Tag Archives: Emanuelis Zingeris

Lithuania’s Embassy in Washington Recruiting “Useful Academics” for Discredited “Red-Brown” Commission


The Baltic state-sponsored political infiltration into supposedly independent academic bodies concerned with Holocaust studies and education came into sharp focus in Washington this week with leakage to the media of a number of letters from Artūras Vazbys, Minister Counselor at the  Lithuanian embassy in Washington DC. The identical letters read:

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Embassy in Washington Recruiting “Useful Academics” for Discredited “Red-Brown” Commission

300 Neo-Nazis March through the Center of Kaunas on Lithuanian Independence Day; They are Addressed by Members of Parliament



E Y E W I T N E S S    R E P O R T  /  O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

With attention focused on the government-permission-granted central Vilnius neo-Nazi march slated for Lithuania’s March 11th independence day — now the subject of an international petition on Change.org — there was minimal foreign interest in today’s independence day neo-Nazi march and demonstration in central Kaunas, Lithuania’s second city. The March 11th independence day marks the date in 1990 when Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union. Today’s holiday is on the date of the 1918 declaration of independence which heralded the rise of the modern Lithuanian state in the twentieth century. Both dates are revered by the country’s diverse minorities and factions. They represent freedom from oppression and foreign domination, and celebrate the building of a free and democratic state.

But in recent years, both dates have been hijacked by neo-Nazi groups in the heart of the country’s major cities, with the support of some members of parliament and leading political figures. There is, moreover, the proverbial blind eye of much or most of the elite classes, which serves as a contributing catalyst.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Kaunas, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 300 Neo-Nazis March through the Center of Kaunas on Lithuanian Independence Day; They are Addressed by Members of Parliament

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Berates his Country’s Parliamentarians who Signed ‘70 Years Declaration’; Says Hitler = Stalin Except for Length of their Moustaches


The foreign minister of Lithuania did not wait until the day was over.

“It is not possible to find differences between Hitler and Stalin except in their moustaches (Hitler’s was shorter).”

— The Foreign Minister of Lithuania, commenting upon the Seventy Years Declaration in the early hours of 20 January 2012, 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference

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Posted in 70 Years Declaration, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Double Genocide, Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Yivo Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lithuanian Foreign Minister Berates his Country’s Parliamentarians who Signed ‘70 Years Declaration’; Says Hitler = Stalin Except for Length of their Moustaches

Main Lithuanian Paper Caves In to Antisemitic Sentiment as Economy Sours



O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

A colleague sent me a link to an article on the webpage of Lietuvos rytas that appeared in their Sunday edition during the first week of December, 2011 (PDF of the print version; full English translation;  report in Defending History.com). The heading on the email said the article was antisemitic.

Lietuvos rytas (“Lithuanian Morning”) has been Lithuania’s main newspaper pretty much since independence from the Soviet Union. The quality of the newspaper has varied over the years, but they at least usually refrain from printing overtly antisemitic material, whereas competing newspapers and their editors-in-chief have made this their bread and butter at certain periods, especially Lietuvos aidas and Respublika, although Lietuvos aidas has all but disappeared as a real newspaper and Respublika appears to have turned into an advertising-driven newspaper distributed for free.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Geoff Vasil, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Main Lithuanian Paper Caves In to Antisemitic Sentiment as Economy Sours

How the Zingeris-Račinskas Red-Brown Commission “Gently” Pushed Along the Conversion of Holocaust Studies into Double Genocide Studies



O P I N I O N

by Rachel Croucher (Melbourne)

Although not seeking to deny the Holocaust, the ultimate consequence of the movement to redefine genocide is the equalization of National Socialist and Soviet crimes. The characterization of Soviet crimes as genocide is a misrepresentation that hinders authentic remembrance of the Holocaust in Lithuania by helping to obscure the extent and nature of Lithuanian complicity in the killings of the local Jewish population.

