Tag Archives: Vytautas Magnus University

Honoring Holocaust Victims One Day, and Two Days Later — Perpetrators



COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  |  JUOZAS LUKŠA DEBATES

VILNIUS—Two days before tomorrow’s government-sponsored international “academic” conference (on September 10) that glorifies alleged 1941 Holocaust perpetrator Juozas Lukša (without a single paper devoted to the issue of his Kaunas 1941 Holocaust participation), the foreign minister led a high-end Holocaust remembrance ceremony (yesterday, 8 Sept.) bewailing the calamity of the Holocaust and its scale in Lithuania. That ceremony dated the onset of the Lithuanian Holocaust to the first week of September, when the Nazis set up the Vilna Ghetto, and others.

As ever, curious acrobatics seen to be in play in choice of the date to deflect attention from 23 June 1941, the day the barbarity and slaughter were initiated in dozens of Lithuanian towns before arrival of the first German soldiers. June 23rd is the day the Holocaust in Lithuania started according to all Holocaust survivors interviewed over the last thirty years, and it has been particularly painful for them that Vilnius has a street called “June 23rd Street.”

Eyewitness accounts of Lukša’s Kaunas deeds were assembled by Alex Faitelson and Joseph Melamed  regarding the Lietukis Garage Massacre in that last week of June 1941. An early day 2011 motion in the British Parliament cited eyewitnesses to his alleged participation in the beheading of Rabbi Zalmen Osovsky in Kaunas, also in June 1941 (for more citations see Defending History’s initial report on the Lithuanian parliament’s decision last year to dedicate 2021 to Lukša’s memory). Last week’s Lukša events have included inauguration of a major new monument with an address by the prime minister.

Statements painfully protesting the Lithuanian parliament’s decision to name 2021 for this infamous alleged participant in the Kaunas atrocities of June 1941 have been issued by Faina Kukliansky, head of the official Jewish Community of Lithuania, jointly with Rabbi Andrew Baker, head of international affairs for the American Jewish Committee in Washington, D.C. The Jewish Community went on (very unusually) to bitterly critique the state-sponsored “Genocide Center” on the glorification of Lukša. Other voices of dismay have come from Dr. Laurence Weinbaum of the World Jewish Congress who edits its prestigious academic j0urnal Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, and Mr. Yakov Faitelson, who recounts his late father’s being honored for telling the truth by the late Lithuanian president and statesman Algirdas Brazauskas.

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Posted in American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Lithuania, Collaborators Glorified, Debates on Juozas Lukša, Double Games, History, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, September 23rd Commemorations | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Honoring Holocaust Victims One Day, and Two Days Later — Perpetrators

Will Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas Remove Nazi-Collaborator Shrines as it Honors the Great Leonidas Donskis?



OPINION  |  DONSKIS SECTION  |  MUSEUMS  | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED  |  KAUNAS: 2022 CAPITAL OF EUROPEAN CULTURE

Click on the image for details of 21 Sept. conference in Kaunas on role of museums in remembering the past

Vytautas Magnus University, once considered a beacon of tolerance and liberalism, suffered extensive  (utterly self-inflicted)  reputational damage back in 2009 when it inaugurated a lecture hall and bas-relief glorifying Juozas Ambrezevicius Brazaitis, “prime minister” in  Lithuania’s Nazi puppet “provisional government” in 1941. During his brief period as Hitler’s chief puppet in the country, he signed documents confirming transfer of numerous Jewish fellow citizens of his native Kaunas to the nearby Seventh Fort for torture and murder, and later signed the Nazi-ordered documents ordering all remaining Jews of Kaunas into a ghetto, to become the infamous Kovno Ghetto. During his later American career, as a CIA asset and academic, he never once expressed regret over what had happened to the 30,000 Jewish residents of Kaunas.

Then, in 2012, when an international scandal broke out over the Lithuanian government’s decision to fly over and rebury with full honors the Nazi puppet prime minister’s remains, it was, alas a top historian and academic  official at Vytautas Magnus who described the reburial as a grand act of Lithuania’s historic drama, while denouncing the Leonidas Donskis led effort to pull the university out of national ceremonies honoring the Nazi collaborator, in these terms: “This wasn’t the academic community but a decision of the VMU administration which became frightened that they were going to get hit over the head with a club by the Jews.”  For context, see events of May 2012.

LEONIDAS DONSKIS SECTION IN DEFENDING HISTORY

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Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Leonidas Donskis, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Museums, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Will Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas Remove Nazi-Collaborator Shrines as it Honors the Great Leonidas Donskis?

Celebrating (!) 75th Anniversary of Start of the Lithuanian Holocaust (23 June 2016)?



VILNIUS—For the tiny and dwindling group of Holocaust survivors in this part of the world, the indelibly cursed day the genocide began was June 23rd 1941, when hordes of young local “nationalists,” some affiliated with the fascist Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) — which had put in writing its intentions for Jewish fellow-citizens beforehand — began to murder, plunder and rape their neighbors in at least forty locations before the first German soldiers even got there, as confirmed by numerous historians and eyewitnesses. Within a few days, most would don white-armbands.

