Citing recent events in Hungary, in which authors Ben Cohen and Karl Pfeifer had a role to play, the Jerusalem Post’s Benjamin Weinthal has published an article in today’s Jerusalem Post exposing the sharply increased proclivity toward primitive antisemitism in the mainstream press in Hungary. The tendency has picked up steam since election of the right wing of government Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party. The freedom and responsibility of the media have been main issues for the country’s right wing government.
New Hungarian Press Norms are License for Antisemitism and Racism
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Free Speech & Democracy, Hungary, News & Views, Racism
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Wyman Brent Voices Fear his Vilnius Library Could Become Vehicle to “Whitewash and Obfuscate History and Cover for Rampant Antisemitism”
O P I N I O N
by Wyman Brent
I have a concern which I am sure that the readers of DefendingHistory.com share. I am talking about the possibility of the Vilnius Jewish Library becoming a vehicle for certain elements of the Lithuanian government to continue to whitewash and obfuscate history and to cover up for the antisemitism currently rampant here.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Antisemitism & Bias, Books, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Wyman Brent
Tagged Jewish library in Vilnius, Vilnius Jewish Library, Wyman Brent
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Far Right Organization, Led by Genocide Center’s ‘Specialist’, Publishes a List of Enemies Including Advisor to the Lithuanian Jewish Community
A far right organization in Lithuania today published a list of enemies, comprising liberals, tolerance-advocating authors, gay rights activists and a poet who is an official advisor to the Jewish Community of Lithuania (English translation here).
One of the organization’s leaders is a ‘chief specialist’ at the state-sponsored Genocide Research Center which is one of the engines of Holocaust Obfuscation and the Double Genocide movement in the European Parliament. He was one of the leaders of last March’s state-authorized neo-Nazi parade through central Vilnius.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
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Lithuanian Government Agencies Provide Financial Support to Fascist Youth Organizations
In an article published today on Delfi.lt, Eglė Samoškaitė investigates state funding for fascist organizations, including those that lead or participate in neo-Nazi marches. A full English translation is here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Vilnius
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A ‘Documentary Film’ Tries to Establish the Legend of the ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’
O P I N I O N
by Milan Chersonski
Milan Chersonski at the Lithuanian Parliament. From 1979 to 1999 Chersonski directed the Yiddish Amateur Theater in Vilnius, Lithuania. He worked in various capacities at the quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper Jerusalem of Lithuania, publication of The Jewish Community of Lithuania, from its founding in 1989 until the paper was closed in 2011. He was its editor-in-chief from 1999 to 2011. He is now a senior analyst at DefendingHistory.com and contributes to various publications.
On September 28th 2010, the Parliament of Lithuania announced that 2011 would be the Year of Commemoration of Battles for Freedom and Great Losses. This mysterious name of some sort of anniversary appeared exactly a week after the same year, 2011, was declared the Year of Commemorating the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews. The Jewish Community of Lithuania reacted without delay to the ‘dual track’, apartheidized commemorations.
Now which “battles for freedom” are they talking about in the resolution? What sort of great losses? The resolution does not say specifically. Yes, Lithuanians valiantly rebelled for freedom in 1794, and in 1831, as well as in 1863, and then there were serious demonstrations on behalf of freedom in 1904-1905, and then there were the battles from 1918 to 1920 for the independence and borders of the newly founded state.
But it is impossible to understand exactly which events and which dates they now had in mind from the text of Lithuanian parliamentary resolution no. XI-1038 of September 28th 2010. And this is probably no accident, as shown by the subsequent actions of the Lithuanian government and leading organizations here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Arts, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Film, History, Kazys Škirpa, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
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Genocide Center Official Defends Suspects in April Hoisting of Hitler’s Flag over Vilnius
Ričardas Čekutis, the ‘chief specialist’ at the state-sponsored Genocide Research Center who was one of the leaders of last March’s neo-Nazi march in central Vilnius, and is also a leader of the ultranationalist ‘Lithuanian National Center’, denied that any of the LNC’s members who were arrested on 22 July had any involvement in the hoisting of Nazi flags on a hill overlooking central Vilnius on Hitler’s birthday on 20 April.
Speaking to Baltic News Service, Mr Čekutis confirmed that initially two of the Lithuanian National Center’s members were detained by police on Friday morning 22 July on suspicion of involvement in the April incident.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, News & Views, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
Tagged Genocide Research Center, Genocide Research Centre Vilnius, Ricardas Cekutis
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A Speech Never Spoken at Plungyán (Plungė)
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
An imaginary speech, not delivered by any of the high government officials who addressed the commemoration at the mass murder site of the Jews of Plungyán (Plungė) on 17 July 2011.