The idea that the crimes of Hitler and successive Soviet regimes are in fact equal has been a growing force behind public discourse on the Holocaust since the formulation of the national Holocaust and Genocide Education Program at the sixth meeting of The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania in June 2002.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", Australia, Double Genocide, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Rachel Croucher | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How the Zingeris-Račinskas Red-Brown Commission “Gently” Pushed Along the Conversion of Holocaust Studies into Double Genocide Studies

A Conference for Tolerance Day


 


O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

On Wednesday, November 16th 2011, the Tolerance Center in Vilnius hosted a conference called: Tolerance and Totalitarianism. Challenges to Freedom.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Games, Events, Geoff Vasil, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Conference for Tolerance Day

Leading Lithuanian Daily Finally Exposes Genocide Center ‘Chief Specialist’ who is a Neo-Nazi Leader; He tells the paper: ‘There was no Holocaust!’


Lithuania’s major daily newspaper, Lietuvos rytas — Lrytas.lt — made some local journalistic history today with an extensive article by Dovilė Tuskenytė on the dangerous mainstreaming of neo-Nazism in the country that succeeded in its principal interview in eliciting the unvarnished tone of the movement. The article’s title in translation: ‘Lithuanian Neo-Nazis, who use paganism for cover, work in state institutions and claim the swastika is only a historical symbol’. There was general agreement in the human rights community that the article represented an important advance and that its author is to be congratulated. An English translation is available here.

The article is accompanied by a series of 23 photographs making very clear the nature of ‘national patriots’ involved in neo-Nazi activity, as well as the intent of the ‘recycled pagan symbols’ used nowadays by neo-Nazi groups. It follows the recent Delfi.lt article exposing government financial support for such groups.

Ms. Tuskenytė’s article contains an interview with the state-sponsored Genocide Center’s Ričardas Čekutis, who continues to be listed as a ‘chief specialist’ by the Center, some five months after serving as one of the organizers and leaders of a neo-Nazi march through the center of the nation’s capital, Vilnius on 11 March. His statements to Ms. Tuskenytė include the following:

“Čekutis says that the world visions of the EU and Adolf Hitler are identical. Čekutis agrees with neo-Nazis on another issue: that there was no Holocaust. The Lithuanian Nationalist Center chairman says that the victims from all countries in World War II need to be counted, and that most of them lost the same amount of people as the Jews who were murdered. He also explains that the figure of victims in the millions is nothing more than a myth created for contemporary Jews to receive different kinds of compensation from different countries.”

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Double Genocide, Genocide Center (Vilnius), Human Rights, Lithuania, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Racism, Vilnius | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Leading Lithuanian Daily Finally Exposes Genocide Center ‘Chief Specialist’ who is a Neo-Nazi Leader; He tells the paper: ‘There was no Holocaust!’

A Speech Never Spoken at Plungyán (Plungė)



O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

An imaginary speech, not delivered by any of the high government officials who addressed the commemoration at the mass murder site of the Jews of Plungyán (Plungė) on 17 July 2011.

 

My dear friends, it is precisely because I am a proud official of the government of independent, democratic, Lithuania, and I love my country, that I am able to speak here today openly, on the seventieth anniversary of the murder of the Jews of Plungė  — Plungyán, as they proudly called it in the Yiddish that rang through its streets for so many centuries.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Dovid Katz, Events, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Plungyán (Plungė), Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Speech Never Spoken at Plungyán (Plungė)

The Denial that is Part of Holocaust Obfuscation: Second Day of the Lithuanian Parliament’s Conference



by Dovid Katz

The Lithuanian Holocaust broke out in the week of 22 June 1941, when the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union; it is the week when, in many locations, so-called ‘patriots’ and ‘rebels’ in large numbers began to humiliate, plunder, injure and slaughter Jewish neighbors before the first Germans ever arrived. At the conference held yesterday and today in the country’s parliament, this was the Elephant in the Room that reared its head now and again, no matter how hard the political and academic planners worked to ensure that it would disappear in a program dedicated to virtually every other conceivable aspect (translation of original program here; final printed English version of the program here).

SEE ALSO:

Report on the first day of the conference.

Full translation of Mr. Racinskas’s speech.

