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Berl Kagan (Kahan)
Eminent scholar, author, and Holocaust survivor Berl Kagan, often known as Berl Kahn (1908-1993) renowned in his pre-war Lithuania youth as a scholar, lecturer and editor (of the newspaper Dos Vort), worked after the war in New York at the Yivo (Yiddish Scientific Institute, later Yivo Institute for Jewish Research) from 1954, is widely known for his concise encyclopedia of Jewish towns in prewar independent Lithuania, the final volume of the encyclopedia of Yiddish literature plus a volume of addenda, and numerous other works that are regularly consulted in our second decade of the twenty-first century. Fewer people, perhaps, are aware of his much more deeply personal work, A Yid in Vald (A Jew in the Forest), his Holocaust memoir.
While hiding from the Nazis and their local henchmen in the Lithuanian forests, he felt the need to record what he, his wife Raya, and his wife’s sister Nechama had to endure in the Kovno Ghetto and, from 1943, hiding in the barn of the inspirationally courageous peasant Tadas Pocius (known to friends as Tadeush) in Karalgiris village and, later, in the woods outside the Pocius family’s farm. Since there was no paper to write on, Kagan would write in between the lines of a paperback that he carried with him. In 1955, based on these clandestine records, Kagan published A Yid in Vald. After his death, his daughters Ada Kagan and Miriam Kagan Lieber ensured that the book would appear in English translation A Jew in the Woods.
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UPDATED MARCH 2017. See also (older, not updated) Responses page.
PREFACE
The campaign of defamation by Lithuanian state prosecutors and allied elites (particularly in the Genocide Center and the antisemitic right-wing press) has resulted in a number of cherished Holocaust Survivors being smeared as “war criminals” without a single charge ever having been leveled against anybody. Launched in 2006, the campaign, abusing tools such as “pre-trial investigations” and leaks to the media, have sought to brand as “war criminals” the heroes of the war against Hitler. It grew in 2011 with the addition of equally perverse “libel charges,” launched with fanfare when Interpol (!) was sent to disturb in Tel Aviv the elected head of the last active group of Litvak Holocaust survivors in the world. Then, in 2013, the state’s “red-brown commission” defamed one of Vilnius’s last survivors on equally perverse grounds, all the while putting on “Holocaust events” for naive Western audiences, usually funded by the (unknowing) Lithuanian taxpayer, in venues including London, New York, Toronto, and Vilnius.
A single public letter from the president could fix it all. Instantly.
The campaign of defamation results in permanent calumny in historians’ works, Wikipedia, and elsewhere (see below) that is more than a grave injustice to the Holocaust survivors targeted (and their families). It is a deliberate ultranationalist falsification of history in the spirit of the wider campaign to find fault with the victims and make heroes of the perpetrators. These are components of the movement to obfuscate the issues, and downgrade the Holocaust in the spirit of the Double Genocide movement and its central document, the 2008 Prague Declaration.
All but one of the accused survivors — most in their late eighties or nineties — were still alive (as of February 2016). Dr. Rachel Margolis passed away on 6 July 2015, having failed to fulfill her final wish of one last trip to her native Vilna. A single public letter of apology from the president or prime minister of Lithuania, accompanied by an apology from the state prosecutors, would be the minimal gesture of good will needed to repair the damage. Public defamation can only be (partly) repaired by public apology. Dr. Yitzhak Arad died in May 2021.
Moreover, the state has a splendid last chance to end its relationship with its own Holocaust survivors, after a 700 year history in Lithuania, on a rather higher note than police coming to look for aged women veterans of the heroic Jewish resistance in the forests of Lithuania.
During his own tenure before these events, Lithuania’s eminent late president (later prime minister) Algirdas Brazauskas, a champion of confronting historical truth with courage and dignity, awarded certificates of honor to the selfsame Jewish partisan veterans for the selfsame service in helping to liberate Lithuania from Nazism. . .
2006
22 April 2006. Article in Respublika accuses Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Holocaust survivor, resistance hero, veteran of the Israeli war of independence and long-time director of Yad Vashem, of being a war criminal on the basis of misquoted, decontextualized passages in his own 1979 book, The Partisan. [ADDENDUM of April 2014: One of the chief stone-throwers (final section) is A. Anušauskas, who is today a member of the state’s commission on Nazi and Soviet crimes. In 2006 he was “scientific editor” at the Genocide Center. Since 2008 he has been a member of parliament where he was for some years chair of the Committee on National Security and Defense.]
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2007
10 September 2007. Prosecutors in Lithuania confirm that their investigation of Holocaust survivor, anti-Nazi resistance hero and former director of Yad Vashem Dr. Yitzhak Arad, on suspicion of “crimes against humanity” had been initiated in May 2006. The “investigation” was based on an article in the antisemitic daily Respublika (22 April 2006), in which the special prosecutor and head of the Genocide Center are extensively quoted. In June 2006 the daily triumphantly proclaimed that prosecutors were acting on its earlier article. English summary. See below at 25 September 2008 for “conclusion” of the investigation and the 2010 report of the “Lithuanian Human Rights Association” . . . In 2014, ongoing defamation evident from Wikipedia entry.
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2008
29 January 2008. Article in the daily Lietuvos aidas that called on prosecutors to investigate Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky and Dr Rachel Margolis. English translation.
6 April 2008. Professor Dov Levin of Jerusalem protests, returning his own earlier award to the president of Lithuania.
30 April 2008. The Embassy of the United States in Lithuania issues a certificate of appreciation, signed by Ambassador John A. Cloud, to Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky; presented by political officer Joseph Boski at a luncheon organized by the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.
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A heartfelt thank you for all who responded to our urgent call to write the Budget and Finance Committee of Lithuania’s Seimas (Parliament), which met on November 11, 2020. The Committee acknowledged that it received recommendations from 54 groups and individuals to not finance the reconstruction of the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace Building Complex, which the Soviets built in the center of the historic Jewish cemetery at Piramónt-Šnipiškės. The Committee neither approved nor rejected this proposal but simply passed it on to the Lithuanian government.
At this stage in the budget process, we urge concerned readers to send a second email to the Seimas leadership, as described below, before the Seimas’s crucial session on November 24, 2020.
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this Monday, 22 April, 9 PM to late, at the
Narutis Hotel, Pilies g. 24 (ground floor, hall at end of corridor)
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April 2024
On the future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery: To date, just one member of latest “international commission” on the cemetery stood up with integrity for the cemetery’s dignity, and could not be swayed by junkets, banquets, photo-ops, translations, medals and trinkets. His statements for history on the process and on the content. Who are the other members? Will any of them — especially the “religious” Jewish representatives — ever speak out?
Real Lithuanian tradition rabbis have spoken out with simple integrity. Statement of four yeshiva heads, and of Rabbi Elchonon Baron.
Tale of Two Visions — for Lithuania’s most sacred Jewish site, the Old Vilna Cemetery, where many thousands still lie buried
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HUMAN RIGHTS INCLUDE THE RIGHT OF THE DEAD TO BE LEFT IN PEACE
EQUAL RIGHTS INCLUDE THE RIGHTS OF MINORITY CEMETERIES (ESP. MINORITIES DECIMATED BY GENOCIDE) TO ATTRACT THE SAME STATE GUARDIANSHIP AND DIGNITY AS THOSE OF THE CHRISTIAN LITHUANIAN MAJORITY
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March 2024
Welcoming Springtime in Vilnius with Ever More Repairs at Library of Sciences
BUT STILL NO ANNOUNCED DECISION ON FUTURE OF CENTRAL VILNIUS SHRINE TO HITLER COLLABORATOR J. NOREIKA. A SHRINE WITH A RECENT STORIED HISTORY. ONE OF A NUMBER OF PUBLIC-SPACE SHRINES IN VILNIUS GLORIFYING LOCAL HOLOCAUST PERPETRATORS.
Ever more antics to avoid having to permanently remove plaque glorifying the Nazi collaborator (or just to delay announcing any decision)? National Library of Sciences in central Vilnius on the eve of the Ides of March 2024. Defending History photos by William Adan Pahl.
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Critics ask: Is it all to avoid making the bold decision to leave the plaque and bas relief of Noreika away from the building’s facade and right on the junkpile of Hitlerist paraphernalia — where it justly belongs?
“These repairs, approaching the one-year mark, are the Vilnius answer to Chris Christie’s Washington Bridge repair scheme”…
Plaque was temporarily removed on eve of last July’s successful NATO conference (according to mainstream media, it was given to far-right hate group Pro Patria for “safekeeping”). New American ambassador speaks out with unambiguous moral clarity at the start of 2024. Nu? What keeps the president, prime minister and mayor of Vilnius from proudly announcing that just like Soviet junk, public space shrines to Holocaust criminals have no place in the public space of EU and NATO capital cities. One mayor once took down its predecessor plaque (alas, very temporarily). On Vilnius’s 700th last year, Defending History assured our readers that Gediminas, creator of Europe’s first truly from-the-start multicultural capital, was crying out from the grave.
Meanwhile, hated relics of Soviets’ architectural (and human) barbarism are all correctly coming down, with the one exception of the one on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, where demolition would entail the “danger” of restoring Lithuania’s most storied Jewish cemetery in the onetime Jerusalem of Lithuania.
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February 2024
America’s new ambassador in Vilnius, HE Kara McDonald, makes a dramatic entrance that will go down in history, citing glorified Holocaust perpetrators Krikštaponis and Noreika by name, in first major interview:
“I will continue to speak out strongly against the glorification of individuals who are known and documented to have participated in the Holocaust. This is part of the definition of antisemitism.”
New US ambassador in Vilnius HE Kara McDonald
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AMBASSADOR MCDONALD’S FIRST MAJOR CHALLENGE: Hope rising that the ambassador can succeed to persuade authorities to truly join West’s sensibilities in their imminent decision on…
DefendingHistory.com photo by William Adan Pahl
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Can a handful of antisemitic, ultranationalist, Holocaust-revising elites continue to stymie Lithuania’s progress?
The day will come, when the nation’s educators, journalists, parliamentarians and cultural leaders will appreciate who were the true friends of Lithuania in the 2020s. . .
Coming back? Plaque with bas relief of the Holocaust collaborator. Photo: DefendingHistory.com.
For a decade and a half, the Defending History community has been calling for an end to glorification of Holocaust perpetrators. See DH’s sections Perpetrators Glorified; J. Noreika. The far-right’s argumentation, that “Double Genocide” means that all perpetrators can also be heroes has been propagated for a quarter century by the “Red-Brown” Commission. It’s best-known iteration is on video, concerning the state’s attempts to prosecute anti-Nazi resistance heroes Fania Yocheles Brantosvsky, Rachel Margolis, Joseph Melamed, and others; official apologies to their families remain a vital issue. Defending History is proud to have brought these travesties to the world’s attention, and to have supported to the hilt the last survivors. Our community is certain that this constitutes a great service to the future of the delightful, democratic EU/NATO state of Lithuania, whose valiant people deserve much better than their taxes going to glorify Holocaust killers, or to rewrite history in the spirit of the far-far right’s ultranationalism, racism and antisemitism.
Jan. 2024
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Meet our Persons of the Year over the past decade
Dec. 2023
We wish all our readers
Happy Holidays, Happy Chanukah, Happy Christmas, Happy New Year 2024!
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Dec. 2023
Nov.-Dec. 2023
“History will hold to account each and every member of the Working Group, including addiction to junkets, photo ops, translations, grants, honors and glories, for enabling the cruel humiliation of the graves of tens of thousands of Jewish citizens of Vilna over half a millennium whose cemetery has no true local descendant-defenders because of something called the Holocaust. Who knows, more of the Working Group will end up with classy state medals too. But their names will remain in the accurate history until the end of days.”
“Cemetery restoration” planned for one of Lithuania’s most sacred Jewish sites?
The frightening imagined image that so disgusts antisemites in town: the idea that A Cemetery Is A Cemetery, that the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery is the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, not a convention or memorial center, not a museum or fun & recreation park…
What would be a magnificent world attraction for a European city — a restored medieval Jewish cemetery reflecting a grand history — seems to elicit deep, primal ultranationalist and antisemitic panic in Vilnius. Time for the prime minister to step in again?
Were allegedly compromised groups possibly manipulated to provide “Jewish cover” for de facto cemetery destruction? Focus on AJC, CPJCE, LJC. Previous steadfastness of Conference of European Rabbis (CER) now unclear as “clear new statement” awaited. Follow the dramatic saga in Defending History.
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QUESTION for the Working Group members: Would any of this be happening to a half-millennium old Christian or Lithuanian national cemetery where many thousands still lie buried?
QUESTION for the planet’s Litvak rabbis and Litvak leaders: Who will be among the First Ten to publicly say something along the lines of “Sorry, guys, but the middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery is just no place for a museum or other renovated Soviet monstrosity. A cemetery of any people is for those buried there, to lie in peace in the plots purchased freehold by their relatives, with nothing but restored gravestones on top. Not just Jewish law, it’s part of human rights of all people, dear khévre.”
☰ Who will be the second? ☰
Autumn 2023
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August 2023
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Summer 2023
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“Forbidden” scenes in the film Petrified Time have become known informally as The Satanic Verses
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For a decade and a half, Defending History has been proud to stand with the inspirational heroes of modern Lithuania: the bold truth tellers of history (of all personal backgrounds). In summer 2023, documentary film maker Saulius Beržinis, after near-miraculously filming the last witnesses to the Holocaust in Sheduva (Šeduva), finds that powerful forces (including a Brussels macher, a Zurich billionaire, various officials, and Vilnius’s most ellexist law firm) all stacked up to prevent these ‘satanic verses’ of the film entering the public domain of Western civilization. Defending History intends to ensure that the Sheduva truth, a microcosm of the East European Holocaust, is not suppressed — museum or no museum. And that master documentarian Saulius Beržinis is acclaimed for his achievements rather than be subjected to strongmen-commanded, billionaire-financed campaigns of destruction actuated via fancy law firms. A major Hollywood documentary master has been brought in to do a replacement film that will presumably not ruffle the local, national or regional feathers.
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16 June 2023
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Lithuanian cartoonist Voluvak on whether in the internet age film footage of real significance for the historic record of Western civilization can be eaten up (“catch and kill”) before ever seeing the wider light of day.
May 2023
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◊April-July 2023
Some of the state-sponsored public-space shrines to local Holocaust collaboration in Vilnius in 2023, year of the city’s 700 years celebrations. Top: Vilnius street offensively named for the most tragic day in Lithuanian Jewish history: outbreak of mass murder of helpless neighbors across the land (the Soviets were fleeing the Nazi invasion, not the local Jew-killers). Montage: DefendingHistory.com
Meanwhile, an antisemitic commemorative envelope (featuring “numerous crowds of Kaunas Jews” allegedly greeting the Red Army in Kaunas during World War II) “updated” for this year’s celebration of Vilnius’s 700th birthday, purchased in Vilnius Old Town’s central tourist souvenir district (Pilies St.) on Easter Sunday, 9 April 2023:
See more samples of the same “genre” and the related saga of 2012 (which includes a fine Delfi.lt exposé by a young Lithuanian journalist, and a bold protest staged by nine young Lithuanian human rights champions at an exhibition of the “art” of the envelope maker)
April-June 2023
After the Defending History led campaign to thwart the “national convention center on top of the Vilna Jewish cemetery” culminated in success, powerful forces continue to try to “save” the unsightly ruin of the Soviet Sports Palace built in the cemetery’s center, this time around via plans for a “Jewish museum.” See the latest in Defending History.
Reminder: There is not one Jewish museum, Jewish center, or Jewish institution on the planet built on top of an old Jewish cemetery, among other reasons because this is strictly forbidden by Jewish law, and any such misguided endeavor would be ipso facto shunned or boycotted by traditional religious Jews, and many other people, Jewish and non-Jewish, in solidarity with their millennial sensibilities, and in harmony with universal humanistic respect for the rights of the deceased to be left in peace and respected, which is a right now enumerated by the US Congress and the European Union, among others, as part of universal human rights.
March-April 2023
March 2023
March’s Marching Season in the Baltics: Latvian & Lithuanian worshippers of Hitler’s henchmen continue to be gifted the centers of Riga and Vilnius…
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February 2023
16 February 2023:
Happy 105th Independence Day, Lithuania!
We all join in celebrating February 16th 1918, just 105 years ago, that ushered in the successful interwar republic. Classic image of the Jews of the shtetl Dorbyán (Darbėnai, northwestern Lithuania) in 1928 celebrating the tenth anniversary of the happy day so cherished by all the peoples in the land. . .
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Also: In 2018, to honor the 100th anniversary of independence, we established the (still slow moving) Mini Museum of Jewish Life in Interwar Lithuania
February 2023
January 2023
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New Year’s Day 2023
Evaldas Balčiūnas (photo: Defending History)
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TO ALL OUR READERS:
Happy New Year 2023!
December 2022
and
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November 2022
We mourn the sudden and untimely death of our dear colleague, mentor and teacher
(4 January 1944 — 9 November 2022)
PHOTO: CAROLE LEMEE
The entire Defending History community mourns the untimely sudden death of the great Holocaust historian, who was editing his book on the East European revisionist campaign, and its many Western and Jewish nochsheppers, in his final months. Inspired by Randolph L. Braham (1922-2018), among others, Professor Shafir’s papers covering the whole swath of East European governments’ huge investments to “fix” the Holocaust made him the pioneer of the academic and intellectual resistance to state-sponsored Double Genocide revisionism. May his completed book and all his other writings soon be made accessible to scholars and the public alike. His works will live on and in time come to be recognized for their successful exposure of the vast and elaborately financed efforts to obfuscate the Holocaust.
November 2022
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London Jewish Chronicle reports on last wish of 100 year old Holocaust survivor and heroic partisan veteran Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky: Preserve for posterity Europe’s last Jewish fort from Holocaust times! (background; 100th birthday and list of videos)
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John Oxley’s ‘non-Critical’ piece in ‘The Critic’ Magazine: Some PR for Europe’s most antisemitic and far right revisionist museum — Vilnius’s ‘Genocide Museum’ that turns Hitlerist Holocaust perpetrators into ‘gallant heroes’. The DefendingHistory.com community views of the museum.
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October 2022
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Sept. 2022
Vilnius Cinderella Comes to the Ball (belatedly, and in Berlin)
Sept. 2022
Defending History Turns 13
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Aug. 2022
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We join Fania in calling for preservation of Europe’s last Jewish partisan fort in the forests (“Fania’s Fort”), where 100 Jewish escapees from the Vilna Ghetto lived and fought the Nazis during the Holocaust as part of the anti-Nazi resistance. The fort in the forest, which should become a major Lithuanian, Baltic, UNESCO, Jewish Heritage and European Union site to be cherished, is rapidly disappearing because of far-right history revisionists in high positions.
August 2022
July 2022
See G. Rossolinski-Liebe’s authoritative study of Bandera’s Hitlerist history and the racist, fascist leader’s inspiration of hundreds of thousands of murders of Polish and Jewish civilians. Erika Solomon’s update in the New York Times
Defending History was ahead of curve; see from earlier years Bandera section and some of Dr. Rossolinski-Liebe’s earlier writings in Defending History; DH’s Collaborators Glorified section for the wider context of the issue in contemporary Eastern Europe (more details on Sections page)
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February–August 2022
Civilized World Condemns Putin’s War of Barbaric Mass Murder in Ukraine
The Defending History community joins in calling for immediate restoration of peace and security for all the people of Ukraine, condemning unequivocally the savage and barbaric invasion — and rain of death and destruction — by a neighboring big power, led by our century’s most dangerous and deranged warmonger dictator.
As a small gesture of spiritual solidarity, our Yiddish Studies team has constructed a modest new collection of videos of Ukraine’s last Yiddish speaking survivors. Ukraine alone spans every modern dialect of the language.
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June 2022
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Professor Klibansky is a major contemporary scholar of the history of Lithuanian Jewry. His book on Lithuanian yeshivas has just come off the press…
June 2022
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27 May 2022
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May 2022
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Background on Genocide Center: DH section & page; review of its museum in Tablet
Background on “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania” (ICECNSORL or, as dubbed by Vilnius diplomats for brevity: The Red-Brown Commission): DH page & section
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April 2022
March 11 and 16:
Even this year, Latvia and Lithuania permit city-center far-right, collaborator-glorifying marches that idolize Holocaust collaborators:
Feb. 2022
Will it reveal its “top secret” multimillion-dollar donors of a massive new building and complex in town? Transparency is paramount when it comes to Jewish history on ground zero of the East European Holocaust.
Are South African, Russian or other anonymous tycoons again being duped by slick Lithuanian government operatives?
See also DH sections on Sheduva; Museums; and unique, exclusive recordings of the amazing Christian Lithuanian Yiddish speaker and Holocaust truth teller of Sheduva, Elena Rimdžiūtė (video; clip; article).
Someone has to defend history and ask the hard questions. That’s us. Thank you for your support.
Jan. 2022
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“The question on everybody’s mind” is: Will the Levinas Center leaders, staff, sponsors and visitors politely ask that the city of Kaunas now, in its year as “Capital of European Culture” rapidly remove state-sponsored shrines to the local murderers of Levinas’s family and the other 30,000 Jewish citizens of Kaunas? Or will the Levinas Center become one of the “Useful Jewish Idiot Addresses” that are used to cover for current policies of glorification of Nazi perpetrators and defamation of local dissidents?
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PS: Seems that a Levinas-named entity deemed not suitable for Vilnius University’s Faculty of Philosophy, just the “Health Sciences” unit (Medical School & Veterinary Univ.) in Kaunas, during the era of the Ramanauskas Year, the Lukša Year, & Kaunas Capital of European Culture, all of which glorify Kaunas’s Holocaust enablers.
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Takes on Kaunas 2022 in the wake of Nazi shrines abounding in town (and the university): Arndt Beck; Thomas Pfanne; Dovid Katz
The plaque with bas-relief glorifying the prime minister of Adolf Hitler’s puppet government in Kaunas. That “provisional government” collaborated in the sudden and total dehumanization of the city’s 30,000 Jewish citizens. It still adorns a lecture hall in his name at the city’s Vytautas Magnus University. There is also a matrix of street names and public-space exhibits glorifying the Holocaust’s perpetrators. Will the EU politely call for their removal as Kaunas becomes “Capital of European Culture” or are these the EU’s lax new standards for elementary European values? See the reactions when the Nazi puppet PM was reburied with full honors nearly a decade ago.
Jan. 2022
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Dec. 2021
Testimony identified Mr. Lukša as one of the participants in the beheading of Rabbi Zalmen Osovsky of Slabodka (before the arrival of German forces) and as a participant in the Kaunas Lietukis Garage Massacre.
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Dec. 2021
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Dec. 2021
Survivor testimonies and linguistic and cultural interviews, all in Yiddish, videographed mostly in situ from 1990 to 2020
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Oct. 2021
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26 Sept. 2021
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Sept. 2021
Defending History Turns 12
Founded on 6 Sept. 2009. Emailed circulars and reports from May 2008 were then uploaded making for a record starting in 2008, A dozen years of posts provide a unique record.
ON OUR PAGES
Contributions in the United States are now fully tax-deductible via the new nonprofit Preserving Yiddish and Defending History.
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Sept. 2021
Lithuania’s prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė “just did the right thing” (Getty Images)
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During mid-August lull, many were caught unaware (reports in DH, DH Updates, Algemeiner Journal, JTA)
Rumors (still uncorroborated) spread of plans by usual “gov. Jewish unit” for another “quisling and UJI [‘useful Jewish idiot’] conference” to cloud the issues and cover for “slow-motion rollback” of PM’s bold decision. That trick had (Sadly) worked back in 2007-2008 when leading American Jewish scholars were lavishly brought to a “committee” to cover for building “just the second green building” on top of the cemetery (still known locally as the “D.E. Fishman Building”), on the “understanding” that no more would ever be desecrated with commercial projects…
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26 Aug. 2021
SEE MORE IN BOOKS
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25 August 2021
Question: Is this how he wants to o down in the 700 year and counting history of Vilna (Vilnius/Vílne/Vilna/Wilno)?
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18 August 2021
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16 August 2021
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RUTA BLOSHTEIN’S HISTORIC PETITION
MAJOR LITVAK RABBINIC LEADER HORAV ELCHONON BARON SPEAKS OUT TO LITHUANIAN AMBASSADOR IN TEL AVIV. HIS VIDEO AT WESTERN WALL.
Other Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe must be saved from mercenary corrupt clutches of London’s CPJCE and complicit cowardice of US gov’s USCPAHA
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Augusat 2021
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“Nearly a decade later it’s more relevant than ever”
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As a matter of Interest…
for example
August 2021
Playwright Marius Ivaškevičius’s in-depth videotaped interview with DH editor Dovid Katz:
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August 2021
Prof. Alan Dershowitz
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July 2021
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June 2021
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But did they even bother to meet with Ruta Bloshtein, author of the international petition calling on the Lithuanian government to move the national convention center project away from the sacred old Vilnius Jewish Cemetery? Her office, in the Judaica section of the national library, is a short walk from their gov. meetings. Petition has 53,500 signatures to date. History of the US taxpayer-funded commission’s role in the affair. Meanwhile international opposition to desecration of the old Jewish cemetery grows apace. And on the Holocaust? Not a word of critique of state projects to glorify the local perpetrators on the eve of the 80th anniversary of 23 June 1941, when the Lithuanian Holocaust broke out. Land of “tweeted photo-ops fix all”. . .
23 June 2021
When “white-armbanders” and LAF followers began to injure, plunder, humiliate and (in 40 locations) murder thousands of Jews across Lithuania (before arrival or taking-of-control by the first German forces). And who will honor the real Lithuanian heroes of 1941 — the amazing, inspirational folks who saved a neighbor from the LAF and the Hitlerist hordes?
Will the state and its “history” units finally honor the victims or again perpetuate the far-right pro-fascist false history that this was some minor crossfire in a “great revolt against the Soviets”? The Soviets were fleeing Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in human history — not the local white-armbanded Jew killers.
A freedom fighters’ revolt? Hitlerist white-armbanders surround Jewish women being marched to their death. These militias, responsible for deaths of Jewish civilians in forty locations in Lithuania prior to German arrival, are honored by the state as “freedom fighters”….
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Another “conference to paper it all over” adorned by “useful Jewish academics” from far and wide?
6 May 2021
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Yitzhak Arad (1926-2021)
Holocaust revisionist who started the campaign against Arad in 2006 (in interview in the antisemitic Respublika representing state’s “Genocide Center”) is today the nation’s Minister of Defense.