My dear friends, it is precisely because I am a proud official of the government of independent, democratic, Lithuania, and I love my country, that I am able to speak here today openly, on the seventieth anniversary of the murder of the Jews of Plungė — Plungyán, as they proudly called it in the Yiddish that rang through its streets for so many centuries.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Events, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Plungyán (Plungė), Politics of Memory
Tagged Antisemitism Lithuania, Asta Skaisgirytė Liaukšienė, Desecration of monuments Lithuania, Emanuelis Zingeris, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Commemoration in Lithuania, Holocaust commemoration Lithuania, Holocaust Memory, Jacob Bunka, Kausenai Memorial, Kazys Vitkevečius, Lithuania Tolerance Studies, Plunge, Plunge Holocaust, Plungian, Plungian Holocaust, Plungyan, Plungyan Holocaust, Ronaldas Racinskas, Tolerance studies center Lithuania
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A Moral Epidemic??
Local Nazi Collaborators & Holocaust Perpetrators Honored in Parts of Eastern Europe
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IS THIS REALLY HOW THEY SHOULD NOW BE RECYCLED BY ‘NEW EUROPE’?
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Romania
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EFRAIM ZUROFF IN HAARETZ
DefendingHistory.com section on the glorification of Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators in Eastern Europe
Posted in Boxes
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70 Years On: Address by Abel Levitt at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Plungyán (Plungė)
by Abel Levitt
According to Jewish Law, and according to custom in other religions, a tombstone must be placed at a grave with the name of the deceased.
In the case of Mass Murder, like what happened in Lithuania during the period which we know as the Holocaust, this has not been done. The scale was too big, thousands of people killed in a single day as happened in Ponár, near Vilnius, or at the Ninth Fort near Kaunas. Only in Plungė (Plungyán), where 1800 people , men, women, and children were brutally killed in two frightening and bloody days, has this now, today, been done.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, Opinion, Plungyán (Plungė)
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Račinskas’s Version of ‘Holocaust Education’: Red-Brown Commission Director General Speaks in the Lithuanian Parliament
Updates (newest first):
His views finally came through in English in a German documentary film
Mr. Racinskas calls prominent Holocaust survivor a liar on the commission’s website
He tries to deny LAF murders “on racial basis” before arrival of German forces in 1941
Says European Commission “spits in the face” when it fails to accept a Double Genocide resolution from the Baltics
The following is DefendingHistory.com’s translation (from the tape) of the concluding speech of the 29-30 June 2011 conference (reports here and here), delivered by Ronaldas Račinskas, director general (sometimes listed as executive director) of the government sponsored ‘International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania’ (known for short as the ‘Red-Brown Commission’), which is housed in the Office of the Prime Minister of Lithuania. It can serve as a potent example of the state-sponsored Holocaust Obfuscation movement which presents one face domestically, a second in the European Parliament, and a third to naive Western Holocaust Studies groups.
Simple, really. Tell the locals there was no Holocaust, just a complicated morass of mixed-up perpetrators and victims (and heck, those Jews were mostly communists anyway). Tell the European Parliament there were two equal genocides and they must legislate the equality of totalitarian regimes. And tell the foreign Jews and the West you need money to pursue Holocaust studies and commemoration. They’ll have to believe you. After all, you’re in the prime minister’s office of an EU government. Elementary, really?
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, Plungyán (Plungė), US State Dept Manipulated?, Yad Vashem and Lithuania
Tagged director general of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, executive director of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes of Lithuania, Historical Commission Lithuania, Holocaust in Lithuania, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Prague Declaration, Racinskas Holocaust Obfuscation, Račinskas tricks Holocaust museums abroad, Račinskas's double dealing with the Jewish community, Red-Brown Commission, Ronaldas Racinskas
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When a Major Scholar’s Book is Abused by East European Nationalists
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May 5th 2012 made it 4 Years since Police Came Looking for Two Women Holocaust Survivors
REPORT ON THE THREE YEAR MARK STILL HOLDS
Holocaust Survivors:
Not Charged — Not Cleared
With non-stop defamation: Lithuanian ‘Human Rights’ [!] Association calls for ‘sentencing’ of named ‘citizens of Jewish nationality’ for ‘organizing a massive slaughter’; Document is here; Comment here & here.
