Tag Archives: Holocaust in Lithuania

Vilnius Authorities Boldly Knock Down New Shrine to K. Škirpa, 1941 Planner and Inciter of Ethnic Cleansing of Lithuania’s Jews



DEFENDING HISTORY SUCCESSES | K. ŠKIRPA | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | VILNIUS | SHRINES TO HOLOCAUST COLLABORATORS IN VILNIUS

VILNIUS—Less than 48 hours of Defending History’s report on the new plaque glorifying J. Škirpa, a planner and instigator of mass murder of Lithuanian Jewry, including incitement of mobs that killed thousands before German Nazi forces even arrived or took over, the municipal authorities, in close touch with the national government of Lithuania, boldly and publicly today smashed the plaque and removed all trace of it. City contractors from “Grinda” were on hand for hours before police removed a handful of far-right protestors, in some cases with force. In a major development, the entire scene was videotaped by 15min.lt and appears online.

THE VIDEO

This is a sharp contrast with the then mayor’s furtive 4 AM removal of the previous Noreika plaque back in 2019 (which was followed by a mob coming to affix a new one in short order). The Defending History community rapidly responded on social media with the words: Bravo Lithuania!

A scene of moral beauty, authority,  integrity and justice from the government of 21st century democratic Lithuania

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Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Vilnius | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Vilnius Authorities Boldly Knock Down New Shrine to K. Škirpa, 1941 Planner and Inciter of Ethnic Cleansing of Lithuania’s Jews

New Plaque Glorifying ‘Chief Spokesman for Ethnic Cleansing’ in Lithuanian Holocaust Goes Up in Central Vilnius



OPINION | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | KAZYS ŠKIRPA | GENOCIDE CENTER IN VILNIUS | GENOCIDE MUSEUM | SHRINES TO HOLOCAUST COLLABORATORS IN VILNIUS  |  VILNIUS

Brand new plaque in central Vilnius for the man who set the formal goal of eliminating Jews from Lithuania in the run-up to the onset of the Lithuanian Holocaust. Photo: DefendingHistory.com

by Dovid Katz

VILNIUS—A crowd of ultranationalist glorifiers of Hitler’s invasion of Lithuania in June 1941 today affixed a handsome new plaque (with bas relief) on the corner of Vilnius’s central boulevard, glorifying Kazys Škirpa, who wrote pamphlets, in Berlin, calling for the elimination of Jews from Lithuania. His writings and radio broadcasts help incite the onset of the Lithuanian Holocaust on 23 June 1941, when his followers began butchering Jewish neighbors in Kaunas, and across Lithuania, before the Germans even arrived.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on New Plaque Glorifying ‘Chief Spokesman for Ethnic Cleansing’ in Lithuanian Holocaust Goes Up in Central Vilnius

New ‘Lost Shtetl’ Museum Allegedly Blocks Public Release of Documentary on the Holocaust in Sheduva. Meantime, Film (and Trailer) are Circulating Widely


[LATEST UPDATE; ORIGINAL PUBLICATION: 27 APRIL 2023]

OPINION|FILM|BOLD CITIZENS|SAULIUS BERŽINIS|SHEDUVA | MUSEUM OF THE LOST SHTETL

Partial chronology of recent events in the life and times of modern Lithuania’s first major Holocaust truth teller, documentary film maker

Saulius Beržinis

JUMP TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE

TO UPDATES; LATEST UPDATE

TO FOREIGN JOURNALIST’S ARTICLE WITHDRAWN FROM PUBLICATION

DEFENDING HISTORY’S BERŽINIS SECTION

What is it all about?

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Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Film, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Saulius Beržinis, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl" | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New ‘Lost Shtetl’ Museum Allegedly Blocks Public Release of Documentary on the Holocaust in Sheduva. Meantime, Film (and Trailer) are Circulating Widely

“Museum of the Lost Shtetl” Forces Removal of Saulius Beržinis’s 5 Minute Youtube Trailer Featured on Yom HaShoah



OPINION | FILM | BOLD CITIZENS | SAULIUS BERŽINIS | SHEDUVA | MUSEUM OF THE LOST SHTETL

Five Minutes & Six Seconds:

The Satanic Verses of Sheduva, Lithuania?

