Tag Archives: neo-Nazis in Lithuania

Defending History Monitors Annual Far-Right Vilnius March on 16 Feb. 2021



VILNIUS MARCHES  |  KAUNAS MARCHES  |  FAR-RIGHT MARCHES  |  COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED

by Julius Norwilla

VILNIUS—This year the ultranationalist gathering on today’s February 16th national independence day took place in the Old Town, at the newly erected statute of Lithuanian author, scholar and patriot, Jonas Basanavičius, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence of 1918. Beside the national tricolors, I saw two more types of flags for “Pro Patria” and “Nacionalinis susivienijimas” (National Unity). Pro Patria is known as an ultranationalist movement targeting youth and an outlet of homophobic, Holocaust revisionist and xenophobic materials and initiatives. The National Unity seems to be mostly the same group of people, aspiring perhaps somewhat more to national politics.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Events, Ins and Outs of the Central Vilnius Noreika Plaque Glorifying a Brutal Holocaust Collaborator, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Vilnius | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Defending History Monitors Annual Far-Right Vilnius March on 16 Feb. 2021

When is a Hollowed-Out Jewish Menorah a Flowerpot for a Symbol Nowadays Brandished by Far-Right Antisemites?



OPINION

by Dovid Katz

[UPDATE OF 27 NOV: See now the same author’s follow-up article of 22 Nov. including links to the known responses and debates up to that date. See now Ruta Bloshtein’s short essay in DH].

Many in the local Lithuanian Jewish and the international Litvak communities have responded with some shock to the news that the Lithuanian government’s official “Year of the Gaon of Vilna and Jewish Heritage” has been launched by a handsome, shiny 10 Euro Coin that plonks a symbol beloved in recent years of neo-Nazis (and prominently used in their new projects) onto a Jewish Menorah. The symbolism strikes some as evoking the idea that the largely vanished Lithuanian Jews and their language make for one of the “cute Jewish toys” for the ultranationalist camp to exploit in its PR outreach to unwitting foreigners.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, A Stolen Election and a Small Jewish Community's Protest, Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Double Games, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Lithuania's Jewish Community Issues, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Symbology, Ten Euro Gaon Combo Coin (and its prehistory), What Do Fake Litvak Games Look Like?, When an East European Gov. Imposes a Far-Right Symbol Beloved of Neo-Nazis as 'Representative' of Nation's Annihilated Jewish Minority Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on When is a Hollowed-Out Jewish Menorah a Flowerpot for a Symbol Nowadays Brandished by Far-Right Antisemites?

When Both Law Enforcement and Politicians Cover Up Racism



HUMAN RIGHTS  |  RACISM  |  ROMA  |  OPINION

by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

A Nigerian citizen was attacked with a knife and injured in Kaunas, Lithuania, earlier this month. Trying hard to avoid describing the assault as a racially motivated hate crime, law enforcement officials and the mainstream media alike explained that the incident was purely part of a private dispute. Strange to tell, reading through official statistics you would rapidly come to the conclusion that racist and xenopohobic crimes in Lithuania stand at about zero. And, that neo-Nazi minded youth are “just patriotic.” 

It is no great secret in this part of the world that law enforcement officials and some politicians like to beautify the statistics, or to terminate or redefine proceedings brought in respect of racial or xenophobic hatred. One example comes to mind from 2011, when MPs J. Narkevičius and E. Zingeris appealed to the General Prosecutor’s Office to do something about  the neo-Nazi ideology espoused in the song “Diktatūra” by the group “Šalčininkų rajonas” (Šalčininkai District). 

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Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Human Rights, Lithuania, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Roma, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on When Both Law Enforcement and Politicians Cover Up Racism

Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff Writes to Mayor of Kaunas on Neo-Nazi March



JERUSALEM—The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office here today released the text of a letter sent by director Dr. Efraim Zuroff to the mayor of Kaunas, Lithuania, Andrius Kupčinskas, concerning the neo-Nazi march scheduled for February 16th. See also Defending History’s correspondence with the mayor’s office and our background summary.

SEE EXTENDED COVERAGE ON PAGE 1

The text of the letter is as follows:

February 12, 2015
Meras Andrius Kupčinskas
Laisves al. 96 201 kab.
Kaunas
LITHUANIA


Dear Mayor Kupčinskas,

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Events, Kaunas, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff Writes to Mayor of Kaunas on Neo-Nazi March

Summary Coverage of 16 February 2014 Neo-Nazi March in Kaunas



 

Over 1,000 March in Kaunas City Center with Banner Honoring the 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister who Helped Send City’s 30,000 Jews to their Death


PRESS: ALFA.LTALKAS.LTBALSAS.LTDELFI.LTJERUSALEM POSTKAUNODIENA.LTSWC REPORTTV: KAUNAS NEWSOPINION: Olga ZabludoffEfraim Zuroff

Section on Pro-Fascist Marches

Lithuanian TV interviews with Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz:

1 and 2

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, Kaunas, Lithuania, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Swastikas in Lithuania | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Summary Coverage of 16 February 2014 Neo-Nazi March in Kaunas

DH Editor in Far-Right Imagination: Depictions, Descriptions, and Death Threats


SELECTION …


POSTER MONTAGE

BUT WHO IS MR. ZEPPELINUS IN REAL LIFE? COULD HE BE A HIGH FIGURE IN AN EU COUNTRY’S ECONOMY MINISTRY?
MONTAGE OF HIS RACIST, MISOGYNISTIC, HOMOPHOBIC, HATE-FILLED “ART”

2019 far-right death threats  against DH editor appear on Facebook (as PDFtransl.)

