Tag Archives: Holocaust Obfuscation

Is USAID Still Using American Tax Payer Dollars to Support Glorification of Holocaust Collaborators in Ukraine?



OPINION  |  GLORIFICATION OF COLLABORATORS  |  UKRAINE   |  UNITED STATES

by Moss Robeson

USAID-sponsored 2017 Shadow Report: “Memory Policy Reform: Interim Results of Enforcement of the Decommunization Laws”

“It sounds like something straight out of the wackiest conspiracy sites on the internet — but it may be true,” began an overlooked article published by Defending History over two years ago which incredulously reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had allegedly played a role in the rehabilitation of Ukrainian Nazi collaborator war criminals.

Not only can that report now be confirmed — we’ll come back to that — but it can be said that the issue of USAID lending support to Ukrainian nationalist memory politics goes beyond what was already hard to believe. For starters, look no further than the recent Ukraine Reform Conference held in Kyiv on November 17-19 and 23-27, which concluded with a “national memory policy” panel. The eight day long forum was sponsored by the USAID, among other institutions.

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Moss Robeson, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Is USAID Still Using American Tax Payer Dollars to Support Glorification of Holocaust Collaborators in Ukraine?

Lithuania’s Intensive Spring Season for New Brand of Holocaust Denial



OPINION  |  LITHUANIA  |  FREE SPEECH  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  | USA  | NEW BRITAIN, CONNECTICUT

The team at Defending History has witnessed quite a lot in Eastern Europe over the last decade when it comes to Holocaust obfuscation and its related ills, including glorification of actual Holocaust collaborators, defamation of Holocaust survivors who joined the resistance, and a progressive chipping away at Western norms of free speech and tolerance. It is almost as if the Western powers don’t care whether folks in the “Eastern EU” have the same rights of expression as others.

During these last few weeks, an unusually intensive convergence of events has been noticed here in Vilnius. To bring our loyal readers up to speed we thought it might be useful to summarize what’s been happening on the Lithuanian Holocaust obfuscation and history rewriting front. Links to articles are included for those interested in reading more.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Intensive Spring Season for New Brand of Holocaust Denial

Papers in Holocaust and Antisemitism Studies


by Dovid Katz


SEE ALSO: ARTICLES IN THE GUARDIAN (back-ups); JEWISH CHRONICLEJEWISH CURRENTS (back-ups); TABLET (back-ups). More.

SELECTION OF VIDEOGRAPHED INTERVIEWS WITH SURVIVORS OF THE FIRST WEEK OF THE LITHUANIAN & LATVIAN HOLOCAUST

RECENT PUBLICATIONS; ALL PUBLICATIONSBOOKSACADEMIA.EDU.

2009

“On Three Definitions:  Genocide; Holocaust Denial; Holocaust Obfuscation” in Leonidas Donskis (ed.), A Litmus Test Case of Modernity. Examining Modern Sensibilities and the Public Domain in the Baltic States at the Turn of the Century [=Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe 5], Peter Lang: Bern et al 2009, pp. 259-277 [https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2009SeptDovidKatz3Definitions.pdf]. Archived.

2010

Participation in forum on a paper by Barry Rubin. In: Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 4.3 (2010), pp. 189-193 [https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2010IsraelJournalofForeignAffairsDovidKatz.pdf]. Archived.

2011

“The Detonation of the Holocaust in 1941: A Tale of Two Books” = review of: Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (Basic Books: New York 2010) and Alexander V. Prusin, The Lands Between: Conflict in the East European Borderlands, 1870-1992, Oxford University Press: Oxford 2010. In: East European Jewish Affairs 41.3 (Dec. 2011), pp. 207-221 [https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Dovid-Katzs-review-of-Bloodlands-in-EEJA-Dec-2011.pdf]. Archived.

Reply to: Rokas Grajauskas, “Is there a Chance for a Common European Culture of Remembrance?” [in Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review (2010), pp. 110-118]. In: Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review, 7 March 2011, posted on website, initially at: http://lfpr.lt/uploads/File/2010-24/Katz.doc, but not in print version of the journal, and possibly removed at some point from the website. The reply is now available in Defending History at: https://defendinghistory.com/13705/13705. Archived.

