Yitzhak Arad, Hero of Jewish Partisans in Forests of Lithuania, and in Israel’s War of Independence, a Major Holocaust Scholar, Dies in Tel Aviv at 94
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).
OUR REPORT
22 April 2021
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In “Shameful” Decision Lithuanian Parliament Appoints Glorifier of Holocaust Collaborators as Director of State’s “Genocide Center”
Secret ballot: 76 for, 34 against,8 abstentions, 2 spoiled ballots
Defending History Reports on Nomination
“No, Sir. This is No Photoshop”
Algemeiner Journal is first US publication to cover the news
Earlier: On the Bubnys nomination. In the Algemeiner Journal. On Dr. Bubnys’s record. The state-sponsored Genocide Center. On glorifying collaborators.
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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Milan Chersonski
1937 – 2021
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From his dozen years as editor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s former quadrilingual newspaper, Jerusalem of Lithuania
His writings over the last decade in Defending History
His 80th Birthday celebration in Vilnius
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15 April 2021
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Historian Who Poses Proudly with Posters of Holocaust Collaborators is Nominated to be Head of Lithuania’s State-Sponsored Far-Right “Genocide Center”
“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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OUR REPORT. SEE ALSO DH SECTION ON DR. BUBNYS AND STATE HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM IN LITHUANIA
April 2021
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Silvia Foti’s The Nazi’s Granddaughter Has Appeared
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…).
Defending History has been on the Noreika case for 9 years. For years on end our correspondent was lugged into court with kangaroo prosecutions. Scroll down to May 2014 to read more.
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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We need your support to stop the current tidal wave of East European Holocaust revisionism
(that often progresses with the de facto underpinning of American Jewish organizations whose leaders are addicted to “Glories and Medals in the East”
Support for Defending History is now fully tax deductible
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Danny Ben-Moshe’s film Rewriting History is again online!
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Come see our latest reports…
Defending History is no fly-by-night. On our pages…
10 YEARS AGO 7 YEARS AGO
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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)
Admission free but registration required
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March 2021
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Roland Binet on
The Monument to Latvia’s Hitlerist Waffen SS Divisions in a Town in — Belgium
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Passover songs in the Lithuanian Yiddish tradition
March 2021
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Joel Lion, Israel’s Ambassador to Ukraine, Boldly Slams Latest Municipal Honor for Nazi Collaborators
Ben Cohen reports in the Algemeiner
March 2021
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‘My Heritage’ and ‘Litvak SIG’ Announce Availability of Millions of New Jewish Genealogical Records
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
President of Germany Awards the state’s Order of Merit to Rachel Kostanian, the “Mother of History Dissidents in Eastern Europe”
“A Powerful Statement”
See: DH’s report; press release from Berlin; recent tributes on Kostanian’s 91st birthday; DH’s Rachel Kostanian Section spanning over a dozen years
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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The Latest in Defending History
TITLES ONLY
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, Internationally Admired Director of Molėtai (Malát) Regional Museum in Lithuania, on Developing Holocaust & Jewish Cultural Memorials in Region
— Based on Historic Honesty, Intercultural Cooperation, and Bona Fide Reconciliation
Viktorija Kazlienė
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See DH section on the unique role of Moletai (Malát) and its region in ongoing Holocaust and Jewish cultural commemoration in Lithuania and beyond over the past five years
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.
2: The naming of 2021 for an alleged perpetrator of LAF atrocities against the Jews of Kovno (Kaunas) in June 1941.
February 2021
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Lithuania’s Liveliest Cemetery (Piramónt – Šnipiškės)
1. Aliide Naylor’s “Soviet Modernism’s Enduring Baltic Legacy” in Jacobin.
2. Latest: US Commission’s P. Packer, silent on the cemetery his commission is responsible for, finds other things with which to make himself an American Jewish hero.
3. Julius Norwilla warns of the dangers of “illusory progress” on saving the Old Vilna cemetery.
4. Christian News Journal claims State Dept. and US Embassy shift to clear new stance on the old Vilna cemetery’s preservation.
6 February 2021
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HAPPY 80th BIRTHDAY TO VILNIUS’S BELOVED
Professor Joseph Parason
(Josifas Parasonis)
27 January 2021
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Holocaust Remembrance Day Leads to Veritable Battle of History
Silvia Foti in the New York Times
Public historical debate and coverage of East European state efforts to “fix the narrative” and export the revisionism to an unsuspecting West.