Arad was first Jewish partisan veteran to be libeled by kangaroo prosecutions of Lithuania’s “history fixing” units attempts to revise Holocaust history. Major effort was to paint victims as perpetrators and perpetrators as victims. Follow the ins-and-outs in Defending History.
In 2012, Dr. Arad reported that Yad Vashem (under Israeli Foreign Ministry pressure) had refused to publish his own paper on Holocaust revisionism in Lithuania and asked for it to appear on the pages of Defending History.
For decades he was the leader of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. But when, in retirement, the Lithuanian assault got underway, he felt betrayed and abandoned by Yad Vashem (and after some early support) by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Neither seriously demanded the needed letter of apology (still doable for posterity).
22 April 2021
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Secret ballot: 76 for, 34 against,8 abstentions, 2 spoiled ballots
Addressing a group of far-right and neo-Nazi devotees on 23 June 2020, Dr. Bubnys proudly speaks under a banner of two notorious Hitler collaborators, Jonas Noreika (see Silvia Foti’s new book) and Kazys Škirpa. The 23rd of June 1941 is the date remembered by Lithuanian Jewry as the outbreak of the Holocaust with onset of widespread murder, dehumanizing degradation and humiliation of civilian Jewish neighbors by the “white armbanders” and “LAF” forces (whose pamphlets declared explicitly their plans for their nation’s Jewish citizens). But instead of honoring the victims, the state’s far-right historians-in-tow glorify the perpetrators as “anti-Soviet rebels,” a well known historic nonsense: the Soviet army was fleeing Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of the USSR, the largest invasion of human history, not the local Jew-killers with their white armbands. More on the historic background.
Tension mounts: How will Lithuania’s government (and its state-sponsored historians and “foreign Jewish leaders in tow“) mark the eightieth anniversary two months from now, on 23 June 2021?
14 April 2021
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1937 – 2021
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15 April 2021
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“Why does Lithuania keep doing this to itself?”
Dr. Arūnas Bubnys, chief historian at the state sponsored “Genocide Center” proudly glorifies June 23rd 1941 (on June 23rd 2020 — pandemic or no pandemic…) under the visages of Holocaust perpetrator J. Noreika (left) and ethnic cleansing advocate K. Škirpa in central Vilnius. Photo: Julius Norwilla
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April 2021
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The Lithuanian Holocaust perpetrator’s Chicago-based granddaughter has told the whole truth about her grandfather, J. Noreika. But meanwhile, in central Vilnius, a flashy new plaque (erected less than two years ago) continues to glorify the collaborator, who helped organize the destruction of thousands of Jewish citizens. As the 80th anniversary of the onset of the Lithuanian Holocaust, 23 June 1941, rapidly approaches this June, the question arises: Will the government (and its sycophants) again be honoring the perpetrators on this day, or, at long last, the victims? Last year, the chief historian of the state-sponsored “Genocide Center” stood proudly before a neo-Nazi banner glorifying two major collaborators (including Mr. Noreika…).
Meanwhile, Kaunas’s Vytautas Magnus University continues to feature a lecture hall named for, and adorned by a bas relief of a second major collaborator, the Nazi puppet prime minister of 1941. Hopefully the city of Kaunas will remove all its shrines to Nazi collaborators before being named a “capital of European culture” in 2022. See Lev Golinkin’s sweeping expose, earlier this year, of the wider issue of glorification of Holocaust perpetrators internationally.
April 2021
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(that often progresses with the de facto underpinning of American Jewish organizations whose leaders are addicted to “Glories and Medals in the East”
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Defending History is no fly-by-night. On our pages…
6 April 2021
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All Welcome at Yom Hashoah Event Featuring DH Editor Dovid Katz
in international discussion of Danny Ben Moshe’s film Rewriting History
Tuesday 6 April 2021 at Midday US Eastern time (5 PM London, 7 PM Israel and Baltics)
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March 2021
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Roland Binet on
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March 2021
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March 2021
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Collection from the Lithuanian lands covers the period from Catherine the Great to the Holocaust. Report in the Jewish Chronicle.
Feb. 2021
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Cinderella finally comes to the ball
“A Powerful Statement”
Welcome to Defending History!
A safe space that genuinely respects your privacy. No log-ins. No passwords. No offers of notifications or pop-ups. Just read what and when you like. Over a dozen years, we have covered under-the-radar issues that went from obscure to the forefront on the international arena.
The East European far right’s clever and lavishly financed campaign to rewrite, revise, and fix history (with the help of well-meaning naive westerners) is finally under serious challenge. Together we can defend history, and along with it, human rights and dignity (of the living and dead alike), equality, free speech, and the values of free society and liberal democracy.
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16 February 2021
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Happy Independence Day, Lithuania!
We all join in celebrating February 16th 1918, just 103 years ago, that ushered in the successful interwar republic. Classic image of the Jews of the shtetl Dorbyán (Darbėnai, northwestern Lithuania) in 1928 celebrating the tenth anniversary of the happy day so cherished by all the peoples in the land. . .
12 February 2021
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Viktorija Kazlienė
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February 2021
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February Flare-Up of Holocaust Polemics in Lithuanian Mass Media:
1: Defending History’s take on the sunshine boy “heroes” — perpetually silent until all are in any case slamming an obscure parliamentarian (or the far-right, antisemitic Genocide Center) for the usual Holocaust falsification.
February 2021
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6 February 2021
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27 January 2021
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31 January 2021
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For decades the spirit of life and leadership at Vilnius’s legendary Green House. See Defending History’s Rachel Kostanian section. Her best-known book is Spiritual Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto (with preface by Sir Martin Gilbert).
January 2021
Israel’s Ambassador Joel Lion in Kiev
But at same time, Israeli Foreign Ministry colludes to silence dialogue on glorification of Holocaust collaborators in Lithuania (including the “naming of 2021”); Wiesenthal Center’s Dr. Zuroff protests in Jerusalem Post
Lithuanian Parliament’s dedication of 2021 to memory of J. Lukša, alleged Kaunas 1941 killer is little mentioned after early protests by WJC’s Dr. Laurence Weinbaum, and Yakov Faitelson, son of legendary escaper from Ninth Fort. Defending History’s take, chronology of the debate, and alternative dedication of 2021. Even the usually hesitant official Jewish community, and its AJC partner, spoke out
Dec. 2020 — Jan. 2021
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Julius Norwilla conceived this Star of David as a symbol of fellowship for November 1, 2020, the traditional day for visiting cemeteries throughout Lithuania. From left: Andrius Kulikauskas, Ruta Bloshtein, Povilas Birbilas, Vanda Birbilienė and Julius Norwilla stand in front with a bag of stones. Edmundas Kulikauskas and Arkadij Kurliandchik stand on the bank of the Neris with the Sports Palace behind them. Photo: William Adan Pahl.
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14 Dec. 2020
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25 Nov. 2020
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Dovid Katz’s lecture on “Writing the Holocaust out of History?” at the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne, Australia now on Youtube (PP presentation online)
Defending History’s editor is named to Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life in 2020 at @Algemeiner’s annual banquet (#J100) in New York City. DH’s campaign to save Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery is cited.
Nov. 2020
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Participation of honoree witnessed in both Kaunas Garage Massacre and the beheading of Rabbi Zalmen Osovsky. See chronology of the 2020 debate. Yakov Faitelson joins protests by Defending History, Dr. Laurence Weinbaum (World Jewish Congress), Rabbi Andrew Baker (American Jewish Committee) and Ms. Faina Kukliansky (head of official Jewish Community of Lithuania).
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Nov. 2020
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“Lithuania’s Liveliest Cemetery”
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Eyewitness reports on recent hearings:
Defending History was there…
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Autumn 2020
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Trending in Defending…
Does the president’s PR team really want big posters of Holocaust collaborators at his rallies?
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Summer 2020
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″The Power of the Ancient Hebrew Letters”
Arkady Kurliandchik and Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas lead a group in partnership with the Vilnius Jewish Community, in placing stones with Hebrew letters painted in the traditional gold paint (used to highlight lettering in old Lithuanian Jewish / Litvak gravestones) at the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Šnipiškės / Shnípeshok), site of the abandoned Soviet sports palace and a planned national convention center. Thousands of graves are still there all around the building. The new gold-lettered Jewish stones were variously placed to mark out the approximate perimeter of the cemetery.
Stone lettering and photos: Andrius Kulikauskas
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Recent News:
Vilnius City Council rushes through decision for convention center with annex in heart of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery. Julius Norwilla reports from Vilnius. Rabbi Elchonon Baron reacts from Jerusalem (video).
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July 2020
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6 July 2020
The Defending History community wishes all our readers in Lithuania
A HAPPY CROWNING OF MINDAUGAS DAY
celebrating the Lithuanian king’s crowning in 1253. A wonderful modern holiday for all the peoples of Lithuania, and the world, and especially those with roots in the Grand Duchy…
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26 June 2020
European Jewish Congress Reports on Ruta Bloshtein’s Petition to Save Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery from Convention Center Project: 51,000 Have Signed to Date
Local, international opposition growing by the day
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25 June 2020
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23 June 2020
Dr. Arūnas Bubnys, chief historian at the state-sponsored Genocide Center in Vilnius and long-time member of the state-sponsored “International Historical Commission” proudly appears under the banner of two heinous Holocaust collaborators, J. Noreika and K. Škirpa, at an event glorifying the day, 23 June 1941, that murder and mayhem broke out against the country’s defenseless Jewish citizens.
Škirpa with Hitler in Berlin
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23 June 2020
Remembering June 23rd 1941: Why Would Anyone in the EU Want to Celebrate the Outbreak of the Baltic Holocaust under Guise of “Rebellion”?
Outbreak of mass murder, injury, pillage and humiliation of defenseless Jewish neighbors by the LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front) and others before arrival of first Nazi forces. Soviet forces were fleeing Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa — not the local Hitler allies. The real heroes of the day are Lithuanians (and Latvians, Estonians, Ukrainians and others) who risked everything to just do the right thing and save a neighbor from these Hitlerist organizations…
Here in Vilnius: Lithuanian parliament (Seimas) schedules 10:30 AM (Vilnius time) press conference. Fears rising that this will be yet another effort to glorify June 23rd and the outbreak of the Lithuanian Holocaust at the hands of the LAF, provisional gov. and assorted other local Hitler allies. Speakers include members of Seimas, Genocide Center and Red-Brown Commission…
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Late Spring 2020
Who’s Gonna Welcome Folks to a Convention Center in the Middle of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery?
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Dramatic Developments for Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, Still Slated to Become Vilnius Convention Center
Two new websites launched: Save Vilna (US and Israel) and Respect the Cemetery (Vilnius); Both efforts entail Christian-Jewish (& Lithuanian-Litvak) alliance. Vilnius project announces 14 June public event. Latest report by Andrius Kulikauskas.
Elected chairman of Vilnius Jewish Community, representing vast majority of Lithuania’s Jews, reaffirms VJC’s firm opposition to desecration of the cemetery.
Defending History has been on the case for “five long years” and helped inspire international opposition to a convention center that would never be sited in an old cemetery of the majority religion population. See the latest.
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June-July 2020
Lithuania’s Defense Ministry magazine glorifies Nazi collaborator and Holocaust cheerleader Kazys Škirpa on its front cover and in a massive article. See reactions from the Lithuanian Jewish Community and G. Gochin’s Times of Israel blog, and Defending History. SEE OUR REPORT.
Incredibly, the Defense Ministry still flaunts the cover on its website (as PDF).
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May 2020
Tale of the “Euronote Vilnius Cemetery”: See DH, JTA, AJ
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May Day in Vilnius: Three major tourism federations united to finance the covering of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery with empty chairs with symbolic 1000-euro notes pasted on (directly above extant graves), symbolizing the economic loss from not rushing ahead with a convention center in the middle of the cemetery. The 500 year old cemetery, where thousands of citizens of Vilnius lie buried is not mentioned.
Real or photoshopped?
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Solidarity with Minorities in Time of Pandemic?
Some use period for further glorification of Holocaust collaborators; Some tout postcrisis economic renewal from “Convention Center in the Cemetery” Project in Vilnius
Former foreign minister calls on present FM to renounce views and support state glorification of brutal Holocaust collaborator J. Noreika (after supreme administrative court confirmed during national lockdown the “hero status” of the same collaborator).
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Meanwhile:
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March 2020
BALTIC FAR RIGHT’S “MARCHING SEASON” AGAIN GLORIFIES HITLER’S COLLABORATORS
VILNIUS + KAUNAS ON 16 FEB: DH eyewitness report on 16 February march in Vilnius. Organizers again targeted DH staff; 16 Feb in central Kaunas.
February-March 2020
16 February 2020
9 February 2020
BOOKS IN THE DISCUSSION
January 2020
They plan to glorify Nazi collaborators Škirpa, Noreika and Brazaitis
Scene from their 2018 march in the heart of Vilnius (featuring on front banner six Nazi collaborators)…
2018 march in central Vilnius. Photo © DefendingHistory.com
January 2020
For the first time a member of the Lithuanian parliament challenges the wisdom of glorifying (and reconstructing) an ugly Soviet dump that was built on Jewish bones of the centuries. See Kęstutis Masiulis’s new piece in the Lithuanian media. Also, progress in the Vilnius court case is reported in the media, citing comments from Prof. Josif Parasonis. In the report, Turto Bankas (the state’s “property bank”) falsifies history, claiming the unsightly Soviet ruin is outside the cemetery. In fact, the American Embassy confirmed years ago (see point 5) that it “The Sports Palace property indisputably rests in the middle” of the historic cemetery.
Don’t the people of Lithuania (and Europe) deserve a sparkling new and morally clean Vilnius convention center rather than a Soviet-era structure surrounded by five centuries of Jewish graves?
Clemens Heni in Times of Israel on recent Yad Vashem furore
Matt Rubenstein in The Battleground EU: “Changing the Historical Record”
David Pugliese in the Ottawa Citizen on East European Glorification of Holocaust Collaborators
Julius Norwilla in Vilnius’s 7MD on Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Clemens Heni in Times of Israel on dissident thinkers in Germany
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23 January 2020
23 January 2020
13 January 2020
Defending History Joins Lithuania in Mourning the Fourteen Unarmed Pro-Independence Protesters Murdered by Soviet Forces on 13 Jan. 1991
10 January 2020
from Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas’s post in BNS and Vakarų Ekspresas
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LRT’s “Panorama” runs report on the Soviet sports palace building (timecode: 21:25—25:20), envisaging “hundreds of millions of euros” and “a bag of gold”
2 January 2020
1 January 2020
Antanas Zubrys and Dr. Matilda Zubrienė: Defending History’s Persons of the Year (2020)
Antanas Zubrys and Matilda Zubrienė
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Year of 300th Birthday of the Gaon of Vilna: novel critical approach of Andrius Kulikauskas’s brand new website on calendar of events. Our editor’s papers & articles.
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“7 Kingdoms of the Litvaks” is free online
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19 December 2019
December 2019
Lithuania, a Genuine, Robust Democracy, Continues to Struggle with Free Speech when it Comes to the Holocaust
Nov.-Dec. 2019
Vilnius’s Jewish satirist Motke Chabad shares his own perspective
Is it perhaps an opportune moment for the government to abandon plans for a convention center in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery, where hundreds of the Gaon’s ancestors and descendants still lie buried? International petition continues to grow.
Autumn 2019
23 Sept. 2019
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Canadian Govt. Officials “Duped” into Participating in Honors for Ukraine’s OUN / UPA Hitler Collaborators
Defending History’s Take: “Canada, a bastion of enlightened liberalism in today’s world, has blundered into a moral mouse-trap. Hopefully its highest leaders will now rapidly correct the error and join all those around the world who condemn the Nazis and their collaborators’ rampages of ethnic-based mass murder and genocide in World War II era Eastern Europe.”
23 September 2019
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Sept. 2019
A Decade of Defending History
Defending History marks its 10th anniversary in Sept. 2019
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9 Sept. 2019
Vilnius is Shamed by Brand New Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Holocaust Collaborator
Calls for government to rapidly “do the right thing: take it down”
Thursday 5 September: Crowd glorifying Holocaust collaborator screams “Noreika” as new plaque is affixed on public space in central Vilnius. Photo: J. Stecevičius/LRT
So far, a wall of public silence from the “Yiddish-loving culture minister“, from Yivo, and from the Western and Israeli embassies in Lithuania
Defending History’s take: “A very sad day for Lithuania and its proud ages-old tradition of Grand Duchy tolerance and its current record as a successful democracy. Ten years after Defending History published images of the plaque honoring Noreika, seven years after Evaldas Balciunas brought the issue to the English speaking world, and one month after Vilnius’s bold mayor boldly had the plaque removed, a mob of antisemites who celebrate the Holocaust’s perpetrators have put up an even shinier plaque, rapidly declared to be illegal by the mayor. The text of the new plaque is rather worse from the viewpoint of historic honesty, by referring to Noreika’s imprisonment by the Nazis at one point (the phenomenon of “Holocaust envy”), as if that makes a hero of a brutal Holocaust collaborator. Lithuania’s great people deserve better! Hopefully, the nation’s highest powers will remove the plaque without further delay, in the name of the rule of law, the nation’s standing, and basic human decency. See DH’s sections on: J. Noreika; Collaborators Glorified; the 2019 midsummer events that presaged the latest events.
August 2019
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Prof. Pinchos Fridberg ©DefendingHistory.com
See Pinchos Fridberg section; DH’s 2012 take on Landsbergis. Meanwhile, controversial official head of gov. sponsored Jewish community, eminent attorney Ms. Faina Kukliansky, wins acclaim for (finally) standing up to Landsbergis, after he used crude anti-Jewish ethnic slur on FB; Baltic Times features a rude reply with no pretense of evenhanded journalism. EU Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis speaks out (see DH’s Andriukaitis section, and his classic statements on the Seventy Years Declaration and the reburial of wartime Nazi puppet prime minister in 2012).
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9 Aug. 2019
Ten years after Defending History published images of the plaques. Seven years after DH’s Evaldias Balčiūnas brought the case of J. Noreika to the English speaking world. Four years after Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas‘s classic DH essay on K. Škirpa:
At Aug. 7 central Vilnius rally in support of continued glorification of Holocaust collaborators. Sign at left: “Stop Judaeophile vandalism”. Poster at right asks if it is still Lithuania or already the Northern Jerusalem…
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Poster advertising Aug. 7th rally blasts mayor who took action against glorification of collaborators, shows Jewish and gay pride symbols as the culprits
Photoshopped version of painting by F. Reshetnikov depicts several boys observing what seems like a Jewish-LGBT event from around the corner. Text at top reads “Škirpa and Vėtra [Noreika] are heroes of Lithuania”. The lower text depicts a rooster (“gaidys” in Lithuanian, used as a homophobic slur) and is labeled “Šimašius”, i.e., the current Mayor of Vilnius Remigijus Šimašius who recently led efforts to remove public glorification of two Holocaust collaborators. Text at bottom: “Let’s defend the heroes of Lithuania! Rally under the Mayor’s windows, by the monument of King Mindaugas. August 7 (Wed.), from 18:00 to 19:30.”
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Are they aware of the systematic exclusion from their conference of all the local Jewish scholars in this field who have expressed disagreement with the glorification of Holocaust collaborators (including Holocaust survivors who have written about Jewish Vilna)? Will they consider signing Ruta Bloshtein’s petition on the old Vilna Jewish cemetery?
1 August 2019
“It Pays to Defend History”
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Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius
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Lithuanian author & ethicist Evaldas Balčiūnas
Over the years, Defending History’s campaign won support from the Simon Wiesenthal Center; the Rambam Mesivta High School that staged a peaceful demonstration at Lithuania’s consulate in New York; Noreika’s granddaughter, American author Silvia Foti; and Californian Litvak scion Grant Gochin, who took Vilnius’s “Genocide Center” to court. The GC’s public statement revealed its true view on the Holocaust. Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas is curator of online Captain Noreika Museum.
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The mayor will hopefully soon speak out on fate of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, slated to become a convention center, that would damage Vilnius’s brand for generations to come. Vilnius native Ruta Bloshtein’s petition now has over 46,000 signatures from every part of the world.
24 July 2019
Vote is 20 to 16
Škirpa is in the middle (Berlin, 1941)
Changing toxic street names that glorify Hitler collaborators is high on the list of the very easy things Lithuania needs to do to achieve justice on the irksome history issues that will just not go away. See DH’s seven solutions compiled with the help of the late Dr. Shimon Alperovich.
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July 2019
Radio Free Europe (Radio Liberty) report fails to inform readers of the Double Genocide issues and abuse of history to further far-right Holocaust revisionism that includes glorification of Holocaust collaborators
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LEV GOLINKIN IN THE WASHINGTON POST
EFRAIM ZUROFF IN THE JERUSALEM POST
ROBERT ROZETT IN ISRAEL JOURNAL OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
GRANT GOCHIN IN THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
IVAN KATCHANOVSKI ON UKRAINE’S UPA & OUP
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June-July 2019
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June 2019
The Question: Will an EU/NATO democracy continue to sink government funds into glorification of Holocaust collaborators? Don’t the Lithuanian people have higher values and causes into which to invest their hard-earned taxpayer money?
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23 June 2019
Meanwhile, a naive article in National Review accepts the distorted history of Vilnius’s “Genocide Museum” (see our critique of the museum), that calls the Hitlerist “Lithuanian Activist Front” (LAF)’s outbreak of violence against Jewish neighbors a rebellion against the Soviets. The brutal Soviet occupation forces were fleeing Hitler’s invasion (the largest in human history), not the LAF Jew-killers.
These killers didn’t fire a single shot against the Soviets when they were in power. You can’t “rebel” against someone who is in panic running away from someone else. . . The Holocaust is being rewritten by the East European far right (in part to make heroes out of the Eastern European collaborators) even as leaders of major Jewish organization in the US and elsewhere remain silent.
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16 June 2019
The Good Old Pattern Continues in Biržai (Birzh), Northern Lithuania:
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June 2019
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May-June 2019
First monument on American soil glorifying a wartime Nazi collaborator who is also a prime icon for his country’s neo-Nazis today was inaugurated last month (May 4) in the presence of the visiting Lithuanian foreign minister
On Ramanauskas’s Holocaust-era role see courageous, pioneering articles of Lithuanian ethicist Evaldas Balčiūnas in 2014, 2017 and his latest that has just appeared. For years after starting his series of articles “Why does the state commemorate murderers?” Balčiūnas was hounded by prosecutors and police (scroll to May 2014).
Latest far-right death threats against DH editor appear on Facebook (as PDF; transl.). They were apparently instigated by the neo-Nazis’ top blogger in Lithuania, “Zeppelinus” (PDF; part transl.) who is said to work in the Ministry of the Economy. These threats came in response to DH’s opinion that Lithuania’s interests are not best served by a monument in Chicago to an alleged Holocaust collaborator who is also a prime icon for today’s neo-Nazi parades here. Samples of Zeppelinus’s racist, misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic output of hate. Some of his earlier “artwork” on DH editor.
This monument, honoring Adolfas Ramanauskas (Vanagas), who boasted in his memoirs of leading an LAF unit of fascist Hiterlist militia during the first weeks of the Holocaust (June-July 1941) in southeastern Lithuania, was overwhelmingly rejected for placement on public land by New Britian, Connecticut one year ago. But on Saturday, 4 May it was inaugurated by Lithuania’s foreign minister on the private property of the Lithuanian World Center in Chicago, Illinois. The English news release casually omits the reference to the Holocaust issues cited in the original BNS Lithuanian report.
Defending History’s take: “The people of Chicago, and its proud Lithuanian and Litvak communities, should not have foisted on them a monument glorifying an alleged Holocaust collaborator who led a Hitlerist militia in the early days of the Holocaust, a monument that was overwhelmingly rejected by the New Britain, Connecticut city council one year ago. And, most certainly not without a free, public and transparent process of dialogue and consultation including Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as scholars and institutions representing a diversity of opinions. A one-year moratorium is called for to enable such a process to proceed with dignity.”
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3 May 2019
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28 April 2019
DEFENDING HISTORY MONITORING TEAM WAS ON THE SCENE FROM 12 TO 3 PM ON 28 APRIL 2019
Thousands (in groups of 25) were misinformed by guides’ prepared text assurance that convention center is with permission of “European Jewish Community in 2016” (!). Soviet kitsch was praised effusively in latest ruse to turn hated Soviet dump into “a national treasure”. Rabbi S. J. Feffer confronts one of the groups with a heartfelt speech of protest informing visitors of the “wanton theft of our forefathers’ graves” and blessing those who will help stop the travesty from moving forward.
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Meanwhile in London, a Serious Incident Report has been filed with the UK’s national Charity Commission requesting an investigation of the role of the CPJCE in the destruction of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery.
Unique study in body language: “blockbuster video” of London CPJCE staff allegedly morally selling other people’s graves against the rulings of all the rabbis of Vilnius and of the planet. In fact, when the then chief rabbi of Lithuania, Rabbi Chaim Burshtein, spoke up in 2015, he was fired for expressing his views. Views of Rabbi S.J. Feffer (leading Litvak religious authority in the country) and Rabbi S.B. Krinsky (official rabbi of the synagogue / Chabad Lithuania).
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24 April 2019
Granddaughter of Holocaust perpetrator J. Noreika, the American author and educator Silvia Foti launches a bold international petition calling on Lithuania’s gov. to stop glorifying him.
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23 April 2019
“The rights of minority cemeteries are human rights”
Legal Action Underway on Attempts to Pilfer Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery for National Convention Center
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8 April 2019
Vilnius Plaque Glorifying Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika is Smashed by Maverick Candidate for the European Parliament, Attorney Stanislavas Tomas
All on film, streamed live Monday morning 8 April 2019, from candidate’s bilingual statements through to his calling the police and their eventual arrival to make the arrest
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Defending History’s comment:
“We unequivocally condemn violent acts against any property. Plaques can and will be replaced, and acts of property violence are totally illegal, inherently unethical, and utterly counterproductive to the noble cause of ridding Europe of glorification of Nazism. There needs to be dignified, peaceful and lawful civic and international pressure for the removal of all state-sponsored, public-space glorification of Holocaust collaborators, not least in Lithuania where some 96% of the Jewish population was massacred with massive local collaboration and participation. The real heroes are the amazing Lithuanians who risked everything in 1941 to just save a neighbor and we pray for the day when plaques and streets for them will abound across the land. See our own Person of the Year for 2018 and 2019.”