Review of: Adam Michnik, In Search of Lost Meaning: The New Eastern Europe, edited by Irena Grudzinska Gross, University of California Press: Berkeley 2011. In: East European Jewish Affairs (2012), pp. 187-191 [https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Review-of-Michnik-Dovid-Katz-in-EEJA.pdf]. Archived.

2012

Review of: Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Intermarium: The Land between the Black and the Baltic Seas (Transaction: New Brunswick 2012). In: Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 7.2 (2013), pp. 169-175 [https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Dovid-Katz-review-of-Intermarium-in-Israel-Journal-of-Foreign-Affairs-7-2-2013.pdf]. Archived.

2013

Review of: Arūnas Bubnys, Vilnius Ghetto 1941–1943, Genocide and Resistance Research Center: Vilnius 2013. In: Defending History, 19 November 2013 [https://defendinghistory.com/genocide-center-releases-a-new-graywash-on-the-vilna-ghetto/60925]. Archived.

2014

Review of: Georges Mink and Laure Neumayer, History, Memory and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: Memory GamesPalgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke 2014. In: East European Jewish Affairs 44.1 (2014): 112-115 [https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Proof-of-Review-of-Minkes-and-Neumayer-Dovid-Katz-2014.pdf]. Archived.

“Freewheeling Deconstruction of Max Weinreich: Sensationalization of the Fragile Field of Yiddish”  [in Yiddish] in Defending History,  22 June 2014, see section on abuse of Yiddish for far-right Holocaust politics in Lithuania in §VII [https://defendinghistory.com/freewheeling-deconstruction-max-weinreich-ongoing-machinations-weakened-field-yiddish#yiddishabusedforfarrightpolitics]. Archived.

2015

“Left- and Right-Wing Politics” (section in chapter 15,  “Yiddishless Yiddish Power vs. Powerless Yiddish”) in Dovid Katz, Yiddish and Power (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke 2015), pp. 295-300 in chapter on pp. 275-304 [https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Extract-from-Dovid-Katzs-Yiddish-and-Power-Palgrave-Macmillan-2015.pdf]. Archived.

2016

“Is Eastern European ‘Double Genocide’ Revisionism Reaching Museums?” in Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, vol. 30.3: 1–30, 18 Nov. 2016 [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23256249.2016.1242043 / PDF of proof online at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Dovid-Katz-2016-Dapim-paper-PROOF-ONLY.pdf]. Archived.

“West is West, East is East: The Specific East European Incarnation of Antisemitism” in ISGAP’s Flashpoint 21, 8 April 2016 [http://isgap.org/flashpoint/west-is-west-east-is-east-the-specific-east-european-incarnation-of-antisemitism/]. Archived.

“Antisemitism in the Twenty-First Century Shtetl” in ISGAP Flashpoint, no. 38, 28 November 2016 [http://isgap.org/flashpoint/antisemitism-in-the-21st-century-shtetl/]. Archived.

2017

“The Extraordinary Recent History of Holocaust Studies in Lithuania” in Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, vol. 31.3 “Scholars’ Forum: Holocaust Historiography in Eastern Europe (Part II)”, pp. 285-295  (December 2017)[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23256249.2017.1395530?journalCode=rdap20;  PDF of proof at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Dovid-Katz-on-Holocaust-Studies-in-Lithuania-PROOF-ONLY-Dec.-2017.pdf]. Archived.

“Free Trade Awry? The Westward Export of Double Genocide” in Danielle Buschinger et al. (eds.), Mélanges offerts à Jeff Richards par ses amis à l’occasion de son 65e anniversaire, Centre d’Etudes Médiévales de la Picardie: Amiens 2017, pp. 413-443 [proof online at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dovid-Katzs-paper-in-Earl-Jeffrey-Richards-festschrift-2017.pdf]. Archived.

2018

“The Baltic Movement to Obfuscate the Holocaust” in Alex J. Kay and David Stahel (eds), Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe: New Debates and Perspectives (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, Indiana), pp. 235-261. PDF of proof at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Baltic-Movement-to-Obfuscate-the-Holocaust.compressed.pdf. Archived.

“Primary Holocaust Inversion and Eastern European Antisemitism” in Charles Asher Small (ed), The ISGAP Papers. Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective, vol. iii (ISGAP: New York), pp. 207-218. PDF of proof at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/PDF-of-DK-on-Holocaust-Inversion-ilovepdf-compressed.pdf. Archived.