Lev Golinkin’s survey (and interactive map) in the Forward of monuments to Nazi perpetrators in Eastern Europe, and increasingly in the West, makes ample reference to Defending History’s role in bringing these issues to the world’s attention over the last dozen years.
Efraim Zuroff slams Israeli foreign minister’s betryal of Holocaust history. See DH’s Israel chronicle page.
Dovid Katz on the need to politely confront the major state actors, not just convenient small-fry outrages.
31 January 2021
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Warm Good Wishes Pour in For Rachel Kostanian on her 91st Birthday (31 Jan. 2021)
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
Israel’s Ambassador Joel Lion in Ukraine Boldly Condemns Annual Parade Glorifying Holocaust Collaborator Stepan Bandera; JTA’s Cnaan Liphshiz Reports
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
SEE HISTORY OF ISRAELI GOV’S STANCE ON THE ISSUES; 2017 “LOWPOINT” IN ISRAELI DIPLOMATIC HISTORY
Dec. 2020 — Jan. 2021
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Vilma Fiokla Kiurė: Updates on Women’s Issues in Lithuania
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Defending History’s Persons of the Year 2021
Dovid Katz on Uniqueness of the First Week of the Lithuanian Holocaust (on its 80th Anniversary)
“Commemorate Victims and Savers, Not Perpetrators”
See also: Dovid Katz’s webinar at the Jewish Holocaust Center in Melbourne, Australia on “Writing the Holocaust Out of History (without denying a single death)”
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Andrius Kulikauskas Reports: Major Success in Campaign to Save Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery from Convention Center Desecration; Follows up with BNS Press Release
Lithuanian Parliament Nixes Convention Project’s Budget for 2021
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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Are US Tax Dollars Really Going for Glorification of Holocaust Collaborators in Ukraine?
25 Nov. 2020
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Vilma Fiokla Kiurė on the Fate of a Roma Boy in Vilnius
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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Are Authorities in Latvia Trying to Shut Down Riga’s Famous Outdoor Holocaust Museum?
Petition is Launched
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Yakov Faitelson Calls on the Lithuanian Parliament to Reconsider Decision to Name 2021 in Honor of Alleged Participant in Kaunas Atrocities of June 1941
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”
♦ Prof. Josifas Parasonis of Vilnius, professor of building sciences uses science, common sense and humanity to come to a simple conclusion
♦ Julius Norwilla, head of Committee for Piramónt, exposes huge budget hole being made to put convention center project on top of the cemetery
♦ Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas, editor of Respect Cemeteries, calls on readers to write to Lithuanian parliament’s budget masters by Nov. 10th deadline
♦ Next Vilnius District Court Hearing on Fate of the Cemetery is on November 24th
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Eyewitness reports on recent hearings:
1 October Vilnius hearing; 6 Oct. hearing;
Earlier report on stance of European Foundation for Human Rights. Reports in Algemeiner Journal and Jerusalem Post.
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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♦ Conference of European Rabbis (CER) strips London “grave-trading” CPJCE of authority to meddle any further in fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery. What is the CPJCE? International petition approaches 52,000…
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6 Sept. 2020
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Defending History’s 12th year gets underway. . .
Founded on 6 Sept. 2009. Emailed circulars and reports from 2008-2009 were then uploaded making for a record starting in 2008, A dozen years of posts provide a unique record.
ON OUR PAGES
10 years ago. 7 years ago. 5 years ago. 3 years ago.
Contributions in the United States are now fully tax-deductible via the new nonprofit Preserving Yiddish and Defending History.
Summer 2020
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Making Heroes out of Holocaust Collaborators: Spreading to the West?
Does Vilnius Really Need ‘Convention Center in the Jewish Cemetery’?
Will an EU Member Parliament Really Name 2021 for Alleged Participant in 1941 Kaunas Atrocities?
Tragic Fate of Inspirationally Brave Lithuanian Rescuers
Lithuanian Jewish Commmunity: ‘Concern’ over Appointment of Genocide Center Deputy Head who Specializes in Whitewashing Holocaust Crimes of 1941 Hitlerist LAF and Nazi Puppet Provisional Gov.