Our take:

We sincerely regret that the directors, donors, and staff of the “Museum of the Lost Shtetl” in the town of Sheduva, Lithuania have not yet spoken out freely and publicly about removal from Youtube of the five minute and six second  trailer to Saulius Beržinis’s classic Holocaust documentary on Sheduva:

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Posted in Free Speech & Democracy, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Saulius Beržinis, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl" | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on “Museum of the Lost Shtetl” Forces Removal of Saulius Beržinis’s 5 Minute Youtube Trailer Featured on Yom HaShoah

Welcoming Springtime in Vilnius with Ever More Repairs at Library of Sciences



 J. NOREIKA | NOREIKA PLAQUE IN CENTRAL VILNIUS | COLLABORATOR GLORIFICATION | VILNIUS: 700 YEARS CELEBRATION

Ides of March 2024:

BUT STILL NO ANNOUNCED DECISION ON FUTURE OF CENTRAL VILNIUS SHRINE TO HITLER COLLABORATOR J. NOREIKA. A SHRINE WITH A RECENT STORIED HISTORY. ONE OF A NUMBER OF PUBLIC-SPACE SHRINES IN VILNIUS GLORIFYING LOCAL HOLOCAUST PERPETRATORS.

Ever more antics to avoid having to permanently remove plaque glorifying the Nazi collaborator (or just to delay announcing any decision)? National Library of Sciences in central Vilnius on the eve of the Ides of March 2024. Defending History photos by William Adan Pahl.

Critics ask: Is it all to avoid making the bold decision to leave the plaque and bas relief of Noreika away from the building’s facade and right on the junkpile of Hitlerist paraphernalia — where it justly belongs?

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Vilnius | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Welcoming Springtime in Vilnius with Ever More Repairs at Library of Sciences

New American Ambassador in Vilnius, HE Kara McDonald, Makes History Rapidly



COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | NOREIKA SAGA | JUOZAS KRIKSTAPONIS  MONUMENTU.S.A.

America’s new ambassador in Vilnius, HE Kara McDonald, makes a dramatic entrance that will go down in history, citing  glorified Holocaust perpetrators Krikštaponis and Noreika by name, in first major interview:

“I will continue to speak out strongly against the glorification of individuals who are known and documented to have participated in the Holocaust. This is part of the definition of antisemitism.”

New US ambassador in Vilnius HE Kara McDonald

THE INTERVIEW ON BNS/LRT

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, United States, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on New American Ambassador in Vilnius, HE Kara McDonald, Makes History Rapidly

Yad Vashem Director Dani Dayan, Speaking in Lithuanian Parliament, Boldly Raises the Glorification of Holocaust Collaborators Noreika, Škirpa and Krikštaponis


[UPDATES TO 3 OCT. 2023]

OPINION | IT PAYS TO DEFEND HISTORY | YAD VASHEM AND LITHUANIA | ISRAEL SECTION | ISRAEL DEBATE CHRONICLE

by Dovid Katz

The modest but resolute Defending History community, in Vilnius and internationally, in unanimity today expressed heartfelt congratulations to Yad Vashem director Dani Dayan who broke dramatically, and publicly, with decades of what the last Lithuanian Holocaust survivors considered to be tragic betrayal and appeasement, often under presumed political pressure (see our report from earlier this week and Defending History’s section “Yad Vashem and Lithuania“).

Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan (photo courtesy Yad Vashem)

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Posted in Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Israel, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Yad Vashem and Lithuania | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Yad Vashem Director Dani Dayan, Speaking in Lithuanian Parliament, Boldly Raises the Glorification of Holocaust Collaborators Noreika, Škirpa and Krikštaponis

B’nai B’rith Australia & New Zealand Issues Press Release on Saulius Beržinis Award



FILM | SAULIUS BERŽINIS | SHEDUVA  | BOLD CITIZENS

VILNIUS—B’nai B’rith Australia & New Zealand today issued the following press release accompanying its lifetime achievement award earlier this month to Lithuanian filmmaker Saulius Beržinis (see also DH’s report on the dramatic saga in the background).

