens have stood up to state-sponsored efforts to obfuscate the Holocaust via revisionist historiography.
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August 2015
Latvian for “Springtime for Hitler”?
Riga Jewish Heritage Guide Aleks Feigmanis and Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff Blast New Musical that Glorifies a Holocaust Perpetrator; Associated Press Reports
THE SHOW’S NATIONAL TOUR STARTED ON OCTOBER 11
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NEW YORK, 19 October 2014
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KIEV, 14 October 2014
Ukrainian Parliament’s Debate on Glorifying World War II Hitlerist Nationalists Ends in Disarray
Mainstream Western Media Mostly Ignores the News (but see: Sunday Times)
In a September tweet, Ukraine’s president said UPA fighters were an “example of heroism.” It was a prelude to the scheduled Oct. 14th debate in parliament on declaring Hitler’s executioners in Ukraine to be “freedom fighters.” When violence broke out on the 14th outside the national parliament, the Western media, including the BBC, whitewashed the Hitler-era Holocaust perpetrators being glorified by Ukraine’s nationalist leaders.
DELRAY, FLORIDA, October 2014
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VILNIUS, 16 May 2014
Seven Lithuanian Champions of Human Rights Awarded First Annual
James Tissot’s The Prophet Amos (around 1888)
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October 2014
Daniel Lazare Deconstructs Timothy Snyder’s Trashing of Anti-Nazi World War II Partisans, and New Role as Point Man for (East European) Far Right and (US) Neo-Cons
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6 September 2014
Five Years
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2 September 2014
The Defending History Community Celebrates the 77th Birthday of
Vilnius author (in Russian), editor (in English, Lithuanian, Russian, Yiddish), historian (European), theatre director (Yiddish) and tireless, fearless (global) intellectual champion in the struggle against the far right’s Holocaust revisionism, racism and antisemitism
MILAN CHERSONSKI
77
A pillar of strength in the Jewish Community of Lithuania and far beyond
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LONDON, 26 August 2014
Ernst Lowenberg (1922—2014)
Ernst Josef Lowenberg
(28 December 1922 — 26 August 2014)
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In his final months, London Holocaust survivor Ernst Lowenberg, a native of Halle am Saale in Germany, wrote to UK prime minister David Cameron asking the government to take a stand on East European Holocaust revisionism.
In 2012, on the eve of his ninetieth birthday, he led a peaceful, dignified, friendly picket-line outside the Lithuanian Embassy in London and handed the consul a petition.
He is pictured above at the prime minister’s Holocaust Commission consultation event held in London on 5 May 2014.
Funeral service Tuesday, 2 Sept. 2014 at 2 PM at West Chapel, Hoop Lane, Golders Green, London NW11
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Summer 2014
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Summer 2014
ISSUES IN THE NEWS
COMING SOON: Review of the Lithuanian edition of a book on the Holocaust that got its author banned from attending the book launch event
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August 2014
Ukrainian Government’s Use of Neo-Nazi Paramilitaries is Reported by London’s Daily Telegraph
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“But Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries […] should send a shiver down Europe’s spine. Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming. The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or antisemites.” — Tom Parfitt in the Daily Telegraph.
Azov Unit fighting for Ukraine’s government. Photo: Tom Parfitt (Telegraph)
BUT USE OF PRO-HITLER ELEMENTS BY WASHINGTON’S ALLY GETS ONE SENTENCE AT END OF NEW YORK TIMES REPORT
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Plungyán (Plungė), 30 July 2014
Yankl-Yosl Bunk (Jakovas Bunka), Famed Wood Sculptor, Last Jew of Plungyán (Plungė, Lithuania), Dies at 91
His Art Commemorates the Holocaust in Western Lithuania
Was World War II Red Army Veteran of the War Against Hitler
Yankl-Yosl Bunk (13 July 1923 – 30 July 2014) Photo: Adam Ellick
Bunk’s massive wooden sculpture at the forest hill spot (Plungyán/Plungė, western Lithuania), where 74 teenage Jewish girls (from the local high school) were murdered by locals who knew them. Photo: DefendingHistory.com.
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Summer 2014
WELCOME TO DEFENDING HISTORY (FROM THE NEWEST BRAND OF HOLOCAUST DENIAL)
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Are we back to Springtime for Hitler, just focused on celebrating a local mass murderer of Latvian Jewry? Will the hosting venues, including the City Cultural Centers in Jelgava and Valmiera, and prestigious halls in Riga, Liepāja, Rēzekne and Ventspils also be holding memorials for their citizens murdered in the Latvian Holocaust in which Herberts Cukurs, known as the “Hangman of Riga,” took such a personal and violent part?
