Professor Pinchos Fridberg, a Vilnius Holocaust Survivor, Stands Up to Powerful Forces with Singular Courage

The debate in English translation ◊ Danny Ben-Moshe in Jerusalem Report ◊ Which government commission continues to defame this Holocaust survivor? ◊ Appeal to commissioners ◊ DH’s Pinchos Fridberg section

Memory Lane in PDFs . . .

2008: Dana Gloger in the Jewish Chronicle; Arne Bengtsson in Baltic Worlds; 2009: Raphael Ahren in Haaretz; Avi Friedman in Mishpacha; 2010: Ricky Ben-David in the Jerusalem Post; Esther Goldberg in Canadian Jewish News; Cindy Mindell in the Jewish Ledger; 2011: Dovid Katz in JHC; 2012: Efraim Zuroff in Haaretz; Dovid Katz in London Jewish News; 2013: Bernard Dichek in Jerusalem Report

NEARLY A YEAR LATER, STILL NO APOLOGY!

Red-Brown Commission Continues to Call one of the Last Vilna Holocaust Survivors a “Liar” on its own Website  ♦  Background

NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM RELEASED

Richard Bloom’s Defending Holocaust History, a new documentary on “Double Genocide” Holocaust revisionism, focusing on Lithuania and Latvia, was released this month by Richard Bloom Productions.

Defending History Brings Real (But Not Enough) Results…

After 7 Years of Silence, Part of Lithuanian Government’s “Red-Brown Commission” Expresses “Sorrow and Anger” at “Unwarranted Attacks” on Yitzhak Arad

Yitzhak Arad

First Real Gesture Brings Praise; But No Mention of Prosecutors’ “Kangaroo War Crimes Investigation” or Urgent Need for Apology from Prosecutor and Political Leaders to Halt Ongoing Defamation of Dr. Arad — a Holocaust Survivor, Resistance Hero in the Struggle against Nazism, Veteran of Israel’s War of Independence and then General, Major Scholar of the Holocaust, Head of Yad Vashem for Over Two Decades (1972-1993)

His The Holocaust in the Soviet Union is a (2010) National Jewish Book Award winner

BACKGROUND

OUT OF COMMISSION?

PDF OF THE LETTER (dated 14 Oct; see our 11 Oct open letter appealing to commissioners’ conscience); Letter signed by all members except A. Bubnys, J. Brent, N. Naimark, J. Rainer, T. Snyder, F. Thom

Commission announces two separate sub-commissions, as in 1998 (PDF). Comment by Milan Chersonski (2008); by Rachel Kostanian (2013)

COMMISSION APPEARS TO BE HOPELESSLY SPLIT: AMONG THOSE WHO DID NOT SIGN IS THE COMMISSION’S REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE GENOCIDE CENTER (WHERE THE “INVESTIGATION” OF DR. ARAD WAS STARTED AND NEVER DISOWNED). HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS DISMAYED AT ATTEMPTED LEGITIMIZATION OF THE ANTISEMITIC GENOCIDE CENTER.

Ongoing defamation extends to prosecutors’ website, Wikipedia, new publications, and mass media; souvenir envelope on sale for years at Vilnius’s main post office; even a “human rights association”

No mention of other defamed Holocaust survivors, including Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, Tel Aviv attorney Joseph Melamed, Dr. Rachel Margolis; Professor Pinchos Fridberg who continues to be defamed on the commission’s own website

YITZHAK ARAD’S 2012 PAPER ON HOLOCAUST OBFUSCATION AND THE PART PLAYED BY VILNIUS-BASED COMMISSION

No mention of the Prague Declaration that continues to feature on commission’s website as “truth” while Seventy Years Declaration is unmentioned; Eight courageous Lithuanian parliamentarians signed SYD, defying the commission; MP Andriukaitis’s bold 2012 reply to a right-wing minister’s broadside

RELATED: section on the commission; page; Holocaust survivors from Lithuania protest commission’s renewal in Israel and the US; Joe Melamed’s letter;  Pinchos Fridberg section

Are (right-wing) politicians running the show? Image: International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania

RESIGNATIONS TO DATE FROM THE COMMISSION AND ASSOCIATED BODIES:

Sir Martin Gilbert and professors Gershon Greenberg, Konrad Kwiet, and Dov Levin

Efraim Zuroff Slams New Attempt by Vilnius Genocide Center to Massage the Numbers — and Ethics — of the Local Perpetrators

MAARIV REPORTS

Evaldas Balčiūnas: A tale of inspiring courage in challenging the Genocide Center

Background: Page on Genocide Center and its texts in Genocide Museum and Gruto Parkas

See also DH sections:  Perpetrators Glorified; Double Genocide

Related: Chersonski replies to Aleksandravičius

Red-Brown Exhibit Opened in Berlin

REVIEW OF ITS RECENT STINT IN VILNIUS

One-Sided Vilna Ghetto Roadshow in Berlin?