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Posted in Arts, Australia, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Film, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Saulius Beržinis, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl" | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on B’nai B’rith Australia & New Zealand Issues Press Release on Saulius Beržinis Award

B’nai B’rith Australia & New Zealand Honors Filmmaker Saulius Beržinis, Bold Fighter for Historic Truth



BOLD CITIZENS | SAULIUS BERŽINIS | SHEDUVAFILM

THE INTRICATE SAGA IN THE BACKGROUND


 

Posted in Arts, Australia, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Film, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Saulius Beržinis | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on B’nai B’rith Australia & New Zealand Honors Filmmaker Saulius Beržinis, Bold Fighter for Historic Truth

Notes and Updates on Silvia Foti’s ‘The Nazi’s Granddaughter: How I Discovered My Grandfather was a War Criminal’


[LATEST UPDATES]

Silvia Foti: The Nazi’s Granddaughter: How I Discovered My Grandfather was a War Criminal

UPDATE OF JULY 2023: NOREIKA PLAQUE COMES DOWN FOR NATO CONFERENCE. FOR HOW LONG?

UPDATE OF JULY 2022: Foti’s The Nazi’s Granddaughter is reissued with the new title Storm in the Land of Rain

UPDATE OF MAY 2022:

Sylvia Foti’s major new book is widely available in English and Lithuanian, among other languages. QUESTION: Why is the center of Vilnius still blighted by an upgraded plaque & bas-relief  (right) and a central boulevard marble slab glorifying Hitler collaborator Jonas Noreika, who masterminded the death of thousands of Jews, and touted his unadulterated hate for Jewish fellow citizens in a prewar book? Why do  Western diplomats, and most visiting American, British and Israeli Jewish dignitaries feel obliged to avoid even the most polite critique of these prominent carbuncles on the face of the European Union? Surely, a true friend of Lithuania would want the best for Lithuania and its international stature, even if a small far-right “history rewriting elite” might feel offended.

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Israel Chronicle


[most recent update]

Israeli Foreign Policy and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe (1990 — 2023)

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Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Israel, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yad Vashem and Lithuania, Yitzhak Arad | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Israel Chronicle

Lithuanian Holocaust Remembered in Wollongong, Australia



EVENTS  |  LITHUANIA  |  HISTORY  |  MUSEUMS

by Michael Samaras

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA—More than 100 people attended the Wollongong Art Gallery to hear Professor Konrad Kwiet, resident historian at the Sydney Jewish Museum, deliver a public lecture on the Holocaust in Lithuania and the wartime role of Bronius ‘Bob’ Sredersas.

Wollongong Art Gallery audience listens to Professor Konrad Kwiet on the Lithuanian Holocaust. Photo: Michael Samaras.

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Garliava, Lithuania: On the Town’s Holocaust Mass Grave and its Old Jewish Cemetery



CEMETERIES AND MASS GRAVES  |  POLITICS OF MEMORY  |  LITVAK AFFAIRS

by Julius Norwilla

The Holocaust Mass Grave Site

The best way to reach the mass killing site in Garliava (Yiddish Gúdleve, Polish Godlewo), is to take a train from the central train station in Kaunas. It is just one stop. The railway runs south, through a picturesque valley of the languid river Jiesia. Garliava is a township historically in the Suwałki region. It is named after an ancient landlord and noble family Godlewski. It seems that twentieth century ethnic purity zealots renamed the township into Garliava to sever any obvious link to the personage commemorated by the town’s naming, thereby reducing the historical chronicle of the entire region to a narrow and assertively ethnonationalist narrative

When you step out of the old railway station in Garliava, the town itself is still one kilometer away. The train line and the station were built in 1862, and one can wonder, what  the point was, with the then cutting-edge train technology of the time, to make a long detour around the town and build the station somewhere in the middle of the fields, or as one might put it, right in the middle of nowhere?

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Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, History, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Garliava, Lithuania: On the Town’s Holocaust Mass Grave and its Old Jewish Cemetery

Review of Michael Kretzmer’s Documentary Film “J’Accuse”