2019

“On Methodology in Historical Yiddish Linguistics” [in Yiddish; see section on the “Holocaust trauma argument” in §II]. PDF at: https://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Dovid-Katz-in-Starck-Festschrift-2019.pdf. Archived.

“On the (Ab)use of Law to Remake the Historical Narrative of World War II” in Mémoires en Jeu / Memories at Stake, no. 9 (Paris), pp. 88 -93. PDF of proof only. Archived.

◊◊

ARTICLES IN:

Algemeiner Journal 

Global Independent Analytics

The Guardian

Irish Times

Jewish Chronicle

Jewish Currents

Jewish Review of Books

Tablet

Taylor & Francis

Times of Israel 

Initial 2009 articles cited by Vilnius University as grounds for disemployment: In the Jewish Chronicle and Irish Times (followed in 2010 by Guardian article as ‘last straw’)

 

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“Prague Platform” Ensnares “European Shoah Legacy Institute” in Double Genocide



Prague Platform” and Slovak government announce partnership with the “European Shoah Legacy Institute” (!) in organizing:

EU Competition for a New Red-Brown, Mix-n-Match Memorial in Brussels; Students Aged 16-21 Eligible

CAMPAIGN TO EXPORT DOUBLE GENOCIDE FROM EAST EUROPEAN NATIONALISTS TO THE WIDER EU?

Will the red-equals-brown street-shows of Eastern Europe now be exported to Brussels under cover of a “Jewish” organization dedicated to Holocaust justice?

“Guidelines” include the requirement that “the memorial must be inclusive of the victims of National Socialism, Fascism and Communism”

LONG RECORD OF USE OF JEWISH, YIDDISH, OR HOLOCAUST PROJECTS AS A KIND OF PR COVER FOR HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM

ALSO: EU funded “Prague Platform” exhibit that spews Double Genocide revisionism of the Holocaust arrives in Budapest; More on the “Platform” and the exhibit that circles the globe (courtesy of EU taxpayers) to underpin Eastern European far-right revisionism; Still, Platform’s director insists that nobody is erecting monuments for Nazi collaborators — Unaware of news from Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine?   More

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Double Genocide, EU, Hungary, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform" | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on “Prague Platform” Ensnares “European Shoah Legacy Institute” in Double Genocide

Another Holocaust-Obfuscating PR Bash at “Vilnius Jewish Public Library”



VILNIUS JEWISH PUBLIC LIBRARY | DOUBLE GAMES | RED-BROWN COMMISSION

VILNIUS—Yet again, the “Vilnius Jewish Public Library,” housed in exquisite city-center premises in a courtyard off the capital’s central Gedimino Boulevard, has been the base for a Holocaust-obfuscating event featuring stars of the state’s “Red-Brown Commission” who are dispatched far and wide to deny the existence of the state-sponsored “Double Genocide” campaign, to mitigate the campaign against Holocaust survivors, the efforts to glorify local collaborators, and to obscure entirely the Second Opinion expressed in the Seventy Years Declaration. Incredibly, the roster of invited speakers did not include Ms. Rūta Vanagaitė, author of Mūsiškiaithe new best-selling book on the Holocaust that has in effect revolutionized the country’s coming to terms with its Holocaust-era past. What is the “Jewish” Library afraid of?

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", "Vilnius Jewish Public Library", Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Another Holocaust-Obfuscating PR Bash at “Vilnius Jewish Public Library”

Vilnius Prosecutor Skirts Key Question: Will the List of Alleged Holocaust Perpetrators be Made Public?



LITHUANIA | POLITICS OF MEMORY | GENOCIDE CENTER | OPINION

by Dovid Katz

 

VILNIUS—An array of local observers, speaking as usual off the record here, declared themselves “in shock” over the official response to the Jewish Community released by Prosecutor General Rimvydas Valentukevičius yesterday, dealing with widespread requests that the state’s Genocide Center — with which his Prosecutor General’s office has closely cooperated on Holocaust issues for many years — release the list of around two thousand names of alleged Holocaust murderers that it recently announced it had compiled, drawing international press attention. Over the years, the Center has been critiqued by the Wiesenthal Center and by various authors in Defending History for its alleged history-distorting antics; Evaldas Balčiūnas and Andrius Kulikauskas are among the boldest challengers of the Center’s moral integrity. (See also DH’s page on the Genocide Center, and on the museum which it directs in central Vilnius.)

The Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel has long maintained an estimate of 23,000 local perpetrators involved in the killing. Thousands were listed on the Association’s website until June 2009 when the Israeli Foreign Ministry, under pressure from Lithuanian counterparts, itself harshly pressured the Association’s then chairperson to remove the list from its website. But it continues to circulate widely both on the internet and its fuller form is preserved in Joseph Melamed’s 1999 book, Crime and Punishment (Tel Aviv 1999), where the lists of alleged killers are organized by region and town.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, Genocide Center (Vilnius), History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Vilnius Prosecutor Skirts Key Question: Will the List of Alleged Holocaust Perpetrators be Made Public?

Why Would the “Genocide Center” in Vilnius Manipulate History and Glorify Murderers?



O P I N I O N    /    C O L L A B O R A T O R S   G L O R I F I E D   /   G E N O C I D E    C E N T E R

by Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė

“I am a former Lithuanian soldier myself and have a personal remark to make. Nobody will ever force me to wear the uniform of another country’s armed forces, because I am a Lithuanian patriot. I will not wear the uniform of Russia or of Mozambique.”

Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė

One of the main Lithuanian dailies Lietuvos žinios (Lithuanian News) reported in an article on 24 November 2015  that the council of the celebrated Sajūdis organization (famed for its role in resisting the USSR and helping to achieve Lithuanian independence), had now, in 2015, decided to apply to prosecutors to take legal action over an article that had appeared in the 13 October 2015 edition of Laisvas laikraštis (Free Newspaper).

Sajūdis “decided” that the author  had violated the law because he mentioned that Lithuanian postwar militants Vytautas Žemaitis, Jonas Noreika (Vėtra), Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas and others might have been personally involved in Holocaust atrocities. [Editor’s note: See articles by Evaldas Balčiūnas on the alleged Holocaust involvement of Žemaitis, Noreika, and Baltūsis -Žvejas.]

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Free Speech & Democracy, Genocide Center (Vilnius), History, Human Rights, Kristina Apanavičiūtė Sulikienė, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Sweden | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Why Would the “Genocide Center” in Vilnius Manipulate History and Glorify Murderers?

Evaldas Balčiūnas at Vilnius County Court Next Monday 15 June 2015


VILNIUS THIS MONDAY:

FRIENDS OF HUMAN RIGHTS, FREE SPEECH AND DEFENDING HISTORY INVITED TO COME OBSERVE  /  SUPPORT OUR WRITER

Evaldas Balčiūnas

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide, EU, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Free Speech & Democracy, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prosecutors & Police 'Investigate' DH Author Evaldas Balčiūnas, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Evaldas Balčiūnas at Vilnius County Court Next Monday 15 June 2015

Dovid Katz: Topics on Offer for Courses & Lectures (2024)



Website       CV       Books       Publications       Recent       On Holocaust Issues

Contact: dovidkatz777 {a} gmail.com

CATEGORIES:

YIDDISH & ASHKENAZIC

LITVAK AND LITHUANIAN

HOLOCAUST & ANTISEMITISM

OTHER


 

  I: Yiddish and Ashkenazic Culture

Intermediate Level Ulpan-Style Mini-Course in Yiddish Language

Advanced Level Ulpan-Style Mini-Course in Yiddish  Language

Why Did I Decide to Write a New English-Yiddish Dictionary?

Why Am I Translating the Bible into Lithuanian Yiddish?

30 Years on the Road in Eastern Europe: Search for Yiddish Mohicans in the Old Country

The Past, Present and Future of Yiddish

The Dialects of Yiddish: More than Just Dialects…

Origins of the Yiddish Language: A Tale of Passionate Debates

Women in the History of Yiddish

The Three Jewish Languages of Ashkenaz: Hebrew, Yiddish and Aramaic

A New Yiddish Atlas of Lithuanian Yiddish Dialects and Culture

Yiddish Writers I Remember

600 Years of Conflicts over Yiddish

The Old Hebrew-Yiddish Conflict and its Lingering Legacies

What was Classic Secular Yiddishism? Relevance Today?

