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1998    2001-2007    2008-2011    2012-2013    2014-2015    2016   2017-2018    2019   2022   2026

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SEE ALSO:

DH editor’s take

Video: Commission’s director about Fania Btantsovsky and other Jewish partisan heroes defamed by antisemitic prosecutors

Page on the Commission

Section on the Commission

Commission’s Own Website

2015 Appeal to conscience of members of the Commission

2015 Appeal by one of the last Vilnius Holocaust survivors

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Holocaust Survivors expressed grave concerns about the Commission at its inception in 1998. As PDF. See also 1998 letter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

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From Karen Sutton’s The Massacre of the Jews of Lithuania. Lithuanian Collaboration in the Final Solution, 1941 – 1944 (published by Gefen, Jerusalem & NY 2008; excerpt from p. 211):

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From David Bankier’s  Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2012; excerpt from page 204):

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From Yitzhak Arad’s “The Holocaust in Lithuania, and its Obfuscation, in Lithuanian Sources” (2012):

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2001-2007

Efraim Zuroff (Vilnius 2001)

Efraim Zuroff (Jerusalem 2005)

Efraim Zuroff (Jerusalem 2007)

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2008-2013

Sir Martin Gilbert resigned in 2008:

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Jewish Community of Lithuania and Uni0n of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners (Vilnius 2008). Letter contains the text:

‘The fact that the “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania” established by the President (chaired by E. Zingeris), did not publicly defend its own member Yitzhak Arad, or the other Jewish anti-Nazi partisans, is also surprising.’

—Jewish Community of Lithuania and Uni0n of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners (Vilnius 2008)

Karen Sutton, professor of history at Touro College in New York, in her The Massacre of the Jews of Lithuania (see Recent Books → 2008; Background →  2008):

‘Despite a number of half-hearted measures and ill-conceived historical commissions, contemporary Lithuania has much soul-searching to do to come to terms with what happened [….]’ (p 209); ‘Both the historical commission and the lethargy of the Lithuanian Department of Justice on the issue of alleged war criminals have elicited an enormous outpouring of opposition from the Lithuanian Jewish survivor community and — “symmetrically” — tacit approval of the general non-Jewish population’ (p 211).

Yad Vashem (Jerusalem 2008)

Geoff Vasil (Vasiliauskas) (Vilnius 2008)

Valdas Vasiliauskas (Vilnius 2008);  English translation

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Professor Dov Levin demanded removal of his name in 2008:

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Avi Friedman (Jerusalem 2009)

Dovid Katz (Vilnius 2009a)

Dovid Katz (Vilnius 2009b)

Shimon Samuels (Paris 2009, presented at Warsaw); alternate link

Jonathan Freedland (London 2009)

Clemens Heni (Berlin 2009);  PDF

Esther Goldberg (London 2010)

Dovid Katz (Vilnius 2010);  in Russian translation

Dovid Katz (Vilnius 2010b)

Dovid Katz (Vilnius 2010c)

Bildungswerk für Friedensarbeit e.V. (2011)

2011: Commission’s understanding of “Holocaust Studies”  revealed at the Lithuanian parliament in the speech of its executive director / director general.

Professor Konrad Kwiet resigned in 2011:

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2012-2014

28 August 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Yad Vashem shocks Holocaust survivors by rejoining Lithuanian government’s “red-brown commission”’.

31 August 2012.  Lietuvos rytas: ‘Taking an interest in Nazi and Soviet crimes is a response to Russian propaganda’.  English translation.  DefendingHistory.com comments.

3 September 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘English text of Joseph Melamed’s letter to Yad Vashem’.

3 September 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Joseph Melamed, head of Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors’ association, releases letter to director of Yad Vashem’.

3 September 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Holocaust survivors, based in Tel aviv, issue statement on renewal of red-brown commission’.

21 November 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘When the politicians run the conferences on — history’ by Evaldas Balčiūnas.

21 November 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Red-Brown circus in Lithuanian capital’.

26 December 2012.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Tell me I’m wrong’ by Geoff Vasil.

1 January 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Instead of truth about the Holocaust — myths about saving Jews’  by Pinchos Fridberg.

15 January 2013.   The Algemeiner: ‘Instead of truth about the Holocaust — Myths about saving Jews’ by Pinchos Fridberg.

17 January 2013.  DefendingHistory.com: ‘Red-brown commission’s newest layer of obfuscation: Are names of members secret?

27 January 2013. US Researcher is Persuaded that the Problem in Lithuania is called “Zuroff and Katz” …

21 February 2013.  Executive director of the red-brown commission calls prominent Vilnius Holocaust survivor a ‘liar’ on the commission’s website.

28 May 2013.  Executive director of the commission uses paper at Riga conference to personally attack Defending History editor.

21 June 2013.  One of the commission’s new members, the head of the research department art the Genocide Center, tries yet again, in a public interview, to whitewash th LAF murderers of June 1041. Geoff Vasil replies.

5 December 2013.  Commission ‘does’ Toronto.

 

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2014-2015

2 March 2014.  Defending History’s English translation of the public correspondence between Vilnius Holocaust survivor Prof. Pinchos Fridberg and Yivo director Dr. Jonathan Brent concerning the commission. Original appeared on 1 March in Yiddish in New York’s Forward (Forverts).

8 March 2014.  Olga Zabludoff comments on the misrepresentations by the commission’s representative on a panel discussion organized by Yivo in New York City in February 2014.

15 March 2014.  Defending History’s appeal to the conscience of the members of the commission.

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2016

18 November 2016.  Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust (University of Haifa, Institute for Holocaust Research), vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 1–30: ‘Is East European “Double Genocide” revisionism reaching museums?’ by Dovid Katz.

22 November 2016.  ISGAP Flashpoint: ‘Antisemitism in the twenty-first century shtetl’ by Dovid Katz.

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2017

December 2017. Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust (University of Haifa, Institute for Holocaust Research), vol. 31.3, pp. 285-295: “The Extraordinary Recent History of Holocaust Studies in Lithuania” by Dovid Katz.

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2019

August 2019. Lithuania’s official Jewish Community reports that the executive director of the “red-brown commission” is under police investigation for corruption.

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2022

April 2022. Red-Brown Commission seems to abandon any distancing from the far-right state-sponsored Genocide Center, whose director has long been a regular participant in far-right antisemitic events that often glorify local Holocaust collaborators as supposed heroes. See Evaldas Balčiūnas’s review of  a book by Genocide Center director A.Bubnys, published in Lithuanian only by the Commission, and its implications for the wider debate.

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2026

June 2026. Professor Karen Sutton’s review of a major new book on the Lithuanian Holocaust discusses the historic role of the Commission.

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