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Samples of other monuments and street names glorifying Holocaust collaborators. DH section on glorification of collaborators. The major Noreika monument in Vilnius is actually the engraved marble stone on the city’s central Gedimino Boulevard outside the Genocide Museum:
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8 April 2019
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3 April 2019
Verdict came down on 27 March. Since then: utter silence from the US, UK and Israeli embassies in Vilnius, and from the “Red-Brown” Commission (which has affiliations with the Genocide Center) and its foreign members representing Yivo and the American Jewish Committee. But on April 3rd, the World Jewish Congress issued a major statement, to some extent avoiding the current issue of state glorification of Holocaust perpetrators via street names and plaques.
At 1 PM on Wed. March 27th, a Vilnius Administrative Court judge read out the court’s ruling dismissing the query of US resident Grant Gochin over Lithuania’s state glorification of Nazi collaborator Jonas Noreika, active during the Holocaust in the region where Gochin lost around 100 relatives. The court said Mr. Gochin had no material interest, ruled that the state-sponsored Genocide Center had answered his query completely, without bias, and without abuse of power, in effect further enshrining in law an EU/NATO state’s glorification of Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators via the financing of ultranationalist and far-right history centers and departments determined to preserve the national hero status of Holocaust collaborators. Whenever government or municipal officials are asked about the numerous street names and plaques honoring collaborators, the invariable answer is that it is all in fact a matter for the experts at the Genocide Center.
Mr. Gochin’s academic specialist, Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas was on hand along with attorney Rokas Rudzinskas. Of the Genocide Center’s staff, only historian Dr. Arūnas Bubnys turned up, sitting in the small gallery surrounded in part by first and second generation Holocaust survivors who turned out to hear the verdict that the Western embassies, human rights organization and official (state-sponsored) Jewish community thought not worth sending an official representative to hear. By contrast the local Vilnius Jewish Community had two observers on hand.
UPDATES: Genocide Center releases statement; official Jewish community issues reply.
JTA report is picked up by some Israeli papers but not one major American media outlet, general or Jewish… Why is that?
A moment before the courtroom clock strikes 1 PM: Genocide Center’s chief historian Dr. Arūnas Bubnys (front row third from right) was the only GC official to come and hear the verdict.
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26 March 2019
Public welcome at the reading of the verdict at 1 PM at Vilnius Regional Administrative Court, Žygimantų 2 in the city center
Will a court in an EU/NATO country uphold a far-right Holocaust-obfuscating institution’s decision to make a national hero of a documented Holocaust collaborator?
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25 March 2019
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20 March 2019
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AROUND 1000 TAKE PART IN 16 MARCH CENTRAL RIGA PARADE GLORIFYING LATVIA’S WARTIME NAZI WAFFEN SS
Detail from the day
Latvian participant in last month’s torchlight march in Vilnius on 16 Feb.
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13 March 2019
Are they really in cahoots with the allegedly corrupt bodies (CPJCE in London, “Admas Kodesh” or “AK” in NY) who gave “permission” for a convention center in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery against the views of all other rabbis and ethicists? The NY branch (AK) has published crude personal invective against scholars who hold other opinions, including Prof. Bernard Fryshman (who has now taken USCPAHA to the courts).
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BACKGROUND:
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8 March 2019
After ‘Hearing Both Sides’ at Trial of March 5th, Vilnius Court Sets Verdict for 27th
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Defending History was there. Our take:
Andrius Kulikauskas will go down in history not only as the hero of the day but as the true patriot of Lithuania whose love for his country is not infected by Holocaust obfuscation and the glorification of Holocaust perpetrators but by a pursuit of simple historic truth. By contrast, the Genocide Center’s shameful performance illustrated, as ever, why the government should not be using taxpayer or EU funds for a far-right ultranationalist Holocaust-obfuscating entity that disparages the freedom of Lithuanian citizens to have diverse opinions (by dictating fake history as per the Soviet playbook) and continues to damage Lithuania’s name in the world (East European democracies need state glorification of Holocaust collaborators like a hole in the head).
Evaldas Balčiūnas, whose 2012 article brought the case to international attention, was in attendance. Icing on the cake was the Genocide Center’s demand that the videographer leave at the outset. So much for government sponsorship of an open and transparent operation. There were close to 20 observers, mostly Vilnius Jewish personalities there in an individual capacity, including Prof. Pinchos Fridberg, who figured in a New York Times article on the subject last September. Elected Vilnius Jewish Community head Simon Gurevich, committed elsewhere, nevertheless made two brief appearances to show moral support for those who stand up to glorification of collaborators and to the community members in attendance. The VJC hosted Dr. Kulikauskas on Jan 14th.
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“It had the air of a 21st century Lithuanian version of America’s Scopes Monkey Trial.”
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Background: Run-up to eve of the trial
California Financial Planner Takes Lithuania’s State-Sponsored “Genocide Center” to Court on March 5th for Enabling Gov. Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika
Proceedings are open to the public (Tuesday March 5th, 10 AM at Vilnius Regional Administrative Court at Žygimantų 2 in central Vilnius). Media to date includes the BBC World Service, Chicago Tribune, JTA. The plaintiff is California wealth advisor Grant Arthur Gochin whose family lost around 100 relatives in the Holocaust in the area where Noreika operated. He will be represented in Vilnius by attorney Rokas Rudzinskas and specialist Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas, author of the Query that launched the case. He has a compelling letter of support from Noreika’s granddaughter, American educator and author Silvia Foti. See Ms. Foti’s remarkable 2018 essay in Salon, and the recent takes by Grant Gochin, Dovid Katz, Andrius Kulikauskas, and Efraim Zuroff.
The case of J. Noreika was brought to the English speaking world in 2012 by journalist and ethicist Evaldas Balčiūnas of Šiauliai (Shavl), Lithuania, as part of a series of articles asking why his government honors alleged Holocaust collaborators. He was “rewarded” with years of prosecutorial and police harassment and kangaroo trials. Please scroll down to May 2014 in DH’s Balčiūnas section. In some opinions, Lithuania is a totally free-speech country with the marked exception of Holocaust history.
WILL THE AMERICAN, BRITISH, CANADIAN, FRENCH, GERMAN, IRISH, ISRAELI, NORWEGIAN & SWEDISH EMBASSIES (AMONG OTHERS) AND HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS BE SENDING OBSERVERS TO THE TRIAL ON TUESDAY?
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March 2019
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20 February 2019
VILNIUS ALERT WED. 20 FEB. 2019
Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, Legendary Jewish Partisan who Fought the Nazis in the Forests of Lithuania, Currently Major Yiddish Culture Educator, Will be Guest of Honor at Today’s Yiddish Reading Circle
Fania Brantsovsky (left) with the late Dr. Rokhl Margolis (1921-2015) in Vilnius in 2007
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SPECIAL SESSION IN HONOR OF THE NEW BILINGUAL YIDDISH-LITHUANIAN EDITION OF THE LATE AARON GARON’S ESSAYS ON JEWISH VILNA EDITED BY LINAS VILDŽIŪNAS, WHO WILL BE ATTENDING THE EVENT, ALONG WITH THE AUTHOR’S CHILDREN, TAMARA AND EVGENY GARON.
6 to 7:30 PM AT THE VILNIUS JEWISH COMMUNITY, MESINIU 3 IN VILNIUS OLD TOWN. ALL ARE WELCOME!
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16 February 2019
“IT PAYS TO DEFEND HISTORY”
“Once again, it becomes clear how Defending History is the true friend of Lithuania and other democratic states in the Eastern EU that need glorification of Holocaust collaborators like a hole in the head”
DH’s Vilnius monitors, observing the event for a decade, report on “significant progress”: For the first time in many years, the far-right February 16 march, though at times noxious (e.g. when a group reveled in a “Noreika plaque photo-op”), had no visible banners glorifying local Holocaust collaborators and no visible swastikas on flags, and no organized chants of “Lietuva Lietuviams” (Lithuania for Lithuanians). By contrast, a few Latvian visitors wore jackets emblazoned with “Waffen SS”. At its conclusion, two of the march’s organizers approached our team for a civil discussion which turned to the participation of “non-Catholic & non-ethnic Lithuanians” in the war of independence leading to the rise of the democratic interwar Lithuanian Republic on 16 Feb. 1918.
Vilnius Authorities Again Gifting Capital’s Storied Old Town for Far-Right March on Cherished Independence Day
Are they celebrating the Holocaust and the massacre of Lithuanian Jewry?
2018 lead banner: “WE KNOW WHO OUR NATION’S HEROES ARE”. The “sanitized” event in central Vilnius featured a lead banner glorifying six Nazi collaborators, five of them deeply implicated in the Lithuanian Holocaust. The torchlit march, the day’s final event, made its way from Vilnius’s most sacred Catholic shrine down through the Old City, culminating at a street named for one of the collaborators who had advocated “only” ethnic cleansing of the country’s Jewish minority in 1941. PHOTO: © DEFENDING HISTORY.
Come and join Defending History’s monitoring team. Event scheduled to start Saturday 16 February 6 PM at Aušros Vartų. Facebook details; website.
See Defending History’s decade-long eyewitness coverage of far-right marches in Vilnius, Kaunas, and Riga.
and
A Short History Lesson:
All of interwar Lithuania’s 239 Jewish communities (massacred in 1941) cherished and celebrated February 16th with heart and soul. They were proud Lithuanian citizens. It was also their Independence Day. See the 2013 letter from the late Joe Melamed, longtime elected leader of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, and any of countless records and pictures. Here, a photo (with bilingual Hebrew and Lithuanian handwritten captions) of the Jews of Dorbyán (Darbėnai) celebrating February 16th 1928, the tenth anniversary of independence:
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30 January 2019
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27 January 2019
Holocaust Remembrance Week 2019
In recent times, the greatest threat to Holocaust Remembrance Day is the Double Genocide Holocaust revisionist movement whose “constitution” is the 2008 Prague Declaration. Defending History is proud to have taken part in the Europarliamentary response, the 2012 Seventy Years Declaration. The relevance of all this to Holocaust Remembrance Day was made crystal clear nine years ago by Yehuda Bauer on the pages of the Jerusalem Post. See also the essay by Holocaust survivor and scholar, and former director of Yad Vashem, Dr. Yitzhak Arad, in Defending History. Identity Films has just made available free online its 2012 documentary Rewriting History. Richard Bloom Productions has done the same for its 2013 film, Defending Holocaust History.
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26 January 2019
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24 January 2019
“The rights of minority cemeteries to be left in peace are human rights”
Two Visualizations of a Convention Center in the Middle of Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery
I: Lithuania’s State Bank (“Turto Bankas”) triumphantly issues its latest visualization for a national convention center in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery, surrounded by thousands of Jewish graves. The huge new annex is “artfully” obscured (at the back).
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2: Defending History issues its reply visualization. The people of Vilnius deserve a sparkling new convention center that will be a pride to all peoples everywhere, where they will be greeted by leaders of the arts, culture, music, politics, not by the tens of thousands of ghosts of the Jews of Vilna whose families purchased their burial plots in perpetuity. Join the 45,000 people who have signed Ruta Bloshtein’s international petition.
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VILNIUS—Who’s afraid of DefendingHistory.com? Yet again, a treatment of Holocaust history and Jewish issues in Lithuania involving government funding of a journalist’s trip coincides with the “two frightening words” Defending History not being mentioned, in spite of the journal’s being one of the central addresses for these matters for a decade now, entailing publication of several thousand reports over the decade, including dozens of authors and subjects. There has been no such hesitation in reports in the New York Times, BBC and other general outlets. Are readers of Jewish publications not entitled to the same standards of inclusion of views and news?
Today’s extensive and important article by Raphael Ahren on some of the most pressing Lithuanian-Jewish issues appears in The Times of Israel. The Defending History community’s comments appear in an informal posting on the journal’s Facebook page. An unedited paste-in follows below.
Who’s afraid to mention the words Defending History?
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Congrats to Raphael Ahren on his historically important article in today’s Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/graves-guilt-and-genius-inside-lithuanias-struggle-with-its-checkered-past/.
Its most singular achievement is perhaps the sterling quote from Prof. Yehuda Bauer, dean of Holocaust scholars in Israel and far beyond, a powerful retort to the nonsense that those who disagree with the Lithuanian government’s (small but powerful and overfinanced) ‘history fixing units’ are ipso facto non-scholars, scoundrels, and all the rest.
As ever, journalists who do not reach out to interview ANY of the dozen or so DefendingHistory.com authors in Lithuania, and whose articles don’t mention the two words Defending History are sometimes prone to being manipulated by their government hosts (on state sponsored trips) to the detriment of at least some aspects of genuine open debate. Just a few examples from today’s article:
(1) While the debate over the degree of local complicity in the Holocaust is important, it should not obviate the need to at least deal with the massive campaign to export to the West a revised view of the Holocaust altogether (the Double Genocide or Two Holocausts theory). The primary documents are the Prague Declaration, and our rejoinder, The Seventy Years Declaration, signed also by eight incredibly brave Lithuanian parliamentarians (none of them were reached out to for the article). In other words, there is a serious battle over the wider history that remains unmentioned. There is a larger issue on the extent to which the Holocaust “fixing” policies of a whole range of East European states are ipso facto the 21st century incarnation of Holocaust Denial per se. See for example:
https://archive.jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory/. For more academic papers on these subjects please see: https://defendinghistory.com/holocaust-and-antisemitism-studies-papers-and-reviewsin-academic-venues.
(2) The ongoing need for state apologies to the Holocaust survivors (or their families) defamed for posterity as potential war criminals in history books and on the web (it was Mr. Ahren himself who penned one of the best articles on that back in 2009, and now — wholly unmentioned). Of course these kangaroo charges were themselves a function of Double Genocide thinking, and the need to “find” supposedly “equivalent genocide perpetrators” among the handful of Holocaust survivors. Please see Mr. Ahren’s terrific 2009 article: http://www.operationlastchance.org/PDF/p_8_lith_2.pdf.
(3) The article cites a government official’s mistatement of DH editor Dovid katz’s opinion, claiming the view that “all” anti-Soviet heroes are being called Holocaust collaborators! This is a scurrilous misstatement (and locally very dangerous and already led to a new death threat). It was wrong of the journalist to quote it without also speaking to DK and the Defending History team to be able to cite the named person’s response.
(4) On the question of the Old Vilna Jewish cemetery, there are still thousands of graves extant (found by ground radar) on all four sides of the Soviet dump slated to become the national convention center. A year ago, a New York Times journalist was not afraid to ask also the views of the democratically elected head of the Vilnius Jewish Community too (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/world/europe/lithuania-genocide-museum-jews.html)
But perhaps the next journalist to look into all this will ask gov. officials just one question: Had this been a 500 year old Christian Lithuanian cemetery, would they be building a national convention center with graves all around, or would it be lovingly and respectfully restored as a national and international treasure?
(5) The Defending History team happens to agree entirely with Mr. Ahren’s findings that daily life for Jewish people in Lithuania is fine! Again, “what it is that is the issue” goes unmentioned. East European antisemitism differs markedly from its western counterparts. See for example:
https://isgap.org/flashpoint/west-is-west-east-is-east-the-specific-east-european-incarnation-of-antisemitism/
or. more recently: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/PDF-of-DK-on-Holocaust-Inversion-ilovepdf-compressed.pdf.
(6) The discussion of the parliament’s decision to name 2020 “for the Jews” needs to include the history of the decision, i.e. a reaction to much criticism of 2019 being named for an alleged Holocaust collaborator, one for whom a monument was slated to go up in New Britain Connecticut last year (see: https://defendinghistory.com/category/new-britain-connecticut-plans-to-glorify-alleged-nazi-collaborator?order=desc); this year the monument went up in Chicago (see: https://defendinghistory.com/category/debates-on-adolfas-ramanauskas-vanagas?order=desc). The head of the Jewish Agency has spoken out: https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Herzog-underscores-obligation-to-remove-Chicago-monument-honoring-Nazi-collaborator-591319).
INCIDENTALLY, Defending History’s response to the naming of 2019 for an alleged Holocaust collaborator was to start naming years for LITHUANIAN RIGHTEOUS who risked everything to just do the right thing.
Our 2018 choice: https://defendinghistory.com/malvina-sokelyte-valeikiene-is-defending-historys-2018-person-of-the-year/92536
Our 2019 choice: https://defendinghistory.com/jonas-paulavicius-1898-1952-is-defending-historys-2019-person-of-the-year/97205
We are confident that history will render a true verdict on who, during these years, was the TRUE friend of Lithuania. . .
(7) Mr. Ahren writes that he is consciously staying away from internal Jewish community rifts which are sadly a part of the scene in many places. That is in itself a fine position to take, but here it seems to function as an excuse for shutting out entirely and failing to ALSO interview the democratically elected head of the Vilnius Jewish Community, Simon Gurevich, which represents the vast majority of Lithuanian Jews, and who has taken a DIFFERENT stance on the very issues dealt with in this article (most famously the fate of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery slated to become a national convention center, with the support of the government-supported non-democratic official Jewish community; see: https://defendinghistory.com/democratically-elected-leadership-of-vilnius-jewish-community-shows-consistent-moral-clarity-on-old-vilna-jewish-cemeterys-fate/97300).
(8) Finally, let us hope that future journalistic quests will reach out to the Jewish Lithuanian citizens who have over the years actually spoken out with inspirational courage. They do not deserve to be omitted from a foreign journalist’s quest to learn the various sides of issues that they have given so very much to express themselves, even when not convenient to their careers or status. To name just a few: Moyshe Bairak, Roza Bieliauskiene, Ruta Bloshtein, Milan Chersonski, Prof. Pinchos Fridberg, Simon Gurevich, Leon Kaplan, Sania Kerbelis, Rachel Kostanian, Arkady Kurliandchik, Chona Leibovich (Leibovičius), Prof. Josif Parasonis… When journalists fail to do so, it can mean that “the names of the right Jews to talk to” have been provided by the same government whose policies are being critically discussed. . . In other words, a state apparatus supplies its “own list of dissidents” for the benefit of journalists. And, last but not least, there are the many inspirational non-Jews who have earned over decades of blood, sweat and tears the moral right to be heard by foreign journalists on these topics. Here in Lithuania they include: Vytenis Andriukaitis, Evaldas Balciunas, Saulius Berzinis, Andrius Kulikauskas, Fiokla Kiure, Julius Norvila, Ruta Ostrovskaya, Prof. Liudas Truska, Linas Vildziunas, If you have a moment, do look up their essays on the pages of www.DefendingHistory.com AUTHORS page is at: https://defendinghistory.com/authors)
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Postscripts:
(1) Lithuania is a wonderful place and great to visit, see our page for some ideas: https://defendinghistory.com/litvak-tourism
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(2) The ongoing debates with a small and powerful government unit do not equate to being “against” a country. They do concern important issues on which there are various opinions. Defending History’s summary of the currently outstanding Lithuanian-Jewish issues is an updated version of the original that was hammered out in close consultation with the late Dr. Shimon Alperovich, the long-time beloved head of the Jewish community. It’s at:
https://defendinghistory.com/7-solutions
Perhaps one day a journalist will come and at least ask these seven questions and even dare to report that for the state’s “Jewish issue units” to come to terms with them would cost so very little — and do so very much good. . . .
A good week to all!
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?
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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.
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“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.
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1
מה נשתנה: די פיר קשיות
Má Nishtáne: Di Fír Káshes
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אחד מי יודע: און איינער איז דאָך גאָט
Ékhod mi yedéya: Un Éyner iz dokh Gót
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חד גדיא
Khád Gádyo
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These versions were recorded by Yiddish poet Menke Katz (1906-1991) from his memories of Passover sdórim in Mikháleshik, Svintsyán and Svir in the Vilna area.
VILNIUS—
The following Facebook post, on the page of DH’s editor, issued today, is republished below. For context and a fuller picture, see DH’s recent report on the manipulation of Yiddish by the state’s commission reponsible for promoting the Double Genocide movement in the European Parliament and beyond.
Continue reading
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.
Continue reading
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2024
19 April: Latest additions to Yiddish Cultural Dictionary [readers invited to send in words missing & corrections via: info@yiddishculturaldictionary.org].
28 March: Latest additions to Mikháleshik Yizkor Book.
21 March: “Updates from Lithuania’s Liveliest Cemetery” in Defending History.
8 February: Interview with Daniella Pinkstein in Tribune Juive.
17 January: Posting of 1970s-1980s correspondence with Solomon A. Birnbaum (1891-1989). Also: Memoir on Facebook.
16 January: “Vilnius Winter Mystery: When the Curtain Comes Down — Noreika or No Noreika?” in Defending History.
9 January: Posting of 1970s-1980s correspondence with Florence Guggenheim-Grünberg, master of Swiss (and Southwestern) Yiddish. Also: Memoir on Facebook.
7 January: Posting of 1970s-1980s correspondence with Hartog Beem (1892-1987), master of Netherlandic Yiddish including our working papers on Netherlandic Yiddish realizations of pan-Yiddish items. Also: Memoir on Facebook.
1 January: Initiation of the webpage “Correspondence of Yiddish Linguists Hartog Beem (1892-1987), Solomon A. Birnbaum (1891-1989), Jechiel Bin-Nun (1911-1983), Florence Guggenheim-Grünberg (1898-1989)” with links to three unpublished papers and extensive correspondence with Jechiel Bin-Nun (Fischer). Also: Memoir on Facebook.
1 January: “DH’s 2024 Person of the Year: Julius Norwilla” in Defending History.
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2023
26 December: Posting of syllabus (with links to full scan-ins of all texts read) for the Autumn 2023 online course “Readings in London Yiddish Literature” with supplementary readings and links.
25 December: Latest additions to Manual of Ashkenazic Hebrew.
24 December: Latest additions to Mikháleshik Yizkor Book.
22 December: “A ‘Shameful’ Public Letter by Five Vilnius Architects: Would They Say This About a Christian Lithuanian Cemetery of 500 Years’ Vintage?” in Defending History.
10 November: “A Masterclass in Orwellian Discourse: The Vilnius Cemetery Commission Minutes of 26 October 2023” in Defending History.
3 November: “Rabbi Elchonon Baron, Citing ‘Morally Despicable Plan to turn the Shnipishok Cemetery into a Museum’ Tells the World: ‘I will Not Remain Silent’” in Defending History.
5 October: “Furore over the ‘Baron Memorandum’ to Lithuania’s Prime Minister and Speaker of Seimas” in Defending History.
27 September: “Will the Working Group Have Courage to Just Say No to New Wave of Building & Profit from the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery?” in Defending History.
25 September: Citations in Emily Tamkin’s “Vilnius is Celebrating its 700th Anniversary” in JTA.
21 September: “Yad Vashem Director Dani Dayan, Speaking in Lithuanian Parliament, Boldly Raises the Glorification of Holocaust Collaborators Noreika, Škirpa and Krikštaponis” in Defending History.
18 September: “Painfully, Yad Vashem Heads for Vilnius, Again ‘Legitimizing’ the ‘Red-Brown Commission’, an Engine of Holocaust Revisionism” in Defending History.
23 August: Latest updates to “Saulius Beržinis’s ‘Censored Film’ on Lost Shtetl Sheduva: Lithuania’s ‘Satanic Verses’?” in Defending History.
23 August: Citations in Taylor C. Noakes, “Black Ribbon Day Is an Ahistorical, Antisemitic Fraud” in Jacobin.
1 August: Posting (on youtube) by documentary film director Loic Salfati of 2020 videographed interview on the Gaon of Vilna.
23 July: Posting of translation into Lithuanian Yiddish of the Book of Malachi (part of the project to translate the Bible into Lithuanian Yiddish; progress to date).
23 July: Posting of translation into Lithuanian Yiddish of the Book of Zechariah (part of the project to translate the Bible into Lithuanian Yiddish; progress to date).
7 July: In Memoriam: Professor Robert D. King (1936-2023).
5 July: Posting online of scan-in of compilation of materials for course at the 2005 Yiddish Teachers Program at Vilnius University.
1 June: “Torah Scribe Kasríyel Léshem of Náyshtot-Távrik (Žemaičių Naumiestis) Explains Delay to M. Kroshéyev (Krevošejevas) in Radvíleshok (Radviliškis)” [=exhibit 28 of the online Mini Museum of Jewish life in Interwar Lithuania].
30 May: “J. Slavin of Abólnik (Vabalninkas) Invites Dentist Jacob Stotsky of Remigóle (Ramygala) to Relocate and Set up his Practice in Abólnik” [=exhibit 27 of the online Mini Museum of Jewish life in Interwar Lithuania].
29 May: Posting online of scan-ins of issues 1 to 30 of the mid 1990s Oxford monthly Yiddish Pen.
28 May: “Elkhónen (Elchanan) of Kóvne (Kaunas) Sends his Photo to Relatives (or Friends) in the Holy Land on 14 April 1929” [=exhibit 26 of the online Mini Museum of Jewish life in Interwar Lithuania].
25 May: “Time for France’s Embassy in Vilnius to Just Say ‘Non!’ to French Bookstore that Features Books Glorifying Lithuanian Holocaust Collaborators” in Defending History.
7 May: “A Home-Cut Ticket Issued by a Prayerhouse in Plungyán (Plungė)” [=exhibit 25 of the online Mini Museum of Jewish Life in Interwar Lithuania].
4 May: “Lithuania’s Prime Minister Announces Members of New Commission on Fate of Hated Soviet Ruin in Heart of Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery” in Defending History.
27 April: “Defending History Proudly Supports Lithuanian Documentary Film Maker Saulius Beržinis” in Defending History.
24 April: “The Yiddish Poem of Dvéyre Klaz of the Shtetl Tsáykeshik (Čekiškė) in the Last Days of Independent Interwar Lithuania (1940)” [=exhibit 24 of the online Mini Museum of Jewish Life in Interwar Lithuania].
23 April: Report on visit to Vilnius of Ruth Reizin (Webb) and Rachel Reizin (granddaughter-in-law and great-granddaughter of Zalmen Reyzen) on Facebook. Reposted as “Family of Master Vilna Yiddishist Zalmen Reyzen Welcomed to Vilnius” in Defending History.
21 April: Latest additions to the Yizkor Book for Mikháleshik (Michalishek) in Vilna Province (Michalishki, Belarus).
17 April: “A ‘Faked’ 1851/1852 Vilna Bible from the Days of the Mid 19th Century Culture Wars” [=exhibit 87 of the Virtual Yiddish Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna].