Love and Hate of Yiddish

The Incredible Fate of Yiddish in the 21st Century

Yiddish and Power (11th to 21st centuries)

Yiddish as a Toy of Far-Right Holocaust Revisionists in 21st Century Vilnius

Yiddish Stylistics and the Ideological Strings

Why Study Ashkenazic Hebrew?

Ashkenazic Hebrew Intro [for participants familiar with Biblical or Israeli Hebrew]

Which Yiddish Should We Be Teaching?


 II: The Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) Legacy

Past, Present and Future of the Litvaks

Lithuanian Jewry in Time and Space

30 Years on the Road in Historic Líte: My Search for Litvak Mohicans

Litvaks and Galitsyáner

Lithuanian-Jewish Relations: Why so Volatile?

The Battle over Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery

The Jewish Community of Lithuania: 1990-2024

Why The Joint (JDC) is “Different from all the Others”

Vilna Jewish Book Stamps: Windows to a Lost Jewish World

A Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna: Introduction to a Lost Jewish Civilization

The Real Gaon of Vilna

Why am I Translating the Bible into Lithuanian Yiddish?


III: Holocaust and Antisemitism

Writing the Holocaust Out of History (Without Denying a Single Death)

The 21st Century Incarnation of Holocaust Denial: “Double Genocide”

How American/NATO Politics is Writing the Holocaust Out of History

American Foreign Policy and the Neocons: Why They “Have To” Target the Holocaust

Israeli Foreign Policy and the Holocaust

The Plot to Replace the Holocaust in Western Consciousness

When Holocaust History Collides with Cold War II

The Holocaust in Lithuania

Respectfully Disagreeing with Professor Timothy Snyder

Why is the Lithuanian Holocaust Still So Controversial?

When  East European Holocaust Education is Camouflage for Revisionism

The Baltics and (Western) Ukraine: A Holocaust Conundrum

The Unique Kind of Antisemitism in Eastern Europe

What’s Behind the Battle of Vilnius’s Piramónt Cemetery?

21st Century (Western) “Useful Jewish Idiots” (UJIs) in Eastern Europe

Would American and Israeli Holocaust Institutions Sell out the Baltic Truth?


IV: Other Topics

My Father Menke Katz: Times & Tales of a Yiddish (and English) Poet

The Jewish Cultures of my Brooklyn Childhood

Curious Episodes in the Life of a Yiddishist Emigré from Brooklyn

Memories of a Doctoral Supervisor in Yiddish Studies

The New Cold War and the American Media

The New Far Right in Eastern Europe

Ukraine: Jewish Aspects Before and After the Putinist Invasion


2022-2023 Courses

Webinars & Zoom Talks

2016 in North America

2011 in Australia

2011 in North America


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Five Years of Defending History Dot Com



F

ive years have elapsed since this journal was founded as Holocaust in the Baltics on 6 Sept. 2009, in memory of Professor Meir Shub (1924-2009). Outside coverage includes David Hirsch in Engage and Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian (2009); Avi Friedman in Mishpacha, Ricky Ben-David in the Jerusalem Post, Mark Ames in The Nation, and Wendy Robbins on BBC World Service (2010); Cindy Mindell in the Jewish Ledger and Peter Jukes in Motley Moose (2011); Danny Ben-Moshe in his film Rewriting History (2012); Bernard Dichek in Jerusalem Report (2013); Richard Bloom in his film Defending Holocaust History (2014).

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Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dovid Katz, EU, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Opinion, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Five Years of Defending History Dot Com

Vilnius Genocide Center Releases a New Graywash on the Vilna Ghetto



B O O K S    /    O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

The unfortunate and wasteful campaign of Holocaust obfuscation waged by certain East European state institutions continues apace. The level of investment continues to strike outsiders as puzzling, given current economic and cultural issues and the younger population’s clear focus on the future and a better life for all in the new and multicultural European Union. Here in Lithuania, the first victims of the government’s (rather Soviet-style) “genocide industry” are the hard-working people of the country who deserve more judicious disbursement of their nation’s resources. The state-sponsored Genocide Center has just released three simultaneous editions (English, Lithuanian and Russian) of a new book on the Vilna Ghetto by historian Arūnas Bubnys, its own “director of the Genocide and Resistance Research Department.”

