Latvian President Blesses Waffen SS March in Riga; Council of Europe’s Racism Unit Condemns Event; 1500 Turn Out
The president of Latvia endorsed this year’s Waffen SS march, “bowing his head” to his nation’s Waffen SS. Latvia’s ambassador to the UK defended the march. Council of Europe condemns the event. UK MP John Mann. UK Parliament Early Day Motion 2866. 1500 Turn Out.
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A wreath for Holocaust survivors was covered by the Waffen SS logo by the event’s organizers. Two anti-Nazi activists exposed the wreath again for a short time, before they were removed by police.
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Foreign protesters included Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (Jerusalem), Joel Rubinfeld of the European Jewish Parliament (Brussels), Monica Lowenberg, creator of the anti-march international petition (London).
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EYEWITNESS REPORT & IMAGES. 2ND REPORT. MEDIA COVERAGE.
Posted in Boxes, Celebrations of Fascism, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, Racism, Riga's Waffen SS Marches
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Ukraine: Fascists, Collaborators, Perpetrators — Honored
Posted in Boxes, Celebrations of Fascism
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8-12 May 2011 Facebook Debate
Posted in Double Games, Opinion
Tagged Efraim Zuroff, Prague Declaration, Ronaldas Racinskas, Saulius Suziedelis, Steven Spielberg, Timothy Snyder
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Was the OSCE’s (ODIHR) ‘High Level Meeting on Confronting Antisemitism’ another East European Whitewash?
The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) today released its report on the ‘OSCE High Level Meeting on Confronting Antisemitism in Public Discourse’ that was held in Prague on 23 and 24 March 2011 under the auspices of its ODIHR department (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights). The full report is available here (alternate link here).
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, News & Views, The OSCE, US State Dept Manipulated?
Tagged Antisemitism in Eastern Europe, Confronting Antisemitism, Lithuania, Lithuanian Jewish policy, ODIHR, ODIHR antisemitism, OSCE antisemitism, OSCE High Level Meeting, OSCE ODIHR, Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
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Milan Chersonski on the ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar
O P I N I O N
by Milan Chersonski
МАРШ ЖИВЫХ. ВПЕЧАТЛЕНИЯ И РАЗМЫШЛЕНИЯ
В календаре памятных дат Государства Израиль есть День памяти Жертв нацизма и Героев сопротивления – Йом а-Шоа вэ а-Гвура. По европейскому календарю он приходится на 19 апреля – день начала восстания в Варшавском гетто в 1943г.. Почти месяц – дольше, чем польская армия, защищавшая страну от нацистов в 1939г., – истощенные голодом и болезнями, плохо вооруженные узники сражались против специально обученных нацистских формирований и их местных нацистских пособников.
Posted in In Russian, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
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Estonian Nationalists say Holocaust ‘Pales’ by Comparison with Soviet Crimes; Delfi.lt produces its ‘Scorecard’ again
Estonian nationalists demonstrating outside Tallin’s Russian Embassy explained their view that ‘The Holocaust pales before the hundreds of thousands of people who were murdered by the Communists, the annihilation of dozens of ethnicities and the mass deportations!’
The BNS report carried by Delfi.lt (English translation here) which contains the quote also reproduced the image of the ‘red-brown scorecard’.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Estonia, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status
Tagged Prague Declaration
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Democratic Hungary’s First Nazi War Crimes Trial Opens in Budapest
The courtroom was packed as post-Soviet democratic Hungary finally put one of its own citizens on trial for alleged complicity in the genocide of the country’s Jewish population in the Holocaust. The massive local media coverage pointed to what some observers called a mood of national catharsis breaking a taboo against admission of Nazi-era complicity that has swept much of the new-accession state area in the European Union.
Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Hungary, News & Views
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Lithuanian ‘Government Historians’ blame Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz for the Country’s Holocaust Problems
Professor Saulius Sužiedėlis (Millersville University, Pennsylvania), a major historian who has recently been flown to conferences far and wide courtesy of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, and politician Ronaldas Račinskas, deputy chairman of the state-funded ‘Red-Brown commission’ have blasted Dr. Efraim Zuroff and Professor Dovid Katz for being responsible for Lithuania’s international Holocaust issues, in a major panel discussion that appeared in the media both as a sound file and in an edited transcript format. There were also other members of the panel discussion.
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Israel, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Three Years Later: Neither Charged nor Cleared
marked three years to the day since police in Vilnius came looking for Holocaust Survivors Dr Rachel Margolis (born 1921, at right of photo) and Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (born 1922) in a ‘war crimes investigation’ that has still not been publicly closed.
Both women were incarcerated in the Vilna Ghetto from 1941 to 1943. Both lost their entire families to the barbarity of the Nazis and their local collaborators. They both escaped, on different days in September 1943, to join up with the anti-Nazi partisans in the forests of Lithuania. The underground forest fort, a half-hour’s drive from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, where Fania lived with another hundred or so Jewish escapees of the Vilna Ghetto, is being allowed to sink into the ground and disappear from history’s view.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Events, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Tagged Fania Brancovskaja, Fania Brantsovsky, Fanja Brancovskaja, Lithuanian Human Rights Association, Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lithuanian prosecutors, Prague Declaration, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, Prague Process, Rachel Margolis, Vilna Ghetto, Yitzhak Arad
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Masked Men Throw Smoke Bombs in Small Vilnius Theater, Disrupt Film on Anti-Fascists
On Monday evening 2 May (Yom Hashoah), at about 7 PM, five or six masked perpetrators forced their way into a small theater in Vilnius showing a film about the formation of the anti-fascist movement in France and hurled military-type smoke bombs at the screen. Viewers, including a child, fled in panic and unable to breathe. Some witnesses claimed they saw members of the Lithuanian military participating.
