Tag Archives: Holocaust in Lithuania

Books in the Debate (a DefendingHistory.com selection)


[last update]


see also: BOOKS SECTION


Not yet published:

Michael Shafir, Competitive Martyrdom [working title]

Draft manuscript of the book circulated to colleagues (for comments and criticism) before the author’s sudden death in 2022. See Defending History’s Michael Shafir section. It is hoped that Professor Shafir’s heirs will enable rapid publication of this major and indispensable work in the field.


2025

Saulius Sužiedėlis, Crisis, War, and the Holocaust in Lithuania

Reactions, reviews, and citations:

Roland Binet: Autopsy of the Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. Or: How to Subtly Rewrite History

Clemens Heni: Mit Kojak gegen die Rot=Braun-Ideologie

Continue reading

Posted in Books, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Rūta Vanagaitė | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Books in the Debate (a DefendingHistory.com selection)

Autopsy of the Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. Or: How to Subtly Rewrite History



BOOKS | BOOKS IN THE DEBATELITHUANIA

 

REVIEW ARTICLE

by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

Saulius Sužiedėlis, Crisis, War, and the Holocaust in Lithuania. Academic Studies Press (Newton, Massachusetts) in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington DC). 2025, 626 pp.

Human feelings are now as candles without wick burning from inside.

(from a poem by Avrom Sutzkever, a tribute to Yiddish teacher Yankev Gershtein who perished in the Vilna Ghetto on September 27, 1942 (quote from Rudashevski’s Diary)

Professor emeritus Saulius Sužiedėlis of Millersville University of Pennsylvania begins this major new book by characterizing its long and productive journey. “This study is the result of years of interaction with historians, journalists, and writers from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the United States, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Israel. Inspiration and encouragement emerged from discussions among the eleven-member Sub-Commission on Nazi Crimes, part of the Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania” (p. vii). Sužiedėlis’s opus on the Jews in Lithuania and their almost complete disappearance during the war years is a meticulously researched, coherently chronicled and impressively documented opus, tackling many themes, issues and problems with a staggering abundance of facts, figures, quotes, opinions, and anecdotes. Chunks of it read almost like an autopsy report on places and massacres rather than on an individual’s remains. I find it overall to be an exceptional, very well written, and significant contribution.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Books, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Roland Binet | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Autopsy of the Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. Or: How to Subtly Rewrite History

Prof. Girnius Tries Again to Glorify the LAF that in 1941 Killed Thousands of Jewish Neighbors, Unleashing the Lithuanian Holocaust



OPINION | LEGACY OF 23 JUNE 1941 | 2011 ATTEMPTS TO SANITIZE THE LAF  |  LAF’S INTENTIONS IN WRITING | ŠKIRPA’S PLANSCOLLABORATORS GLORIFIED | LITHUANIAN JEWISH AFFAIRS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

OPINION

The eminent Harvard and Univ. of Chicago educated American-Lithuanian professor and public affairs analyst, Kęstutis Girnius, tried a decade and a half ago to mobilize support for a far-right inspired dry-clean of the “Lithuanian Activist Front” (LAF, Lietuvių aktyvistų frontas, “white armbanders”) which was the 1941 organization that did not shoot a rabbit when the Soviets were in power (1940-1941) but began to murder thousands of innocent Jewish neighbors the moment the Soviet army started its panicked flight eastward, and there was no authority to stop them. Hitler’s local henchmen declared an “independence” that included the oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, the commitment to rid Lithuania of all its Jews, and the unleashing of barbaric murder before the Germans even arrived or set up their control. Any true friend of Lithuania will understand that this is the kind of pro-fascist revisionism that beautiful, modern, tolerant, democratic Lithuania needs like a hole in the head.

Girnius’s gushing public announcement of the new initiative to whitewash the LAF was announced in an article in Delfi.lt this week, heralding the formation of a group of Conservative (Homeland Union party) members of parliament who are forming a “collegium” for this  task. If that’s correct, it would, in one fell swoop, undermine the magnificent contributions of so many great truth-telling Lithuanian ethicists of the past three and a half decades, including Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Saulius Beržinis, Aleksandras Bosas, Valentinas Brandišauskas, Algirdas Brazauskas, Leonidas Donskis, Silvia Foti, Andrius Kulikauskas, Liudas Truska, Rūta Vanagaitė, Nida Vasiliauskaitė, Tomas Venclova, Linas Vildžiūnas, and numerous others.