10 April: “Nov. 1922 postcard from the National Jewish Council in Kóvne (Kaunas) to the Jewish Council in Utyán (Utena) asking for completion of a questionnaire on the economic situation and holiday aid proved” [=exhibit 23 of the online Mini Museum of Jewish Life in Interwar Lithuania].
9 April: “An interwar bilingual Lithuanian-Yiddish commemorative envelope from Sheduva (Shádeve, Shádov) from the local Jewish branch of the Union for the Recovery of Vilnius” [=exhibit 22 of the online Mini Museum of Jewish Life in Interwar Lithuania].
9 April: “Antisemitic Commemorative Envelope, Linked to 700th Vilnius Anniversary, On Sale on Vilnius’s Main Souvenir Thoroughfare” in Defending History.
6 April: “A Great City’s 700th Birthday: For the Sake of Vilnius, Will They Now Take Down Public-Space Honors for Local Holocaust Collaborators?” in Defending History.
5 April: “Blaming Inna Hecker Grade for Bashevis Singer’s Greater Success in English Translation” (text of unpublished letter sent to the New York Times on 6 March) in Defending History.
5 April: Obituary for Phyllis Kushner Katz (1926-2023) on Facebook.
4 April: Obituary for Troim Katz Handler (1927-2023) on Facebook.
17 March: Editing of Noah Barrera’s original Yiddish short story, Hemingway in Brooklyn (at author’s request).
16 March: “Latvia is a Democracy: So Why Fear Critique of Annual Riga Worship of Hitler’s Waffen SS?” in Defending History.
14 March: “Zalmen Reyzen’s Letter of Aug. 1933 from Vilna to the Shaarei Zion Library in Tel Aviv” [= exhibit no. 86 of the online Yiddish Mini Museum of Old Jewish Villna].
12 March: Revision of post “Dictionaries for advanced students of Yiddish literature and press“.
16 February: “Review of Michael Kretzmer’s Film J’Accuse!” in Defending History [+ addendum of 20 Feb.].
16 February: Comments on Lithuania’s Independence Day and participation in ensuing discussion thread on Facebook.
29 January: Obituary for Roza Bieliauskiene (1946-2023) on Facebook. Revised version posted in Defending History. Addendum of Yiddish text for the 1 February funeral in Vilnius.
29 January: Posting of syllabus for completed Jan. 2023 Yivo-Bard course on History of the Yiddish Language.
26 January: Posting of initial reading list on the Western Ashkenazic Holekraysh (Hollekreisch) for History of the Yiddish Language students (Yivo-Bard).
1 January: “Defending History’s 2023 Person of the Year: Evaldas Balčiūnas” in Defending History.
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2022
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NEW:
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30 December: Latest 2022 additions to Yiddish Cultural Dictionary.
27 December: Latest 2022 updates to Defending History.
10 November: Compiler of “Papers by Professor Michael Shafir (1944-2022)” in Defending History.
30 October: “Five Recently Published Poems in Hasidic Yiddish Magazines” in Yiddish Responsa.
26 October: Latest additions to online Mikháleshik Yizkor Book.
3 October: “Defending the (Real) History of Yiddish at Oxford” in Defending History.
26 September: Latest additions to DefendingHistory.com (which celebrated its 13th birthday this month).
13 September: Founding of the online Mikháleshik Yizkor Book. First draft with preface.
12 September: New page: The American Hebrew Day School Boycott of Yiddish: ‘Aleichem Sholem’ and Other Documents from the 1972-1974 Yeshivah of Flatbush Dispute (including uploaded scan-ins of all issues of Aleichem Sholem, coverage in the New York Post and Forverts, etc.).
9 September: “Will ‘Jewish’, ‘Litvak’ & ‘Yiddish’ Parts of ‘Kaunas 2022 Capital of European Culture’ Festivities Include Calls for Removal of Kaunas’s Hurtful Public Shrines to Holocaust Collaborators?” in Defending History.
7 September: Memoir (text & photos): “Eli S. Rosenzweig: Dear Friend and Unique Satirist” on Facebook.
6 September: Memoir (text & photos): “My friendship with London Yiddish authors I.A. Lisky & N.M. Seedo (Sonia Chusid)” on Facebook.
5 September: Updates to earlier memoir (text & photos): “A.N. Stencl (Avróm-Nókhem Shtentsl) & Our Friendship” on Facebook.
12 August: [update to] Compilation of articles, documentaries, videos, etc in honor of Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky’s 100th birthday in Defending History.
24 July: Updates to “Course Packet for Readings in New York’s Leftist Yiddish Daily, the Fráyhayt (1920s-1930s)”.
6 July: Posting of 1994 Oxford interview with Vilna-raised Yoni(a) Fain. In the Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA).
6 July: Posting of audiotape of 1975 visit by Vilna-born Dovid Botvinik (David Botwinik) and his family with Menke and Rivke Katz in Spring Glen, N.Y. In the Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA).
5 July: “Remembering my late Uncle Meishke (Edward M. Katz)” on Facebook.
5 July: Posting of 1978/1979 audiotape of London interview with Kóvne-born Khéme Pon(y)emúnsky (Nehemiah Ponting). In the the Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA).
4 July: Posting of 1994 Llandudno interview with Rabbi Jerachmiel Cofnas (Yerachmiel Tsofnas, 1912-2010) of Déksne/Shiló in the Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA).
29 June: Posting of late 1970s interview with Yiddish poet A. N. Stencl of Tsheládzh (Czeladź, 1897-1983). In the London Whitechapel Video Archive.
29 June: Posting of 2008 West Palm Beach interviews with Yoysef-Ziskind (Yosele) Sandále (Josef Sandala, 1920-2012) of Góveròve (Goworowo), Poland, where he lived before the war. In the Southern Yiddish Dialect Video Archive (SYDVA).
27 June: Posting of 1968 Boro Park interview with Harry (Hershl) Feldman (±1886 — 1974) of Káminetz Podólsk (Kamianets-Podilskyi). In the Yiddish in Ukraine Video Archive (YUVA).
27 June: Posting of 1979 London Whitechapel interview with A. N. Stencl (1897-1983) of Tshéladzh (Czeladź). In the London Whitechapel Video Archive.
20 June: Posting of June 2022 Vilnius interview with Yéte Gurvitsh (Eta Gurvičiūtė, born Kóvne 1920). In the Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA).
19 June: Posting of June 2022 Vilnius interview with Misha Jakobas (born 1949) of Telz (Telšiai). In the Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA).
12 June: “‘Morbid Memorandum’ (of AJC+LJC+GWF+Vilnius Mayor) Says Jews in Lithuania ‘Dying Out Altogether’ — While Allocating Millions for New ‘Community Center’ Building on Sacred ‘Great Synagogue Square’” in Defending History.
7 June: Latest additions to Mini Dictionary of Ashkenazic Hebrew.
3 June: Latest additions to Mini Museum of Interwar Jewish Lithuania.
3 June: Latest additions to Virtual Yiddish Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna [in Yiddish].
3 June: “Crucifix with (Unverified) Wartime Hidden Insert of Page of Hebrew Psalms” [in Yiddish]. in Virtual Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna [MOJV].
30 May: “Max Weinreich’s 1931 Review of Vorobeichic’s Photo Book on Jewish Vilna” in Virtual Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna [in Yiddish].
30 May: Latest additions to Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive. On YT.
29 May: “1921 Pin Celebrating in Yiddish Fifth Anniversary of the Vilna Jewish Craftmens Association” in Virtual Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna [in Yiddish].
29 May: “Uh-Oh, Here We Go Again: Secret Memorandum on Future of Vilna Great Synagogue Courtyard” in Defending History.
27 May: “Happy 60th Birthday to our Staff Writer Evaldas Balčiūnas, Unique Lithuanian Ethicist” in Defending History. Also: personal tribute on FB.
23 May: “Another ‘Fake Litvak Congress’? Litvaks of Lithuania are Excluded on Orders of Election-coup ‘Pylimo 4 Bosses’; Photo-op Foreigners In Town for Gov. Hosted Event” in Defending History.
22 May: “Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, State-Defamed Jewish World War II Partisan Hero, Turns 100” in Defending History.
18 May: “Updates on Kaunas’s ‘Capital of European Culture 2022’ Year Without (So Far) Removing a Single Shrine to Local Holocaust Collaborators” in Defending History.
13 May: “1931 Bilingual Ad for Sh. Abelsky’s ‘First in Lithuania: Rope Factory & Retail’” in Virtual Mini Museum of Interwar Lithuania.
5 May: [co-editor of Yiddish text (only) in], Meyshe Kulbak: Ale Lider un Poemen (appeared in Prague in separate Yiddish and bilingual Yiddish-Belarusian editions), published by Vesna Publishers. On FB.
5 May: “Memories of Professor Gershon Winer (1922-2003)” on FB.
26 April: Lastest Additions to Yiddish in Ukraine Video Archive (YUVA): Dedicated to the People of Ukraine in 2022. On YT.
26 April: Posting of video interview with Roza Bieliauskiene of Vilnius in the Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA).
17 April: “27 Months Later: Lithuania’s Defense Ministry Still Flaunts Website Homage to Hitlerist Theoretician of Ethnic Cleansing of Jews” in Defending History.
20 March: “Ottawa Citizen & N.Y. Times Break Media Silence on Self-Damage of Eastern NATO/EU Democracies by Public-Space Adoration of Holocaust Collaborators” in Defending History.
6 February: “Exotic Antisemitism? Declaring a Soviet Ruin to be a National Treasure — to Keep an Old City-Center Jewish Cemetery Verily Underground?” in Defending History.
1 February: “A Jewish Museum Without a Single Jewish Staff Member? (in a country with some 3,000 Jewish citizens)” in Defending History.
20 January: Syllabus for Yivo-Bard winter session course on History of the Yiddish Language.
10 January: “Editor’s Comments on Defending History Persons of the Year 2022” in Defending History.
2021
10 November: Review of J. Shandler’s Yiddish: Biography of a Language in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Proof available here.
24 September: “Open Letter to (1) Archimenai; (2) Institute of Design & Restoration; (3) Sigitas Kuncevičius; (4) Vilnius Architecture Studio” in Defending History.
15 September: Latest additions to The Ashkenazic Manual and the Ashkenazic Mini-Dictionary.
9 September: “Honoring Holocaust Victims One Day, and Two Days Later” — Perpetrators” in Defending History.
5 September: “In Lithuania, President’s Speech, New Monument, and Major Conference Glorify Participant in June 1941 Kaunas Atrocities Against Jewish Citizens” in Defending History.
1 September: “Will Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas Remove Nazi-Collaborator Shrines as it Honors the Great Leonidas Donskis?” in Defending History.
27 June: “Vilnius Court’s May 10th Verdict Illustrates ‘Insidious and Tragic’ Destruction of East European Cemeteries via London’s CPJCE” in DefendingHistory.
16 April: “No Sir, This is No Photoshop” in Defending History.
14 April: “Far-Right Historian Who Poses Proudly with Posters of Holocaust Collaborators Nominated to Head Lithuania’s ‘Genocide Center’” in Defending History.
22 February: “President of Germany Honors Major East European ‘History Dissident’ Rachel Kostanian, Longtime Head of Vilnius’s Only Holocaust Museum” in Defending History.
14 February: Text of online speech at the Leyvik House book launch evening for Rivke Basman’s In blíung fun ash.
12 February: “Zalmen Reyzen’s Perception of the Common Ground on Issues of Standard Yiddish and Extreme Purism” [in Yiddish: Zalmen Reyzens daas haklal vos shaeykh dem standardn yidish un dem ekstremen purizm] in D. Katz, Responsa in Yiddish Linguistics, no. 4 (Feb. 2021).
3 February: “Suddenly, Strong Statements from the Long-Silent: Holocaust Posturing or Sincere Outrage?” in Defending History.
31 January: (ed.) and compiler), “Tributes to Rachael Kostanian on her 91st Birthday” in Defending History.
1 January: “2021 is DH’s Year to Honor ‘First Week Victims and Savers’ — on 80th Anniversary of 1941” in Defending History.
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2020
Book: Einstein from Svir and Other Short Stories [collection of twelve Yiddish short stories, eight set in pre World War I Lithuania; four set in London and New York], H. Leyvik Publishing House: Tel Aviv [project officially dated 2019, appeared in early Jan. 2020]. Book available at publisher’s website (or via: leyvikmail@gmail.com).
Booklet: The Book of Esther. Translated into Lithuanian Yiddish. In Memory of Rivke Katz (1921-2019). Vilnius: 36 pp.
Paper: “Reflections on Czernowitz at 110” in Wolf Moskovich (ed), Jews and Slavs, vol. 26 [= Yiddish: A Jewish National Language at 110. Proceedings of the Czernowitz Yiddish Language International Conference], Dukh i Litera: Kyiv, pp. 11-50 [comprising also, on pp. 11-20, the original keynote lecture at the conference in Yiddish].
13 December: Latest additions to A Yiddish Cultural Dictionary: English-Yiddish Lexicon for the 21st Century.
4 September: “Remembering London’s Beloved Rabbi Avrohom Pinter (1949-2020)” in Defending History.
3 September: Posting of draft translation of the biblical Book of Habakkuk into Lithuanian Yiddish (books in the series to date).
30 August: Posting of draft translation of the biblical Book of Nahum into Lithuanian Yiddish (books in the series to date).
2 August: “Motke Chabad Says: Rabbi Forbids His Own Community’s Bagels in Vilnius — ‘Not Kosher’” in Defending History [Russian translation by Julia Rets].
29 June: “Will Lithuania’s Parliament Really Name 2021 for Alleged Participant in LAF’s Kaunas Atrocities of June 1941?” in Defending History.
22 April: Translation of the Book of Micah (from Biblical Hebrew) into Lithuanian Yiddish.
25 March: Translation of the Book of Obadiah (from Biblical Hebrew) into Lithuanian Yiddish.
24 March: Translation of the Book of Amos (from Biblical Hebrew) into Lithuanian Yiddish.
10 February 2020: Translation of the Book of Joel (from Biblical Hebrew) into Lithuanian Yiddish.
2 February: PDF of 2017 Vilnius publication of The Book of Ruth in Lithuanian Yiddish posted online.
30 January: “Kovno Leather Merchant D.L. Lipetz Writes to Son-in-Law Dr. Joseph Britanishsky in London (Leon Brittan’s Father) in 1930” in Mini-Museum of Jewish Life in Interwar Lithuania (exhibit 18).
27 January: “Yiddish and Hebrew Divorce Authorization Form from Early Years of Independent Lithuania” in Mini-Museum of Jewish Life in Interwar Lithuania (exhibit 17).
21 January 2020: “Chelm or New York? Yivo Fires its Librarians, While Investing “Fortune” in PR for Lithuanian Government’s Jewish Politics” in Defending History.
21 January: “Vilna Jewish Committee for Refugees Certifies Status of Matis Kolinsky (July 1940)” in Mini-Museum of Jewish Life in Interwar Lithuania (exhibit 16).
2019
“The Yiddish Conundrum. A Cautionary Tale for Language Revivalism” in G. Hogan-Brun and B. O’Rourke (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities, Basingstoke 2019, pp. 553-587.
“On Methodology in Yiddish Historical Linguistics” (in Yiddish) in Danielle Buschinger & Roy Rosenstein (eds), Jewish Identity and Comparative Studies [Festschrift for Astrid Starck-Adler], Centre d’Études Médiévales de Picardie: Amiens 2019, pp. 1-12.
“On the (Ab)use of Law to Remake the Historical Narrative of World War II” in Mémoires en Jeu / Memories at Stake, no. 9 (Paris), pp. 88 -93. PDF of proof only.
LRT TV interview; English original (part).
22 November: “But What is a Litvak Symbol?” in Defending History.
15 November: “When is a Hollowed-Out Jewish Menorah a Flowerpot for a Symbol Nowadays Brandished by Far-Right Antisemites?” in Defending History.
13 August: First Issue of Shleyme Bostomski & M. Chaimson’s new magazine for Yiddish teachers around the world, the “Shúl-Fraynd” (Vilna, Jan. 1936) in Virtual Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (no. 73).
12 August: Cited in Jillian Deutsch, “Plaque by Plaque, Lithuania Confronts its Wartime Past” in Politico.
4 August: “Oct. 1934 Vilna Yiddish Young People’s Magazine Brings News of Workmen’s Circle’s Yiddish School in Atlanta, Georgia” (in Yiddish) in Virtual Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (no. 72).
4 August: “Who’s Afraid of DefendingHistory.com?” on Defending History Facebook page.
1 August: “Bravo to Hizzoner Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius!” in Defending History.
29 July: Cited in JTA report, “In Eastern Europe, Holocaust Museums are Missing from Key Historical Sites”. Report by Cnaan Liphshiz also in Sun Sentinel.
22 June: “Monument to Hitler Collaborator in Chicago: A Story that Won’t Go Away” in Defending History.
2 June: “Turmoil Growing over Monument in Chicago that Glorifies a Hitler Collaborator” in Defending History.
24 May: “Honest Mistake at Irish Embassy” in Defending History.
13 May: Interview with Alexandra Kudukis in The Lithuania Tribune.
15 April: “A Tale of Two Cities? New Britain (Connecticut) and Chicago (Illinois)” in Defending History.
1 April: “On Methodology in Yiddish Historical Linguistics” (in Yiddish) in Danielle Buschinger & Roy Rosenstein (eds), Jewish Identity and Comparative Studies [Festschrift for Astrid Starck-Adler], Centre d’Études Médiévales de Picardie: Amiens 2019, pp. 1-12.
1 April: TV interview on issues of Holocaust remembrance and democracy in Eastern Europe (Jazz News TV).
3 March: “1931 Letter from Meyshe in Klaipeda (Memel) to His Brother Motl in Kharkov (Kharkiv)” (in Yiddish) in Virtual Museum of Interwar Jewish Lithuania (no. 15).
25 February: “Kaunas Society of Jesus Buys Cloth for Aprons, Oilcloth & Canvas from M. Tabatchnik’s Dry Goods Store” (in Yiddish) in Virtual Museum of Interwar Jewish Lithuania (no. 14).
24 February: “Dovid Lipman’s Corner Shop is for Electrics, but Also Offers a Cosmetics Section (in Yiddish) in Virtual Museum of Interwar Jewish Lithuania (no. 13).
19 February: “Ms. S. Vulfartaite’s and Her Kaunas Shop of Exotic Butters Made in Riga” (in Yiddish) in Virtual Museum of Interwar Jewish Lithuania (no. 12).
10 February: “The New Yiddish Book about Vilna and its Author Aaron Garon” in Defending History.
24 January: Cited in JTA report, “Lithuanian Church Removes Jewish Headstones Used as Stairs”.
23 January: “Once Again, Sophomoric and Substandard Journalism at the Yiddish Forward” in Defending History.
11 January: “1930s Vilna Family Sends Photo to Relatives in Israel with Message: ‘Don’t forget us!’ ” (in Yiddish) in Virtual Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (no. 71).
10 January: “A Significant Trial of Holocaust History” in Defending History (quotation).
1 January: “The Yiddish Conundrum. A Cautionary Tale for Language Revivalism” in G. Hogan-Brun and B. O’Rourke (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities, Basingstoke 2019, pp. 553-587.
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2018
Jump to: 2018 Projects in Progress; 2018 By Date.
Papers, essays, Bible translations and a dictionary:
“The Czernowitz Conference at 110” [in Yiddish]. Keynote address at the International Conference on the 110th Anniversary of the 1908 Yiddish Language Conference at Czernowitz on 6 August 2018; forthcoming in conference volume edited by Wolf Moskovich. Draft only (without footnote apparatus).
“A Forgotten Poem by Hirsh Glik on the Beauty of Nighttime Winter Vilna and its Viliya River” [in Yiddish] in Virtual Yiddish Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (exhibit 67).
“The Baltic Movement to Obfuscate the Holocaust” in Alex J. Kay and David Stahel (eds), Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe: New Debates and Perspectives, Indiana University Press: Bloomington 2018, pp. 235-261.
“Primary Holocaust Inversion and Eastern European Antisemitism” in Charles Asher Small (ed), The ISGAP Papers: Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective (vol. 3), Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, 2018, pp. 207-218.
“Lithuania’s Museum of Holocaust Denial. A state-sponsored institution in Vilnius rewrites history to the delight of Europe’s new ultranationalists” in Tablet. In Russian translation.
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2018 by date:
26 December. “The 1924 Mizrahi (Religious Zionist) Youth Movement Membership Card of Reuven Finger” (in Yiddish) in Virtual Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (no. 70).
22 December. “A Vilna Yiddish Theatre Studio Invites Zalmen Reyzen to Scenes from Skakespeare, Schiller, Gorki, Gogol and Büchner” (in Yiddish) in Virtual Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (no. 69).
16 December. “Another One-Sided Yivo Program on the Lithuanian Holocaust — in New York?” in Defending History.
5 December: “Is Yiddish ‘Lingua non grata’ at National Library’s Exhibition on Prewar Lithuanian Jewish Life?” in Defending History.
29 November: Interviewed on the Real News Network regarding events in Poland.
21 November: “US Taxpayer-Funded Commission Taken to Court in DC for Helping Vilnius Builders Desecrate City’s Old Jewish Cemetery” in Defending History.
19 November: “A Hebrew Betar Medal from Interwar Vilna” in Virtual Yiddish Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, (no. 68).
19 November: “Is Yad Vashem Legitimizing Vilnius ‘Genocide Center’?” in Defending History.
21 October: Posting of draft translation of Hosea from Biblical Hebrew into Lithuanian Yiddish (books translated to date).
10 October: “Jacob Piliansky, 72, Soft-Spoken Spokesperson for Historic Jewish Truth, Dies in Vilnius” in Defending History.
1 October: “The Question Fareed Zakaria Left Out of Interview with Ukraine’s President” in Defending History.
23 September: “Sept. 23rd Ponár Memorial and Pope Francis’s Visit to Vilna Ghetto Memorial” in Defending History.
21 September: Cited in JTA report “Pope Francis Urged to Speak Out Against Construction Atop a Vilnius Jewish Cemetery”; also in Times of Israel on 22 Sept.
16 September: “Ten Israeli Knesset Members Call on Lithuania’s President to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery” in Defending History.
10 September: Cited in Andrew Higgins, “Nazi Collaborator or National Hero? A Test for Lithuania” in The New York Times.
6 September: Cited in Saul Chapnick, “The Midnight Plane to Czernowitz: The 2018 International Yiddish Conference” in The Times of Israel.
23 August: “WJC Tweet Causes Pain to Holocaust Survivors and their Families” in Defending History.
23 August: Cited in Ben Cohen, “Holocaust Experts Urge Israeli PM Netanyahu to Confront ‘Rewriting of Shoah History’ During Visit to Baltics” in Algemeiner.com.
6 August: “The Czernowitz Conference at 110” [in Yiddish]. Keynote address at the International Conference on the 110th Anniversary of the 1908 Yiddish Language Conference at Czernowitz on 6 August 2018; forthcoming in conference volume edited by Wolf Moskovich. Draft only (without footnote apparatus).
24 July: Cited in Jada Yuan, “Places 24 and 25 of 52: In Tallinn and Vilnius, the Complexities of Independence” in The New York Times.
2 July: Cited in Margherita Nasi, “La Lituanie troublée par la mémoire de la Shoah” in Le Monde. As PDF.
5 June: “Freud and 21st Century Yiddish” [in Yiddish]. Abstract for commissioned paper at the 2020 conference of Freud and Yiddish at the Centre Culturel International de Cerisy).
4 June: Cited in Joanna Plucinska’s “Ghosts of Lithuania’s Past Brought Back by a Child’s Toy” in Politico.eu.
30 May: Cited in “Lithuanian Jews Protest in Vilnius Against Leadership of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Demand Free and Fair Elections” in The Weekly of Vilnius, pp. 34-39.
29 May: Cited in JTA’s “Lithuanian Jews Rally to Demand Fair Internal Elections” in JTA.
28 May: “100 Jews from Across Lithuania Peacefully Protest Undemocratic Hijack of Official Jewish Community” in Defending History.
22 May: “An Opportunity for Leaders of Israel’s ‘March of the Living’ in Vilnius” in Defending History.
18 May: Cited in Shalom Goldman’s “The Catholic Priest who Became an Orthodox Jew” in Tablet.
25 April: “Poland’s New Holocaust Law is Bad, but Not the Worst” in Jewish Currents.
25 April: Cited in JTA report, “Congress Members Call our Ukraine Government for Glorifying Nazis”.
24 April: Compilation of 15 Yiddish poems by Menke Katz (1906-1991) posted on the occasion of the poet’s 27th yórtsayt, on DovidKatz.net.
12 April: “Lithuania’s Museum of Holocaust Denial. A state-sponsored institution in Vilnius rewrites history to the delight of Europe’s new ultranationalists” in Tablet.
9 April: “Brussels (& Some Fine London Architects) Duped into ‘Double Genocide’ Program of ‘Equalizing’ Nazi and Soviet Crimes?” in Defending History.
6 April: “New Britain, Connecticut Says No to Monument Honoring Alleged Holocaust Collaborator” in Defending History.
2 April: Statement on New Britain, Connecticut issues included in DH report, “Defending History in New Britain, Connecticut Against Plans to Glorify Alleged Holocaust Collaborator on Public Grounds” in Defending History.
30 March: Cited in Rod Nordland’s “Where the Genocide Museum is (Mostly) Mum on the Fate of Jews” in The New York Times. Hebrew translation of the article published by Haaretz, 2 April 2018.
30 March: Compilation and posting of old Vilna area Yiddish versions of three principal Passover songs in “Litvak Culture” section of Defending History.
30 March: Interviewed by Adam Asher: “Vilna Without Vilna” in the Oxford Review of Books.
20 March: Interviewed by Paul Simon: “Ein systematischer Versuch, die Geschichte umzuschreiben” in Jungle World.
16 March: “Could Lithuania’s Single Freedom of Speech Lapse be on Questions of History?” in Defending History.
13 March: Co-author of Defending History’s eyewitness report on the March 11th neo-Nazi march in central Vilnius [cited in Weekly of Vilnius, 12-18 March 2018, pp. 15-16].
6 March: “Chief Rabbi of Western Wall and and Holy Sites in Israel Calls on Lithuania’s President to Cancel Convention Center Project at Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery” in Defending History.
19 February: “A Forgotten Poem by Hirsh Glik on the Beauty of Nighttime Winter Vilna and its Viliya River” [in Yiddish] in Virtual Yiddish Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (exhibit 67).