They were apparently again inspired by the  neo-Nazis’ top blogger in Lithuania, “Zeppelinus”  (PDF; part transl.) who is said to work in the Ministry of the Economy. These threats came in response to DH’s opinion that Lithuania’s interests are not best served by a monument in Chicago to an alleged Nazi collaborator who is also a prime icon for today’s neo-Nazis.

21 October 2018.  Zeppelinus releases photoshop of Defending History’s editor,  who is accused of teaching his students about an alleged Nazi collaborator, together with Lithuania’s foreign minister, Linas Linkevicius, who is attacked for having agreed with the international community that plaques and honors for confirmed Nazi collaborator Jonas Noreika should be taken down. See report.


27 May 2017.  Zeppelinus in his blog publishes a montage of a 2015 Holocaust history conference photo of Dovid Katz speaking with session co-chairs Ruta Vanagaite and Simon Gurevich sitting behind, with a pasted-in Putinist hand pulling the strings, suggesting that discourse on the Holocaust from the Western and Jewish perspectives constitutes a form of “Putinism” . . . Background here.


4 October 2015.  Zeppelinus in his blog takes a photo of our editor on Gediminas’s castle in Vilnius with the Aramaic curse Pulso d’nuro  pasted in as speech bubble….

4 Oct 2015


After monitoring of the 11 March 2015 neo-Nazi parade in central Vinius, at a Facebook page.

 


1 April 2013.  April Fool’s Day image featured on the Zeppelinus site, and the FB blog pages of both Zeppelinus and Mr. Vytenis Petrusevičius.

april fools day

TRANSLATION:
“Blogger Zeppelins
blocked!
Dovid: ‘You know what? I’m happy!’
Read
FB Blog Zeppelinus
until May 1”

25 February 2013.  Journalist on “mainstream” Balsas.lt site calls for Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz to be delivered for being torn apart [by wolves].

22 February 2013.  Article in XXI amzius (“21st Century”) on “Youth Organized March in Kaunas” with complaints about the “American Zionist Jewish character Katz.” As the first image in the article correctly shows, the lead banner at the Kaunas march honored the 1941 Nazi puppet Kaunas-based prime minister J. Ambrazevicius (Brazaitis), who was reburied by the state with full honors in 2012. The third photo shows “Katz collecting ‘evidence’ with recorder and camera”…

2012/2013. From the neo-Nazi site Stormfront (click on image for source):

Neo-Nazis don't like DefendingHistory.com

19 February 2013.  “Dialogued” image of Evaldas Balčiūnas and Dovid Katz who were among the handful of protesters at the February 16th neo-Nazi independence day march in Kaunas. On Blogeris Zeppelinus for February 19th, also on E. Girskis’s page for February 18th.

TRANSLATION:
“Katz, you better be careful about the next Holocaust, we did agree on two bottles.”
“You promised to get punched in the nose in front of the cameras and deceived me. I’ll give you one and no more.”
ANTIFASCIST INTERNATIONAL
February 16th is an event for them, too

16 February 2013. On the page of the Lithuanian Union of Nationalist Youth following the neo-Nazi march in Kaunas that day. Note: the Union, which receives government and (indirect) EU (!) support, organizes neo-Nazi marches among its other activities, and was recently honored in the Lithuanian parliament. The Union’s and similar activities were exposed in 2011 by two courageous Lithuanian journalists: Eglė Samoškaitė and Dovilė Tuskenytė (report).

 

TRANSLATION:
Here, provocateur!
Antifascist “trophies”

February 2013.  Zeppelinus “discovers” a photograph (from 2009) picturing the Jewish Community’s deputy chairperson Faina Kukliansky, Defending History’s editor (these two being helpfully marked and kindly captioned…) along with an American diplomat, a Lithuanian diplomat,  and anti-Nazi partisan veteran Professor Sara Ginaite (center). Professor Ginaite ignored prosecutors’ intimidation to return to Lithuania for a visit to her native land.

TRANSLATION:
Faina Kukliansky, attorney,deputy chair of LJC, chair of board of directors of Fund for Compensating Assets of the Jewish Community
Dovid Katz, US citizen, professor of exotic languages, active organizer of anti-Lithuanian activities

1 February 2013.  The “Dovid on the Motorcycle” photoshopped image appears on various sites, including the Lithuanian Nationalist Union of Youth / Lietuvių tautinio jaunimo sąjunga  (see above at 16 February 2013); Blogeris Zeppelinus for 28 January 2013Facebook, 2. Our reader Dr. J. Breeze, UK, found the apparent source in a Hagrid image.