US contributions for defending history are now tax-deductible
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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
Vilnius Jewish Community’s Pre-Tíshebov Event at the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery on 29 July. More on the event: 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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MERVYN SMITH MEMORIAL LECTURES
Series of webinars by Dovid Katz on Litvaks, Yiddish, the Lithuanian Holocaust (and the contemporary debates)
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July 2020
Stinging Pain for Lithuanian Jews & Holocaust Survivor Families More Widely, as Seimas Names 2021 for Alleged Participant in June 1941 Kaunas Atrocities
Editor’s take. Chronology of events and publications. WJC’s Dr. Laurence Weinbaum in the Jewish Chronicle. Rare protest from AJC with LJC. But Wiesenthal Center strangely silent for first time…
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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
LJC’s Video of Dieckmann-Vanagaite 25 June Book Launch
THE BACKGROUND. RECENT BOOKS IN THE DEBATE
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23 June 2020
Chief Historian of State Sponsored Genocide Center is Key Speaker at Events Glorifying June 23rd; Evening Event under Banner of Two Holocaust Collaborators
Defending History was there to monitor the events. Julius Norwilla’s photo gallery.
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…
Defending History’s section on June 23rd events & issues in previous years. Background on the history. New English edition of Leyb Koniuchowsky’s compendium of testimonies now available online.
Online town hall on European Holocaust Denial is organized in the US. All welcome
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…
Far Right Will Honor Nazi Collaborators on 23rd at 6 PM in central Vilnius. Defending History will be there to monitor the event
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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
Petition by Ruta Bloshtein, Vilnius native and resident, reaches 51,000 signatures. Defending History reports. Bloshtein’s articles.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo receives multifaith plea from Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim leaders and key human rights organizations.
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.
UCSJ joins the endeavor from Washington DC.
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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TThe Latest
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BOOKS IN THE DEBATE
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June-July 2020
Will the Lithuanian Defense Ministry add a “health warning” to its page glorifying a Nazi collaborator?
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
Disturbing video produced by a national tourism agency
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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).
Also: Defense Ministry still adds no disclaimer to its page glorifying Nazi collaborator.
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Meanwhile:
“You can’t make this up”: Major economist headlines construction sector revival via Jewish cemetery’s desecration as panacea for Covid-19 doldrums. Then, major national tourism units unite to place a thousand chairs with symbolic euro-notes on top of Vilnius Jewish graves.
Judith Leister reports in Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Julius Norwilla in DH.
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For news in Lithuanian, see VieningaLietuva.com
5 YEARS AGO IN DH
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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.
VILNIUS 11 MARCH: DH’s report on the run-up. DH’s eyewitness report of the event.
RIGA 16 MARCH: West silent as central Riga again gifted for worship of Latvia’s wrtime Waffen SS on Monday March 16th; Coronavirus ban on rallies results in individuals laying wreaths for Waffen SS at city center’s Liberty Monument
February-March 2020
Linas Vildžiūnas, Lithuania’s Leading Humanist, For Decades Key Educator (and Truth Teller) about the Holocaust, Wins Donskis Award for Tolerance
16 February 2020
Defending History Alone Monitored Torchlit Vilnius Old Town Far-Right March that Glorified Nazi Collaborators J. Noreika and K. Škirpa
9 February 2020
Doyen of Litvak Rabbis Signs Impassioned Decree on Saving Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery from “Convention Center in the Cemetery” Project
BOOKS IN THE DISCUSSION
Alexander Gendler: Khurbm: 1914-1922
Leyb Koniuchowsky & Jonathan Boyarin: The Lithuanian Slaughter of its Jews: Testimonies of 121 Survivors of the Holocaust in Lithuania
Dan Rabinowitz: The Lost Library
Ruta Vanagaite & Efraim Zuroff: Our People: Discovering Lithuania’s Hidden Holocaust
Ruta Vanagaite & Christoph Dieckmann: How Did It Happen? (Our People, Part II. Understanding the Holocaust in Lithuania)
January 2020
Far Right Again Granted Central Vilnius on Feb. 16 Independence Day
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
European Foundation for Human Rights: Progress in Case for Equal Minority Rights for Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
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
Anna Shternshis in Canadian Jews News on Yivo Librarian Debacle (see also DH’s take; list of items approved by “In geveb”)
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23 January 2020
VIDEO: Major Litvak Rabbis in Israel and American Christian Evangelist Meet with Lithuania’s Ambassador to Israel to Plea for Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Late Jan. 2020 meeting follows “day of shame” in Vilnius in Dec. 2019, and “hateful libel” against Orthodox Vilnius Jewish woman (Jan. 2020) who launched the international petition; Prof. Shnayer Leiman’s response.