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Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, Legacy of 23 June 1941, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Celebrating (!) 75th Anniversary of Start of the Lithuanian Holocaust (23 June 2016)?

Sugihara Abused? Red-Brown Commission Ropes In Japanese Embassy for 11 Feb. Event



OPINION  |  EVENTS  |  JAPAN  |  RED-BROWN COMMISSION  |  POLITICS OF MEMORY

VILNIUS—Over the past decade, few foreign embassies in Lithuania have done as much as Japan’s to help ensure that the Holocaust in Lithuania is never forgotten and indeed, that remembrance events and educational programs feed into both national and international efforts to raise awareness and sensitivities in the cause of averting future massacres of innocent civilians.

Japan’s Holocaust remembrance achievements in Lithuania are manifold. From 2008, when state prosecutors connected to the Genocide Center began defaming local Holocaust survivors, Japan’s embassy joined with others in giving honor to the wrongly accused, including the 2009 “Walk in the Rain” organized by then Norwegian ambassador Steinar Gil. More well known are the embassy’s activities in commemoration of Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara, the inspirational Japanese humanist who saved thousands of lives by issuing visas in Kaunas in 1940 (enabling those people to flee Soviet rule directly, and indirectly from what was to come a year later, in 1941, with Hitler’s invasion and the massive local collaboration in genocide). One of the most important goes back to the turn of our century when the embassy participated actively, and generously, in setting up Sugihara House in Kaunas.

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Games, Double Genocide, Events, Japan, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Use and Abuse of Sugihara | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Sugihara Abused? Red-Brown Commission Ropes In Japanese Embassy for 11 Feb. Event

Monica Lowenberg Releases Text of Letter to British ORT on Latest Lithuanian Embassy Sponsored “Litvak Do” in London



O P I N I O N

by Monica Lowenberg

Monica Lowenberg’s office has released for publication the following public letter sent to British ORT. 


 

British ORT, FAO The Chief Executive, Mr. Dan Green

25 November 2013

Dear Mr. Green,

It is with deep regret that my 90 year old father, Ernest Lowenberg, former Berlin ORT pupil and I write to you today.

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Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Collaborators Glorified, Documents, Double Games, EU, Events, Identity Theft of Litvak Heritage, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, United Kingdom, World Jewish Congress (WJC) and ORT | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Monica Lowenberg Releases Text of Letter to British ORT on Latest Lithuanian Embassy Sponsored “Litvak Do” in London

Chersonski Replies to Aleksandravičius on the 2012 Kaunas Reburial of the 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister



O P I N I O N

by Milan Chersonski

Milan ChersonskijTranslated from Russian by Ludmila Makedonskaya (Grodno); updated English version approved by the author, Milan Chersonski (Chersonskij), longtime editor (1999-2011) of Jerusalem of Lithuania, quadrilingual (English-Lithuanian-Russian-Yiddish) newspaper of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. He was previously (1979-1999) director of the Yiddish Folk Theater of Lithuania. The views he expresses in Defending History are his own. Photo: Milan Chersonski (image © Jurgita Kunigiškytė). Milan Chersonski section.


 

 Real Heroes and Supposed Heroes

 

Who Protested and Why?

In May 2012 solemn funeral events were held in Kaunas: the ashes of the interim prime minister of the Provisional Government of Lithuania (hereinafter PG) Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis were transferred from the state of Connecticut in the United States, where he was buried in 1974, to Kaunas, the former temporary capital of Lithuania. There the ashes were reburied.

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Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Collaborators Glorified, History, Lithuania, Media Watch, Milan Chersonski (1937-2021), News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Chersonski Replies to Aleksandravičius on the 2012 Kaunas Reburial of the 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister

Shock of 2012: 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister Reburied with Full Honors



Compiled by Dovid Katz

EU/NATO Ally Honors Holocaust Collaborator; Lithuanian Jewish Community Issues Protest; 3 US Congressmen Write to Prime Minister

Remains of 1941 fascist leader  Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis) met by honor guard at Vilnius Airport on 17 May 2012 and reburied in Kaunas’s Church of the Resurrection on the 20th, as city’s mayor dismisses criticism.

Office of the prime minister, who signed off on government funding (€8,700 / US $11,000)defends reburial & honors of the 1941 Nazi puppet “prime minister” who personally signed the protocols confirming Nazi orders for (1) “all means” against Jews (but avoiding executions in public); (2)  setting up a concentration camp for Lithuanian Jews [euphemism for the carnage underway at the Seventh Fort]; (3) all Kaunas Jews to be herded into a ghetto within 4 weeks (English here).

SEE ALSO:

Collaborators Glorified section

Previous sanitization program

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Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Antisemitism & Bias, Bold Citizens Speak Out, Celebrations of Fascism, Christian-Jewish Issues, Collaborators Glorified, Dovid Katz, EU, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?, Yivo Manipulated? | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Shock of 2012: 1941 Nazi Puppet Prime Minister Reburied with Full Honors

The Text of Monica Lowenberg’s Petition on Change.org



The following is a verbatim reprint of Monica Lowenberg’s December 2012 petition on Change.org. Embedded links have been added, marked by underlining, referring readers to further coverage on Defending History pages which link to various  sources providing more background.