The plot thickens. These are the very ‘patriots’ and ‘rebels’ who are being honored this week by major state institutions, and to no small degree, at this very conference. As if their launch of the Holocaust, which went on under German rule, and with their continued massive voluntary participation, is either some kind of uncorroborated slander, or, as if this is some very tiny detail in an otherwise glorious campaign of rebellion against Soviet forces (with no mention that the USSR’s troops were actually fleeing the German invasion, not their ‘rebellion’).

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Dovid Katz, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Genocide Center (Vilnius), Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Denial that is Part of Holocaust Obfuscation: Second Day of the Lithuanian Parliament’s Conference

DefendingHistory.com announces Media Chronicle of Opposition to the 2008 ‘Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism’


DefendingHistory.com has announced the free availability of a frequently updated resource page that provides links for select major expressions of opposition to the 2008 Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.  The page is available here or by visiting:

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‘Prague Process’ Crowd, with Lithuanian Jewish politician for cover (as usual), now proceeding with plans to ‘overhaul European history textbooks’ for Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation


The Prague Declaration proponents in European Parliamentary circles, having renamed their movement the ‘Prague Process’, are triumphantly reporting on their latest initiative to bring to fruition yet another of the movement’s stated objectives: to overhaul all the history textbooks in Europe to reflect the supposed ‘equality’ of Nazi and Soviet crimes, in other words to continue with the far right’s revision-of-history project to downgrade the Holocaust in the course of Double Genocide ideology.

As ever, the group is able at critical moments to wheel out Lithuania’s right-wing Jewish MP, Emanuelis Zingeris, himself a signatory of the Prague Declaration, who publicly resigned from his country’s Jewish community many years ago, but continues to run the ‘Jewish track’ of a complicated double-game policy that has led, in 2011, to the absurdity of a year to remember the Holocaust as well as a year to commemorate some of its local perpetrators who are glorified as ‘anti-Soviet heroes’ (see here, here and here).

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Genocide Research Center’s ‘Chief Public Relations Specialist’ Steps Up Antisemitic Campaign


Ričardas Čekutis, the Chief Public Relations Specialist at the state-funded Genocide Research Center who was a leader of the March 11th 2011 neo-Nazi march on the main boulevard of the Lithuanian capital, and was formerly a top parliamentary aide to a Liberal (!) MP, gave a further ‘charming interview’ on April 24th  to Diena.lt.

SEE EARLIER REPORT

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Critiques of the Red-Brown Commission



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


◊ 
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


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


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):

Sutton revised


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

Bankier on red-brown commission


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

Arad on Commission


 

2001-2007

Efraim Zuroff (Vilnius 2001)

Efraim Zuroff (Jerusalem 2005)

Efraim Zuroff (Jerusalem 2007)


2008-2013

Sir Martin Gilbert resigned in 2008:


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


Professor Dov Levin demanded removal of his name in 2008:


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:


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 2013US 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.

 


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.


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.


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.


2019

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


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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Critiques of the 2008 Prague Declaration (Select Bibliography)


Jump to  2008   2009   2010   2011   2012   2013   2014

THE PRAGUE DECLARATION AND ITS BACKGROUND

Five Occurences of the word same in the Prague Declaration:

1 “Consciousness of the crimes against humanity committed by the Communist regimes throughout the continent must inform all European minds to the same extent as the Nazi regime’s crimes did”

2 “Believing that millions of victims of Communism and their families are entitled to enjoy justice, sympathy, understanding and recognition for their sufferings in the same way as the victims of Nazism have been morally and politically recognized”

3 “Recognition that many crimes committed in the name of Communism should be assessed as crimes against humanity serving as a warning for future generations, in the same way Nazi crimes were assessed by the Nuremberg Tribunal”

4 “Establishment of 23rd August, the day of signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, as a day of remembrance of the victims of both Nazi and Communist totalitarian regimes, in the same way Europe remembers the victims of the Holocaust on January 27th”

5 “Adjustment and overhaul of European history textbooks so that children could learn and be warned about Communism and its crimes in the same way as they have been taught to assess the Nazi crimes”

 

Historic Breakthroughs

25 November 2010. For the first time since the Prague Declaration was proclaimed on 3 June 2008, a group of ambassadors  has spoken out to oppose ‘Double Genocide’. Opposition to the Declaration has been mounting steadily.