23 January 2020
JTA on Scandal Emanating from Lithuanian Parliamentarian Gumuliauskas’s Proposed Bill to “Fix” Holocaust History
PEACEFUL DEMO PLANNED AT LITHUANIAN EMBASSY IN TEL AVIV ON FRIDAY 24 JAN, 11 AM; FB; HEBREW POSTER
SEE DEFENDING HISTORY’S TAKE
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
Israeli and Polish Ambassadors to Ukraine Issue Joint Letter Protesting New State Glorification of Holocaust Perpetrators (T.O.I. report by Sam Sokol)
1 January 2020
Antanas Zubrys and Dr. Matilda Zubrienė: Defending History’s Persons of the Year (2020)
Antanas Zubrys and Matilda Zubrienė
A Lithuanian hero of the War of Independence in 1920, one hundred years ago, who went on in 1941, with his wife, to risk their lives and their families and just do the right thing and save innocent neighbors from the racial genocide underway and supported by their own nation’s “nationalist leaders”… “Someone has to honor Lithuania’s real World War II heroes.” See background on current practice by some East European governments to honor Nazi collaborators (e.g. Lithuanian parliament’s 2018 decision; DH section). See DH’s Person of the Year awards for 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2019.
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Updated Litvak One-Stop Shop for 2020
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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
A “Day of Shame” in Post-Holocaust East European Jewish History?
The upshot? The state owned property bank claims “Jewish support” for “the convention center in the old Jewish cemetery” via the alleged collusion of some London rabbis from the “CPJCE” and the head of the government sponsored Jewish community… But what about the opinion of all the others?
December 2019
Lithuania, a Genuine, Robust Democracy, Continues to Struggle with Free Speech when it Comes to the Holocaust
See Efraim Zuroff in the Jerusalem Post; Arkadijus Vinokuras in Times of Israel; Instances from the past decade monitored by DH; Section on free speech and democracy. Dovid Katz’s new paper on the (ab)use of law to “fix history” in the Baltics.
Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas founds major new initiative dedicated to Lithuanian-Jewish friendship and sense of common purpose for future of the Grand Duchy heritage by way of open, free and respectful dialogue and inspiring new projects
Program of 16 Dec. Bar Ilan Univeristy conference on Zuroff-Vanagaite book on the Lithuanian Holocaust; Conference report & photos
Nov.-Dec. 2019
Litvak World Shocked by New “Year of Gaon” 10 Euro Coin that Plonks a Symbol Beloved of Far Right onto a Mutilated Jewish Menorah
Defending History has followed the saga for three years
Ruta Bloshtein in Lithuanian in 7md (6 Dec.2019) [PDF of print edition]
Vilnius’s Jewish satirist Motke Chabad shares his own perspective
Ruta Bloshtein (2 Dec.) and Ben Cohen (28 Nov.) in the Algemeiner Journal
Dovid Katz (15 Nov. and 22 Nov.) and Ruta Bloshtein (26 Nov.) in DH
Grant Gochin in The Times of Israel on other painful issues evoked by “Year of Gaon” plans (also on LJC website); See DH’s Seven Simple Solutions on Lithuanian-Jewish issues
More coverage by Algemeiner Journal, Arutz Sheva, Enlace Judío, Haaretz, Israel National News, Jewish Chronicle, JTA, YNet, YNetEspanol, Times of Israel (ToI French edition)
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
AP on Streets Newly Named in Kiev for Nazi Collaborators
Clemens Heni in Portal for Political Science
Justin Ward in Medium on History Revisionism in Hungary
Andrius Kulikauskas in Bernardinai on Vilnius Jewish Cemetery Saga; Chief Rabbi of South Africa Weighs In; But NY Yivo stages PR event for government’s positions only
Aleksandr Kuzmin in DH on Latvian Defense Minister’s Glorification of Waffen-SS; Jewish Voice on History of Latvian Holocaust
Cnaan Liphshiz in Times of Israel (French) on Holocaust Museums
George N. Tzogopoulos at Begin-Sadat Center on Israel’s Role; See DH’s Israel Page
23 Sept. 2019
International Coverage of Vilnius’s Day of Prayer, Plea & Protest for the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt
Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas’s keynote address; Report (+ photo gallery) in Lithuania’s 15min.lt; LRT evening news (from timecode 4:56). European Foundation for Human Rights
Letter from South Africa’s chief rabbi to Lithuania’s president
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London CPJCE “Jewish grave traders” are called to face charges at the Jerusalem rabbinical court. In London, a “Serious Incident” report is filed with the United Kingdom’s Charity Commission. Background on CPJCE’s Vilnius outrage. The video.