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Meanwhile…
Surpasses Lithuanian law (up to two years imprisonment) and Hungary’s version (up to three years)
Opinion that there was one genocide in the country (the Holocaust) remains criminalized by 2014 law, in the spirit of the laws passed in Hungary and Lithuania in 2010
QUESTION: Does the new musical Sugar Herbert Sugar perhaps violate the new law which bans (with punishment up to five years jailtime) “glorification, denial, justification or gross derogation of genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace or war crimes against Latvia perpetrated by the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.” Or is the law null and void when it comes to the Holocaust in Latvia?
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Summer 2014
Is a Vilnius Police Unit Again Harassing Evaldas Balčiūnas for his Articles on the Holocaust?
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Evaldas Balčiūnas (left) joined Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel office, last February in Kaunas, Lithuania, for a small, silent, peaceful protest against the state-approved neo-Nazi march in the city’s center on the nation’s independence day.
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June 2014
Did Someone Sneak Some Holocaust Revisionism into the US Congress?
Under the Radar: Did East European nationalists — trying to insinuate the “Two Holocausts Theory” into the West — slip a resolution right onto Capitol Hill?
Flying in from the east?
RESPONSES:
SAME GROUPS THAT HAVE SUPPORTED PROJECTS TO HONOR NAZI COLLABORATORS?
But what’s wrong with a single “red-brown” remembrance day?
♦
Are US officials aware that the Prague Declaration is the foundational document of the ultranationalists’ “Double Genocide” campaign to revise Holocaust history? Of the Seventy Years Declaration (2012) response? Do these members of Congress really believe that those who liberated Auschwitz are morally identical to its killers?
RELATED:
Freedom of Speech in the Eastern EU?
ŠIAULIAI, 22 MAY 2014
Summons Issued
He is author of a series of bold articles about state sanitization and glorification of Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators
Evaldas Balčiūnas
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RELATED: Defending History report on Lithuania’s 2010 law. Essays by: Leonidas Donskis; Milan Chersonski. Section on Democracy in the Eastern EU.
RELATED: Police action against feminists who stood up peacefully to the neo-Nazis in Lithuania.
“We stand with Evaldas 100%.”
—Editor
With Efraim Zuroff
On February 16th 2014, Evaldas Balčiūnas joined the small, peaceful and silent protest led by Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel office, on the occasion of the annual neo-Nazi march in Kaunas which again glorified the city’s 1941 Nazi puppet ruler who collaborated in sending his city’s 30,000 Jewish citizens to their deaths.
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PRAGUE, 20 MAY 2014
European Union
“Double Genociders” in Prague Triumphantly Announce Participation of “Cabinet of Viviane Reding” at 12-13 June Conference on “Legacy of Totalitarianism Today”…
Will EU’s Commissioner for Justice legitimize the Prague campaign to obfuscate the Holocaust for the East-European-nationalist inspired rewrite of history?
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BACKGROUND:
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LONDON, 9 May 2014
Appeal to Prime Minister David Cameron
Ernst Lowenberg, 91, pictured at the May 2014 UK consultation with Holocaust survivors, has written to David Cameron calling for rejection of the “Double Genocide” revisionism emanating from Eastern Europe. In 2012, he handed a petition to the Lithuanian embassy in London.
VILNIUS, 16 May 2014
Confirms rumors about the steps outside the Contemporary Arts Center on Vokiečių Street
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Spring 2014
Putin’s indefensible actions are robustly exposed. But there is reluctance to look critically at “pro-Western” forces that glorify (as “national heroes”) Nazi collaborators and Holocaust mass murderers…
What’s Western about that?
HISTORY FOR SALE? AS EVENTS UNFOLD, ARE WESTERN GOVERNMENTS TACITLY HELPING TO “FIX” THE HOLOCAUST BARBARITY OF BANDERA, THE UPA AND THE OUN? THESE GROUPS MURDERED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS (UKRAINIAN CITIZENS) ON AN ETHNIC BASIS IN THE CAUSE OF HITLERIST RACIAL ELIMINATION.
WESTERN VALUES? IS IT MORAL FOR THE US, NATO AND THE EU TO COVER FOR THE ELEVATION OF HOLOCAUST PERPETRATORS TO NATIONAL HERO STATUS? CAN STATE-SANCTIONED NAZI-WORSHIP REALLY BE IRRELEVANT TO TODAY’S RACISM, ANTISEMITISM & HOMOPHOBIA?