‘Spurious attempts are made to equate the uniquely evil genocide of the Jews with Soviet crimes against Lithuania, which, though great in magnitude, cannot be regarded as equivalent in either their intention or result.’

Excerpt from a letter to leaders of Lithuania from the Vilnius-based ambassadors of Britain, Estonia, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, 25 November 2010

DETAILS HERE AND HERE

20 January 2012. European Parliament opposing document:

The Seventy Years Declaration

The Prague Declaration was preceded by perfectly legitimate and noble condemnations of the evils of Soviet communism in the European Union’s institutions, before this movement was hiijacked by the far right’s red-equals-brown campaigners and their government backers in the eastern part of the EU. See: Soviet Crimes.

RELATED: PAGE ON TIMOTHY SNYDER’S BLOODLANDS


2008

Holocaust Survivors protest.

British Parliament (31 January 2008): MP John Mann, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, critiques the January 2008 precursor of the ‘Prague Declaration’ [see entry for 2:30 PM, paragraph 4; see also paragraph 3].

Algemeyner Zhurnal (25 July 2008): ‘Will the world remain silent as a new and more cunning form of Holocaust Denial comes before — the European Parliament?’ [in Yiddish] (by Dovid Katz). Part II.

Jerusalem of Lithuania [publication of the Jewish Community of Lithuania] (Oct-Dec 2008): ‘Concept inflation and the criminalization of debate’ (by Leonidas Donskis).

Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 3.3: 59-72: ‘Conflicting cultures of memory in Europe: New Borders between East and West?’ by Heidemarie Uhl.


2009

IPS (6 April 2009): ‘Communist ideology, as bad as Nazism?’ (by Zoltán Dujisin).

Institute for Global Jewish Affairs (1 May 2009): ‘Reviewing the Holocaust anew in multiple contexts’ (by Yehuda Bauer).

Jewish Chronicle (22 May 2009): ‘Prague’s declaration of disgrace: a European attempt to equate Communism with Nazism will falsify history’ (by Dovid Katz).

Irish Times (30 May 2009): ‘Genocide Industry has hidden agenda. Attempts at equalizing historical wrongs are often aimed at Holocaust Obfuscation’ (by Dovid Katz).

Jerusalem Post (12 July 2009): ‘A combined day of commemoration for victims of Nazism and Communism?’ (by Efraim Zuroff).

ITF [International Task Force on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research] (17 August 2009): Statement of the ITF Chair regarding the European Parliament resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism’ (by Ambassador Tom Vraalsen).

Guardian (28 September 2009): ‘The Nazi whitewash. I can’t believe Eric Pickles supports Latvia’s “For Fatherland and Freedom” party, which wants to rewrite a murderous history’ (by Efraim Zuroff); alternate link.

Luciana Berger’s Blog (3 October 2009): ‘With friends like these…’ (by Luciana Berger).

OSCE Human Rights Conference in Warsaw (5 October 2009): ‘“Prague Declaration” is a project to delete the Holocaust from European history’  (by Shimon Samuels); press release; alternate link.

Guardian (20 October 2009): ‘I knew this day of Holocaust “debate” would come. Just not in my lifetime’ (by Jonathan Freedland)

Clemens Heni (26 October 2009): ‘The Prague Declaration, Holocaust trivialization and antisemitism’ by Clemens Heni. PDF.

Jewish Chronicle (29 October 2009): UK MP John Mann, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, calls the Prague Declaration ‘a sinister document’ in his ‘Europe must focus on Baltic hate’.

Jerusalem of Lithuania (Autumn 2009): Milan Chersonski, editor of Jerusalem of Lithuania, publication of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, discusses the renewed government campaign against Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, librarian of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, in the context of the red-equals-brown movement in Europe.

Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel asks the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism to condemn  the  Prague Declaration.

Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism (16 December 2009): Informal statement by German parliamentarian Gert Weisskirchen.