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UNITED STATES CONGRESSMEN STILL WAITING FOR A MEANINGFUL REPLY
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FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN HONORS DR RACHEL MARGOLIS
Posted in Boxes, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015)
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Pastor Michael Maass, Director of the Lithuanian Section of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), Speaks in Plungė
O P I N I O N
by Michael Maass
The text of Pastor Michael Maass’s talk at the Sabbath dinner in Plungyán (Plungė), Lithuania, on 15 July 2011, during preparations for the commemoration ceremony at the nearby mass murder site on 17 July 2011. See also Abel Levitt’s speech here, and the imaginary speech of a Lithuanian official here (with further links at end of page).
Text provided by Pastor Michael Maass.
Good evening. We are Michael and Fausta Maass, the directors of the Lithuanian branch of the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem. You might say we are ambassadors from the Christian nation to the Jewish nation. We represent millions of Christians in over sixty countries who love Israel and the Jewish people. We are honored to be with you tonight.
We believe that friendship between Jews and Christians is vitally important, especially in light of recent developments in the world. The legitimacy of the nation of Israel is under attack from many sides. Antisemitism is rising to a level not seen since the Second World War.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, Michael & Fausta Maass, News & Views, Opinion
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Professor Konrad Kwiet Quits the Lithuanian Government’s ‘Red-Brown Commission’
The Holocaust Obfuscation movement suffered a severe blow today with the public resignation from the Lithuanian government’s red-brown commission of Professor Konrad Kwiet, a major international scholar of the Lithuanian Holocaust. The resignation had been announced verbally at the recent ‘Aftermath’ conference held in Melbourne at the Australian Centre for the Study of Jewish Civilisation.
Professor Konrad Kwiet (right) makes a point to Dovid Katz at the June 2011 Aftermath conference at Monash University in Melbourne. Photo: Ariella Leski.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Australia, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Konrad Kwiet, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Yitzhak Arad
Tagged 2008 Prague Declaration, Double Genocide, Emanuel Zingeris, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism
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Devising a Legend about an ‘Uprising of the Enslaved’ — A Documentary Film financed by Lithuania’s Parliament and its Genocide Research Center, on the 70th Anniversary of the Outbreak of the Lithuanian Holocaust
O P I N I O N
by Milan Chersonski
Milan Chersonski in front of the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas)
СОЧИНЕНИЕ ЛЕГЕНДЫ О ВОССТАНИИ ПОРАБОЩЕННЫХ
28 сентября 2010 года Сейм Литвы объявил, что 2011 год будет называться Годом памяти о сражениях за свободу и великих утрат. Это загадочное название какого-то юбилея прозвучало ровно неделю спустя после объявления того же 2011 года Годом памяти жертв геноцида евреев Литвы.
Posted in Film, In Russian, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
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Ponár Desecrated: Authorities Try to Cover Up the Event; No Arrests, No Reaction from Officials
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Authorities Cover Up Desecration of Lithuania’s Largest Holocaust Mass-Murder Site
or click here. Thank you.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
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Authorities Cover Up Desecration of Lithuania’s Largest Holocaust Mass-Murder Site
Over the weekend, foreign visitors discovered offensive desecrations at Ponár (Paneriai), the mass murder site of 100,000 people during the Holocaust, among them 70,000 Jews of the Vilna region.
One major monument was spray painted with a swastika and the Russian for ‘Hitler was right’, all in red. It was signed ‘Solomon’, the pseudonym of a ubiquitous graffiti artist who had not been known previously for antisemitic attempts, leading to suspicion that use of the name could be a decoy. It was likewise widely thought that the use of Russian rather than Lithuanian was a decoy, as well as a likely slight directed at the country’s tiny Jewish community, which antisemitic attacks frequently accuse of disloyalty.
- ‘Hitler was right’ (in Russian)
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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A Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Hitler’s Invasion of Estonia
According to an Lrytas / BNS report (English here), the Jewish Community of Estonia has expressed ‘surprise and displeasure’ over plans to hold an event today to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the arrival of the Nazis in the city Viljandi.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Estonia, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Estonia (back in 2011): Hitler’s Invasion Celebrated (Box Coverage to 8 July 2011)
Estonia’s Elite Celebrates 70th Anniversary of Hitler’s Invasion on 8 July; Jewish Community Protests
Simon Wiesenthal Center issues statement; Jerusalem Post; ERR News
Plus: Waffen-SS Event on 30 July is Defended by Prime Minister and Elites; Comment on the event. Comment by Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson. Whither Estonia’s 2010 westward diplomatic shift?
Earlier, nationalists declared that the Holocaust ‘pales by comparison’
Posted in Boxes, Celebrations of Fascism
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On sale in Warsaw souvenir shops
An image of one of the items on sale at mainstream souvenir shops in Warsaw, photographed today. Image courtesy of Didier Bertin; more images on his page here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias
Tagged antisemitism Eastern Europe, antisemitism Poland
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