HISTORIANS FOR HIRE? ARE BIG (AND SMALL) GUN HISTORIANS ALREADY BEING MOBILIZED TO OBFUSCATE THE ISSUES AND SANITIZE THE MASS MURDERERS OF UKRAINIAN JEWRY? TO PROMOTE MORE “DOUBLE GENOCIDE” REVISIONISM? ALLIES’ DEFEAT OF HITLER AT HUGE SACRIFICE IS INCREASINGLY MARGINALIZED BY THE REVISIONISTS.
Huge banner in Independence Square in Kiev glorifies wartime fascist leader Stepan Bandera, whose Hitlerist organization murdered tens of thousands of civilians — citizens of Ukraine — on an ethnic basis. Photo: Washington Post. Earlier, BBC News published images of the Bandera banner gracing Kiev City Hall.
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♦ Are geostrategic concerns morally blinding some Western powers to East European adulation for Hitler’s allies (and their values) Issues for Canada, EU, UK, US (and Israel).
REVISIONISM IN THE MAKING: PHOTOSHOPPED IMAGE AT THE LONSKY MUSEUM IN LVIV
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Spring 2014
Four of them, in their late 80s or 90s, are heroic veterans of the anti-Nazi war effort who escaped the Vilna, Kovno or Svintsyán Ghetto to join up with the partisans in the forests of Lithuania. All their families perished in the Lithuanian Holocaust.
♦
“ONE PUBLIC LETTER OF APOLOGY COULD REPAIR MUCH OF THE DAMAGE”
“STILL TIME TO END THINGS WITH THE LAST SURVIVORS ON A NICER NOTE, AFTER 700 YEARS OF JEWISH HISTORY IN LITHUANIA“
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8 April 2014
April 2014 International Romani Day
Vilma Fiokla Kiurė looks at Roma issues in Lithuania: Roma: Presumption of Guilt
31 March 2014
Criminalization of History in the Eastern EU?
Is a police crime unit the appropriate authority for investigating EU/NATO citizens of 2014 who oppose state glorification of alleged Nazi collaborators of 1941?
Beržinis is one of many bold Lithuanian citizens who have spoken up
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27 March 2014
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23 March 2014
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18 March 2014
More Holocaust Revisionism in “Prague Declaration Europe”?
RELATED:
DOUBLE GENOCIDE IN THE ANTISEMITIC IMAGINATION:
DOUBLE GENOCIDE TOURISM:
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February-March 2014
Baltic Marching Season
Interface of Pro-Fascist Marches, Holocaust Revisionism, and Contemporary Racism
Defending History, in harmony with the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, monitored the three 2014 Nazi-ally glorifying marches in the Baltics. Authorities invested shrewdly this year in downplaying all three, but failed to simply move them away from prestigious city centers (which would have offended the far right and ultranationalist base). Visible fascist symbols were reduced from previous years, local opposition sometimes neutralized, and media interest discouraged.
But the noxious worship, in 2014’s EU, of Hitler’s allies in Holocaust-era Europe (now being cast as implicitly “acceptable”) remains a shameful constant, one that calls out for urgent scrutiny in the West. Yet again, Defending History is defense of today’s — and tomorrow’s — human rights and EU/NATO values. The adulaters of wartime Hitlerism are its moral heirs: today’s propagaters of racism, ultranationalism, antisemitism, homophobia and Aryanist theories of national purity.
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27 February 2014
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February 2014
New (and unconfirmed) report from Vilnius
STILL NO DENIALS FROM POLICE OR PROSECUTORS ON AUTHENTICITY OF FEB. 2014 DOCUMENT CIRCULATING
New (and confirmed) report from Vilnius
ONE YEAR LATER:
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27 January 2014
Hungarian Medal Returned
Randolph Braham, 91, Survivor and Major Holocaust Scholar, Returns Medal to Hungarian Government over “Whitewashing” of Holocaust
Honoring a Hero of the Anti-Nazi Resistance in Rechovot
Dr. Rachel Margolis, 92, Honored on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Rachel Margolis, 92, is honored at her home in Rechovot on 27 January by Brig. Gen. Zvi Kan-Tor (center), head of the task force establishing Museum of the Jewish Soldier of World War II and Abraham Grinzaid, head of Israel’s association of Soviet army veterans who fought against the Nazis.
Chaim Bargman, Noted Jewish History Guide from Kaunas, is Prevented by Police from Attending Holocaust Commemoration Ceremony
Rabbi Shmuel Jacob Feffer, President of World HaGró (Gaon of Vilna) Center, Coeditor of 70 Gaon Books, Issues Rabbinic Judgment on Convention Center Plans