Jerusalem Post (23 December 2009): ‘Of insult and mockery’ by Efraim Zuroff.

Washington Jewish Week (30 December 2009): ‘Don’t let the Holocaust be rewritten out of history’ by Dovid Katz.


2010

Scholars for Peace in the Middle East / SPME (4 January 2010): ‘The Prague Declaration: Antisemitism with a democratic face’  by Clemens HeniAlso on WPK.

Jewish Chronicle (7 January 2010): ‘A sinister scheme to devalue the Shoah is gathering steam’ by Efraim Zuroff.

The Guardian (8 January 2010): ‘Halting Holocaust obfuscation. The Baltic ultranationalists rewriting east European history as an equal Nazi-Soviet “double genocide” must be stopped’ by Dovid KatzRepublication in Russian.

Jerusalem Post (25 January 2010): ‘Remembering accurately on International Holocaust Remembrance Day’ by Yehuda Bauer.

Haaretz (26 January 2010): ‘Shoah scholars slam European Union Parliament for Obfuscation campaign’ by Cnaan Liphshiz.

Simon Wiesenthal Center (26 January 2010): Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, responds to the Arad accusations plus plans to replace Holocaust Remembrance Day with a mixed red-brown memorial day. Excerpt: ‘And how exactly, for example, would such “joint commemorations” unfold in Lithuania? A moment of silence for Jewish citizens butchered by the Nazis and their local collaborators, followed by a moment of silence for these victimizers, later turned into “victims of Communism?” I urge Lithuania and other supporters of this drive to drop their campaign and instead preserve the memory of the Shoah and the unique suffering of its victims that is commemorated on Holocaust Memorial Day.’

Warsaw Yiddish Radio, Naye Khvalyes, 31 January 2010): radio interview in Yiddish of Dovid Katz by Katka MazurczakAlternate link.

WPK (1 February 2010):  ‘Antisemitismus und die Prager Deklaration von Juni 2008’ by Clemens Heni.

Jewish Chronicle (4 February 2010): Simon Round’s interview of Dr Efraim Zuroff.

The Nation (12 February 2010): Mark Weitzman, United States director of governmental affairs at the Wiesenthal Center, reports that ‘[from] his talks with US officials in Washington and on Capitol Hill, he believes that the American silence on the matter will soon change as they are beginning to understand the seriousness of the situation’.

The New York Jewish Week (16 February 2010): ‘Islamophobia and Antisemitism: Holocaust Revisionism in Germany’ by Benjamin Weinthal.

Connecticut Jewish Ledger (26 February 2010): ‘Conversation with… Dovid Katz’ by Cindy MindellPDF.

Clemens Heni’s paper at the Baltic Forum in Riga on 15 March 2010.

Jerusalem Post (2 May 2010): ‘No tolerance for false history’ by Efraim Zuroff.

Tablet Magazine (3 May 2010): ‘The Crime of Surviving’ by Dovid Katz.

The Canadian Jewish News (21 May 2010): ‘Montreal professor launches Litvak Studies Institute in Vilnius’ by David Lazarus.

WPK (3 June 2010): ‘Joachim Gauck, die Prager Deklaration und europäischer Antisemitismus heute’ by Clemens Heni.

HITB (3 June 2010): ‘Contra Prague: Declaration on Unequal Totalitarian Regimes’ by Dovid Katz.

WPK (17 June 2010): ‘„Geistige Gesundung“ – Joachim Gauck und die neueste deutsche Ideologie’ by Clemens Heni.

NPD-Blog.Info (21 June 2010): ‘Zuroff: Gaucks Kandidatur “extrem beunruhigend”’.

Jerusalem Post (27 August 2010): ‘A threat to Holocaust memory’ by Efraim Zuroff.

Illustrierte Neue Welt (August-September 2010): ‘Relativierung des Holocaust. Prof. Dovid Katz im Gespräch mit Karl Pfeifer’ by Karl Pfeifer.

Leonidas Donskis’s blog (1 September 2010): ‘When will the truth finally set us free?’ by Leonidas Donskis.

Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism (1 September 2010):  ‘Time to free Europe of this poison’ by Dovid Katz.

Guardian (14 September 2010): ‘I see why “double genocide” is a term Lithuanians want. But it appals me. To equate Soviet and nazi crimes is dishonest and historically false. Why has this poisonous idea taken such deep root?’ by Jonathan Freedland.

Central and Eastern European Watch (15 September 2010): ‘”Double Genocide” and Lithuania’ by Karl Naylor.

The Guardian (17 September 2010): ‘Lithuania’s double genocide policy’. Letter to the Editor from Professor Tessa Rajak.

‘Lithuania has taken more than a “walk-on part in British politics”. When the European parliament called on its members, in April 2009, to mark 23 August as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, and when the OSCE, in July 2009, adopted the Vilnius Declaration on increasing awareness of totalitarian crimes, we too became party to the equation of Nazi crimes with those of communism in the Baltic states. By accepting the parallelism, we also have excused collaborators, ignored the unspeakable savageries perpetrated in Lithuania between 1941 and 1945, condoned the pardoning of every single Lithuanian war criminal until today, and endorsed the prosecution of Jewish resistance fighters, whose situation remains unresolved.’

Professor Tessa Rajak (London) in The Guardian (17 Sept 2010)

The Guardian (30 September 2010): ‘Why Red is not Brown in the Baltics. Unhappily,  Timothy Snyder’s historical reassesment of the Nazi-Soviet pact coincides with Baltic ultra-nationalist agendas’ by Dovid Katz.

Canadian Jewish News (7 October 2010): ‘Nazi crimes have been downgraded in Lithuania’ by Esther Goldberg.

The Guardian (21 December 2010): ‘Why is the US silent on “double genocide”? While European countries have condemned the new Holocaust revisionism in the Baltics, America shows no moral leadership’ by Dovid Katz.   In Russian.

The Guardian (21 December 2010): ‘EU rejects eastern states’ call to outlaw denial of crimes by communist regimes. Eastern European states wanted Soviet crimes “treated according to the same standards” as those of Nazi regimes’ by Leigh Philips.

Jewish Chronicle (29 December 2010): ‘EU halts move to downgrade Shoah’ by Michel Zlotowski.


2011

DefendingHistory.com: ‘Six countries try to “slip in” Double Genocide in the “Stockholm Programme”; European Commission says: No!”

Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism (17 January 2011):   ‘Never Again’ by Lord Janner of Braunstone.  Report here.

House of Commons, UK Parliament (20 January 2011): speech by MP Denis MacShaneReport here.

DefendingHistory.com (26 January 2011): ‘A rather simple story: Lithuania, the Jews, and the Shoah’ onDefendingHistory.com by Clemens Heni.

Canadian Jewish News (3 February 2011): ‘West must address Lithuanian revisionism: prof’ by David Lazarus.

Jewish Chronicle (4 February 2011): ‘A shameful Shoah whitewash’ in the Jewish Chronicle by Efraim Zuroff.

Jewish Chronicle (4 February 2011): ’Lithuania accused over Holocaust event’ in the Jewish Chronicle by Simon Rocker.

Die Tageszeitung (4 February 2011):  ‘”Diese Kampagne macht mich sehr wütend!”‘ [Interview of Dr Shimon Alperovich, chairman of the Jewish Community of Lithuania] by Frank Brendle.

Open Letter, signed by twenty-one persons, hand-delivered to the Embassy of Lithuania in London (7 February 2011).

Letter from the European Commission confirming the negative appraisal of 22 December 2010, regarding attempts to enact ‘Double Genocide legislation’ (21 February 2011). English translation. [A response to Didier Bertin of the Society for the Promotion of the European Human Rights Model]

Society for the Promotion of the European Human Rights Model (25 February 2011): Open letter from Didier Bertin to Viviane Reding, vice president of the European CommissionEnglish translation.

Society for the Promotion of the European Human Rights Model. Selection of documents.

East European Jewish Affairs (vol 41 [December] 2011, no. 3, pp. 207-221): ‘The detonation of the Holocaust in 1941: a tale of two books’ [review of Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands and Alexander PrusinThe Lands Between] by Dovid Katz.