18 February: “Nationalist” March in Central Vilnius on Lithuania’s 100th Birthday Ends Up in Usual Neo-Nazi Spirit” in Defending History.
17 February: “Red-Brown Commission’ Boasts of Conference Honoring Alleged 1941 Collaborator” in Defending History.
16 February: “Defending History Celebrates Lithuania’s 100th Anniversary” in Defending History.
9 February: “Israel Chonicle [Updated]” in Defending History.
1 February: “Registry of Opposition to “The National Convention Center” Atop the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Šnipiškės) [updated]” in Defending History.
1 February: “Agnieszka Jablonska’s August 2017 Report on Wrocław Jewish Cemetery Now in Public Domain” in Defending History.
21 January: Yiddish Cultural Dictionary for the 21st Century project goes online.
15 January: “Chief Rabbi of Israel Pleads with Lithuania’s President to Abandon Plans for Convention Center on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery” in Defending History.
14 January: “Great Expectations for Kaunas, as City is Named 2022 ‘Capital of European Culture’” in Defending History.
14 January: “Does the City of New Britain, Connecticut Really Want to Honor Someone who Led a Hitlerist Militia in the Early Days of the Lithuanian Holocaust?” in Defending History.
1 January: “Malvina Šokelytė Valeikienė is Defending History’s 2018 Person of the Year” in Defending History.
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2018 Projects in Progress:
Dovid and Goliath: Writings on East European Holocaust Revisionism and Antisemitism, 2007-2018 [in preparation in partnership with publisher].
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2017
“The Extraordinary Recent History of Holocaust Studies in Lithuania” in Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, vol. 31.3 “Scholars’ Forum: Holocaust Historiography in Eastern Europe (Part II)” (December 2017), pp. 285-295. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23256249.2017.1395530?journalCode=rdap20; PDF of proof at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Dovid-Katz-on-Holocaust-Studies-in-Lithuania-PROOF-ONLY-Dec.-2017.pdf
“Inseparable Threesome: Leyzer Ran, Vilna, and Yiddish” in Charles Berlin (ed.), Catalog of the Leyzer Ran Collection in the Harvard College Library, Harvard Library: Cambridge, Massachusetts 2017, pp. 13-16.
The Book of Ruth. Translated from the Biblical Hebrew into Lithuanian Yiddish, Ele-Leyzer (Elchik) Chait: Vilnius 2017, 20 pp. Prelim pages available at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Ruth-first-3-prelims.pdf
“Free Trade Awry? The Westward Export of Double Genocide” in Danielle Buschinger and Roy Rosenstein (eds), Mélanges offerts à Jeff Richards par ses amis à l’occasion de son 65e anniversaire. Centre d’Etudes Médiévales de la Picardie, Amiens 2017. Proof at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dovid-Katzs-paper-in-Earl-Jeffrey-Richards-festschrift-2017.pdf
“West is West, East is East: The Specific East European Incarnation of Antisemitism” in Krytyka Literacka, 2017 (2), pp. 15-17.
Dated Entries in Reverse Chronological Order:
Latest entry in Virtual Yiddish Mini-Museum of Jewish Culture in the Interwar Lithuanian Republic, 25 December 2017. Index (in English): https://defendinghistory.com/index-to-virtual-mini-museum-of-jewish-life-in-the-interwar-lithuanian-republic/91524
“Take Note, Historians of Israeli Diplomacy: Betraying the Truth about the Holocaust is Not a Good Idea” in Defending History, 24 December 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/take-note-historians-of-israeli-diplomacy-betraying-the-truth-about-the-holocaust-is-not-a-good-idea/92431
“Vilnius District Court Nullifies LJC Head’s Spring 2017 Alleged ‘Kangaroo-Election Power Grab’” in Defending History, 21 December 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/vilnius-district-court-nullifies-heads-may-2017-alleged-steal-the-election-power-grab/92375
“Two Perspicacious Comments in Today’s Issue of Weekly of Vilnius” in Defending History, 17 December 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/two-perspicacious-comments-in-todays-issue-of-the-weekly-of-vilnius/92200
“Did Israel Cross a Holocaust Red Line Today by Honoring Leader of a Pro-Nazi 1941 Militia?” in Defending History, 15 December 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/did-israel-cross-a-holocaust-red-line-today-by-honoring-leader-of-a-pro-nazi-1941-militia/92121
“28 Oct. 1919 Issue of Kóvne’s Zionist Yiddish Paper Yídishe shtíme” [in Yiddish] in Mini-Museum of Jewish Culture in the Interwar Lithuanian Republic (9), 4 December 2017.
“Lithuania’s Jewish Affairs Minister Max Soloveitchik Writes to his German Counterpart in 1922” [in Yiddish] in Mini-Museum of Jewish Culture in the Interwar Lithuanian Republic (3), 28 November 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanias-jewish-affairs-minister-max-soloweitschik-writes-to-his-german-counterpart-in-1922
“Lithuanian Language Textbook for Hebrew Schools with Ékhod mi yoydéya in Lithuanian (Mariampolė 1928)” [in Yiddish] in Mini-Museum of Jewish Culture in the Interwar Lithuanian Republic (1), 26 November 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/childrens-lithuanian-language-textbook-for-hebrew-schools-mariampole-1928
“The ‘Double Genocide’ Theory: The New and Official Form of Holocaust Denial” in Jewish Currents, 22 November 2017. http://jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory/
“Real or Rigged ‘International Conference on Fascism and Antisemitism’ in Vilnius on 9 November?” in Defending History, 7 November 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/real-or-a-rigged-international-conference-on-fascism-and-antisemitism-in-vilnius-on-9-november/91109
“Harvard Publishes Catalog of the Leyzer Ran Collection in Harvard College Library” in Defending History, 6 November 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/harvard-publishes-catalog-of-the-leyzer-ran-collection-in-harvard-college-library/91082
“Joseph Melamed, Major Leader of International Litvak Community, Dies in Tel Aviv at 93” in Defending History, 29 October 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/joseph-melamed-major-leader-of-international-litvak-community-dies-in-tel-aviv-at-93/90846
“New Prague — Brussels Battle over European History?” in Defending History, 24 October 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/new-prague-brussels-battle-over-european-history/90736
“Anti-Nazi Partisan Hero Chasia Langbord Shpanerflig, 96, Dies in Vilnius” in Defending History, 21 October 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/anti-nazi-partisan-hero-chasia-langbord-shapenerflig-97-dies-in-vilnius/90566
“Text of Irish Ambassador Dónal Denham’s 2008 Speech at Brantsovsky Reception is Released for the Record” in Defending History, 20 October 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/text-of-irish-ambassador-donal-denhams-2008-speech-at-brantsovsky-reception-is-released-for-the-record/90606
“Lithuania’s Prime Minister Bizarrely Claims that Conference Center on Old Jewish Cemetery will ‘Lift’ Vilnius…” in Defending History, 5 October 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanias-prime-minister-bizarrely-claims-that-conference-center-on-old-jewish-cemetery-will-lift-vilnius/90332
“New ‘Litvak’ Postage Stamp Brings Pain to Lithuanian Jews, Holocaust Survivors, Yiddish Lovers” in Defending History, 25 September 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/new-litvak-postage-stamp-brings-pain-to-lithuanian-jews-holocaust-survivors-yiddish-lovers/90224
“Historic Conference on Future of Vilna Great Synagogue Site is Open to All” in Defending History, 29 August 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/historic-conference-on-future-of-vilna-great-synagogue-site-is-open-to-all/89733
“New NATO Film Unwittingly Glorifies Holocaust Collaborators” in Algemeiner.com, 28 August 2017. https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/08/28/new-nato-film-unwittingly-glorifies-holocaust-collaborators
“Brand New Yiddish Signs Come to Malát (Molėtai), Town in Northeast Lithuania” in Defending History, 27 August 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/brand-new-yiddish-signs-come-to-lithuanian-town-malat-moletai/89622
“Honest Error at German Embassy in Vilnius?” in Defending History, 27 August 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/honest-error-at-german-embassy-in-vilnius/89683
“Neo-Nazis in Lithuania Again Get “Material” from “Official” Jewish Community’s Leadership” in Defending History, 26 August 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/neo-nazis-in-lithuania-again-find-material-in-website-of-official-state-sponsored-jewish-community-of-lithuania/89662
“New Hotel on Top of Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław? A Challenge for Poland’s Jewish-Interest Activists and London’s CPJCE” in Defending History, 25 August 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/new-hotel-on-top-of-old-jewish-cemetery-in-wroclaw-a-challenge-for-polands-jewish-interest-activists-and-londons-cpjce/89636
“12 US Congressmen Call on Lithuania’s President to Move Convention Center Project Away from Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery” in Defending History, 13 August 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/12-us-congressmen-call-on-lithuanias-president-to-move-convention-center-project-away-from-old-vilna-jewish-cemetery/89344
“Vilnius Jewish Community Releases Letter Signed by 20 Elected Board Members Addressed to ‘Good Will Foundation’” in Defending History, 7 August 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/vilnius-jewish-community-releases-letter-signed-by-20-elected-board-members-addressed-to-good-will-foundation/89289
“Defending History Releases Yiddish Version of Julius Norwilla’s Lithuanian and English Poster for Piramónt” in Defending History, 11 July 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/defending-history-releases-yiddish-version-of-julius-norwillas-lithuanian-and-english-poster-for-piramont/89208
“A Letter and a Dedication from the late Yesháye Epshteyn (Yeshayahu Epstein)” in Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (66), 29 June 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-66
“In Reply to 40,000 Petition Signatories, Lithuania’s Chancellor Rehashes Reliance on Allegedly Corrupt Group of London Rabbis who Reject Consensus of Litvak Rabbis Internationally” in Defending History, 14 June 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/in-reply-to-40000-petition-signatories-lithuanias-chancellor-rehashes-reliance-on-allegedly-corrupt-group-of-london-rabbis-who-reject-consensus-of-litvak-rabbis-internationally88871-2/88871
“Neo-Nazis Pick Up Hate Materials from… (Hijacked?) Official ‘Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) Community’ Website” in Defending History, 10 June 2017. http://defendinghistory.com/neo-nazis-pick-up-hate-materials-from-official-lithuanian-jewish-community-website/88811
“Young Vilnius Jews Converge on Jewish Community Center to Protest Rigged Election” in Defending History, 28 May 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/young-jews-converge-on-jewish-community-center-to-protest-rigged-election/88719
“Adopting Antisemitic Trope, “Official Jewish Community Website” Blasts 300 Vilnius Jews as “Mainly Russian Speakers Calling Themselves Jews” in Defending History, 24 May 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/adopting-antisemitic-parlance-official-jewish-community-website-blasts-300-vilnius-jews-as-mainly-russian-speakers-calling-themselves-jews/88619
“Has Anti-Lithuanian Political Operative Infiltrated Official Jewish Community to Sow Turmoil?” in Defending History, 19 May 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/has-anti-lithuanian-political-operative-infiltrated-official-jewish-community-to-sow-turmoil/88505
“Arkadijus Vinokuras: Chairperson’s Henchman-Spoiler or Independent Candidate?” in Defending History, 18 May 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/arkadijus-vinokuras-chairpersons-henchman-spoiler-or-independent-candidate/88471
“Is ‘Good Will Foundation’ Enabling a Mockery of Jewish Community Democracy in Lithuania?” in Defending History, 16 May 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/is-good-will-foundation-enabling-a-mockery-of-jewish-community-democracy-in-lithuania/88397
“Fake Nationalist Menorah: New Low in Litvak Identity Theft?” in Defending History, 12 May 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/fake-nationalist-menorah-new-low-in-litvak-identity-theft/88322
“Lithuanian Jews Dismayed at New Attempt to Crush Democracy” in Defending History, 7 May 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-jews-dismayed-as-communitys-democracy-seems-crushed/88273
“Vilnius Jews Shocked by Maneuver to Rig the Community’s Elections” in Defending History, 21 April 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/vilnius-jews-shocked-by-maneuver-to-rig-the-communitys-elections/88092
“Would a Lithuanian Church Proceed in 2017 to Honor an Alleged Local Holocaust Perpetrator?” in Defending History, 19 April 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/would-a-lithuanian-church-proceed-in-2017-to-honor-an-alleged-local-holocaust-perpetrator/88036
“Major German Holocaust Scholar Slips (Again) into Baltic Nationalist Discourse” in Defending History, 28 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/major-german-holocaust-scholar-slips-again-into-baltic-nationalist-discourse/87609
“US Taxpayer-Funded Commission Mixed Up in Desecration of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery is Reported to Senate Oversight Committee” in Defending History, 27 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/dc-commission-colluding-in-desecration-of-old-vilna-jewish-cemetery-is-reported-to-senate-oversight-committee/87584
“State-Sponsored “Genocide Center” Issues Document that is ‘2017’s Jew-Witch Hunt’ Against 95 Year Old Holocaust Survivor Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky” in Defending History, 26 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/state-sponsored-genocide-center-issues-document-that-is-2017s-jew-witch-hunt-against-95-year-old-holocaust-survivor-fania-yocheles-brantsovsky/87385
“Vilnius Jewish Community Board Issues ‘Historic Call’ for Restoration of Democracy” in Defending History, 23 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/vilnius-jewish-community-issues-bold-letter-demanding-a-formal-meeting-be-called/87377
“Vilnius Author of Piramónt Petition, Head of Kaunas Synagogue Present Petition’s 39,000 Signatures to Lithuanian Government” in Defending History, 21 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/vinius-author-of-piramont-petition-and-head-of-kaunass-choral-synagogue-present-petitions-39000-signatures-to-the-lithuanian-government/87333
“‘Statistics” Posted by the ‘Good Will Foundation’ in Vilnius” in Defending History, 19 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/statistics-posted-by-the-good-will-foundation-in-vilnius/87260
“Defending History’s Statement on Need for Announcement of Democratic Elections for Leadership of Lithuanian Jewish Community” in Defending History, 19 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/defending-historys-statement-on-urgent-need-for-announcement-of-fair-and-free-democratic-elections-for-leadership-of-the-lithuanian-jewish-community/87195
“Simóntshik Launches Campaign for Leadership of Lithuanian Jewish Community” in Defending History, 14 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/simontshik-launches-campaign-for-leadership-of-lithuanian-jewish-community/87113
“Over 500 Neo-Nazis Granted Center of Vilnius for March 11th Parade; A Tirade Against Holocaust Survivor Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, 95” in Defending History, 11 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/over-500-neo-nazis-granted-center-of-vilnius-for-annual-march-16th-parade-tirade-against-95-year-old-holocaust-survivor-fania-yocheles-brantsovsky/86980
“London Beth Din (Rabbinical Court) Issues Summons to Two Leaders of Lithuania’s Official Jewish Community” in Defending History, 3 March 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/london-beth-din-rabbinical-court-issues-summons-to-two-leaders-of-lithuanias-official-jewish-community/86880
“Vilna or Chelm? After 22 Years of Service to Community, Rabbi is Driven from Synagogue Gates by Hired Armed Guards for Having ‘Called out Page Number'” in Defending History, 28 February 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/vilna-or-chelm-after-22-years-of-service-to-community-rabbi-is-driven-from-synagogue-gates-for-having-called-out-the-prayerbook-page-numbers-last-saturday/86832
“After ‘Blissful United Congregation’ on Sabbath, Some Leaders of “Official” Community Again Take Aim at Rabbi Krinsky” in Defending History, 27 February. https://defendinghistory.com/after-blissful-united-congregation-on-sabbath-leaders-of-vilnius-community-again-take-aim-for-rabbi-krinsky/86799
“Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairperson Faina Kukliansky Issues Powerful Statement on Annual ‘Holiday’ that Humiliates Jews and Roma” in Defending History, 27 February 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-jewish-community-chairperson-faina-kukliansky-issues-powerful-statement-challenging-the-annual-holiday-that-humiliates-jews-and-roma/86776
“Ethical & Cultural Level of ‘Admas Kodesh’ (/CPJCE) that is Underpinned by Taxpayer-Supported USCPAHA” in Defending History, 27 February 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/ethical-cultural-level-of-admas-kodesh-cpjce-that-is-revered-by-taxpayer-supported-uscpaha/86757
“London CPJCE Spokesman Proclaims a Soviet Ruin in Vilnius to be Lithuania’s ‘London Tower’ and its ‘Statue of Liberty'” in Defending History, 23 February 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/london-cpjce-spokesman-proclaims-a-soviet-ruin-in-vilnius-to-be-lithuanias-london-tower-and-its-statue-of-liberty/86666. Reposted on 27 February 2017 by the Five Towns Jewish Times in the United States. http://5tjt.com/london-cpjce-spokesman-proclaims-a-soviet-ruin-in-vilnius-to-be-lithuanias-london-tower-and-its-statue-of-liberty/.
“A Year & One Month Since US Commission on Heritage Abroad (USCPAHA) “Reported to Satmar Rebba” in Monsey, N.Y.” in Defending History, 20 February 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/a-year-a-month-since-us-commission-on-heritage-abroad-uscpaha-reported-to-satmar-rebba/86546
“Neo-Nazis, Glorifying Holocaust Collaborators & Spewing Racism, Again Gifted Center of Kaunas on Lithuania’s Cherished Feb 16th Independence Day” in Defending History, 16 February 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/neo-nazis-glorifying-holocaust-collaborators-spewing-racism-again-gifted-center-of-kaunas-on-lithuanias-cherished-feb-16th-independence-day/86753
“Kaunas, Lithuania: Run-Up to the February 16th 2017 Neo-Nazi March on Independence Day” in Defending History, 15 February 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/kaunas-lithuania-run-up-to-the-february-16th-neo-nazi-march-on-independence-day/86478
“A Major New Shtetl Museum for Shádev (Shádov, Shádeve, Today’s — Šeduva)” in Defending History, 15 February 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/a-major-new-shtetl-mueseum-in-shadev-shadov-shadeve-todays-seduva/86444
“When the Picture and the Headline Tell Opposite Stories” in Defending History, 12 February 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/when-the-picture-and-the-headline-tell-the-opposite-story/86363
“Weekly of Vilnius is First to Cover Bloshtein Petition in Lithuanian Media” in Defending History, 6 February 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/the-weekly-of-vilnius-first-to-cover-bloshtein-petition-in-lithuanian-media/86240
“Additional Reading Suggestions for Participants in a Feb. 2017 Yivo Course” in Defending History, 24 January 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/additional-reading-suggestions-for-participants-in-yivos-feb-2017-holocaust-in-lithuania-course/86078
“Song of Songs translated into Lithuanian Yiddish”, posted 20 January 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/song-of-songs-in-lithuanian-yiddish
“Reply to Rabbi Herschel Gluck” in Defending History, 17 January 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/rabbi-hershel-gluck-obe-speaks-to-jewish-chronicle-trashing-the-international-petition-with-34000-signatures/85915
“CPJCE’S American Affiliate Calls 34,000 Petition Signers ‘Evil People'” in Defending History, 17 January 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/cpjces-american-affiliate-calls-34000-petition-signers-evil-people/85935
“Official Community’s Private Security Force Again Bars Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky from Sabbath Services” in Defending History, 9 January 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/official-communitys-private-security-force-again-bars-rabbi-sholom-ber-krinsky-from-sabbath-services/85737
“Ecclesiastes translated into Lithuanian Yiddish”, posted 5 January 2017. https://defendinghistory.com/the-book-of-ecclesiastes-in-lithuanian-yiddish.
◊
2016
“Antisemitism in the Twenty-First Century Shtetl” in ISGAP Flashpoint, no. 38. http://isgap.org/flashpoint/antisemitism-in-the-21st-century-shtetl/.
“Is Eastern European ‘Double Genocide’ Revisionism Reaching Museums?” in Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, vol. 30.3: 1–30 [Nov. 2016]. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23256249.2016.1242043; https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Dovid-Katz-2016-Dapim-paper-PROOF-ONLY.pdf
“Barring a Jew from Prayer Services is a Human Rights Issue” in Defending History, 1 November 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/where-barring-a-jew-from-synagogue-services-becomes-a-human-rights-issue/84523.
“Did ‘Double Genocide’ Just Get to the O’Reilly Factor?” in Defending History, 22 October 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/did-double-genocide-just-get-to-the-oreilly-factor/84320
“When ‘Putin’ Becomes an Excuse for Hitler-Glorification’ in Jewish Currents, 10 October 2016. http://isgap.org/flashpoint/butchering-history-but-not-the-jews-the-case-of-post-revolutionary-ukraine/
“Yiddish Loses Last Global Position as Symbolic ‘First Jewish Language’ in Vilnius” in Defending History, 20 September 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/yiddish-loses-last-global-position-as-symbolic-first-jewish-language-in-vilna/83979
“Media coverage of the Malát (Molėtai) Holocaust Remembrance Project” in Defending History. 14 September 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/media-coverage-of-the-malat-moletai-holocaust-remembrance-project-selection/83789
“Att. Mr. Mayor of Vilnius: Streets Named for Hitler’s Local Partners, and Plans for Congress Center on Top of Old Jewish Cemetery’ in Defending History, 13 September 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/att-mr-mayor-of-vilnius-streets-named-for-hitlers-local-partners-and-plans-for-congress-center-on-old-jewish-cemetery/83186
“Editor’s Comment on a Yad Vashem Group Visiting Lithuania” in Defending History, 11 September 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/editors-comment-on-a-yad-vashem-group-visiting-lithuania/83826
“August and September 2016 Memorials for Destroyed Jewish Communities” in Defending History, 4 September 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/august-and-september-2016-memorials-for-destroyed-jewish-communities/83776
“2016 Deterioration of Holocaust History and of Freedom of Speech in Poland” in Defending History, 2 September 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/2016-deterioration-of-holocaust-history-and-of-freedom-of-speech-in-poland/83803
“How Does a 21th Century Municipality of a Former Shtetl Deal with its Annihilated Jewish Population?” on Facebook, 30 August 2016. https://www.facebook.com/dovid.katz/posts/1324916140872928
“Séyfer Yóyne” [‘Book of Jonah’: Bible translation into Lithuanian Yiddish], 28 August 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/%20the-book-of-jonah-in-lithuanian-yiddish
“Megílas Éykho” [‘Book of Lamentations’: Bible translation into Lithuanian Yiddish], 21 August 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/the-book-of-lamentations-in-lithuanian-yiddish
“Baltic Red-Brown “Nazi-Soviet Hunter” Featured at Brazil’s Olympics in Rio” in Defending History, 12 August 2016. Defending History: ‘Baltic Red-Brown “Nazi-Soviet Hunter” Featured at Brazil’s Olympics in Rio’.
“Interpretation of a 19th century Belarusian rabbi’s comments on the phonetics and phonology of Ashkenazic Hebrew”, Responsum no. 3 in Yiddish Linguistics series, 9 August 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/responsa-in-yiddish-linguistics-by-dovid-katz#giml
“But Who is Against the National Congress Center in the Old Vilna Jewish cemetery?” [annotated bibliography of publications to date, in progress] in Defending History, 8 August 2016. Defending History: [updated version of] ‘But who is against the National Congress Center in the old Vilna Jewish cemetery?’
“Lithuanian State Bank and Major UK Firm Seem Deeply Involved in Vilnius Jewish Cemetery Scandal” in Defending History, 8 August 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/turto-bankas-announces-national-congress-center-project-in-heart-of-vilnas-old-jewish-cemetery/82905
“Séyfer Doníyel” [‘Book of Daniel’: Bible translation into Lithuanian Yiddish; Aramaic parts of Daniel into older version of Northeastern Yiddish], 7 August 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/the-book-of-daniel-in-lithuanian-yiddish“
“Wiesenthal Center Calls on Kaunas Mayor to End Abuse of “Seventh Fort”; Pressure Builds on Vilnius Mayor’s Jewish Politics” in Defending History, 2 August 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/wiesenthal-center-calls-on-kaunas-mayor-to-act-on-holocaust-mass-murder-site-used-for-weddings-and-fun/82797
“When Yiddish is a Prop for Holocaust Revisionism” in Defending History, 24 July 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/when-yiddish-is-a-prop-for-holocaust-revisionism/82568
“Defending History Responds to Vilnius Architects’ Visualizations for National Convention Center in the Old Vilna Jewish cemetery” in Defending History, 15 July 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/defending-history-responds-to-vilnius-architects-three-visualizations-for-convention-center-in-the-jewish-cemetery/82384
“Joseph Levinson’s 1990s Map of Lithuanian Mass Murder Sites is Released by Family” in Defending History, 11 July 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/joseph-levinsons-1990s-map-of-lithuanian-mass-murder-sites-is-released-by-family/82278
“Latest Judicial Abuse of an East European Country’s Redefinition of “Genocide” to Obfuscate the Holocaust” in Defending History, 10 July 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/latest-judicial-abuse-of-an-east-european-countrys-redefinition-of-genocide-to-obfuscate-the-holocaust/82261
“In Response to the Media” in Defending History, 9 July 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/in-reponse-to-the-media-9-july-2016/82236
“Asra Kadisha on Vilna Cemetery: From Proud Powerhouse of Historic Truth to Silent Mouse?” in Defending History, 15 June 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/asra-kadisha-on-vilna-cemetery-from-proud-pillar-of-historic-truth-to-silent-mouse/81819
“Ruta Bloshtein Discovers 1935 Vilna Rabbis’ Condemnation of Plans to Desecrate Old Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt” in Defending History, 9 June 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/ruta-bloshtein-discovers-1935-vilna-council-of-rabbis-document-condemning-plans-to-build-on-the-old-jewish-cemetery-at-piramont-in-snipiskes/81657
“San Francisco Examiner Bamboozled?” in Defending History, 3 June 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/san-francisco-examiner-bamboozled/81565
“On the Age of Lithuanian Yiddish”, Responsum no. 2 in Yiddish Linguistics series, 8 June 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/responsa-in-yiddish-linguistics-by-dovid-katz#beyz
“When the EU Finances Far-Right Holocaust Revisionism” in Global International Analytics (GIA), 24 May 2016. https://gianalytics.org/992-when-the-eu-finances-far-right-holocaust-revisionism
“If Not Higher Still” [new Russian translation by Julia Rets of the short story Oyb nisht nokh klíger in Misnágdishe Máyses (1996)] in Мы здесь, 10-16 May 2016. http://newswe.com/index.php?go=Pages&in=view&id=8846
“The Battle for the Memory of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe” in Novaya Gazeta (Baltics), 4 May 2016. http://novayagazeta.ee/articles/5859/
“West is West, East is East: The Specific East European Incarnation of Antisemitism” in Flashpoint (ISGAP), 8 April 2016. http://isgap.org/flashpoint/west-is-west-east-is-east-the-specific-east-european-incarnation-of-antisemitism/
“What’s Behind the West’s Wall of Silence on East European Glorification of Nazi Collaboration?” in Global Independent Analytics (GIA), 29 March 2016. https://gianalytics.org/629-what-s-behind-the-west-s-wall-of-silence-on-eastern-europe-s-glorification-of-nazi-collaboration. French translation: http://arretsurinfo.ch/quy-a-t-il-derriere-le-mur-de-silence-occidental-sur-la-glorification-de-la-collaboration-nazie-en-leurope-de-lest/; https://www.les-crises.fr/quy-a-t-il-derriere-le-mur-de-silence-occidental-sur-la-glorification-de-la-collaboration-nazie-en-leurope-de-lest-par-dovid-katz/.