(27-29 Oct)

CINDERELLA NOT INVITED TO THE BALL?  Her 92nd birthday was 28 Oct, in the middle of the conference.

Dr. Rachel Margolis, Vilna native, Vilna Ghetto survivor, heroic resistance fighter against the Nazis, co-founder of the Green House Holocaust museum in Vilnius, who rediscovered and published long lost diary of eyewitness to the Ponár massacres, defamed by Lithuanian state prosecutors, is not on the list of speakers in Berlin.

FROM RECENT YEARS: CHEN IVRI APTER, GORDON BROWN, US CONGRESSMEN, LORD JANNER. BACKGROUND. FACT SHEET. RACHEL ON VIDEO. THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS.

Meanwhile, in Rehovot, Rachel Margolis prepared to celebrate her 92nd birthday (Monday 28 Oct). PHOTO: HADAS PARUSH

RIGHT WING POLITICS IN PLAY AT BERLIN VILNA GHETTO CONFERENCE: The event is hosted by a Conservative Party (Christian Democratic Union) linked foundation that is itself part of the Centre for European Studies, a think tank affiliated with the right wing EPP that is itself an engine of red-brown Double Genocide politics in Europe. Chief of red-brown commission in town for the event.

QUESTION: Will there be any mention of the ghetto survivors defamed for posterity (in the absence of formal apologies) by branches of the Lithuanian government? The other painful issues including Double Genocide? Dr. Rachel Margolis rediscovered and published the diary of Kazimierz Sakowicz. More.

TRIBUTES ON FACEBOOK: RACHEL MARGOLIS’S BIRTHDAY

Dr. Rachel Margolis at her home in Rehovot, Israel, visited by Joseph Melamed, president of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, who was himself visited by agents of Interpol in 2011 on instructions from Lithuanian prosecutors.

Friends in Berlin may consider politely asking officials for official public apologies to the defamed Holocaust survivors, including:

Dr. Yitzhak Arad

Ms. Fania Brantsovsky

Professor Pinchos Fridberg

Dr. Rachel Margolis

Attorney Joseph Melamed

For summaries of some painful issues that need to be addressed in pursuit of reconciliation and mutual understanding, please see Monica Lowenberg’s petition, and Defending History’s proposed solutions.

Quote of the Month

BRITISH MP JOHN MANN

“It is an industrial rewriting of history in Eastern Europe to excuse mass murders carried out on behalf of the Nazis.”

— UK MP John Mann, October 2013

READ MORE

An Appeal to Conscience

of the German, Israeli and US members of the renewed state-financed “Red-Brown Commission”:

ARE YOU REALLY COMFORTABLE WITH THE COMMISSION’S

(1) continued public support for the 2008 Prague Declaration, and continued failure to mention the existence of the Seventy Years Declaration? (background)

(2) continued defamation of beloved Vilnius Holocaust survivor Prof. Pinchos Fridberg? (background)

(3) continued failure to publicly condemn the antisemitic prosecutorial defamation of Holocaust survivor and scholar Dr. Yitzhak Arad, a founding member of your own commission? Of Holocaust survivor and scholar Dr. Rachel Margolis? (background)

READ MORE

Dr. Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavičius), Valiant Chair of the Lithuanian Jewish Community (1992 to Early 2013) Turns 85!

TRIBUTES ON FACEBOOK.  ALPEROVICH ON: DOUBLE GENOCIDE;  A FOREIGN MINISTER’S ANTISEMITIC TIRADE; STATE HONORS FOR HOLOCAUST COLLABORATORS, THE LAF & 1941 NAZI PUPPET GOV’T;  POLICY OF HONORING BOTH PERPETRATORS AND VICTIMS;  DEFAMATION OF JEWISH ANTI-NAZI PARTISAN HEROES (AND RED-BROWN COMMISSION’S SILENCE);  DISNEYLAND GHETTO PROJECTS.

Dr. Shimon Alperovich

History of Defending History…

2013: Bernard Dichek in The Jerusalem Report. Danny Ben-Moshe’s film Rewriting History. 2010:  Wendy Robbins on BBC World Service. 2010: Ricky Ben-David in the Jerusalem Post. 2009: Rafael Aaren in Haaretz. 2008: Arne Bengtsson in Baltic Worlds.

Selection of Essays on the Issues 

Yitzhak Arad; Yehuda Bauer; Danny Ben-Moshe; Gordon Brown; Abraham Cooper; Pinchos Fridberg; Sir Martin Gilbert; Clemens Heni; Dovid Katz; John Mann; Jonathan Freedland; Lord Janner; Leigh Phillips; Leyzer Ran Family; Tessa Rajak; Heidemarie Uhl; Efraim Zuroff; Voices of Holocaust survivors.