2012

Seventy European Union parliamentarians sign the Seventy Years Declaration, published on 20 January 2012, which contains the language: ‘We reject attempts to obfuscate the Holocaust by diminishing its uniqueness and deeming it to be equal, similar or equivalent to Communism as suggested by the 2008 Prague Declaration.’

Jerusalem Post (28 May 2012): ‘A new dilemma in hosting a German president’ by Efraim Zuroff.

Haaretz, Books Supplement (24 September 2012): ‘Killed by their neighbors’ [review of David Bankier’s Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania; Frank Buonagunio’s The Last Bright Days. A Young Woman’s Life in a Lithuanian Shtetl on the Eve of the Holocaust; Ellen Cassedy’s We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust]’ by Efraim Zuroff [PDF of print edition here].

The Times of Israel (15 November 2012): ‘Efraim Zuroff, history’s lonely defender’  by Dovid Katz.

DefendingHistory.com (1 December 20120): ‘The Holocaust in Lithuania, and its obfuscation, in Lithuanian sources’ by Yizhak Arad.

London Jewish News (13 December 2012): ‘You cannot praise fascists and be pro-human rights’ by Dovid Katz.

David Williams, Rewriting History. Holocaust Revisionism Today, Hope Not Hate: London 2012.

Marc Ramdosky and Danny Ben-Moshe (producers of the documentary film) Rewriting History, Sydney 2012.


2013

Website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania (17 January 2013): ‘Instead of truth about the Holocaust — myths about saving Jews’ by Pinchos Fridberg. Also in the Algemeiner Journal (15 January 2013), the Operation Last Chance website of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (19 December 2012), and Defending History (24 December 2012), where links are provided to the publications of the article in the Russian language.

Jerusalem Post (9 April 2013): ‘A threat too serious to ignore. Israel should take action on Holocaust-related issues as some “culprits” likely to take over EU presidency’ by Efraim Zuroff.

Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs (May 2013). ‘Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Intermarium: The Land between the Black and Baltic Seas’ reviewed by Dovid Katz.

DefendingHistory.com (27 May 2013): ‘State-sponsored collective memory revisionism; a 21st century incarnation of Holocaust Denial?’ by Dovid Katz [PDF of power point presentation at the Second International Conference on Holocaust Museums and Memorial Places in Post-Communist Countries (in Riga, Latvia)].

Huffington Post (31 May 2013): ‘Truth wins’ by Edward Jacobs.

Section on the Prague Declaration (4 June 2013) in Clemens Heni’s paper at the World Jewish Congress Institute for Research and Policy.

DefendingHistory.com (15 November 2013): Clemens Heni’s works on the Prague Declaration.


 

2014

At the end of 2013, in an announcement disseminated mainly in January 2014, the World Union for Progressive Judaism announced it “fully endorses the Seventy Years Declaration. This Declaration, endorsed by 70 European Union parliamentarians who represent all sides of politics, is an attempt to distinguish between the horrors of the Shoah and other crimes against humanity. This has taken on a greater importance since the Prague Declaration of 2008 which attempts to equate the era of Nazism to that of Communist tyranny.”

In late March 2014, the Board of Deputies in London called on members of the European Parliament to work against the Prague Declaration and its ethos, in its A Jewish Manufesto, issued in the run-up to the European Parliament elections.

May 2014: Dan Stone’s new book, Goodbye to All That? A History of Europe Since 1945 (Oxford University Press) refers to the debate symbolized by the Prague Declaration vs. the Seventy Years Declaration.

Apastekhlatroymer: ‘Die Geschichte verteidigen – Defending History’ by Hans Breuer (post of 21 June 2014).

 

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Prague Declaration


Manifesto of the ‘Double Genocide’ and Holocaust Obfuscation movement

See also: Opposition to the Prague Declaration; Proposal for replacement; Statement on Soviet Crimes; The Seventy Years Declaration (+ Section).