14 March 2012.  T. Baranauskas in Alkas.lt accuses DK and DH of imagining fascist nature of the swastika and the currently popular “flaming swastika” (with comparative images of 1941 and 2012)

13 March 2012.  Tomas Bombadilas / Facebook. Followed around town (not just on this day…) and photographed in a Vilnius cafe, having a drink with an old friend…

TRANSLATION:
Katz the Playboy
taken at Baras Meksika [Bar Mexico], Vilnius
Now it’s clear what in the hell Katz was looking for in Kaunas on February 16th… [He was in fact looking for] a Lithuanian girl to pick up and ply with cocktails…

12 March 2012.  Zeppelinius.livejournal.com. Doctored photo of giving a visiting card to old friend encountered before the neo-Nazi march in Vilnius on 11 March 2012. The neo-Nazi blog contains details on my old friend’s family history, including the heroic military service of his late parents in the Red Army, as part of the British-American-Soviet alliance that brought down Hitler and Nazi Germany.

TRANSLATION:
The Spectre of Fascism is Strong
A lot of cash is needed to fight it

10 March 2012.  Lrytas.lt [comments on article].

29 February 2012.  Patriotai.lt. DK in the car arriving at the demonstration…

TRANSLATION:
“We will teach you to love Lithuania!”
“Don’t shoot, we’re an antifascist autonomen unit. We are here to help Katz and antifa.lt disturb celebrating the Nazi March 11th holiday.”
“Get out of the car! You’ve arrived.”
March 11: A Holiday for Lithuanian Patriots
but just another workday for the provocateurs

17 February 2012.  Patriotai.lt.

17 February 2012.  M1M22M333M on YouTube.

16 February 2012.  Alkas.lt. Monitoring the monitor at the neo-Nazi events on 16 February 2012 in Kaunas.


And, perhaps more ominously, in the related nationalist consciousness of “mainstream ‘liberal’ intellectuals”

The well-camouflaged extremists among “mainstream nationalist intellectuals” feed right into synergistic de-facto augmentation of the far right’s campaign of personal and professional destruction against residents of Lithuania who stand up on Holocaust-related issues. By contrast, the environment is fulsomely democratic and tolerant of diversity of viewpoints on nearly every other issue.

See for example the 2011 discourse on a Facebook page dedicated to “anti-Nazi” activity (original Lithuanian; English translation. A major intellectual, Vytautas Toleikis accuses D. Katz of “poisoning their subconscious, essentially employing black arts” (some translate the employed phrase as “black magic”) to control and hypnotize Jews abroad and the local Jewish community (!) as well as being a tool of “Russian-Jewish” organizations (this was during Defending History’s concentration on prosecutors’ charges against Holocaust survivors and state glorification of Holocaust collaborators). See Defending History’s summary of the saga). Mr. Toleikis, widely suspected of hiding his own Jewish family roots, frequently wins  major prizes for “tolerance” (like all parties mentioned in this journal, is invited to respond on these pages; see DH’s Authors).

16 February 2012.  Lrytas.lt [comments on article].

31 January 2012.  R. Račinskas on a radio panel discussion.

 

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March 11th: A Grand Opportunity for the Lithuanian Human Rights Community — and the People of Vilnius



O P I N I O N

by Dovid Katz

When three of us from the DefendingHistory.com community headed out from Vilnius on February 16th to confront the neo-Nazi march in central Kaunas, we were sure we would be joined by dozens, or more, true lovers of Lithuania  —  folks who cannot remain silent that perverted political leadership allows today’s neo-Nazis to achieve free reign in the center of a great city in the middle of the nation’s cherished independence day. Folks who cannot let the glorification of stylized swastikas (including the “Lithuanian swastika“), and white armbands (celebrating the LAF Holocaust perpetrators of 1941) go unchallenged in the country with the largest rate of murder of its civilian Jewish population in all Holocaust-era Europe. Folks who want to send at least some modicum of support to today’s minorities. And a message to the world that the neo-Nazis do not represent Lithuanian society.

It was a shock to find in Kaunas on February 16th, that the somewhat quixotic DefendingHistory.com threesome would find itself the only visible anti-Nazi presence during the march and the rally that followed.

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Posted in "Vilnius Jewish Public Library", Celebrations of Fascism, Dovid Katz, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Media Watch, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Vilnius | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on March 11th: A Grand Opportunity for the Lithuanian Human Rights Community — and the People of Vilnius

Tolerance March of 100 is Cancelled in Kaunas; Neo-Nazi March for 1000 Going Ahead


In a decision with a surreal touch of a topsy-turvy world, Kaunas municipal authorities have announced that they are on “security grounds” revoking the permit for a pro-human rights  march with a maximum of one hundred people. The march had been permitted for 4 PM this Thursday, 16 February, in the center of Kaunas, Lithuania’s second city. It was conceived in part as a response to the neo-Nazi march which has a permit for a maximum of one thousand people at 1 PM the same day.

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Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Human Rights, Kaunas, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views | Tagged , | Comments Off on Tolerance March of 100 is Cancelled in Kaunas; Neo-Nazi March for 1000 Going Ahead