Continue reading

Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, History, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Prof. Girnius Tries Again to Glorify the LAF that in 1941 Killed Thousands of Jewish Neighbors, Unleashing the Lithuanian Holocaust

Claims Conference Should Think Again Before Inadvertently Legitimizing East European Far-Right Holocaust Revisionism



OPINION | THE RED-BROWN COMMISSION | FANIA YOCHELES BRANTSOVSKY | YITZHAK ARADDOUBLE GENOCIDE | LITHUANIA | LITVAK AFFAIRS

OPINION

VILNIUS—Everybody makes mistakes, even august, storied and splendid international organizations. As in personal affairs, so in conference rooms, the secret is in the ability to say so and make a change, remembering the adage attributed to Mark Twain, along the lines of it being much easier to fool a person than to get them to admit they have been fooled.

The Claims Conference (Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany) has just allowed its vaunted name and logo to appear on the publicity for events in Palanga and Plunge, Lithuania organized by one of the major engines of East European Holocaust revisionism. That entity is the state-sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes,” which local diplomats have long dubbed for short “the Red-Brown Commission” starting in 2008 when the Commission reacted with utter silence to prosecutors’ launching of absurd and cruel kangaroo pretrial war crimes investigations into two of Vilnius’s most beloved Holocaust survivors, Dr. Rachel Margolis (1921-2015) and Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (1922-2024). Please skim through the saga.

Continue reading

Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky (Fania Brancovskaja): 1922-2024, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Claims Conference Should Think Again Before Inadvertently Legitimizing East European Far-Right Holocaust Revisionism

Saulius Beržinis’s Documentary Film ‘Petrified Time’ on the Holocaust in Sheduva



FILM | ARTS | OPINION | SHEDUVA | SAULIUS BERŽINIS

FILM REVIEW

by Roland Binet  (De Panne, Belgium)

The history of Lithuania during the Second World War is complex and tragic. After short-lived continued independence in 1939-1940, following the playing out of the secret clauses of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939, the USSR effectively took over Lithuania in June 1940 and established a harsh regime. Tens of thousands of inhabitants were then deported to Siberia, with big blocks of victims just one week prior to Germany’s June 1941 Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Nazi invaders and high numbers of local collaborators slaughtered 96.4% of the Jewish population of the country, over 200,000 people, one of the highest rates of the genocide of the Jews in Holocaust-era Europe. In 1944, the USSR liberated the country from the Germans, and then went on to occupy it until its renewed independence in 1990. It has since rapidly evolved into a successful EU and NATO state.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Arts, Film, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Roland Binet, Saulius Beržinis, Šeduva (Sheduva, Shádeve, Shádov) and its "Museum of the Lost Shtetl" | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Saulius Beržinis’s Documentary Film ‘Petrified Time’ on the Holocaust in Sheduva

The Saga of Saulius Beržinis’s Documentary on the Holocaust in Sheduva: In Spite of ‘Ban’, Copies 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

FOREIGN JOURNALIST’S ARTICLE WITHDRAWN FROM PUBLICATION

DEFENDING HISTORY’S BERŽINIS SECTION

What is it all about?

Continue reading

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 The Saga of Saulius Beržinis’s Documentary on the Holocaust in Sheduva: In Spite of ‘Ban’, Copies are Circulating Widely

Antisemitism, Holocaust Revisionism, and Anti-Israelism in Modern Lithuania



OPINION  |  ANTISEMITISM  |  HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM  |  LITHUANIAN JEWISH LIFE 

by Arkady Kurliandchik

Reflecting on the current situation in Lithuania, where open antisemites do not hesitate to reveal themselves as such, I am trying to understand the origins of such behavior.