 Dr. Bubnys is also a member of the state-sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania” (known for short as the “red-brown commission”). He was one of a minority of members of the Commission who refused to sign the (in the opinion of some, inadequate) letter of 14 October 2013 to Dr. Yitzhak Arad.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Books, Double Games, Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), EU, Genocide Center (Vilnius), History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Poland, Politics of Memory, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai) | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Vilnius Genocide Center Releases a New Graywash on the Vilna Ghetto

Questions and Answers on the Holocaust-Gulag “Competitive Martyrology”



O P I N I O N

by Michael Shafir (Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

 

1. Approximately when did the drive to equate the Holocaust and the sufferings endured by people under Communist regimes start?

It is very difficult to pinpoint an exact date. In the West, a number of Sovietologists have long driven attention to the fact that the horrible crimes perpetuated by Stalin and his henchmen in East Central Europe deserved the attention and the opprobrium that Nazism met with after the Second World War. Due to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous book Gulag, these crimes soon began to be referred to under the synthetic name of that book. The collapse of the Communist regimes in the region in 1989 and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991 intensified that drive, which also found an impulse in the once popular (but later criticized) “totalitarian model.” That model was now revived, finding support particularly in the eastern part of Europe that had suffered under Soviet domination. Western historians were (and still are) quite divided over this issue. For example, Robert Conquest, who produced several important books on Stalinist crimes, was reluctant to place the Holocaust and the Gulag on the same footing. On the other hand, Stéphane Courtois, who edited and contributed to the Black Book of Communism, not only embraced the comparison, but insisted on

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Posted in Croatia, Double Genocide, History, Michael Shafir (1944-2022), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Nations | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Questions and Answers on the Holocaust-Gulag “Competitive Martyrology”

EHU Center for German Studies: “Colloquium Vilnense 2013” is Short on “The Second Opinion” when it comes to The Holocaust



O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

 

Colleagues at the prestigious European Humanities University in Vilnius (EHU, also known as the Belarusian Humanities University, in exile here in Vilnius) have passed on the public poster for this year’s series of seminars under the title Colloquium vilnense 2013, running from May to November 2013. The A3 size poster is reproduced (much reduced) at the bottom of this page in two halves.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Documents, Double Games, Dovid Katz, EU, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Germany, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on EHU Center for German Studies: “Colloquium Vilnense 2013” is Short on “The Second Opinion” when it comes to The Holocaust

Vexed Revival of “Red-Brown Commission”



State-sponsored Zingeris-Račinskas “red-brown commission” (officially: International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania) in Vilnius posts new list of members.

See also: 

Page on the commission

Critiques of the commission and its associated Prague Declaration

DH section on the commission.

Resignations to date from Commission-related bodies include Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Sir Martin Gilbert (London), Prof. Gershon Greenberg (Washington DC), Prof. Konrad Kwiet  (Sydney) and Prof. Dov Levin (Jerusalem).

Holocaust survivors themselves have stood up to express disquiet about some aspects of the commission: Yitzhak AradPinchos Fridberg (more), Dov Levin (more), Joseph Melamed (more), Basheva Ran, the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, Jewish Community of Lithuania / Union of Ghetto Survivorsdecade and a half of issues.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", "Vilnius Jewish Public Library", Double Games, Double Genocide, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Germany, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Lithuania, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Vexed Revival of “Red-Brown Commission”

Why Christine Beresniova is Out of Order



O P I N I O N

by Geoff Vasil

 

I’ve never met Christine Beresniova, but I’ve followed her career, so to speak, through the media and mutual acquaintances, and wish her only the best. She first came to my attention after apparently making some very limited and not very public criticisms of Lithuanian Holocaust education, which sufficiently pissed off the Holocaust Obfuscation establishment ensconced within the corridors of state power for them to label her some kind of Russian agent in informal conversations.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Geoff Vasil, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Why Christine Beresniova is Out of Order

Red-Brown Commission’s Newest Layer of Obfuscation: Are Names of Members Secret?


The Lithuanian government sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes of Lithuania,” known for short as the “Red-Brown Commission” has recently added a new layer of obfuscation and opacity to its activities.

Its website has deleted the names of the “Members of the Commission” thereby rendering it a kind of “secret society.”