OPINION | FILM | ARTS | MEDIA | COLLABORATOR GLORIFICATION | J. NOREIKA

by Dovid Katz

Genuine heroes of this saga—both written out of the film

  • At left: Evaldas Balčiūnas (who first called his nation’s attention (in Lithuanian) and the world’s (in English) to state-sponsored adulation of Lithuanian Holocaust perpetrator J. Noreika. That was a year after his classic essay “Why does the state commemorate murderers?” appeared in Defending History in 2011. Here pictured at Vilnius County Court after one of the hearings in the litany of kangaroo cases against him (Defending History was there at each hearing to support him). He is DH’s 2023 Person of the Year.
  • At right: Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas brought his self-crafted poster to a nationalist event on independence day in central Vilnius, with an image to show his people the kind of national hero Lithuania should be celebrating: the inspirational Holocaust-era rescuer Malvina Šokelytė Valeikienė (DH’s person of the year in 2018). The gentle, teetotaling mathematician and philosopher took this sign right into the heart of an alcohol-fueled ultranationalist demonstration, leaving observers of every persuasion in awe of his courage. Dr. Kulikauskas boldly led the effort to expose Noreika in Lithuania and is the de facto author of the primary documents underpinning the legal petitions to the state’s Genocide Center and its courts. A Lithuanian American born and raised in California, he and his family migrated to newly free Lithuania decades ago.
  • See DH’s Evaldas Balčiūnas and Andrius Kulikauskas sections. A future film maker might even find an enchanting angle in the stark differences between the two Lithuanian heroes of this story. One is a devout Catholic, the other an atheist. One is an anarchist, the other a nationalist. One an urban family guy, the other a lone thinker and dreamer in a faraway wooden hut in the depths of the Lithuanian countryside.

VILNIUS—Michael Kretzmer’s new documentary J’Accuse! provides a terrific extended interview with legendary truth-teller Silvia Foti. The film’s narration provides effective statements on ongoing East European state adulation of Nazi collaborators though focused on just one, Jonas Noreika of Lithuanian Holocaust infamy (who was the Chicago-born Foti’s grandfather).

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Posted in Arts, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, Film, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, Michael Kretzmer's Documentary Film "J'Accuse!" on the Lithuanian Holocaust, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Review of Michael Kretzmer’s Documentary Film “J’Accuse”

DH’s 2023 Person of the Year: Evaldas Balčiūnas



PERSON OF THE YEAR  |  LITHUANIA  |   EVALDAS BALČIŪNAS  |  LITVAK AFFAIRS  | HUMAN RIGHTS  |  HISTORY

In the decade since Evaldas Balčiūnas began informing the English-speaking world, in a series of articles in Defending History, of the details, scope, and pain of his own country pursuing a state policy of glorifying Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators, the phenomenon has moved from local shadows to the bright lights of open and free debate across the democratic world. His 2012 exposé of Holocaust perpetrator Jonas Noreika ultimately led to the publication in America of a bold new book, The Nazi’s Granddaughter by Sylvia Foti. But back here in Lithuania, Evaldas was lugged into court for years and years on kangaroo charges and harassed extensively. The Defending History team was there at each hearing to provide moral support. The day will surely come when Evaldas Balčiūnas — journalist, educator, rebel, author, and historian — will be honored by Jewish and Holocaust history and remembrance groups internationally, by humanists everywhere, and last but not least, by his own country, as its fearless grand  ethicist of the earlier twenty-first century.

Editor’s memoir

Evaldas Balčiūnas

In 2011, when our small Defending History team headed out (as we did each year) to Kaunas to monitor and document the 2011 neo-nazi city center march, an event that glorified Holocaust collaborators, we went for a coffee after the event. There, our mentor who never missed a march before his final illness, Milan Chersonski (1937–2021), the longtime Vilnius Yiddish theatre director and editor for some dozen years of the Lithuanian Jewish community’s quadrilingual newspaper, Jerusalem of Lithuania, told us (in Yiddish, of course): “Look, there is one young Lithuanian who has more courage than the rest of the country combined. He has been writing articles on the tragedy of his country’s government organs glorifying Holocaust collaborators in the public space. And unlike others, he’ll be happy for Defending History to publish them in English translation. Trust me, his articles are more important that all of ours that come from Jewish pens.”