“Lithuania: Where the Government Agrees (In Part) with Neo-Nazi Marchers’ in Global International Analytics (GIA), 8 March 2016. https://gianalytics.org/475-lithuania-where-the-government-agrees-in-part-with-neo-nazi-marchers
“Vilnius Prosecutor Skirts Key Question: Will the List of Alleged Holocaust Perpetrators be Made Public?’ in Defending History, 3 March 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/vilnius-prosecutor-skirts-key-question-will-the-list-of-alleged-holocaust-perpetrators-be-made-public/80081
“Israel’s Foreign Ministry Faces a Lithuanian Dilemma” in Defending History, 26 January 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/israels-foreign-ministry-faces-a-lithuanian-dilemma/79892
“Images from the February 16th 2016 Neo-Nazi March in Kaunas” in Defending History, 16 February 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/images-from-the-february-16th-2016-neo-nazi-march-in-kaunas-lithuania/79731
“Massive new Vilnius Construction Site Borders City’s Old Jewish Cemetery Site” in Defending History, 14 February 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/massive-new-vilnius-construction-site-borders-citys-old-jewish-cemetery-site/79690
“Sugihara abused? Red-Brown Commission Ropes in Japanese Embassy for 11 Feb. Event” in Defending History, 4 February 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/sugihara-abused-red-brown-commission-ropes-in-japanese-embassy-for-11-feb-event/79442
“An Open Letter to Holocaust Scholars and Educators in the Francophone World” in Defending History, 18 January 2016. https://defendinghistory.com/an-open-letter-to-holocaust-scholars-and-educators-in-the-francophone-world/79189
◊
2015
Yiddish and Power. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke and New York 2015. http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/yiddish-and-power-dovid-katz/?k=9780230517608&loc=uk
I Kings in Lithuanian Yiddish: Vilnius 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/74250-2. II Kings in Lithuanian Yiddish: Vilnius 2016 in progress. https://defendinghistory.com/ii-kings-in-lithuanian-yiddish
———
“Ber Horowitz’s Six 1929 Portraits of Vilna Yiddish Intellectuals” [in Yiddish] in Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (63), 27 December 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-63
“Is Lithuania’s President Distancing Herself from Prime Minister’s “Religious Zeal” for the “Convention Center in the Old Jewish Cemetery”? in Defending History, 23 December 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/is-lithuanias-president-distancing-herself-from-prime-ministers-religious-zeal-for-the-convention-center-in-the-old-jewish-cemetery-in-vilnius/78556
“Lithuania’s Liveliest Cemetery” in The Times of Israel, 13 December 2015. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/lithuanias-liveliest-cemetery/
“A 1930 Petition in Yiddish and Polish Opposing the League of Nations’ Calendar Reform Plan” [in Yiddish] in Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (62), 13 December 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-62
“Hanukkah in Vilnius” in Lithuania Tribune, 8 December 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Hanukkah-in-Vilnius-EN.pdf. http://en.delfi.lt/lithuania/society/hanukkah-in-vilnius.d?id=69789450
“A Lead Seal of Kashruth, in Yiddish and Polish, from Vilna’s Yatkever gas” [in Yiddish] in Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (61), 22 November 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-61
“A 1916 Vilna German Postcard Featuring Four Local Languages: Belarusian, Lithuanian, Polish and Yiddish” [in Yiddish] in Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (60), 16 November 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-60
“Question in the UK Parliament on the Old Jewish Cemetery in Vilnius” in Defending History, 12 November 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/question-in-the-uk-parliament-on-the-old-jewish-cemetery-in-vilnius/77989
“Vilnius Mayor Plays with Fire: Yiddish, Pilfered Jewish Gravestones, and an Olympics of ‘Barbarism'” in Defending History, 11 November 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/vilnius-mayor-plays-with-fire-yiddish-pilfered-jewish-gravestones-and-an-olympics-of-barbarism/77957
“As Rothschild Conference Winds Up in Vilnius, Kaunas Religious Jewish Community Issues Statement of Defiance” in Defending History, 29 October 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/date/2015/10
“Rothschild (of London) Finances ‘Closed’ Conference (in Vilnius) on Jewish Cemeteries (That May be Cover for Most Painful Desecration Yet of Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery)” in Defending History, 14 October 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/rothschild-london-finance-closed-conference-in-vilnius-on-jewish-cemeteries-duped-by-government-and-property-developers-interests/77615
“Run-Up to a Vilnius Rothschild Foundation (London) Conference” in Defending History, 12 October 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/run-up-to-a-vilnius-rothschild-foundation-london-conference/77824
“Impressions of the 11 October 2015 Memorial Program in Svintsyán (Švenčionys)” in Defending History, 11 October 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/impresssions-of-the-11-october-2015-memorial-program-in-svintsyan-svencionys/77546
“First Moral Victory in the EU, in Effort to Prevent Unprecedented Desecration of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery” in Defending History, 9 October 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/office-of-eu-president-juncker-denies-european-funding-will-be-available-for-vilnius-convention-center-in-the-cemetery/77457
“Purveyor of Racist, Misogynist, Antisemitic, Homophobic, Nazist ‘Art’ is Alleged to Work in Lithuania’s Economy Ministry” in Defending History, 9 October 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/purveyor-of-racist-misogynist-antisemitic-homophobic-nazist-art-is-alleged-to-work-in-lithuanias-economy-ministry/77499
“Police Prevent Kaunas Jewish Guide Chaim Bargman from Attending Annual Memorial for the Annihilated Jews of Ukmergė (Vilkomir)” in Defending History, 4 October 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/police-prevent-kaunas-jewish-guide-chaim-bargman-from-attending-annual-memorial-for-the-annihilated-jews-of-ukmerge-vilkomir/77338
“Another ‘Conference on Antisemitism’ in Lithuania” in Defending History, 1 October 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/another-conference-on-antisemitism-in-lithuania/77290
“Suspicions Rise on Role of ‘U.S. Commission for Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad’ in Plans to Build a $25,000,000 Convention Center in Heart of Vilnius’s Old Jewish Cemetery” in Defending History, 27 September 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/suspicions-rise-on-role-of-u-s-commission-for-preservation-of-americas-heritage-abroad-in-plans-to-build-a-25000000-convention-center-in-heart-of-vilniuss-old-jewish-cemetery/77112
“Vilnius Names Street for Beloved Lithuanian Rescuer Ona Šimaitė” in Defending History, 25 September 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/vilnius-names-street-for-beloved-lithuanian-rescuer-ona-simaite/77166
“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” in Defending History, 22 September 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/ponar-paneriai-memorial-no-rabbi-no-cantor-no-kaddish/77600
“Ninetieth Anniversary Yivo Conference in Vilnius is Major Success” in Defending History, 20 September 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/90th-anniversary-yivo-conference-in-vilnius-is-a-major-success/77091
“Israel Faced Some Delicate Post-Holocaust Issues During Lithuanian PM’s September Visit” in Defending History, 15 September 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/israel-faced-some-delicate-post-holocaust-issues-during-lithuanian-pms-september-visit/78009
“New Jewish Monument in Rokiškis (Rákeshik), Lithuania, Commemorates Three Synagogues” in Defending History, 8 September 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/new-jewish-monument-in-rokiskis-rakeshik-lithuania-commemorates-3-synagogues/76902
“Lithuanian Post Office Honors Sugihara and Zwartendijk on 75th Anniversary of ‘Visas for Life'” in Defending History, 4 September 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/76832/76832
“U.S. Rep of London Rabbis Involved with Vilnius Cemetery Fiasco Boasts of Photo-ops at the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad” in Defending History, 26 August 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/ally-of-london-rabbis-involved-with-vilnius-cemetery-fiasco-boasts-of-photo-ops-at-the-us-commission-for-the-preservation-of-americas-heritage-abroad/76591
“London ‘Graveyard Rabbis’ Issue Statement that Fails to Mention Cemetery Convention Center (CCC)’ in Defending History, 23 August 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/london-graveyard-rabbis-issue-statement-that-fails-to-mention-convention-center/7653
“Motke Chabad Weighs In on Vilnius Debate over an Old Jewish Cemetery” [Yiddish and English] in Defending History, 21 August 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/motke-chabad-weighs-in-on-vilnius-cemetery-debate/76415
“A Tale of Two Tweets” in Defending History, 7 August 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/tale-of-two-tweets/76053
“Double Genocide Discourse Now Standard for the New York Times?” in Defending History, 23 July 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/double-genocide-discourse-now-standard-for-the-new-york-times/75642
“Open Letter to Members of CPJCE in the UK: Do You Really Want a Convention Center in the Heart of Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery?” in Defending History, 21 July 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/open-letter-to-members-of-cpjce-in-the-uk-do-you-really-want-a-convention-center-in-the-heart-of-vilnas-old-jewish-cemetery/75500
“Chronology of the 2015 Vilna Jewish Cemetery Debate” [updated to latest date listed]. https://defendinghistory.com/2015-dispute-on-vilnius-reconstruction-of-sports-arena-on-site-of-old-vilna-jewish-cemetery
“Media Tracker on Holocaust Obfuscation, Double Genocide and East European Antisemitism” [updated to latest date listed]. https://defendinghistory.com/media
“Were Rabbis, U.S. Jewish Leaders, a U.S. Gov. Agency and the EU Manipulated into Supporting a $25,000,000 Convention Center on Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery?” in Defending History, 14 June 2015 [with updates as listed]. https://defendinghistory.com/are-rabbis-u-s-jewish-leaders-a-u-s-gov-agency-and-the-eu-manipulated-into-supporting-plans-for-25000000-convention-center-on-vilnas-old-jewish-cemetery-site/74456
“SLS’s 2015 Sutzkever Prize: Yiddish Poetry Serving Right-Wing East European Politics” in Defending History, 21 May 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/slss-2015-sutzkever-prize-yiddish-poetry-serving-right-wing-east-european-politics/74033
“From Holocaust Envy to Holocaust Theft” in The Times of Israel, 11 May 2015. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/from-holocaust-envy-to-holocaust-theft/
“Double Genocide in Action? Victims and Perpetrators Interchangeable” in Defending History, 23 April 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/red-brown-commission-boss-speaks-out-on-brantsovsky-investigation-and-his-understanding-of-the-holocaust/71178
“Politics, Policy, and Lithuanian Holocaust Discourse” at the International Conference on Holocaust Education at Vilnius City Hall on 17 April 2015. Text version: https://defendinghistory.com/dovid-katzs-lecture-at-vilnius-conference-on-17-april-2015/73111. In Lithuanian translation (18 May 2015): https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-translation-of-dovid-katzs-april-17-2015-vilnius-conference-lecture/73862
“Twelve Issues in the Preservation of Lithuania’s Material Jewish Heritage (2015)” in Defending History, 1 May 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/urgent-jewish-material-heritage-issues-in-lithuania-2015/73482
“A priváter shtempl fun Yítskhok [ben?] Eliézer” in Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, 57, 26 March 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-57
“A séyferl shàyles-utshúves af tsvey masekhtóes, gedrúkt in Venedik (Venétsye) 1605-1606 mitn amólikn shtempl fun vílner biblyoték fun Matisyóhu Strashún” in Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, 56, 22 March 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-56
“A glézerne telerl (oder tetsl) mit mogn-dóvids un tshikáve tséykhenishn” in Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, 53, 8 March 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-53
“Kháyim-Nákhmen Shapíro’s Kóvner bukh af lítvish fun 1935 vegn der téme: Vílne in der poézye vos af hebréyish un yídish” in Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, 52, 6 March 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/mini-museum-of-old-jewish-vilna-52
“A hebréyishe rekláme far der ‘Gimnásya Ivrit Zaválni num. 4’ in der tsiyenístisher ‘Yídisher tsáytung’ un Vílne funem 8tn óygust 1919” in Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, 50, 22 February 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/keepsakes-of-old-jewish-vilna-50
“A reshíme fun zibn-un-tsvántsik kloyzn (bótey-midróshim) in Vílne (in Zálmen Réyzen’s Vílner ‘Tog’ fun dráysikstn detsémber 1921” in Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, 47, 8 February 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/keepsakes-of-old-jewish-vilna-47
“Kaunas Police Informs defending History on Status of February 16th Neo-Nazi March” in Defending History, 3 February 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/kaunas-police-informs-defending-history-on-status-of-february-16th-neo-nazi-march/71152
“Three Holocaust Remembrance Day Events in Vilnius” in Defending History, 26 January 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/three-holocaust-remembrance-day-events-in-vilnius-on-26-january-2015/70892
“Di matóne fun Rívke bas Shmúel in Takság (1832-1833)” in Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, 45, 22 January 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/keepsakes-of-old-jewish-vilna-45
“A Vílner paródye af Móyshe Kúlbaks bavúst lid Shterndl” in Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, 44, 16 January 2015. https://defendinghistory.com/keepsakes-of-old-jewish-vilna-44
2014
“Two ‘C-words’ for Holocaust Museums: Center of Town, and — Collaboration” in Defending History, 24 December 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/real-challenge-architects-bernotaite-pucka-ropolas-vaitiekunas/70423
“Just about Yiddish? The Real Story Behind This Week’s Yivo Banquet in New York” in Algemeiner. com,16 December 2014. In print edition of 19 December 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Dovid-Katz-on-Yivo-banquet-19-Dec-2014.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/12/16/just-about-yiddish-the-real-story-behind-this-week%E2%80%99s-yivo-banquet-in-new-york/
“A shtikl yídisher drúk-blay af dray yídishe shprakhn, mit dray shriftn” in Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna, 42, 7 December 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/keepsakes-jewish-vilna-42
“Ukraine Bonanza for Upgraded Holocaust Denial” in The Times of Israel, 28 November 2014. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/ukraine-bonanza-for-upgraded-holocaust-denial/
“Peter Jukes Exposes ‘Documentary’ that Glorifies Nazi Collaborators” in Defending History, 28 November 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/peter-jukess-tweet-exposes-documentary-glorifies-nazi-collaborators/69815
“Text of US Rep. John Conyers’ Proposed Amendment Restricting Aid to Pro-Nazi Forces in Ukraine” in Defending History, 23 November 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/text-rep-john-conyers-proposed-amendment-stopping-aid-pro-nazi-forces-ukraine/69739
“Meilach Stalevich (1923 — 2014)” in Defending History, 11 November 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/meilach-stalevich-1923-2014/69456
“Defending History Brings Results: Yivo to Honor Arad (at Fundraising Banquet)” in Defending History, 10 November 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/defending-history-brings-results-yivo-honor-arad-at-fundraising-banquet/69445
“Latvian Musical that Sanitizes Holocaust Perpetrator Starts its Grand Tour” in Defending History, 31 October 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/latvian-musical-glorifies-holocaust-mass-murderer-openson-october-11th/69177
“Would They Try to Instrumentalize Simon Wiesenthal, Too? An Open Letter to Inna Rogatchi” in Defending History, 26 October 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/open-letter-inna-rogatchi/69272
“Riva Shpiz’s Memories of 23 June 1941 in Dugalíshik (Daugeliškis), taped Yiddish interview, 12 October 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watchv=vdZsmK4muBg&feature=youtu.be
“Die Prager Deklaration” in Jüdische Rundschau, 8 October 2014. http://juedischerundschau.de/die-prager-deklaration/
“Annual Memorial for the Jews of Svintsyán (Švenčionys): Small but Well Done’ by Dovid Katz, in Defending History, 5 October 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/annual-memorial-svintsyan-svencionys-small/69090. Reprinted in The Lithuania Tribune – Delfi English at: http://en.delfi.lt/lithuania/society/annual-memorial-for-the-jews-of-svintsyan-svencionys-small-but-well-done.d?id=66061010
“Poland is not Ukraine” in Jewish Review of Books, Fall 2014. http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1186/poland-is-not-ukraine-a-response-to-konstanty-geberts-the-ukrainian-question/
“Seven Prophet Amos Awards for Human Rights Courage in Lithuania” in Defending History, 24 September 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/defending-history-award-prophet-amos-awards-human-rights-lithuania-5774-2014-2015/68862
“Usable Memory of Holocaust Victims: NY Yivo Announces Campaign for Five and a Quarter Million Dollars for New ‘Vilna Project’” in Defending History, 23 September 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/usable-memory-holocaust-victims-n-y-yivo-announces-request-quarter-million-dollars-vilna-project/68974
“Tsemakh Shabad’s 150th birthday celebrated in style at the Lithuanian parliament” in Defending History, 21 September 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/tsemakh-shabads-150th-birthday-celebrated-style-lithuanian-parliament/68865
“75 Jahre nach dem 1. September 1939: Antisemitismus in Osteuropa” in Jüdische Rundschau, 9 September 2014. http://juedischerundschau.de/75-jahre-nach-dem-1-september-1939-antisemitismus-osteuropa/
“The Hushed-Up Hitler Factor in Ukraine” in Consortium News, 16 August 2014. http://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/16/the-hushed-up-hitler-factor-in-ukraine/
“Osten ist Osten und Westen ist Westen” in Jüdische Rundschau, 7 August 2014. http://juedischerundschau.de/osten-ist-osten-und-westen-ist-westen/ [excerpt only]
“Yankl-Yosl Bunk – Jakovas Bunka (1923 – 2014)” in Defending History, 4 August 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/yankl-yosl-bunk-jakovas-bunka-1923-2014/68121
“Rabbi Abraham. N. Zuroff (1922 – 2014)” in Defending History, 4 August 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/rabbi-dr-abraham-n-zuroff-1922-2014/68125
“The Neocons and Holocaust Revisionism in Eastern Europe”, Part I in Jewish Currents, 22 July 2014. http://jewishcurrents.org/neocons-holocaust-revisionism-eastern-europe-30613. Part II in Jewish Currents, 26 July 2014. http://jewishcurrents.org/neocons-holocaust-revisionism-eastern-europe-continued-30677
“Is ‘Sugar Herbert Sugar’ the Latvian Version of ‘Springtime for Hitler’?” in Defending History, 17 July 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/sugar-herbert-sugar-latvian-version-springtime-hitler/67785https://defendinghistory.com/sugar-herbert-sugar-latvian-version-springtime-hitler/67785
“Tsu der zórglozer dekonstrúktsye fun Maks Váynraykhn (un shoyn váyter kunkl-múnkl afn ópgeshavkhtn gebít fun yídish”) [English title provided: “Freewheeling Deconstruction of Max Weinreich. Sensationalization of the Fragile Field of Yiddish”] in Defending History, 22 June 2014 (+ addendum of 23 June 2014) [in reply to articles by Cherie Woodworth and Batya Ungar-Sargon in Tablet magazine]. https://defendinghistory.com/freewheeling-deconstruction-max-weinreich-ongoing-machinations-weakened-field-yiddish
“Getting it Wrong on Ukraine” in The Times of Israel, 10 June 2014. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-tarnished-hukraine/
“Reply to a Roger Cohen Opinion Piece on Ukraine and Lithuania” in Defending History, 6 May 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/reply-roger-cohen-opinion-piece-ukraine-lithuania/65919
“[Review of Mink & Neumayer (eds), History, Memory and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: Memory Games] in East European Jewish Affairs, 44.1 (April 2014): 111-114. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Proof-of-Review-of-Minkes-and-Neumayer-Dovid-Katz-2014.pdf
“Is Vilnius Police Criminal Division Harassing Veteran Holocaust Researcher?” in Defending History, 31 March 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/vilnius-polices-criminal-division-harassing-veteran-holocaust-researcher/65215
“For Seventh Year Running, Neo-Nazis and Ultranationalists Given Center of Vilnius on Independence Day” in Defending History, 11 March 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/seventh-year-running-neo-nazis-ultranationalists-center-vilnius-independence-day/64617
“New Joseph Levinson Website has Page on Old Jewish Cemeteries in Lithuania” in Defending History, 2 February 2014. https://defendinghistory.com/new-joseph-levinson-website-has-page-on-old-jewish-cemeteries-in-lithuania/63235
“Yiddish Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna” (web only). https://defendinghistory.com/keepsakes-of-old-jewish-vilna-index
“Knaanic in the Medieval and Modern Scholarly Imagination” in O. Bláha, R. Dittmann and L. Uličná (eds), Knaanic Language: Structure and Historical Background, Academia: Prague 2014 [in press]. http://www.dovidkatz.net/ToyShop/Proof%20only%20of%20Dovid%20Katz,%20KNAANIC%20IN%20THE%20MEDIEVAL%20&%20MODERN%20SCHOLARLY%20IMAGINATION%20(29%20Aug%202013).pdf
2013
“Reconstructing the Sound Pattern of Nineteenth Century Ashkenazic Hebrew Poetry in Vilna” [in Yiddish] in Keepsakes of Old Jewish Vilna, no. 22, 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/keepsakes-of-old-jewish-vilna-22
“Lithuania’s Holocaust Debate” (letter to the editor), International New York Times, 20 November 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/opinion/germany-france-and-trade.html
“Genocide Center Releases a New Graywash on the Vilna Ghetto” (review of A. Bubnys, Vilnius Ghetto 1941 – 1943, Vilnius 2013) in Defending History, 19 November 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/genocide-center-releases-a-new-graywash-on-the-vilna-ghetto/60925
“Three Baltic Governments Sponsor “Round Table” at London U on 5 November: Will Nazi Collaborators be Glorified? in Defending History, 23 October 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/will-ucl-the-school-of-slavonic-studies-include-the-darker-side-of-the-story/60001
“Mendel Beilis and the New East European Antisemitism: a 21st Century Incarnation of ‘Treacherous Jew Syndrome” (power point presentation at Mendel Beilis centenary conference in Kiev, Ukraine, 15 October 2013). https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/PDF-of-Dovid-Katzs-Kiev-Oct-15-2013-PP.pdf
“Where Nazi Collaborators and Criminals are Honoured by EU and NATO States” in Hope not Hate, July-August 2013: 40-41. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Dovid-Katz-in-Hope-Not-Hate-July-August-2013.pdf
“Who’s Afraid of Defending History Dot Com?” in Defending History, 8 August 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/fear-of-defending-history-dotcom/57482
“Mystery of the Eight-Pointed Western Litvak (Zámeter) Symbol on Jewish Gravestones” in Defending History, 7 August 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/mystery-of-the-eight-pointed-western-litvak-zameter-star-of-david-on-jewish-gravestones/57393
“Open Letter to Evaldas Gustas, new Minister for the Economy in Lithuania” in Defending History, 2 August 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/an-open-letter-to-the-new-economy-minister-of-lithuania-evaldas-gustas/54582
“EHU Center for German Studies’ ‘Colloquium Vilnense 2013’ is Short on ‘The Second Opinion’ when it comes to the Holocaust” in Defending History, 19 July 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/ehus-center-for-german-studies-colloquium-vilnense-2013-is-short-of-the-second-opinion-on-holocaust-memory/56444
“Would a ‘Jewish Museum’ in Vilnius Graywash the Lithuanian Holocaust?” in Defending History, 7 July 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/would-a-jewish-museum-in-vilnius-graywash-the-lithuanian-holocaust/55902
[review of M. J. Chodakiewicz, Intermarium: The Land Between the Black and Baltic Seas] in Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 7.2 [Spring 2013]: 169-175. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Dovid-Katz-review-of-Intermarium-in-Israel-Journal-of-Foreign-Affairs-7-2-2013.pdf
“State-Sponsored Collective Memory Revisionism: A 21st Century Incarnation of Holocaust Denial?” PDF presentation at the Second International Conference on Holocaust Museums and Memorial Places in Post-Communist Countries (Riga, Latvia). https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Riga-final-27-May-2013.pdf
“The Fate of a Vilna Jewish Cemetery” in The Times of Israel, 22 May 2013 [Reprinted with commentary in Jewish Heritage Europe]. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-fate-of-a-vilna-jewish-cemetery/
“Upside-Down World? Neo-Nazi March Assisted by Police on Central Boulevard, while Authorities try to Banish Baltic Pride Across the River” in Defending History, 28 March 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/upside-down-world-neo-nazi-march-assisted-by-police-on-central-boulevard-while-authorities-try-to-banish-baltic-pride-to-shnipishok-snipiskes-across-the-river/51529
“Background Reading on the Shift in US Foreign Policy on Holocaust Denial from c. 2009” in Defending History, 1 March 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/background-reading-on-the-shift-in-us-foreign-policy-on-holocaust-denial-from-c-2010/48135
“Purim in Lithuania? A Season for State-Approved Neo-Nazi City-Center Marches” in Algemeiner.com, 25 February 2013. http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/02/25/purim-in-lithuania-a-season-for-state-approved-neo-nazi-city-center-marches/
“Tolerance Education? State-Sponsored Commission Uses its Website to Call Holocaust Survivor a “Liar” and to Demand ‘Apology from Jewish Community’” in Defending History, 21 February 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/red-brown-commission-launches-new-campaign-against-holocaust-survivors-calls-vilna-ghetto-survivor-prof-pinchos-fridberg-a-liar/49791
“Hundreds of Neo-Nazis March Through the Center of Kaunas on Independence Day” in Defending History, 16 February 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/hundreds-of-neo-nazis-march-through-the-center-of-kaunas-on-independence-day/49619
“US Researcher Christine Beresniova is Persuaded that the Problem in Lithuania is called ‘Zuroff and Katz’” in Defending History, 27 January 2013. https://defendinghistory.com/another-american-researcher-turns-to-apologetics-for-holocaust-obfuscation-in-lithuania/48917
2012
The City in the Moonlight. Stories of the Old-time Lithuanian Jews. By Dovid Katz. Translated by Barnett Zumoff. Ktav Publishing: Jersey City 2012, 138 pp. More details here.
Ostjűdische Geschichten aus dem alten Litauen. Von Dovid Katz. Übersetzung von Melitta Depner. Salon Literaturverlag: Munich 2012, 329 pp. More details here.