According to some historians, approximately 20,000 people in Lithuania actively participated in the extermination of Jews during World War II. And those who did not personally engage in the killings but considered such extermination to be just and commendable numbered in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

Antisemitic propaganda did not originate in Germany, but before the war, it became particularly sophisticated there. Jews were portrayed as insects that needed to be exterminated. And then this initiative was adopted and further developed in Lithuania.

Viewpoint of a Jewish citizen in today’s Vilnius

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Arkady Kurliandchik, Double Genocide: The New Form of Holocaust Revisionism & Denial, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Antisemitism, Holocaust Revisionism, and Anti-Israelism in Modern Lithuania

Kaunesia: Travelling the Dark Memory Lanes of Kaunas


 


OPINION | KAUNAS | MUSEUMS | ANTISEMITISM

by Adam J. Sacks

It says something that the only “Devil Museum” in the world is to be found in Kaunas, Lithuania. This city sometimes also known as Kovno, is the most Lithuanian of cities, the capital of independent Lithuania in the interwar years, and still today, the more fully Lithuanian when contrasted to the more multicultural current capital of Vilnius. The Russian, Polish, and English languages, for instance, which are fairly common in Vilnius, are nary to be heard in Kaunas. This “Devil’s Museum” is a global and learned collection of 3000 figurines from 70 countries made by a prominent Lithuanian professor and is certainly a landmark and a must-see. The devil is the most dominant figure in Lithuanian folklore. This figure apparently has a thousand names in the ancient Sanskrit-related Lithuanian language, with over 400 places names and 5000 legends featuring this character. While surveying the collection, so many features of these legends pop out: the devil is rich, often a thief, one who pours coins, who controls the vodka trade, imparts powers of virtuosity on the violin, and who even, at times, cooks humans.

In the accompanying notes, one learns that the devil is often depicted as a nobleman, sometimes even as a German. Yet nowhere in the entire museum however is even the word Jew, or Jewish, even mentioned. Needless to say, the physiognomy in the overwhelming majority of the figurines closely matches the hallmarks and the stereotype of the antisemitic rendering of “the Jew.” The characteristic markings could not be more clear: facial features such as the long or hooked nose, thick lips, flaring nostrils, the strangely squat or wiry physique, beady eyes and the deep eyebrow ridges. This figure is also well known, inter alia, from the centuries of representations of Jews per se featured during Lithuania’s end-of-winter, Mardi Gras-like Užgavėnės festival.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Užgavėnės, UŽGAVĖNĖS (SHROVETIDE) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Kaunesia: Travelling the Dark Memory Lanes of Kaunas

First Impressions of Vilnius’s New ‘Museum of Culture and Identity of Lithuanian Jews’



OPINION | MUSEUMS | ARTS | LITVAK AFFAIRS

 

by Dovid Katz

The creators of Vilnius’s new Museum of Culture and Identity of Lithuanian Jews (MCILJ or for short — “Litvak Culture Museum”), which opened its doors last January, have rapidly earned their place of honor in the 700 or so years of Lithuanian Jewish history. They have achieved a notable advance in encapsulating — in broad outline — the scope, the breadth, and many of the contours of internal diversity of one of the world’s more intriguing and complex stateless cultures, right in the city that had for centuries been its symbolic capital. That heritage is part of the larger Ashkenazic heritage that is itself often undercredited and understudied internationally, particularly among modern Jews themselves, for whom the twin pillars of modern Israel and of modern forms of religion occasionally leave no room for the civilization of their own forebears. That it was largely annihilated in its homelands during the Holocaust makes such a task more daunting still.

Continue reading

Posted in Arts, Dovid Katz, Leyzer Ran Section, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on First Impressions of Vilnius’s New ‘Museum of Culture and Identity of Lithuanian Jews’

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

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

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

“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:

Continue reading

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?

Continue reading

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

Continue reading

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)

Continue reading

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).

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

Posted in Books, Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, News & Views | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Notes and Updates on Silvia Foti’s ‘The Nazi’s Granddaughter: How I Discovered My Grandfather was a War Criminal’

Israel Chronicle


[most recent update]

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

JUMP TO LATEST

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

Posted in Events, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Michael Samaras, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lithuanian Holocaust Remembered in Wollongong, Australia