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Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, Defending History's Person of the Year, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on DH’s 2023 Person of the Year: Evaldas Balčiūnas

Jerusalem Post’s ‘Report’ on ‘Kaunas Capital of European Culture’ Fails to Even Mention Public Shrines Glorifying Local Holocaust Perpetrators



OPINION  |  MEDIA WATCH  |  KAUNAS  | GLORIFICATION OF COLLABORATORS

Not for the first time, the Jerusalem Post has sent a “correspondent” to Lithuania to do a write-up in the professional style of a journalist’s report, that serves in fact to facilitate the project of some branches of the Lithuanian government to falsify Holocaust history (2013 example). This falsification is not in the spirit of classical denial of the last century. It is rather primarily a case of dotting the country with shrines (street names, plaques, sculptures, school and university hall names), all in the public space, all financed by the state, that actually glorify local Holocaust collaborators and perpetrators, while simultaneously investing a fortune in “Jewish events” that will hypnotize naive foreign visitors who like royal treatment, photo-ops with officials, and delightful attention.

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Posted in Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Jerusalem Post’s ‘Report’ on ‘Kaunas Capital of European Culture’ Fails to Even Mention Public Shrines Glorifying Local Holocaust Perpetrators

Updates on Kaunas’s ‘Capital of European Culture 2022’ Year Without (So Far) Removing a Single Shrine to Local Holocaust Collaborators


[latest update]

OPINION  |  LITVAK AFFAIRS  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  | THE 2022 LEVINAS AFFAIR OF 2022

Congratulations to the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, once known also as Kovno (in Yiddish forever: Kóvne) on its selection as Europe’s “Capital of European Culture” in 2022, sharing the title with Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg. But as  the midpoint of the city’s co-reign rapidly approaches, it is necessary, albeit sad, to have to note that not a single public-space glorification of local Holocaust collaborators had been removed. Zero. No city on the planet has as many monuments to local partners in the genocide of that city’s Jews. The 30,000 Litvaks (Lithuanian Jews) of Kaunas were brutally murdered, and the city played the primary role in the launch of the Lithuanian genocide on 23 June 1941, before the arrival of the first German forces. Thousands were murdered before the Germans arrived and/or set up their administration.

See Lev Golinkin’s updated 2022 catalogue in the Forward of public space shrines to Nazi collaborators worldwide

Lithuanian government authorities have  reportedly invested large sums to lure “Useful Jewish Idiots” from the UK, US, Israel, and further afield to participate in “cultural events” intended to obfuscate and deflect from the primary issue: Why are the enablers of the slaughter of Kovno Jewry still honored by street names, plaques and university lecture halls and statues in the city? Local Jewish leaders who have dared to speak up have rapidly been smeared as “Putinists” for daring to criticize the far right’s hold over national history policy (and indeed, the need for such a policy to start with).

But in the waning days of 2021, a “waterfall of truth” began to cascade from an unanticipated quarter. Michael Levinas, son of the celebrated Lithuanian-Jewish born French philosopher Emanuel Levinas, forbade authorities to name a fancy new institute after his father. This was kept under wraps until his 21 Dec.  Le Figaro opinion piece broke the story, and it was duly reported in Lithuania by LRT.lt. See Defending History’s media tracker page for background and updates.

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Posted in 'Levinas Center' in Kaunas, Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, Jonas Žemaitis, Kaunas, Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Updates on Kaunas’s ‘Capital of European Culture 2022’ Year Without (So Far) Removing a Single Shrine to Local Holocaust Collaborators

In Honor of Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Brancovskaja) on her 100th Birthday (2022)


[LAST UPDATE]

by Dovid Katz

Compilation of articles, documentaries, videos, and photos. Plus: from the saga of 2008

See Defending History’s Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky Section

Note: This page is a work in progress. A number of older documents, articles, photographs, and recordings remain to be digitized, catalogued, and posted.

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja), Film, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on In Honor of Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Brancovskaja) on her 100th Birthday (2022)

Another ‘Fake Litvak Congress’? Litvaks of Lithuania are Excluded on Orders of Election-coup ‘Pylimo 4 Bosses’; Photo-op Foreigners In Town for Gov. Hosted Event