Litvish: An Atlas of Northeastern Yiddish. A Work in Progress. http://www.dovidkatz.net/WebAtlas/AtlasSamples.htm
The Language of Litvak Gravestones: A Cultural Dictionary. A Work in Progress. https://defendinghistory.com/the-language-of-litvak-gravestones-a-dictionary-by-dovid-katz
“Wird Deutschland jetzt der selbsternannte Vorkämpfer der Holocaust-Verschleierung?” in Clemens Heni and Thomas Weidauer (eds.), Ein Super-GAUck. Politische Kultur im neuen Deutschland, Edition Critic: Berlin 2012, pp.101-105.
Review of Adam Michnik, In Search of Lost Meaning: The New Eastern Europe, in East European Jewish Affairs, 42.2, pp. 187-191. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Review-of-Michnik-Dovid-Katz-in-EEJA.pdf
“You Cannot Praise Fascists and be Pro Human Rights” in the London Jewish News, 13 December 2012. Reprint in The Algemeiner. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Dovid-Katz-op-ed-in-London-Jewish-News-13-Dec-2012.pdf
“Prank Email that Tries to Derail Litvak Community is Exposed: But is Chanukah Supposed to be April Fools?” in Defending History, 11 December 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/?p=47040
“An Open Letter to Ed Hirsch” in Defending History, 6 December 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/an-open-letter-to-ed-hirsch/46693
Translator [from Hebrew] and editor, Yitzhak Arad, “The Holocaust in Lithuania, and its Obfuscation, in Lithuanian Sources” in Defending History, 1 December 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/yitzhak-arad-on-the-holocaust-in-lithuania-and-its-obfuscation-in-lithuanian-sources/46252
“Efraim Zuroff, History’s Lonely Defender” in The Times of Israel, 15 November 2012. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/efraim-zuroff-historys-lonely-sentinel/
“Kristallnacht Becomes PR Hook for Double Genociders at Berlin Events of the ‘Prague Process Platform’” in Defending History, 9 November 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/kristallnacht-becomes-pr-hook-for-double-genociders-at-berlin-events-of-the-prague-process-platform/45421
“Jewish Center in Ukraine Apparently Duped into Honoring a Nazi Collaborationist Organization” in Defending History, 1 November 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/jewish-center-in-ukraine-apparently-duped-into-honoring-a-nazi-collaborationist-organization/44886
“Canadian Prime Minister Praises Holocaust-Distorting Museum in Ukraine” in Defending History, 22 October 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/canadian-prime-minister-praises-holocaust-distorting-museum-in-ukraine/44332
“Tel Aviv’s Leivick House Releases 2009 Video of Ambassador Chen Ivri Apter” in Defending History, 21 October 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/tel-avivs-leivick-house-releases-2009-video-of-ambassador-chen-ivri-apter/44176
“Lithuanian President’s Decree on ‘Red-Brown Commission’ is Re-issued with ‘New Sentence’” in Defending History, 17 October 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/presidential-decree-on-red-brown-commission-is-changed-by-one-line-praised-by-us-embassy-in-newest-bad-to-cover-main-goals/44101
“Israel Chronicle” [of Lithuanian-related Holocaust issues] in DefendingHistory.com, 7 October 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/israel-debates/43340
“Samples of the Work of a Holocaust-Twisting, Antisemitic, Homophobic Envelope Maker” in DefendingHistory.com, 6 October 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/samples-of-the-work-of-anabic-envelope-designer/43253
“Yad Vashem Sinking Deeper in Lithuanian ‘Commission’ Morass with Political Campaign for Compensation from Russia” in DefendingHistory.com, 26 September 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/yad-vashem-sinking-deeper-in-lithuanian-red-brown-commission-morass-with-political-campaign-for-compensation-from-russia/42302
“Holocaust Commemoration Vilnius Style, with an Israeli Twist: Menachem Begin and the Jail House Rock” in DefendingHistory.com, 24 September 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/41954/41954
“June 2009 Correspondence with Yad Vashem” in DefendingHistory.com, 3 September 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/june-2009-correspondence-with-yad-vashem/40734
“Yad Vashem Shocks Holocaust Survivors by Rejoining Lithuanian Government’s ‘Red-Brown Commission’” in DefendingHistory.com, 28 August 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/president-of-lithuania-takes-nation-deeper-into-red-brown-morass/40407
“Executive Director of ‘Red-Brown Commission’ Doubts Lithuanian Jews were Killed ‘on a racial basis’ before Arrival of German Forces in 1941” in DefendingHistory.com, 16 August 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/executive-director-of-red-brown-commission-questions-whether-lithuanian-jews-were-killed-on-a-racial-basis-before-arrival-of-german-forces/39766
“Shoah Denial is being Replaced by an Illusive and Delusive Evil” in London Jewish News, 3 August 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Dovid-Katz-in-London-Jewish-News-3-August2012.pdf
Yiddish translation of the Seventy Years Declaration in DefendingHistory.com [posted 3 August 2012]. https://defendinghistory.com/the-seventy-years-declaration-yiddish-text; https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/SYD-in-Yiddish-PDF-from-webpage-on-4-Aug-2012.pdf
“Lithuanian Foreign Minister Includes ‘Historical Memory Policy’ (= Double Genocide) among Nation’s Prime Goals” in DefendingHistory.com, 2 August 2012. Republished in Operation Last Chance. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-foreign-minister-includes-historical-memory-policy-double-genocide-among-nations-prime-goals/39153; http://www.operationlastchance.org/LITHUANIA_35-152.htm
“Pursuing Perpetrators, Preserving History, and Educating the Next Generation: A Review of Efraim Zuroff’s Operation Last Chance” in Prism (Yeshiva University), vol. 4 (Spring 2012), pp. 136-138.
“Respectable Memoir, Some Shrewd Manipulation by an East European Government ― or Both?” [review of Ellen Cassedy’s We are Here] in the Algemeiner Journal, 18 July 2012. http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/07/18/respectable-memoir-some-shrewd-manipulation-by-an-east-european-government-%E2%80%95-or-both/
“Lithuanian Foreign Ministry Planning to (Ab)use EU Presidency to Push Red-Brown Politics” in DefendingHistory.com, 17 July 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-foreign-ministry-planning-to-abuse-eu-presidency-to-push-red-brown-politics/38227
“Landsbergis. Then and Now.” in DefendingHistory.com, 16 July 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/landsbergis-then-and-now/38144
“Trilingual Memorial Plaque Unveiled on Zhager Town Square” in DefendingHistory.com, 13 July 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/trilingual-memorial-plaque-unveiled-on-zhagers-town-square/37963
“Reply to the Economist on Lithuania’s Recent Reburial of the 194 Nazi Puppet “Prime Minister” in DefendingHistory.com, 15 June 2012. Also posted in Comments to the Economist online article by E[dward] L[ucas]. https://defendinghistory.com/reply-to-the-economist-on-lithuanias-recent-reburial-of-the-1941-nazi-puppet-prime-minister/37091; https://www.economist.com/user/4407709/comments
“Congratulating Algimantas Kasparavičius who Gets it Right: Trying to Manage History is a Big-Time Loser for Mature Foreign Policy” in DefendingHistory.com, 30 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/congratulating-kasparavicius-manipulating-history-is-a-big-time-loser-for-mature-foreign-policy/36579
“VMU in Kaunas Sinking Further into Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis Morass, as Historians Join Glorifiers for Yet Another Event” in DefendingHistory.com, 23 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/vmu-sinking-further-into-ambrazevicius-morass-as-historians-join-glorifiers-yet-another-event/36133
“An Open Letter to Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder” in Algemeiner Journal, 21 May 2012 [in print edition: 25 May, pp. 2, 4,5]. http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/05/21/an-open-letter-to-yale-history-professor-timothy-snyder/
“Lithuanian Newspaper Accuses Kaunas Rector of Misleading Parliament about Whether He Knew in Advance of VMU’s Planned Conference To Honor Wartime Nazi Puppet Prime Minister” in DefendingHistory.com, 21 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/lietuvos-zinios-reporter-says-vmu-rector-lied-to-parliament-when-he-claimed-he-was-not-informed-of-abmrazevicius-braziaits-conference/35848
“Tim Snyder, in Vilnius, Comments Publicly on the Reburial and Glorification of 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister” in DefendingHistory.com, 19 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/tim-snyder-in-vilnius-comments-publicly-on-the-reburial-and-glorification-of-nazi-puppet-prime-minister/35783
“Lithuania’s Prime Minister and Culture Minister Personally Signed off on €8,700 (US $11,000) Expenditure to Honor Wartime Fascist Leader” in DefendingHistory.com, 18 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanias-prime-minister-and-culture-minister-personally-signed-off-on-8700-euro-expenditure-to-honor-wartime-fascist-leader/35620
“Want to Honor the Head of the 1941 Nazi Puppet Government? Website Claims Seimas Will Provide Free Transportation” in DefendingHistory.com, 17 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/want-to-honor-the-head-of-the-1941-nazi-puppet-government-website-claims-seimas-will-provide-free-transportation/35459
“Parliament’s Public Relations Department Posts Revised Schedule of Events to Honor Nazi Collaborator ‘Prime Minister’ Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis)” in DefendingHistory.com, 16 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/parliaments-public-relations-department-posts-revised-schedule-of-events-to-honor-nazi-collaborator-prime-ministerjuozas-ambrazevicius-brazaitis/35351
“BNS Report Follows Dramatic Donskis Statement; Says Event does not have VMU ‘Sanction’” in DefendingHistory.com, 15 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/bns-report-follows-dramatic-donskis-statement-says-event-does-not-have-vmu-sanction/35303
“MEP Donskis Condemns Events to Honor Holocaust Collaborator Ambrazevičius” in DefendingHistory.com, 15 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/mep-donskis-issues-statement/35224
“Archbishop Adds his Blessing to the Nazi Collaborator being Reburied with Full Honors” in DefendingHistory.com, 11 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/archbishop-adds-his-blessing-to-the-nazi-collaborator-being-reburied-with-full-honors/35204
“Day of Shame (May 19th) Can Still be Averted at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas” in DefendingHistory.com, 11 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/will-the-19th-of-may-2012-by-a-day-of-shame-for-vytautas-magnus-university-vytauto-didziojo-universitetas-in-kaunas/34912
“‘Prime Minister’ of Lithuania’s 1941 Nazi Puppet Government to be Glorified, Re-interred and Subject of a Commemorative Conference at Vytautas Magnus University” in DefendingHistory.com, 3 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/prime-minister-of-lithuanias-1941-nazi-puppet-government-to-be-glorified-reinterred-and-subject-of-new-politico-academic-conference-at-vytautas-magnus-university/34514
“‘Moderate Litvak’ Status is Conferred by his Highness, the Norwegian Property Magnate cum Editor-in-Chief of Vilnius” in DefendingHistory.com, 1 May 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/moderate-litvak-status-is-conferred-by-his-highness-the-norwegian-property-magnate-cum-editor-in-chief-of-vilnius/34416
“Rabinowitz-Dorf PR Campaign for Lithuanian Embassy and ‘Fake Litvaks’ Backfires Bigtime” in DefendingHistory.com, 30 April 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/rabinowitzdorf-communications-campaign-for-lithuanian-embassy-is-backfiring/34207
“Neo-Nazi Youth Organization is Admitted into National “Lithuanian Council of Youth Organizations” (a recipient of European Union “Structural Funds”) in DefendingHistory.com, 30 April 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/neo-nazi-youth-organization-is-admitted-into-national-lithuanian-council-of-youth-organizations/34364
“Baltic ‘Double Genocide’ Discourse Slips into Naive American Jewish Articles on Lithuania” in DefendingHistory.com, 24 April 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/baltic-double-genocide-discourse-slips-into-naive-american-jewish-articles-on-lithuania/34064
“Lithuanian Government Calls for ‘ Bigger Investments from Litvaks’ as South Africa’s Glasenberg is Targeted’ in DefendingHistory.com, 20 April 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-government-calls-for-bigger-investments-from-litvaks/33929
“Jesus in Yiddish” (Last Words column) in Jewish Renaissance (London), 7, 3 April 2012, p. 52. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=376762629021622&set=a.101262873238267.2821.100000636637491&type=1&theater
“Lithuania’s Embassy in Washington Recruiting ‘Useful Academics’ for Discredited ‘Red-Brown’ Commission” in DefendingHistory.com, 24 March 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanias-embassy-in-washington-recruiting-for-discredited-red-brown-commission/32949
“1500 Honor the Waffen SS at Riga’s Liberty Monument; Event is Praised by Latvia’s President, Condemned by Council of Europe’s Commission on Racism” in DefendingHistory.com, 16 March 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/1500-honor-the-waffen-ss-at-rigas-liberty-monumuent-event-is-praised-by-latvias-president-condemned-by-the-european-commission/32654
European Commission website: “Martin Schulz, EP President, meeting with Dovid Katz ― Handing over the [70 Years] Declaration on the Final Solution of the Wannsee Conference”, 14 March 2012. http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/services/showShotlist.do?filmRef=82876&out=HTML&lg=en&src=1
“Over 1000 neo-Nazis Fill Main Vilnius Boulevard on Lithuanian Independence Day” in DefendinHistory.com, 11 March 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/over-1000-neo-nazis-fill-main-vilnius-boulevard-on-lithuanian-independence-day/32439
“March 11th: A Grand Opportunity for the Lithuanian Human Rights Community ― and the People of Vilnius” in DefendingHistory.com, 4 March 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/march-11th-a-grand-opportunity-for-the-lithuanian-human-rights-community/31908
“Zingeris Statement on Planned Match 11th neo-Nazi march fails to mention ― the neo-Nazi March” in DefendingHistory.com, 28 February 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/zingeris-issues-statement-on-planned-march-11th-neo-nazi-march-that-fails-to-mention-the-neo-nazi-march/31766
“Council of Europe’s Commission Against Racism and Intolerance Condemns Latvia’s Waffen SS Parades and Celebration of Hitler’s 1941 Invasion” in DefendingHistory.com, 21 February 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/european-commission-condemns-latvias-waffen-ss-parades/31490
“300 Neo-Nazis March through the Center of Kaunas on Lithuanian Independence Day; They are Addressed by Members of Parliament” in DefendingHistory.com, 16 February 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/european-commission-condemns-latvias-waffen-ss-parades/31490.
“Holocaust Survivors to Demonstrate outside Tel Aviv “Sellout Gala” Slated for March 5th” in DefendingHistory.com, 14 February 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/holocaust-survivors-and-litvak-jewry-betrayed-again-as-lithuania-foreign-minister-slated-to-be-guest-of-honor-at-tel-aviv-gala/30933
“The Hidden Monument of Vilnius” in DefendingHistory.com, 12 February 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/the-hidden-monument-of-vilnius/30677
“The Seventy Years Declaration and the Simple Truth” in Algemeiner Journal, 3 February 2012. http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/02/03/the-seventy-years-declaration-and-the-simple-truth/
“A Fight over History’s Tragic Truth” in the Jewish Chronicle, 2 [3] February 2012. http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/analysis/62984/a-fight-over-historys-tragic-truth; PDF at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Jewish-Chronicle-3-February-2012-2-items.pdf
“The Seventy Years Declaration” [coauthored with Danny Ben-Moshe] in DefendingHistory.com, 20 January 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/70-years-declaration/29230; media coverage at: https://defendinghistory.com/media-coverage-of-the-seventy-years-declaration-2012.
“Free Speech Reaffirmed by Vilnius Judge in Algirdas Paleckis Case” in DefendingHistory.com, 18 January 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/free-speech-reaffirmed-by-vilnius-judge-in-algirdas-paleckis-case/29100
“Mainstream Daily ‘Lietuvos rytas’: A New High-End Home for Antisemitism in Lithuania?” in DefendingHistory.com, 16 January 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/letuvos-rytas-rapidly-pulled-an-antisemitic-article-and-days-later-published-a-holocaust-deniers-work-on-hitlers-main-kampf/28935
“A Reconstructed Shtetl ― Minus its Jewish Component” in DefendingHistory.com, 2 January 2012. https://defendinghistory.com/a-reconstructed-shtetl-minus-its-jewish-component/27800
2011
“The Atlas of Northeastern Yiddish: On the Status of Maps in Linguistic Research” by Giedrė Beconytė and Dovid Katz in Geodesy and Cartography, 37(3), 2011: 119-124. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Beconyte-Katz-2011.pdf
“Detonation of the Holocaust in 1941: A Tale of Two Books” [review of Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands and Alexander Prusin’s The Lands Between] by Dovid Katz in Journal of East European Jewish Affairs, vol. 41, no. 3, December 2011, pp. 207-221. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Dovid-Katzs-review-of-Bloodlands-in-EEJA-Dec-2011.pdf
“Popular Daily has Full Front-Page Spread on ‘The Jews’” in DefendingHistory.com, 22 December 2011.https://defendinghistory.com/popular-daily-has-full-front-page-spread-on-the-jews/27340
“Lithuanian Ministry of Defense Honors ‘Lithuanian Activist Front’ (LAF) Nazi Collaborators” in DefendingHistory.com, 19 December 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-ministry-of-defense-honors-lithuanian-activist-front-laf-nazi-collaborators-no-mention-of-participation-in-onset-of-the-lithuanian-holocaust/27114
“Mainstream Lithuanian News Portal, Delfi.lt, Again Publishes Antisemitic ‘Ethnographic History’” in DefendingHistory.com, 19 December 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/27139/27139
“‘Double Genocide’ Permeates Local Antisemitic Discourse in Report on Efraim Zuroff’s Operation Last Chance II in Berlin” in DefendingHistory.com, 16 December 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/double-genocide-permeates-local-antisemitic-discourse-in-report-on-efraim-zuroffs-operation-last-chance-ii-in-berlin/27390
“Old Stones Speak to Young Pupils: Jewish Gravestones in a Vilnius School Yard. Photos by Richard Schofield” in DefendingHistory.com, 12 December 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/when-old-stones-speak-to-middle-school-pupils-jewish-gravestones-in-a-vilnius-school-yard/26651
“Manipulation?” [Letter to the Editor] in the Jerusalem Post, 28 November 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Dovid-Katz-letter-in-Jerusalem-Post-28-Nov-2011.pdf
“Hannah Rosenthal does it again” in the Algemeiner Journal, 25 November 2011. http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/11/25/hannah-rosenthal-does-it-again
“Open debate, open society, and secret societies” on DefendingHistory.com, 9 November 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/open-debate-open-society-and-secret-societies/25240
“UNESCO vote reveals Lithuanian duplicity” in the Jerusalem Post, 3 November 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Dovid-Katzs-oped-in-the-Jerusalem-Post-3-November-2011.pdf
“Understanding ‘Double Genocide’: a lethal new threat to Holocaust memory and honesty” in Centre News [Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne, Australia], October 2011 [date on print edition: September 2011]. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Dovid-Katz-in-JHC.pdf
“Seven solutions for rapid and constructive transformation of Lithuanian-Jewish relations” on DefendingHistory.com, October 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/7-solutions
“Hungarian National Day Celebration in Vilnius Celebrates Lithuanian ‘Forest Brother’; Two Local Fascists Invited” on DefendingHistory.com, 24 October 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/hungarian-national-day-celebration-in-vilnius-celebrates-lithuanian-forest-brothers/25081
“Head of History Institute, speaking at ‘Bloodlands’ event at the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, excoriates Holocaust survivors who joined the anti-Nazi partisans” on DefendingHistory.com, 30 September 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/vilnius-historians-at-book-launch-for-lithuanian-edition-of-bloodlands-attack-holocaust-survivors-who-joined-the-resistance-try-to-equalize-nazi-and-soviet-collaboration/24072
“Lithuanian foreign minister inserts red-brown discourse into Austrian extradition case” on DefendingHistory.com, 28 September 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-foreign-minister-inserts-red-brown-discourse-into-austrian-extradition-case/23861
“Lithuanian foreign ministry’s two versions: for a Jewish audience (not for publication) and for ‘General’ (proudly on website” on DefendingHistory.com, 28 September 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/new-confusion-over-lithuanian-foreign-ministry-versions-for-jews-and-general/23912
“Lithuanian foreign ministry gloats, as Yivo’s position continues to confuse” on DefendingHistory.com, 23 September 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/confusion-over-yivos-decision-on-surrendering-vilnius-treasures-shortly-to-a-government-yivo-room/23242
“Yad Vashem withdraws invitation to Lithuanian minister over campaign against Joe Melamed; British parliamentarians move an ‘early day motion’; Melamed speaks eloquently at Yad Vashem, blasts efforts to glorify Holocaust perpetrators as ‘heroes’” on DefendingHistory.com, 22 September 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/yad-vashem-withdraws-invitation-to-lithuanian-minister-over-campaign-against-joe-melamed-british-parliamentarians-move-an-early-day-motion/23380
“Yivo director sends new circular to staff, refining Lithuanian government talking points; claims support of Veidlinger and Zipperstein for (inaccurate) public statement” on DefendingHistory.com, 13 September 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/director-of-yivo-sends-new-circular-to-staff-citing-support-of-veidlinger-and-zipperstein/22170
“Director of Yivo sends circular to staff, taking on the role of Manhattan office of Lithuanian government’s PR department; calls Holocaust survivors ‘helpless’ and ‘ageing’” on DefendingHistory.com, 9 September 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/director-of-yivo-circulates-document-to-entire-staff-taking-on-the-role-of-pr-department-for-the-lithuanian-government/22157
“Holocaust survivors from Lithuania protest Yivo’s decision to honor the foreign minister of Lithuania at Vilna Ghetto Commemoration” on DefendingHistory.com, 6 September 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/holocaust-survivors-from-lithuania-protest-yivos-decision-to-honor-the-foreign-minister-of-lithuania-at-vilna-ghetto-commemoration/21555
“Lithuanian authorities initiated prosecution against another Holocaust survivor” on DefendingHistory.com, 30 August 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-authorities-initiate-prosecution-against-another-holocaust-survivor/21693
“Et tu, Yivo? Holocaust survivors jolted by plan for Lithuanian foreign minister to be ‘guest of honor’ at Vilna Ghetto commemoration” on DefendingHistory.com, 28 August 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/et-tu-yivo-2011-holocaust-survivor-community-is-jolted-by-yivo-plan-to-honor-the-lithuanian-foreign-minister-on-22-september/21195
“A scholar’s apt warning on ultranationalist abuse of history and historians” on DefendingHistory.com, 28 August 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/a-scholar%e2%80%99s-apt-warning-on-ultranationalist-abuse-of-history-and-historians/21262
“Mainstream Sajudis organization joins call for increased commemoration of local 1941 Holocaust perpetrators” on DefendingHistory.com, 27 August 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/mainstream-sajudis-organization-joins-call-for-increased-glorification-of-local-1941-holocaust-perpetrators/21373
“Far right organization, led by Genocide Center’s ‘specialist’, publishes a list of enemies including advisor to the Lithuanian Jewish community” on DefendingHistory.com, 29 July 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/far-right-organization-led-by-genocide-centers-specialist-publishes-a-list-of-enemies-including-advisor-to-the-lithuanian-jewish-community/20706
“A Speech Never Spoken at Plungyán (Plungė)” on DefendingHistory.com, 20 July 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/a-speech-never-spoken/19705
“The Denial that is Part of Holocaust Obfuscation: Second Day of the Lithuanian Parliament’s Conference” on DefendingHistory.com, 30 June 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/the-denial-that-is-part-of-holocaust-obfuscation-second-day-of-the-lithuanian-parliament%E2%80%99s-conference/18494
“In Delirium of Obfuscation: First Day of the Lithuanian Parliament’s Conference on the 70th Anniversary of Hitler’s Attack on the USSR” on DefendingHistory.com, 29 June 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/first-day-of-lithuanian-parliament-conference-is-a-delirium-of-obfuscation/18423
“Three Years Later: Neither Charged nor Cleared” on DefendingHistory.com, 5 May 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/?p=416
“This Year’s Yom Hashoah is Different” in Winnipeg Jewish Review. http://www.winnipegjewishreview.com/article_detail.cfm?id=1098&sec=1&title=EDITOR%27S_PICK%3A_THIS_YEAR%27S_YOM_HASHOAH_IS_DIFFERENT
Amy Shannon Liedy’s summary of Dovid Katz’s Kennan Institute (Woodrow Wilson Center) lecture in Washington DC, posted 25 April 2011. http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfmtopic_id=1424&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id=650799
“Freedom of Speech is Not ‘Pick and Choose’: On The Paleckis Trial in Vilnius” on DefendingHistory.com, 14 April 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/on-the-paleckis-trial-in-vilnius/14504
“Has the Forward Association abandoned Elementary Ethics?” on DefendingHistory.com, 3 April 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/has-the-forward-association-abandoned-elementary-ethics/14342
“Right of Reply: Condemnation of Communism Does Not Require Submission to Double Genocide, Holocaust Obfuscation, or the Recent Deterioration in Civil Society and Free Speech in Lithuania” in Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review, 7 March 2011. http://www.lfpr.lt/uploads/File/2010-24/Katz.doc; https://defendinghistory.com/13705/13705
“Lithuanian Jews, Holocaust Survivors, Specialists who Disagree with Lithuanian Government ― Shut Out of London Conference” on DefendingHistory.com, 1 February 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/lithuanian-foreign-ministry-gives-for-london-colloquium-on-the-holocaust/8538
“When a ‘Human Rights Association’ Accepts and Repeats the Antisemitic Canards in Town” on DefendingHistory.com, 3 January 2011. https://defendinghistory.com/reply-to-lhra-report/8860
2010
“Why is the U.S. Silent on ‘Double Genocide’? While European countries have condemned the New Holocaust Revisionism in the Baltics, America shows no moral leadership” in the Guardian, 21 December 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/21/double-genocide-baltic-us-europe
“An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Lithuania on the eve of his Visit to Israel” on Alfa.lt, 15 December 2010. http://www.alfa.lt/straipsnis/10430134/?Open.letter.to.PM.on.eve.of.visit.to.Israel=2010-12-15_13-04
“Conference Call. The Lithuanian Sponsors of a Holocaust Education Program have a Dark History of their own” in Tablet Magazine, 3 December 2010. http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/52058/conference-call/
“The Real Friend is the One who tells you when Something is Wrong” on Alfa.lt, 17 November 2010. http://www.alfa.lt/straipsnis/10423927/?Opinion..The.Real.Friend.is.the.one.who.tells.you.when.something.is.wrong.=2010-11-17_12-02
Review of David G. Roskies, Yiddishlands: A Memoir in East European Jewish Affairs (EEJA) vol. 40, no. 3. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010-Dec-DovidKatzReviewofRoskiesYiddishlands.pdf
[Reply to Barry Rubin] in the Letters to the Editor section of the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, IV:3, 2010, pp 189-193. https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010IsraelJournalofForeignAffairsDovidKatz.pdf
“Why Red is Not Brown in the Baltics. Unhappily, Timothy Snyder’s historical reassessment of the Nazi-Soviet pact coincides with Baltic ultranationalist agendas” in The Guardian [Comment is Free, Cif America], 30 September 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/30/baltic-nazi-soviet-snyder
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 10: „גוים וואָס פאַרנעמען זיך מיט אידיש“: צי האָבן זיי וועלכע ניט איז ברייטערע התחייבותן לגבי אידישע פראַגן? אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 22טן סעפּטעמבער 2010, זז. זז. 1, 3, 6.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 10: Gentiles who become immersed in Yiddish: Do they have a moral responsibility regarding Jewish issues?” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 22 September 2010, pp. 3, 6.] https://defendinghistory.com/wp content/uploads/2010/10/2010Sept22KapitalakhYidish10.pdf
“Letter to the Editor” in The Baltic Times, 29 September 2010. http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/27076/ PDF of the 30 Sept print version: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010Sept30BalticTimesDKLetterPrint.pdf
“Time to Free Europe of this Poison” on Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism Foundation, 1 September 2010. http://www.antisemitism.org.uk/time-to-free-europe-of-this-poison
Lithuanian Jewish Culture, Baltos Lankos: Vilnius 2010, 400 pp. folio. Second revised and updated edition. In cooperation with Central European University. To order: http://www.eksportas-importas.lt/en/mess/9.More details: http://www.dovidkatz.net/i_2ljc.htm
“Human rights — and Holocaust Obfuscation ― in the Baltic states (Response to Clifford J. Levy’s NY Times report)”, 16 August 2010, on HITB. https://defendinghistory.com/response-to-clifford-j-levy/2329
“Talking of Love in Yiddish” in Jewish Renaissance (London, vol. 9.4, p. 56). http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFLinguistics/2010_Love_%20in_Yiddish.pdf
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 9: (א) וועגן אי⸗מייל כנגד „בליצפּאָסט“; מאָבילנער טעלעפאָן כנגד „צעלקע“; לעפּטאָפּ כנגד „שויס⸗קאָמפּיוטער“ א.א.; (ב) דער אַנדערשדיקער גורל פון דער אידישער און דער העברעאישער ליטעראַטור בנוגע איבערזעצונגען אין אַנדערע שפּראַכן די לעצטע יאָרן; (ג) וועגן „מרת“. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 11טן יוני 2010, ז. 3.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 9: (a) On internationalisms vs. neologisms for the vocabulary of modern technology; (b) The differing fate of Yiddish and modern Hebrew literature in international translations in recent decades; (c) Moras as feminine of Reb” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 11 June 2010, p. 3] https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2010June11Kapitalakh9.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=
“Contra Prague ’08: Declaration on Unequal and Unequatable Phenomena. A draft text for open discussion” on Holocaust in the Baltics. https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/440634.html
אַ שדים⸗טאַנץ מיט סוואַסטיקאַס אין דער היינטיקער ליטע. אַ געריכט גיט איר אורטייל, אַז סוואַסטיקאַס זיינען „די היסטאָרישע ירושה פון ליטע און ניט קיין סימבאָלן פון נאַצישן דייטשלאַנד“. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 28טן מאַי 2010, זז. 1, 3.