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Canadian Govt. Officials “Duped” into Participating in Honors for Ukraine’s OUN / UPA Hitler Collaborators
Reports in National Post and Ottawa Citizen
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
Monday September 23 in Vilnius
Day of Prayer and Respectful Challenge to Spare Old Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (Šnipiškės) from Plans to Site a Convention Center in its Heart
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Sign Ruta Bloshtein’s Petition See the International Support DH Section
Sept. 2019
A Decade of Defending History
Defending History marks its 10th anniversary in Sept. 2019
9 years ago. 7 years ago. 5 years ago. 3 years ago.
Come and browse old issues; first post; mission statement; Samples of coverage over the years by Ricky Ben-David in the Jerusalem Post; Arne Bengtsson in Baltic World; Daniel Brook in Slate; Bernard Dichek in Jerusalem Report; Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian; Avi Friedman in Mishpacha; Cindy Mindell in the Jewish Ledger; Rod Nordland in the New York Times; Wendy Robbins on BBC World Service.
Documentary films: Danny Ben-Moshe’s Rewriting History; Richard Bloom’s Defending Holocaust History
PLEASE SUPPORT DH’S CONTINUED PUBLICATION
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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
Reports in Delfi.lt; Lrt.lt; 15min.lt
Vilnius mayor calls plaque “illegal”; Faina Kukliansky issues powerful statement of protest; BNS; Baltic Times reports that sciences library is quite happy with its new plaque; JTA report
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
Bravo to Hizzoner Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
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Sam Sokol in JTA
Jillian Deutsch in Politico
Deutsche Welle
Vilna Jewish Cemetery Petition Hits 46,000 Mark
Lithuanian Jewish Community Reports on State Investigation of “Red-Brown Commission” Chief (background; video)
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Vilna-born Holocaust survivor Prof. Pinchos Fridberg’s “enormous courage” in challenging “perpetrator whitewashing” by nationalist icon V. Landsbergis
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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Polish government glorifies unit that fought for the Nazis
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Prominent Vilnius historian publishes article in mainstream media complaining that too many “foreign Jews” have been included in the state-sponsored history commission
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:
Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius Leads City Council Decision to Rename “Škirpa Street” and Personally Orders Removal of Noreika Plaque in 4 AM Raid
Official Lithuanian Jewish Community Closes Premises and Synagogue on 6-8 Aug. in View of Threats, Citing Conservative Party’s Ongoing Campaign to Glorify Holocaust Collaborators
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…
Media coverage: AFP, AJ, AP/WAPO, A7, BB, CBS, EJC, IH, JNS, JTA, TOI
Statement issued by Vilnius Jewish Community; JTA reports of 6. Aug; 7 Aug; 8 Aug (+TOI); LJC’s circulated reply to VJC
Baltic Times gives big-time coverage to Landsbergis’s attack on official Jewish community leader Kukliansky. Will they provide equal space for the community’s response?
Aug. 7 rally demanded restoration of public space plaques and street names that glorify Holocaust collaborators held at Mindaugas Monument; Baltic Times’s “shamefully one-sided” report in far right spirit of trivializing glorification of Holocaust perpetrators
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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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Question: Will the Roskies & Fishman “Yiddish PR conference” financed to deflect attention from the painful issues, publish a morally clear statement of protest (and support for the Jewish community)? Do conference participants appreciate concerns they are being used as “useful Jewish idiots” (UJIs) in the wider effort to rewrite Holocaust history and cover for blatant antisemitism?
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?
BACKGROUND: See DH sections on collaborators glorified; Noreika saga; Ramanauskas saga; seven Lithuanian-Jewish issues that could be easily resolved; academic background. the Seventy Years Declaration (SYD). signed by 71 European parliamentarians including eight valiant Lithuanian MPs and MEPs.
1 August 2019
“It Pays to Defend History”
Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius Orders Removal of Memorial Plaque for Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika
According to reports, city’s removal squad came 4 AM on 27 July; see now: the nationalist backlash (2); new president falls back on “more discussions needed” ignoring years of such discussions. JTA report. Vilnius prosecutors considering challenges to mayor’s action. Vilnius’s Prof. Pinchos Fridberg takes the battle over glorifying Hitler collaborators right to Vytautas Landsbergis. Meanwhile, Conservative Party’s Landsbergis Jr. hits back and official Jewish community exposes antisemitic slur on his FB page.
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Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius
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A seven year saga since Defending History’s Evaldas Balčiūnas brought the Noreika case to the English speaking world in 2012
Lithuanian author & ethicist Evaldas Balčiūnas
For years Mr. Balčiūnas was hounded by police, prosecutors and kangaroo hearings (scroll down to May 2014)
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.