OPINION  |  LITVAK AFFAIRS  | WHAT DO FAKE LITVAK GAMES LOOK LIKE?  |  VILNIUS JEWISH COMMUNITY’S STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE  |  (AB)USE OF JEWISH EVENTS FOR HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM  | WHEN GOV. MINISTRIES MEDDLE IN FRAGILE MINORITY CULTURE (& HISTORY DEBATES)  |  LITHUANIA

by Dovid Katz

Most Lithuanian government officials in diverse branches of its democratic government, including so many in its Culture and Education ministries, its local museums and libraries, its schools and cultural centers, have a warm and healthy attitude toward both the historic weight and tragic fate of the nation’s Jewish minority. This is important to keep in mind as we come yet again to provide a voice for the voiceless: the manipulation of the fragile Litvak and Yiddish culture, of the last survivors and their families, and of Holocaust history by some small and lavishly financed “Jewish fix-it units” including the Genocide Center, Genocide Museum, Red-Brown Commission, and a scattering of “Jewish, Yiddish and Litvak” centers in central Vilnius, a good part of which exclude from all professional participation people — including top specialists in the relevant field — who dare disagree with state revisionism on the Holocaust. In some cases, this policy brings about the succeeding phase of “Jewish” addresses without a single Jewish member of staff (think African American Cultural Center in Alabama, staffed by pure lily-whites who won’t mess up and peradventure say something contrary to local “patriotic” history-book narratives demanded by nationalists).

Even as the civilized world joins in condemning the barbaric, medieval Putinist invasion of peaceful Ukraine, and unites to embrace its people, and the freedom and simple peace they seek, the Lithuanian Seimas (parliament), is hosting the grand opening of the latest “Litvak Congress” (program here and here), at which none of Lithuania’s great Litvak achievers of recent years, have been invited to speak, or in most cases to even attend. They are being cancelled during their lifetime. The list is long. Just a few examples: Genrich Agranovski, Anna Avidan, Chaim Bargman, Roza Bieliauskienė, Ruta Bloshtein, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Brancovskaja), Dalija Epšteinaitė, Prof. Pinchos Fridberg, Simon Gurevich (Simonas Gurevičius), Irina Guzenberg, Elen Janovskaja, Regina Kopilevich, Arkady Kurliandchik, Polina Pailis, Prof. Josif Parasonis, and (now in retirement in Berlin) Rachel Kostanian. These and others have made empirically demonstrable and durable contributions to the Litvak heritage and its documentation and perpetuation well into the future, and have valiantly and selflessly fought for Litvak causes, a category in which defense of history is a cause as paramount as any.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Dovid Katz, Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, ministries, News & Views, Opinion, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Another ‘Fake Litvak Congress’? Litvaks of Lithuania are Excluded on Orders of Election-coup ‘Pylimo 4 Bosses’; Photo-op Foreigners In Town for Gov. Hosted Event

Subtle Art of State Antisemitism ― East European Style (with ubiquitous nod to glorification of Holocaust collaborators)



OPINION  |  LITVAK AFFAIRS  |  (AB)USE OF JEWISH STUDIES FOR HISTORICAL REVISIONISM  |  YIDDISH AFFAIRS  | YIVO IN LITHUANIA  | MEDIA WATCH  | FOREIGN MINISTRIES AND JUDAIC STUDIES  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  | NOREIKA GLORIFIED

by Julius Norwilla (Vilnius)

On the 4th of April 2022, the website of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a news item titled (in Lithuanian, here translated) “Lithuania will expand cooperation with Yivo Jewish Research Institute, preserving and publicizing Lithuanian Jewish history” (as PDF). The site’s English language section uses the headline wording “Lithuania to expand cooperation with Yivo Institute for Jewish Research to protect and promote the history and heritage of Lithuanian Jews” (as PDF).

The news article contains information about the visit of the esteemed American scholar, Dr. Jonathan Brent, the executive director and CEO of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research in New York, also a famed educator and academic publisher, with his colleagues, and their meeting with the deputy foreign minister. The news item appears intent on communicating to the world how much our country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs cares about its Jewish and Yiddish legacy and how sensitive it is to the history of Lithuanian Jewry.

Both the Lithuanian and English versions are illustrated with a three-photo gallery portraying three scenes of the meeting: shaking hands at the welcome, a moment at the meeting table and the final with those at the meeting posing for the official photo-op.

Everything seems to be done according to the usual protocols of such meetings, at which the professional photographer takes numerous photos from start to finish, culminating with the final photo-op. Then the few dozen shots are whittled down to the most informative and appropriate handful for publication. The ones that make the point best. Elementary.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, ministries, News & Views, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like?, Yiddish Affairs, Yivo Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Subtle Art of State Antisemitism ― East European Style (with ubiquitous nod to glorification of Holocaust collaborators)