The ‘Prague Declaration’ and its preceding and derivative European resolutions are based on ‘Double Genocide’: the proposed ‘equivalence’ of Nazi and Soviet crimes as revisionist history for the European Union. The theoretical constructs for the Double Genocide movement were developed by a number of historians in Eastern Europe, who have themselves on occasion been taken to task by courageous Lithuanian scholars who have exposed these works for what they are (see e.g. the classic review by V. Brandišauskas now available in English translation). Some of the bold dissenting voices from Lithuania are credited on this site’s Bold Citizens page.

The ‘Prague Declaration’ includes the following demands of the European Union:

‘recognize Communism and Nazism as a common legacy’

‘recognition that many crimes committed in the name of Communism should be assessed as crimes against humanity serving as a warning for future generations, in the same way Nazi crimes were assessed by the Nuremberg Tribunal’

‘ensuring the principle of equal treatment and non-discrimination of victims of all the totalitarian regimes’

‘a day of remembrance of the victims of both Nazi and Communist totalitarian regimes’

‘adjustment and overhaul of European history textbooks so that children could learn and be warned about Communism and its crimes in the same way as they have been taught to assess the Nazi crimes’

Chronological Outline of Developments (selection only)

Demands that the ‘Lithuanian suggestion to evaluate as equal crimes of Nazism and Stalinism’ be taken up by all EU countries (30 November 2007).

The precursor conference on ‘United Europe, United History’ in Tallinn (22 January 2008). 23 Jan. BNS report on the event, from the website of an Estonian MEP active in the movement (report now removed).

The ‘Prague Declaration’ (3 June 2008) at its own site [update of January 2012: declaration removed from this site which was reassigned to another Prague Declaration; see here for full original text; see here for a 2010 page capture of the original site); alternate link.

The ‘Prague Declaration’ on the website of the ‘International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania’; in Lithuanian.

Lithuanian ambassador to the United States formulates the red-equals-brown position in a letter to an American Jewish newspaper (11 July 2008).

Over four hundred MEPs sign a declaration supporting the Europe-wide establishment of August 23rd as a ‘European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism’ (23 Sept 2008).

President of Lithuania predicts that Europe will ‘equally’ condemn Nazi and Soviet crimes (24 Nov 2008).

The European Parliament resolution (2 April 2009) recommends a single mixed ‘Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, to be commemorated with dignity and impartiality’ [item 15]. Alternate link.

Incumbent chairman of the European Parliament thanks the Baltic states for educating the West via the red-brown resolutions (28 April 2009).

Elements of the ‘Prague Declaration’ (ambiguous ‘double genocide language’) inserted into the OSCE’s ‘Vilnius Declaration’ of 3 July 2009 [see p. 48, points 3 and 10].

Elements of the ‘Prague Declaration’ presented to the European Parliament session of 14 October 2009 (BNS report of 13 October 2009).

Proposal in Brussels at a European Parliament conference by the director of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Czech Republic (14 October 2009). The speaker of the Lithuanian parliament insisted that Europe adopt ‘a single view on the crimes of totalitarian regimes’.

Lithuania’s major news portal Delfi.lt  attacks Israel’s president Shimon Peres for differentiating Nazi and Soviet crimes, providing this graphic (14 November 2009).

The spirit of the Prague Declaration is inserted into the ‘Stockholm Programme 2010-2014’ with a provision on ‘equality’ of totalitarian regimes (report of 8 Dec 2009).

Attempted academic justification for the Prague Declaration by Rokas Grajauskas in Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review, 2010 (2): ‘Is there a chance for a common European culture of remembrance?’

After the EU’s Dec 2010 repudiation of attempts to insinuate Double Genocide in the Stockholm Programme, the Prague Declaration movement regroups in 2011 under the banner of: The Prague Process, announcing plans for 29 March 2011 meeting and funding under the ‘Europe for Citizens’ program, as well as plans to (abuse) the Hungarian and Polish presidencies of the EU for the red-equals-brown movement.

In 2012, the Lithuanian foreign ministry announces that pursuing in the EU the proposed unification of European history in a red=brown framework would be one of the formal goals of Lithuania’s 2013 rotating presidency of the EU.

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