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Red-Brown Commission’s Newest Layer of Obfuscation: Are Names of Members Secret?

UCL Hebrew-Jewish Studies Dept Rejects Request for Five Minutes for Holocaust Survivor to Read Petition at Lithuanian Gov. Sponsored Conference


London observers were wondering whether the medal Professor Antony Polonsky received earlier this year from the president of Lithuania for his PR work for the Lithuanian government may have something to do with his denial of Monica Lowenberg’s request, asking for five minutes for her father, a Holocaust survivor, to read out at next week’s conference her petition to the Lithuanian government, proposing constructive solutions to the issues at hand. The petition has to date garnered over 250 signatories from two dozen countries. The following is the correspondence, which started with Ms. Lowenberg’s appeal to Professor Ada Rapoport-Albert and Dr. Francois Guesnet. Dr. Guesnet, the Corob Reader in Jewish History at UCL is one of the conference coordinators on behalf of the Lithuanian government funded institutions financing the conference. Holocaust survivors consulted cannot understand why safe and secure academics who hold high posts at Western institutions should so fear “even to give five minutes for somebody else to come and disagree” with the conference’s pay-masters in the freedom of the British capital.

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Posted in Documents, Double Games, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Events, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Politics of Memory, UCL Manipulated?, United Kingdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on UCL Hebrew-Jewish Studies Dept Rejects Request for Five Minutes for Holocaust Survivor to Read Petition at Lithuanian Gov. Sponsored Conference

Self-Induced Confusion



B O O K S

by Olga Zabludoff

Review of We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust by Ellen Cassedy. University of Nebraska Press, 2012.


Had this title been billed as a simple memoir of Cassedy’s trip to Lithuania in the summer of 2004, my criticism of her book would be tempered. She had gone to the land of her ancestors to study Yiddish at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute and to connect with her Jewish roots. The professors and mentors she encounters at the Yiddish Institute come alive, as do the various Lithuanians and Jews with whom she connects. Cassedy is a good writer who captures physical details well. But even at that, this reviewer found the memoir to be superficial.

The major problem is that Cassedy’s book is being promoted as the Bible of the Lithuanian Holocaust by advocates for the current Lithuanian government and elite establishment which aspire to paint for the outside world a distorted version of the Holocaust. A version defined in shades of gray and the confusion they generate.  A version that incorporates the mythology of equivalency between crimes committed by the Nazi and Soviet occupation regimes.

SEE ALSO THE REVIEWS BY

Dovid Katz in the Algemeiner Journal

Allan Nadler in the Forward

Efraim Zuroff in Haaretz

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Books, Double Games, Double Genocide, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Olga Zabludoff, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States, VilNews.com, What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like? | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Self-Induced Confusion

Baltic “Double Genocide” Discourse Slips into Naive American Jewish Articles on Lithuania



O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

Can history be bought up by even a small state’s nationalist government that has talked itself into the idea that revision of history and wide acceptance of that revision is somehow a national cause? It becomes a serious issue when that state is willing to invest heavily in the enterprise, at a time when the targeted influential foreigners are far from the issues at hand and easily manipulated.

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Posted in American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Double Games, Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Baltic “Double Genocide” Discourse Slips into Naive American Jewish Articles on Lithuania

The Posthumous Remaking of a Holocaust Perpetrator in Lithuania: Why is Jonas Noreika a National Hero?



O P I N I O N

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

 

Who was Jonas Noreika?

Jonas Noreika (1910-1947), also known by his nom de guerre, General Vėtra, has been named by the current Lithuanian government as “an important member of the resistance” and an object of every sort of heroic commemoration.

In 1997 he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Cross of Vytis, First Degree. The same year a memorial plaque was placed on the facade of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Library in Vilnius.

Library of the Academy of Sciences in Vilnius. The red arrow marks the Noreika plaque.

Noreika plaque in central Vilnius

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Debates on the Postwar "Forest Brothers", Dr. Arūnas Bubnys and State Holocaust Revisionism in Lithuania, Evaldas Balčiūnas, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Genocide Center (Vilnius), History, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Plungyán (Plungė), Politics of Memory, State Glorification of Holocaust Collaborator J. Noreika, Symbology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Posthumous Remaking of a Holocaust Perpetrator in Lithuania: Why is Jonas Noreika a National Hero?