Petitioning HE Ambassador Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė

 This petition will be delivered to:

  • Lithuanian Ambassador for London, UK
  • HE Ambassador Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė

Abandon state sponsored Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Obfuscation

  •  Petition by
  •  Monica Lowenberg
  •  London, United Kingdom

Following the announcement that the Lithuanian Embassy is one of the generous co-sponsors of this month’s London conference on Jewish-Lithuanian issues including the Holocaust, we the undersigned ask the Embassy’s public support on the following urgent matters:

1) Rapid and elegant public apologies, released prior to the conference, to the Jewish Holocaust Survivors defamed in recent years by Lithuanian prosecutors, media and some government officials. The survivors are in their late 80s and 90s, making time essential if there is going to be a symbolic amelioration in the manner in which the Lithuanian state is ending a 700 year old history of Jewish settlement, and on what note, with the last survivors of the bona fide pre Holocaust generation. Most urgently, Rachel Margolis; also: Yitzhak Arad and Fania Brantsovsky and Joseph Melamed.

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Memorials to Holocaust Collaborators in Public Spaces and State Sponsored Institutions in Lithuania



UPDATES: This page dates from 2009. Since then, the Noreika plaque in Vilnius was replaced with a “bigger and better” one, the city’s  Skirpa Street renamed but with a  new plaque glorifying the Hitler collaborator mounted under the street name. Please use Search to find the news for each site over the years.

Lev Golinkin’s listing of  public shrines to Holocaust collaborators (in Genocide Watch and the Forward),

2023: DH’s LATEST REPORTS

2016 PUBLIC DEBATE IN VILNIUS OLD TOWN HALL

2015 DEBATE:Balčiūnas,  Gochin,  Kanovich,  and Valatka:  Asking for Vilnius to take down plaques and street names that honor Holocaust collaborators.   But petition to mayor from group of intellectuals stays “secret”. PLUS: Some local media regards discussion itself as “a Russian plot”…

EVENTS HONORING 1941 PERPETRATORSREBURIAL OF 1941 NAZI PUPPET PM IN 2012ALTERNATIVE TOURISM. SECTIONS OF EVALDAS BALČIŪNAS AND MILAN CHERSONSKI. READING LIST ON THE LITHUANIAN HOLOCAUST

DefendingHistory’s comment:

“Lithuania has her magnificent real heroes of 1941: the inspirational people who saved an innocent neighbor from the LAF and Provisional Government’s reign of genocide, starting with the war’s first week. They are that year’s heroes of history who should be honored. May their families live to see streets and squares named for them.”


Juozas Ambrazevičius (Brazaitis)

(1) Lecture Hall at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (in the spirit of a “Marshal Pétain Auditorium” at Vichy, Bordeaux or Paris):

(2) Bas Relief at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas:

NOTE: In spring of 2012, the Lithuanian government repatriated the remains and glorified the memory of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister. A vice-rector at Vytautas Magnus University went on to praise the reburial as affirmation of the “drama of Lithuanian history” and to complain that people are afraid to speak on this subject because “the Jews will hit them over a head with a club.”


Glorification of 23 June 1941

The Lithuanian Holocaust was initiated when dehumanization, taunting, humiliation, pillage and murder of Jews was initiated in dozens of locations by “freedom fighters” of the LAF and other nationalist groups before the arrival of German forces. Some six centuries of legendary coexistence were brought to an abrupt end on 23 June 1941 when the Jewish minority was subject to degradation, harm and murder. Readings. Eyewitness testimonies[Historic note: the far right’s “explanation” that the murderers of Jewish neighbors were “heroic anti-Soviet rebels” is demonstrably nonsense. The Soviet occupiers were fleeing the German attack initiated on 22 June 1941.]

Street name in Vilnius:


Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF)

Whitewash in the New “Holocaust Room” (!) at the Genocide Museum in Vilnius:


Tuskulėnai Peace Park in Vilnius

Hundreds of local Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators are among those the Soviets after the war tried, killed and then buried at Tuskulėnai. The participation in Nazi atrocities by many of those buried here remains unmentioned on the Genocide Center or Vilnius municipality websites which describe the site as a memorial for the victims of Soviet rule buried there. See Milan Chersonski in DefendingHistory.




Antanas Baltūsis-Žvejas

Street in Kaunas:


Juozas Krikštaponis

Square in Ukmergė:


Jonas Noreika (“General Vetra”)

(1) Plaque on the Library of the National Academy of Sciences in central Vilnius:

(2) High on the wall of national heroes inscribed on the facade of the Genocide Museum on the main boulevard of Vilnius:

(3) Street name in Kaunas:

(4) On the Šiauliai Region government building in Šiauliai:


Kazys Škirpa

Street name in Kaunas:

and in central Vilnius:

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