[“A devil’s dance of swastikas: the decision of a Lithuanian court that swastikas are ‘the historical heritage of Lithuania and not symbols of Nazi Germany’” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 28 May 2010, pp. 1, 3] https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2010May28AlgemeynerZhurnalDKonSwastikas.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=6528
“It is time for Cameron to Reject the EU Nutters” in the Jewish Chronicle (London), 27 May 2010. http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/32181/it-time-cameron-reject-eu-nutters
“The Crime of Surviving” in Tablet Magazine, 3 May 2010. http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/32432/the-crime-of-surviving/print/
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 8: (א) וועגן דעם „ליטווישן עי אין קיעווער געגנט“; (ב) סטליסטיק פון „איטלעכער“ און „יעטווידער“; (ג) סעמאַנטיק פון „געדאַנקען“, „מחשבות“, „רעיונות“ און „אידייען“; (ד) די שרייבונג פון „ניו יאָרק“ און „נואַרק“ אין כתובות און גיטין. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 23טן אַפּריל 2010, ז. 3.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 8: (a) On the ‘Lithuanian ey’ in the Kiev region; (b) Stylistics of ítlekher and yétvider; (c) semantics of gedánken, makhshóves, rayóynes and idéyen; (d) the spellings of ‘New York’ vs ‘Newark’ in contemporary marriage contracts and divorce writs” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 23 April 2010, p. 3]; https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2010April23Kapitalakh8.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=6405
Text restoration and typography of the text for section 1 of Moyshe Kulbak’s poem Vilne. In: Vilnius: Portrait of A City. Anthology of Photographs and Text, R. Paknys Publishing House: Vilnius 2010, p. 25.
צוויי מאַרשן אין אַ נאַצישן גייסט: אין צענטער פון ווילנע, און אין צענטער פון ריגע. ביידע זיינען לעגאַל סאַנקציאָנירט געוואָרן דורך דער לאָקאַלער מאַכט; ביידע ווערן אינגאַנצן איגנאָרירט דורך דער מערבדיקע וועלט. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 26טן מערץ 2010, זז. 1, 3.
[“Two marches in a Nazi spirit: in the city centers of Vilnius and Riga. Both sanctioned by the local authorities, and wholly ignored by the West” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 26 March 2010, pp. 1, 3]; https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2010March26DKinAJ.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=6355
“Jewish Community Shaken by Neo-Nazi March in Downtown Vilnius on Independence Day” in Algemeiner Journal [English section], 19 March 2010, p. 6.
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 7: (א) דער גענויער באַדייט פון ‘יסודותדיק’ אין וועלטלעכן און אין ישיבהשן אידיש; (ב) די מאָדע דרוקן אידיש מיטן פולן העברעאישן ניקוד; (ג) דער אידישער געשטאַלט פונעם נאָמען ‘אַסיאַ’. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 19טן מערץ 2010, ז. 3.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 7: (a) Semantic nuances of yesóydesdik in secular and haredi Yiddish; (b) the printing of Yiddish with full Hebrew vocalization; (c) Yiddish rendition of the name Asya” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 19 March 2010, p. 3] https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2010March19Kapitalakh7.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=6334
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 6: פּרטים פון לשון. פראַגעס פון אַ 27 יאָריקן חסיד; די גלגולים פון די צען זין פון המן הרשע אין אידישן פאָלקלאָר. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 5טן מערץ 2010, ז. 3.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 6: (a) Questions of Yiddish stylistics from a 27 year old khosid; (b) the remaking of the ten sons of Haman in Yiddish folklore” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 5 March 2010, p. 3]; https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2010March5KapitalakhVI.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=6291
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 5: דער סוד פונעם אידישן טאַטו אין תל אביב און זיין ברייטערע באַדייטונג; פאַרוואָס אידישע פרויען⸗נעמען שטאַמען אָפּ אַ סך מאָל פון אַ ניט⸗לשון⸗קודשדיקן מקור. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 26טן פעברואַר 2010, ז. 3.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 5: (a) The secret of the Yiddish tattoo in Tel Aviv, and the wider cultural implications; (b) Why female forenames in Yiddish are more likely to be non-Semitic in origin” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 26 February 2010, p. 3]. https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2010Feb26KapitalakhV.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=6272
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 4: שבתים און שבתות, און (להבדיל), שטותים און שטויות; דער „אידישער טאַטו“ אין תל אביב. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 12טן פעברואַר 2010, ז. 3.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 4: (a) shabosim and shaboses, and (in the same breath) shtusim and shtuyot; (b) The new Yiddish Tattoo in Tel Aviv” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 12 February 2010, p. 3]; https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2010Feb12KapitalakhIV.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=6231
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 3: היתכן, „די גאַס“ און… „אויפן גאַס“?; נייע ווערטער קענען אויך האָבן אַן אמתן אידישן חן; „שמענדריק“ און „שמערל“; ווי אַזוי ווינטשט מען אַנדערע צו „זייער“ נייעם יאָר? אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 22טן יאַנואַר 2010, ז. 3.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 3: (a) How could it be? di gas but afn gas? (b) New Words can sometimes acquire the authentic Yiddish spirit; (c) On shmendrik and Shmerl; (d) How to greet neighbors on their new year?” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 22 January 2010, p. 3] https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2010Jan22KapitalakhIII.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=6163
“Halting Holocaust Obfuscation. The Baltic Ultranationalists Rewriting East European History as an Equal Nazi-Soviet ‘Double Genocide’ must be Stopped” in the Guardian, 8 January 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/08/holocaust-baltic-lithuania-latvia
2009
[Editor and publisher], Menke Katz, Land of Manna, Fairy Glen Press: Capelulo 2009, ii + 96 pp.
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 2: פון וואַנעט שטאַמט ‘משומד’?; בעסער אידיש אָן נקודות איידער ‘לאַטייניזירט’ מיט זיבן חנען. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 11טן דעצעמבער 2009, ז. 6.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 2: (a) Where does the word meshúmǝd come from? (b) Better Yiddish in Yiddish letters (even without the dots) than the fanciest transcription” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 11 December 2009, p. 6] https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2009Dec11KapitalakhII.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=6034
קאַפּיטעלעך אידיש 1: מערב אידיש און מזרח אידיש; ‘אַ גוטן טאָג’. אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 27טן נאָוועמבער 2009, ז. 6.
[“Chapters in Yiddish 1: (a) Dating the Earliest Observations on Western vs. Eastern Yiddish; (b) A gutn tog in Yiddish” in Algemeyner Zhurnal, 27 November 2009, p. 6]. https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2009Nov27KapitalakhI.pdf; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=5973
“Don’t let the Holocaust be written out of History” in the Washington Jewish Week, 30 December 2009. http://washingtonjewishweek.com/print.asp?ArticleID=12036&SectionID=31&SubSectionID=49
Dovid Katz & Clemens Heni, “The Prague Declaration is Europe’s New Antisemitic Poison” in Algemeiner Journal, 4 December 2009, p 10. Revised version on WPK, 26 November 2009. http://clemensheni.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/the-%E2%80%9Cprague-declaration%E2%80%9D-is-europe%E2%80%99s-new-antisemitic-poison/; https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2009Dec4KatzAndHeniOnPragueDecl.pdf
“Tories must Reject ‘Double Genocide’ proponents. Alliance with those who would Downgrade the Holocaust is a Grave Mistake” in The Jewish Chronicle, 27 November 2009 [online version: 30 November 2009]. http://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/22477/tories-must-reject-double-genocide-proponents
“Cameron must end Tories’ Far-Right Fling” in The Irish Times, 31 October 2009. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1031/1224257766699.html
“Yiddish, Without the Inhibitions” [review of Michael Wex, Yiddish Language and Culture in all its Moods] in The Jewish Chronicle, 9 October 2009. Online version 8 October at: http://www.thejc.com/arts/book-reviews/20760/born-kvetch-yiddish-language-and-culture-all-its-moods
“On Three Definitions. Genocide; Holocaust Denial; Holocaust Obfuscation” in Leonidas Donskis (ed), A Litmus Test Case of Modernity. Examining Modern Sensibilities and the Public Domain in the Baltic States at the Turn of the Century [= Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe 5] Peter Lang: Bern et al 2009, pp. 259-277. https://holocaustinthebaltics.com/2009SeptDovidKatz3Definitions.pdf
Seven Kingdoms of the Litvaks, International Cultural Program Center in cooperation with the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius 2009, 61. http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/Lithuania/7_KingdomsLitvaks.pdf
“The Sounds of Silence of Jewish Lithuania” [preface] in Isaac Zibuts et al (eds), Sounds of Silence. Traces of Jewish Life in Lithuania, R. Paknio leidykla: Vilnius 2009, pp. 14-17 [also: consultant to the project]. Parallel Lithuanian edition (Tylos gausmas žydų gyvenimo pėdsakai Lietuvoje) with preface (pp. 14-17) translated by Tomas Venclova. http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/Lithuania/2009_SOUNDS_OF_SILENCE.pdf; http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/Lithuania/2009_SOUNDS_OF_SILENCE_translation.pdf
Founding editor of The Holocaust in the Baltics (website). www.HolocaustInTheBaltics.com
The entry “Elijah ben Solomon Zalman” in Supplement to the Modern Encyclopedia of Russian, Soviet and Eurasian History, vol. 9, Academic International Press: Gulf Breeze, Florida 2009. http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/Lithuania/2009_Gaon-of-Vilna.pdf
“‘Genocide Industry’ has Hidden Agenda” in The Irish Times, 30 May 2009, p. 15. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0530/1224247744866.html?via=mr
“Prague’s Declaration of Disgrace” in The Jewish Chronicle, 22 May 2009, p. 31. http://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/prague%E2%80%99s-declaration-disgrace
“Shalóm, Shólem, Shólem-aléykhem…” in Jewish Renaissance, 8.2: 56 (January 2009).
2008
Windows to a Lost Jewish Past: Vilna Book Stamps. Versus Aureus: Vilnius 2008, 100 pp.
“Jewish Cultural Correlates of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania” in Alfredas Bumblauskas, Šarūnas Liekis, Grigorijus Potašenko (eds), Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštijos tradicija ir paveldo “dalybos”, Vilniaus universiteto leidykla: Vilnius 2008, pp 169-204. http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/Lithuania/2008_JewishCulturalCorrelates.pdf
The entries “Ber Borokhov”, “Mordkhe Veynger”, “Yiddish”, in the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, Yale University Press: New Haven & London 2008, pp 218-219; 1967-1968; 979-987.
“Yiddish as a Diaspora Language and its Future” in M. Avrum Ehrlich (ed), Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture, ABC-CLIO. Volume I: Themes and Phenomena, pp 193-197.
Draft maps from work in progress on Litvish: An Atlas of Northeastern Yiddish at: http://www.dovidkatz.net/WebAtlas/AtlasSamples.htm
Questionnaire for Litvish: An Atlas of Northeastern Yiddish at: http://www.dovidkatz.net/WebAtlas/atl_quest.htm
“One Bagel, Two Bagel, Three Bagel” in Jewish Renaissance, 7.2: 56 (January 2008).
„ניו⸗יאָרקער אידישער קינסטלער און פּאָעט יאָני פיין, וועלכער איז 95 יאָר אַלט, גיט אַרויס אַ נייעם באַנד פּאָעזיע“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 27טן פעב. 2008: 10-9.
[At 95, New York artist and poet Yoni Fain publishes a new book of Yiddish poetry]
„הונדערט יאָר טשערנאָוויץ“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 26טן סעפּט. 2008: 10-9.
[100th anniversary of the Chernowitz Yiddish Language Conference]
„רחל מרגלית, 86, קען ניט קומען אין איר היימשטאָט ווילנע, ווייל זי האָט געקעמפט קעגן די נאַציס“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 15טן אויגוסט 2008: 10-9.
[Rokhl Margolis, 86, cannot return to her hometown, Vilnius, because she was an anti-Nazi partisan]
„אַ נייע פּראַכט⸗אויסגאַבע אויף אידיש: דוב⸗בער קערלערס ירושלימער אַלמאַנאַך“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 8טן אויגוסט 2008: 9, 11.
[An exquisite new book in Yiddish: Dov-Ber Kerler’s Yerusholaymer almanakh]
„צום ערשטן יאָרצייט פונעם ‘אפּיקורסישן רב’ — שערווין וויין עʺה“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 1טן אויגוסט 2008: 10-9.
[On the first yortsayt of the “atheist rabbi” — in memory of Sherwin Wine]
„צי וועט עס די וועלט ווייטער פאַרשווייגן? די נייע, ‘קליגערע’ און געפערלעכע פאָרם פון חורבן⸗לייקענונג ווערט ערנסט באַטראַכט דורכן — אייראָפּעאישן פּאַרלאַמענט!“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 25טן יולי 2008: 10-9.
[Will the international community remain silent? The new ‘cleverer’ and dangerous form of Holocaust Denial gets consideration by the European Parliament!]
„דער גולם פון גלובאָק“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 16טן מאַי 2008: 10-9.
[The Golem of Glubok]
„דער דיבוק אין דרויע“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 28טן מערץ 2008: 8.
[The Dybbuk of Druya] http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=4846
„איינשטיין פון סוויר“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 22טן פעברואַר 2008: 9.
[Einstein of Svir] http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=4685
„אַ רייזע אין לאַטוויע“ אין „אַלגעמיינעם זשורנאַל“, 4טן יאַנואַר 2008: 9; 18טן יאַנואַר 2008: 9.
[A journey to Latvia] http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=4458; http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=4523
„ווערטער וועגן ווערטער [1: ‘קאַטאָוועס’; 2: ‘וועגן אידיש און יידיש: אַ קאַפּיטל אידישע סימבאָלאָגיע’]“ אין „ירושלימער אַלמאַנאַך“ 28 (2008): 402 -417.
[Words on words. 1: katóvǝs; 2: On yidish and idish: a chapter of Yiddish symbology]
„צוויי דערציילונגען: דער משומד פון קלושאַן; השגחה פּרטית“ אין „ירושלימער אַלמאַנאַך“ 28 (2008): 184-166.
[Two short stories: “The Convert of Klushan” & “Divine Providence”]
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JERUSALEM—The following statement was issued today by the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office.
WIESENTHAL CENTER ISRAEL DIRECTOR LEADS PROTEST AGAINST EXTREME RIGHT INDEPENDENCE DAY MARCH
16 February 2014 KAUNAS, LITHUANIA—The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel Director and chief Nazi hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff yesterday afternoon led a protest against an ultra-nationalist neo-Nazi march in honor of Lithuanian Independence Day, held here, in Lithuania’s inter-war capital, whose large and important Jewish community was virtually totally annihilated during the Holocaust by the Nazis, with highly significant participation of Lithuanian volunteer collaborators.
Continue reading
29 April 2013
NOTE: The following is a paste-in from an open discussion page on Facebook.
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The Global Forum to Combat Antisemitism | Jerusalem Post – Blogs
blogs.jpost.com
Latest online news from The Jerusalem Post, the world’s top English-language daily newspaper covering Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World
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Past experience has shown that ministers from such countries come to whitewash their anti-Semitic policies and then brag that they are in close contact with the Israeli government. The classic example was the participation of Lithuanian Foreign Minister Usackes in the Global Forum in December 2009.
Hungary, Lithuania, Greece and Ireland ‘are part of the problem and not part of the solution’ and should not be allowed in, says Efraim Zuroff
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Why invite ministers from countries where anti-Semitism or hostility to Israel is a serious problem and the government is either responsible or not dealing with the problem as honored guests to the Global Forum on Combatting Anti-Semitism?? Ask our Foreign Ministry!!!
Nazi hunter chides Israel over anti-Semitism confab invites
www.timesofisrael.com
Hungary, Lithuania, Greece and Ireland ‘are part of the problem and not part of the solution’ and should not be allowed in, says Efraim Zuroff
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A threat too serious to ignore
www.jpost.com
Israel should take action on Holocaust-related issues as some
Lithuanian Anti-Fascist Group Mounts Protest in Kaunas Against Glorification of 1941 LAF Killers on Anniversary of the Day the Killing Started
Courageous Antifa Lietuva banner reads: “Real heroes rescued people instead of killing them. Remember the victims of the Holocaust”
Milan Chersonski was there. His report on the event. His take: “Let the world know that not everyone in Lithuania tolerates the distortion of history.”
Milan Chersonski (second from right) is not the only one in town taking pictures of the banner and the handful of demonstrators. Police photographed anti-fascist participants and asked names and addresses (as last February).
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The group of courageous demonstrators at the Lietukis Garage memorial, in a city-center courtyard in Kaunas
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Milan Chersonski walks with the small group of Antifa Lietuva demonstrators who marched the same route though Kaunas old town that throngs of neo-Nazis take each year on February 16th. This year the neo-Nazis’ banner had honored the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister on whose watch the Lithuanian Holocaust began.
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Could there really be a “June 23rd Street” in Vilnius?
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Background: Evaldas Balčiūnas; Milan Chersonski; Section on collaborators glorified. Honors for collaborators in public spaces. Reburial of 2012. Historical readings. More on June 1941.
INTERNATIONAL PETITION
Street name in Kaunas for the head of the “Lithuanian Activist Front” (in Berlin) whose hateful radio addresses incited mobs to mass murder.
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The lecture hall at Vytautas Magnus University named for the actual Nazi puppet prime minister Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis) who signed papers confirming German orders for sending the Jews of his city (KAUNAS) to a concentration camp, and for incarcerating all the rest in the ghetto. The 2012 reburial saga.
Leena Hietanen (Tallinn) on the bestseller novel Purge:
Still no apology to commission’s former (& founding) member Yitzhak Arad after massive state-sponsored defamation
In 2013, Commission defames Vilnius survivor Pinchos Fridberg on its website, and uses conference in Riga to attack Defending History. Commission member from the Genocide Center uses 23 June 2013 in newest attempt to whitewash 1941 LAF collaborators and perpetrators, in defiance of the history. Accidental omission? His entry on Commission members’ list (with no hint of “completely separate subcommissions”) omits the “detail” that he is director of the “Genocide and Resistance Research Department” at the Genocide Center…
FILM
The Clock is Ticking…
TO EVERY THING THERE IS A TIME UNDER THE SUN…
A Need for De-Obfuscation?
Newest Word for Holocaust Revisionism in Eurospeak? “ISTME” (pronounced Is-it-me?) comes under “Science and Technology”!
Is the EU Again Being Bamboozled with “Double Genocide”? Are fine scholars again unwittingly instrumentalized for DG?
Shrines for Nazis, in the EU
He was honored by the central government too in a fiasco including Kaunas’s university. Its leading historian told the press that reburying the fascist underlines “the drama of Lithuanian history” and lamented that administrators were “afraid of getting hit over the head by the Jews with a club.” The city’s Jewish population, once over 30,000, is now several hundred, close to statistical zero.
Defending History urges people of conscience politely to refrain from entering the building until the shrines are removed.
What was going on in Kaunas (Kovno) during the tenure of the June-August 1941 “Provisional Government”? Here, white-armbanders loyal to the gov take women citizens to humiliation and death because they are Jewish…
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Related: Evaldas Balčiūnas on a military academy named for someone with Nazi-era biographical gaps…..
28-30 May 2013
Fireworks in Jerusalem
27-28 May 2013
On the Watch, In Real Time
CHECKING ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE:
DEFENDING HISTORY SUPPORTS HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS, RESISTANCE HEROES AGAINST NAZISM, EAST EUROPEAN JEWISH COMMUNITIES, YIDDISH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE; WITH EMPHASIS ON THE LITVAK CULTURE, LEGACY, HISTORY AND FUTURE
22 May 2013
Admirers, in Vilnius, say ‘Happy Birthday’ on Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky’s 91st
Veteran of the Vilna Jewish partisans, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky answers questions from an international audience that came to celebrate her 91st birthday (at the Jewish Community of Lithuania, in the room dedicated to veterans of the Jewish resistance against the Nazis). She was one of the victims, in recent years, of local prosecutors’ kangaroo “war crimes investigations” against Lithuanian Jews who survived the Holocaust precisely because they joined the anti-Nazi resistance.
There is still time for Lithuania’s government to end the six hundred year pre-Holocaust sharing of space in the spirit of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on the happier note of reconciliation via public apologies to the defamed Jewish partisans (who continue to be defamed in new publications, e.g. “Intermarium” and on Wikipedia etc).
14-15 May 2013
Survivor circles express quiet regret that DC’s Holocaust Museum (USHMM) unwittingly supports revisionist agenda by legitimizing, via simple participation, another Double Genocide event in Europe. At earlier events, USHMM was one of an array of “useful Western legitimizers” but this time around it is the only one.
9 May 2013
Jewish Community of Lithuania Honors Veterans of the War Against Hitler
Jewish children lead each of the surviving Jewish veterans of World War II to the rapturous welcome of a huge crowd at the Jewish Community of Lithuania’s headquarters in central Vilnius.
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Somebody’s idea of “tolerance education”? Extract from the official website of the “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”)
Educators, diplomats, historians and journalists thought they had seen it all when it came to Holocaust-in-Lithuania issues in recent times. But an online attack by the state sponsored “history commission” on a local Holocaust survivor, Professor Pinchos Fridberg, who is deeply involved in honoring righteous Lithuanians who saved a Jewish neighbor, because he expressed his views against distortion of the Holocaust? That is a bit much even for here.
UPDATE of 21 February 2014:
See Chronology of a Debate and what Pinchos Fridberg actually said…
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O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
The blog Christine Beresniova and Rokas Beresniovas recently published the article “A lamentable absence of sexy scandals.” We will refrain from comment on their understanding of the concept “sexy scandals” and stick to the work of fellow human rights advocates, which entails standing up to powerful establishments on behalf of minorities, victims of prejudice, and in the case of Eastern Europe, the victims (and handful of survivors) of genocide. Those who stand up know all too well that to do so is not all that often convenient, easygoing or self-serving.
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Early history and coverage of the Seventy Years Declaration (Jan-Feb 2012)
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Several days after Monica Lowenberg’s petition was presented to the Lithuanian embassy in London, one of the petition’s points was partly acted on, at least as far as a press release goes, by a governmental agency in Lithuania, notably the Vilnius municipality.
PUBLIC PETITIONS HAVE AN EFFECT!
Point no. 4 of Ms. Lowenberg’s petition reads:
4) A commitment to disallow the neo-Nazi parades in the city centres of Vilnius and Kaunas on national Independence Day holidays in 2013 (with no prejudice to reassignment of venues on free speech grounds to sites and dates that do not heavily imply state support).
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Lithuania’s foreign minister’s “moustache response” came within minutes of SYD’s release.
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Europe’s first parliamentary response to the Prague Declaration of 2008
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Just Released:
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
HELP SAVE THE FOREST FORT WHERE FANIA YOCHELES AND ANOTHER 100 JEWISH SURVIVORS OF THE VILNA GHETTO FOUGHT THE NAZIS
Solemnly commemorates the Holocaust and reaffirms human rights of all people. Opposes the 