Follow the mayor’s impressive personal trajectory on these issues over the years
Marble Noreika stone continues to mar capital’s central boulevard
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NEXT QUESTION:
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
Vilnius City Council Finally Decides to Change Name of Škirpa Street
Vote is 20 to 16
Defending History brought the issue to the international community in 2010
See Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas’s classic 2015 Defending History paper on Škirpa; Vilnius City Council efforts by Mark Harold
Report by JTA
Prof. Pinchos Fridberg and Ruta Kaplinskaya concerned by report that new street name will be accompanied by new plaque glorifying Škirpa yet again
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.
But what about Škirpa Street in Kaunas, which is slated to be “Capital of European Culture” in 2022?
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July 2019
Ukraine’s Constitutional Court Affirms “Red Equals Brown” Law
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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
More Lithuanian Government Glories & Medals for “Useful Jewish Enablers” of Baltic Holocaust Revisionism
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June 2019
California Resident Grant Gochin Appeals Vilnius Court Ruling that Whitewashed Notorious Holocaust Collaborator Jonas Noreika
IHRA weighs in. More reaction. For first time (?), Lithuanian TV presents both sides.
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?
FOLLOW THE SEVEN YEAR NOREIKA SAGA IN DEFENDING HISTORY
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23 June 2019
Kaunas (Slated to be 2022 “Capital of European Culture”) Hosts Far-Right (/Neo-Nazi) City Center Jamboree Honoring June 23 “Uprising” that Unleashed the Destruction of Lithuanian Jewry in 1941
In Vilnius, the parliament (Seimas) hosts a one-sided conference on the LAF (Lithuanian Ativist Front) Hitlerist militias that unleashed violence on Jewish neighbors before German forces even arrived.
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:
A magnificent new memorial to thousands of Holocaust victims at the mass grave in the forest.
Honors, medals and photo-ops for the foreign donors and enablers.
The official museum in the city center continues to honor Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators as “national heroes”, an issue not mentioned at any of the public events.
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June 2019
State Glorification for Chaplain of a Holocaust-era Mass Murder Unit; Simon Wiesenthal Center Speaks Out
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Chone Leibovich of Vilnius Jewish Community appeals to National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (scroll down for English)
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May-June 2019
A Sad Story for Chicago and Lithuania
that is ‘not going away’
UPDATE OF JUNE 1: Head of Jewish Agency calls for monument to Nazi collaborator to be removed “as soon as possible”
In Vilnius, Defending History staff get more death threats
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
LATEST MEDIA: Algemeiner; BBC; Grayzone; Independent; Simon Wiesenthal Center; Telegraph. And—Defending History’s take.
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).
UPDATES: HOW THE “OFFICIAL JEWISH COMMUNITY” WAS USED AND ABUSED
RAMANAUSKAS: A FIVE YEAR SAGA
WAS THE US EMBASSY AGAIN DRAGGED INTO THINGS THAT DON’T REFLECT AMERICAN VALUES?
Beyond the debates over Ramanauskas’s role in the early days of the Lithuanian Holocaust, he is today a major icon for Neo-Nazi parades and events.
From left to right on the neo-Nazis’ “We know our national heroes” banner (torchlit neo-Nazi parade of Feb. 2018): Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, Jonas Noreika, Povilas Plechavičius, Kazys Škirpa, Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, and Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis
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.
On the legacy of Ramanauskas, see Evaldas Balčiūnas (in 2014, 2017 and 2019); Efraim Zuroff and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and Dovid Katz. Defending History documented the entire 2017-2018 New Britain, Conn. saga. Sampling of survivor testimony on “what it was that the LAF was doing” in the last week of June 1941. SEE DEFENDING HISTORY’S SECTION ON ADOLFAS RAMANAUSKAS.◊◊
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
Latest on State Honors for Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika in Lithuania
HUNDREDS OF JEWISH HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS PROTEST OUTSIDE LITHUANIAN CONSULATE IN NEW YORK CITY
TRACK THE SEVEN-YEAR OLD NOREIKA SAGA HERE
DEFENDING HISTORY’S SECTION ON COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED
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28 April 2019
EUROPEAN FOUNDATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PROTESTS EU FUNDING FOR VILNIUS MUSIC JAMBOREE ON WEEKEND OF 27-28 APRIL IN THE HEART OF CITY’S OLD JEWISH CEMETERY
PDF OF NEW STATEMENT
As addendum to EFHR’s case filed; international opposition; petition reaching 46,000 mark
Recent coverage in the Algemeiner Journal; English Delfi.lt (Lithuania Tribune); Jerusalem Post;
INCREDIBLY, M. K. ČIURLIONIS HOUSE & MUSEUM ARE PARTNERING
Protest letter from Julius Norwilla, chairman of the Vilnius Committee for Preservation of Piramont (Snipiskes) Cemetery to the Director of the Čiurlionis House and Museum
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.