Posted in Film, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, News & Views, Use and Abuse of Sugihara
Tagged anti-fascists Vilnius, Artoteka, neo-Nazis Lithuania, Vilnius, Yom Hashoah
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Budapest Judge Throws Out War Criminal’s ‘Libel’ Case against Dr Efraim Zuroff, praises the Holocaust Historian for Pursuing Justice
Budapest judge Viktor Vadasz of the Pest Central District Court ruled today in favor of Dr Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust historian and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, in a case that foreign observers have taken to be emblamatic for the sometimes topsy-turvy world of East European politics: glorification of Nazi war criminals amidst vilification of those who would want them brought to justice and the truth about local Holocaust history told and taught.
Posted in Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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Eyewitness Report: ‘March of the Living’ at Ponar Killing Site near the Lithuanian Capital
E Y E W I T N E S S R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Geoff Vasil
I attended the March of the Living today at Ponár (Polish Ponary, Lithuanian Paneriai), the mass killing site outside Vilnius, Lithuania. It is Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. I had been to Ponár only once before, because a friend of mine was afraid she would get lost taking the city buses there and back.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Double Games, Geoff Vasil, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
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March of the Living at Vilnius Mass-Murder Site: Sergey Kanovich Speaks Out
Sergey Kanovich
Vilnius-born author Sergey Kanovich (Sergejus Kanovičius) published in today’s issue of Bernardinai a short and powerful statement for the ceremony later today at Ponár (Paneriai), the mass-murder site outside Vilnius where 100,000 civilians, among them 70,000 Jews, were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Most of the actual shooting was carried out by local Lithuanian units sometimes nowadays glorified as ‘anti-Soviet heroes’ by certain establishment circles, even as a parallel series of Holocaust commemoration activities are produced during this year’s parallel years of commemoration proclaimed in late 2010 by the Lithuanian parliament (see here and here) for 2011, which marks the seventieth anniversary of the events.
“They took your life away. And there are those who continue to try to assassinate your memory — again, today, almost without resistance and with impunity, now and again, the spirit of swastikas and the white armbands of the LAF casts a shadow over Jerusalem of Lithuania. And today there are those who still desire to see your executioners as heroes.”
— SERGEY KANOVICH
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Sergey Kanovich
Tagged Paneriai, Ponar, Prague Declaration, Prague Process, Sergejus Kanovicius, Sergey Kanovich
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War Criminal’s ‘Libel Case’ against Holocaust Historian headed for Verdict This Tuesday in Budapest
By most accounts, it could only happen in the ‘Eastern European Union’ region, where powers that be often spare no effort to use (or abuse) the law (‘lawfare’) and state institutions in the cause of Holocaust Obfuscation. Anything that can enhance the status of the Holocaust’s perpetrators and diminish that of the victims, survivors and their current advocates is pursued with a sense of convinced national purpose that by most accounts would have been considered inconceivable at the time of European Union and NATO accession.
Posted in Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Events, Hungary, News & Views
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Genocide Research Center’s ‘Chief Public Relations Specialist’ Steps Up Antisemitic Campaign
Ričardas Čekutis, the Chief Public Relations Specialist at the state-funded Genocide Research Center who was a leader of the March 11th 2011 neo-Nazi march on the main boulevard of the Lithuanian capital, and was formerly a top parliamentary aide to a Liberal (!) MP, gave a further ‘charming interview’ on April 24th to Diena.lt.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Human Rights, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, Vilnius
Tagged Emanuelis Zingeris, Genocide Center Vilnius, Genocide Centre Vilnius, Prague Declaration, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, Prague Process
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Why Does the State Commemorate Murderers?
O P I N I O N
by Evaldas Balčiūnas
Probably every mature person living in Lithuania has heard about the mass murder of people at the beginning of World War II. During the first months of the war ― in a period of less than half a year ― more than 100,000 people were murdered, most of them Jews.
“Evil deeds uncondemned often end up idolized.”
It is sad, but there are more than enough facts corroborating that Lithuanians — regular officers of the Lithuanian military — took part in the mass murders of civilians, women and children.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Evaldas Balčiūnas, Human Rights, Lithuania, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius's Genocide Center and the Genocide Museum it Manages
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Neo-Nazis Amok in Lithuania; Arrests at ‘Straight Zero’
In apparent homage to the April 20th birthday of Adolf Hitler, neo-Nazis hoisted Nazi flags high over the heart of Vilnius atop the former Labor Palace building on Tauro Hill. Details here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, News & Views
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Obfuscationists planning Vilnius Holocaust Museum miles away from the City Center
Rumors are flying in the Lithuanian capital about plans to induce foreign institutions and governments to support the building of a new Holocaust Museum at the mass-murder site Ponár (Paneriai), where no unsuspecting tourist or visitor to Vilnius would ever see it, more than six miles out of town, unless they have prior special interest that would motivate the hiring of a taxi for that purpose.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Museums, News & Views, Poland, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
Tagged Prague Declaration, Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, Prague Process
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Education Ministry and Association of Museums Encourage Activities to Commemorate the Activities of ‘Partisans’ including the Murderers who Unleashed the Lithuanian Holocaust; No mention of anti-Nazi partisans…
At the behest of Lithuania’s Education Ministry, the Association of Lithuanian Museums today canvassed museums and other institutions asking for information about what is being done concretely to commemorate the celebration of local fascists who collaborated with Hitler, including the killers who unleashed the Lithuanian Holocaust (Lithuanian Activist Front or LAF), and the collaborationist Provisional Government (PG).
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory
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