MORE IN DEFENDING HISTORY
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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).
The Wikileaks cable that just will not go away (jump to end of point 8)
Ruta Bloshtein’s petition approaches 46,000
Overviews by Shnayer Leiman, Juris Kaža, Michael Maass, Dovid Katz, and Vilna-born Holocaust survivor Pinchos Fridberg; Statements by elected head of Vilnius Jewish Community Simon Gurevich
SEE MORE
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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.
LATEST CHAPTER IN A SAGA OF SEVEN YEARS
HOW DOES A JEWISH CITIZEN OF LITHUANIA FEEL ABOUT IT?
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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
NEWS RELEASE FROM EUROPEAN FOUNDATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
REPORTS IN ENGLISH DELFI (LITHUANIA TRIBUNE); IN THE ALGEMEINER (NY); BNS/LRT; THE JERUSALEM POST
UPDATE OF 24 APRIL: EUROPEAN UNION FINANCES MUSIC FESTIVAL ON CEMETERY GROUNDS THIS WEEKEND
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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
VIDEO ON YOUTUBE
(plaque smashing at 14:30; English segments at 04:10; 22:40)
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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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On Jonas Noreika’s Holocaust activities, see Evaldas Balčiūnas and Andrius Kulikauskas
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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
Andrius Kulikauskas calls on Lithuanian Parliament to Stand Up to State-Sponsored Genocide Center’s Glorification of Holocaust Collaborators
Dovid Katz interviewed by Stan Tomas (video)
World Jewish Congress Replies to Vilnius Genocide Center; Stops Short of Mentioning Government’s Financing of Street Names and Honors for Holocaust Perpetrators; Official Jewish Community Breaks Long Silence on GC’s Antisemitism
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3 April 2019
Eyewitness Report: A Verdict is Read in a Vilnius Court
Case was over the state’s glorification of a cruel Holocaust collaborator and purveyor of racial hate. First time a court in an EU/NATO country ruled in favor of the government glorifying Holocaust collaborators with street names and majestic public plaques, reducing the Holocaust to a detail not worthy of interfering with its perpetrators’ “heroism”…
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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SEE FULL REPORT
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26 March 2019
Vilnius Court’s Verdict Awaited on Wednesday March 27th
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?
See: Background. Report on 15 Jan. Report on 5 March.
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Meanwhile, Bizarre Decision from EU Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is in Spirit of Far Right’s “Double Genocide” Revisionism
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“The New Holocaust Denial is based on a postmodernist mush that confounds victims and perpetrators and tries to write the Holocaust out of history (without denying a single death) via an array of ruses emanating from Eastern Europe’s ultranationalist New Far Right.”
BACKGROUND
DH’s take. Report on 15 Jan. hearing. Report on 5 March hearing. Evaldas Balčiūnas’s 2012 article that brought Noreika to the attention of the English speaking world. Balčiūnas’s DH section.
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25 March 2019
Michael Mostyn in the Toronto Sun
Reports on pro-Nazi marches in Vilnius and Riga; Canada condemns Riga’s Waffen SS celebration
English original of part of Lithuanian TV’s interview with Dovid Katz
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20 March 2019
Vilnius Jewish Community Invites People of All Backgrounds to Purim Celebration with Traditional Reading of the Book of Esther
Wednesday evening, 20 March, at 7 PM, at the Vilnius Jewish Community & Jewish Cultural and Information Center at Mesiniu 3 in Vilnius Old Town
VJC’s additional family event features the traditional costume party competition on Thursday evening 21st
Just for Litvaks: Translation of the Book of Esther into Lithuanian Yiddish
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16 March 2019
AROUND 1000 TAKE PART IN 16 MARCH CENTRAL RIGA PARADE GLORIFYING LATVIA’S WARTIME NAZI WAFFEN SS
DPA; Haaretz; Jerusaem Post; Jüdisches Forum (video); Times of Israel
Detail from the day
Petition against annual event approaches 7,000 signatures
Background: Monica Lowenberg’s blog; DH coverage of previous years’ marches; Lowenberg’s articles in DH; Latvia section. Can people peacefully protest this march? A disturbing court ruling
Latvian participant in last month’s torchlight march in Vilnius on 16 Feb.
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13 March 2019
More Double Dealing by US Taxpayer Supported “Commission to Preserve America’s Heritage Abroad” (USCPAHA)?
Is it Washington DC’s most corrupt federal agency?
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).
VIDEO: Herbert Block’s formal new presentation to a major rabbi cites only USCPAHA’s partnership with these two bodies. No mention of the international petition (which he himself signed…) or the vast international opposition.
Tale of two videos: The CPJCE with the prime minister of Lithuania, and USCPAHA’s Herbert Block explaining his commission’s work to the rabbi in Israel . . . See also earlier Admas Kodesh photo gallery of USCPAHA “reporting to Satmar Rebba in Monroe”… (Note: Leader of the opposing Satmar dynasty has himself condemned the convention center project in Vilnius).
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BACKGROUND:
The basic story (DH’s section). International opposition to date. The USCPAHA. The CPJCE.
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8 March 2019
After ‘Hearing Both Sides’ at Trial of March 5th, Vilnius Court Sets Verdict for 27th
Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas, moments before his historic address before the Vilnius court on state-funded Genocide Center’s policy of glorifying Holocaust collaborators. The center’s “decisions” are cited by high officials as “justification” for street names, university hall plaques and other public-space state-funded glorifications of Holocaust collaborators. Around 96% of Lithuanian Jewry was massacred in the Holocaust.
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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.”
Eyewitness reports and opinions by Evaldas Balčiūnas and Gershon Taic (Geršonas Taicas)
Finally, reports began to appear in mainstream Lithuanian media: BNS/Diena.lt; LRT; Delfi; Alkas.lt; Arkadijus Vinokuras in Delfi.lt. Official information on the court’s website.
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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.
UTTER SILENCE FROM THE GOV. FUNDED “RED-BROWN COMMISSION” (ONE OF WHOSE MEMBERS IS ACTIVELY SOLICITING 10,000 EUROS IN CROWDFUNDING FOR NEW BOOK ON LITHUANIAN HOLOCAUST; CROWDFUNDING PAGE)
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?
BACKGROUND: Collaborators glorified; street names and university lecture halls; the Genocide Center in Vilnius; the Genocide Museum; academic background to the “Double Genocide” movement for Holocaust revisionism
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March 2019
Lev Golinkin in The Nation on Ukraine’s issues with adulation of fascism and Holocaust collaborators
David Pugliese in the Ottawa Citizen on Latvian and Ukrainian projects to revise history
Petition against Waffen SS March on March 16th in Riga; Background: Monica Lowenberg’s blog; DH coverage of previous years’ marches; Lowenberg’s articles in DH; Can people peacefully protest this march? A disturbing court ruling in 2017
Euronews report on far right’s march in central Tallinn, Estonia
Julius Norwilla attends meeting of Lithuania’s state property bank that plans convention center in heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
Vilnius: LRT TV interviews Dovid Katz
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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.
Photo gallery of the event
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?
Last year’s neo-Nazi event featured front banner glorifying a series of local Holocaust collaborators; it was addressed by a high Catholic Church official and “honored guest” neo-Nazis from abroad
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.
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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
AP Report on Netanyahu Government’s Alleged “Sale of Holocaust History” in Eastern Europe is carried by New York Times, Washington Post, & Israel’s Haaretz & YNet
See Israel Chronicle summary page; Israel section; Sam Sokol’s new paper.
Related: Matti Friedman’s New York Times op-ed on the politicization of Yad Vashem. Cf. Danny Ben-Moshe’s earlier op-ed in Jerusalem Report. See Defending History’s Yad Vashem section.
Highpoints of Israeli diplomacy on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe: Ambassador Chen Ivri Apter in 2009; Ambassador Joel Lion in 2018.
Lowpoint: Ambassador Amir Maimon in 2017 (his performance made it into the academic literature before he was even transferred to his next posting).
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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.
William Echikson’s new report on how European countries are treating their Holocaust history
Coverage of the report in Politico.eu; Grant Arthur Gochin’s blog in The Times of Israel.
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26 January 2019
Vilma Fiokla Kiurė:
Why do Authorities Choose to Evict Roma in the Middle of the Baltic Winter?
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ON OUR PAGES 7 YEARS AGO. 5 YEARS AGO. 3 YEARS AGO.
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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.
