Vilnius University to Host Exhibit by Antisemitic, Homophobic “Envelope Artist”



According to Vilnius University’s website, a ceremony to open an exhibition of “envelope art” by Antanas Šakalys will be held in the White Hall of the university’s main library on 27 September at 2 PM. Mr. Šakalys’s antisemitic postcards were on sale for many years at the capital’s main Post Office, and were exposed in 2008 by the Jewish community’s newspaperJerusalem of Lithuania.

UPDATE of 25 Sept 2012: Following the publication of this article, sources at Vilnius University reported efforts underway to remove the offensive images and replace them with outwardly innocuous items by the same artist. DefendingHistory objects to the legitimization of racism, antisemitism and homophobia by means of exhibition of this person’s work at a state-sponsored university, whether or not the specific offensive items are included or not on this occasion.

In the meantime, this DefendingHistory report inspired human rights activists to launch a protest on Facebook, including plans for a protest at the scheduled opening.

Vilnius University has removed the page announcing the exhibit from its website, but it has been preserved (PDF here) by DefendingHistory.

As of today, another exhibit of the same envelope-maker’s work was still on the website of Lithuania’s state postal service (in the event of removal, a copy has been preserved, available also in PDF format).

A Delfi.lt article by Eglė Samoškaitė (English translation here) reported on 25 September that the opening has been cancelled, and, inter alia, on the role of DefendingHistory in inspiring Lithuanian human rights advocates to rally against the exhibition of the works of a racist, antisemitic and homophobic envelope-maker.

TRANSLATION

blue vertical text: The fate of social security in the hands of the offices of the “Sharashkins” [derived from a Russian slang expression—an ironic, derogatory term to denote a poorly organized, impromptu, or fake organization.]

black text under photo: “Let’s live like brothers—and pay like Jews!”
[in other words: and not pay our taxes, like the Jews]

smaller black text under photo: Such a saying is completely uncharacteristic of Rabbi Sholom Krinsky, director of the Manachem House, who is in debt to Social Security for a whole million litas. Perhaps it is time to declare this “house” bankrupt. Debtors include: Kaunas Bread, Klaipeda Cranes, Lithun, Lelija, and etc.

Vakaro Zinios [Evening News], December, 2011

This “art envelope” is based on an antisemitic headline that appeared last December in a major national daily. The exhibition at the country’s top university claims there is a conspiracy against Lithuania by the European Union to introduce gay rights. Anti-gay emblems are used from various of the establishment-supported city center anti-LGBT demonstrations of recent years.

One of the anti-gay “works of art” in the forthcoming Vilnius Univeristy exhibition.

TRANSLATION

black title text: Condemnation and ridicule of traitors of the People.

smaller black text: At a session of the European Union Lithuania’s homophiles, seeking to encourage gay and lesbian activity, including A. Degutis, E. Gentvilas, J. Dičkutė, G. Juknevičienė, J. V. Paleckis, A. Povilionis, A. Sakalas and M. Starkevičiūtė, voted in favor
of legalizing the actions of sexual anomalies. Only L. Andrikienė and G. Didžiokas voted against. What sort of moral authorities do we have in the European Union! And further, [what sort of representatives of a] Catholic country! Genetic anomalies are a matter for doctors. Our elected representatives are traitors and are engaged in terrorist activities, destroying the foundations for the existence of the state. V. Blinkevičiūtė, the master of “the genocide of pensioners,” finances the gay “Rainbow Days” events. It is said that the Brazauskas Fund has also allocated 50,000 litas to open the gay restaurant Neo Men’s Factory. Different centers are being established: The League of Lithuanian Gays, the Social Research Center, Gaumina, European Social Rights and Economic Projects and the Center for Equal Opportunity, to which gigantic funding is being allocated.

first red stamp text: Let’s condemn [and] let’s protest the European Union homophile’s campaign Gender Loops

second red stamp: 1,000 years of Lithuanian statehood1,000 years [anniversary of] the baptism of Lithuania1009-2009.

Mr. Šakalys‘s work includes claims that the “Jewish KGB” was behind the failed war-crimes trial against Aleksandras Lileikis who was a Lithuanian Nazi and head of the Security Department for Vilnius in 1941. 

One of several items that glorify Aleksandras Lileikis, the Nazi police official and Holocaust perpetrator whose US citizenship was revoked in 1996. Lithuanian prosecutors employed various ruses to delay his trial until old age and illness saved him from facing justice.

TRANSLATION

10th Anniversary of the Death

smaller text: On 26 September 2000, A. Lileikis, terrorized by the racist Zionists, died. Even after death they attempted to slander and belittle him. And this is being done with the agreement of the Lithuanian government. Lileikis’s contribution serving the nation in the security of free Lithuania and celebrating Lithuanian-ness in the USA, [and] working in publishing, is gigantic. Let the memory of a patriot of the people remain bright!

Other targets include liberal and feminist Lithuanian MP Marija Pavilionienė, writer and humanist Tomas Venclova, and the founding director of Israel’s Yad Vashem Memorial Authority Yitzhak Arad, whom the art-envelop exhibition claims is a war criminal.

While Vilnius prosecutors did all in their power to protect from serious prosecution Nazi war criminals, in 2006 they launched a campaign against Holocaust survivor Yitzhak Arad. This “work of art” in the collection to be displayed at Vilnius University uses the 2006 headline in the antisemitic “Respublika” that reads: “The ‘Expert’ with Blood on his Hands.” Dr. Arad was at the time a member of the Red-Brown Commission, which has to this day not condemned the campaign against him and other Holocaust survivors waged by state prosecutors.

 TRANSLATION

blue title text: The “Expert” with Blood on his Hands.
vertical black text: Yitzhak Arad
smaller black text: This is a former NKVD red partisan hitman who terrorized completely innocent Lithuanian peasants. He wrote of his bloody campaigns in the book “The Partisan: From the Valley of Death to Mount Zion.” He even received a medal from Moscow’s puppet J. Paleckis for his sadistic “campaigns.” Now this Israeli general wearing the shadow of a Communist terrorist is a consultant for the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) operating in the USA. This is how cases without foundation against A. Dailidė, A. Lileikis and other Lithuanian patriots are born.

red stamp: June 14. Genocide Day

lower red stamp: 1,000 years of Lithuanian statehood 1,000 years [anniversary of] the baptism of Lithuania1009-2009

hammer and sickle and swastika stamp: Nuremburg 2It’s time to convict!

According to Mr. Šakalys, Lileikis was  a victim of the Jewish KGB mafia, and Arad a terrorist who murdered innocent civilian Lithuanian peasants.

In somewhat of an “innovation” for the antisemitic genre of art and literature here, one postcard asserts that the Vilna Gaon was a racist Zionist who is also responsible for the rise of the socialist Bund.

TRANSLATION

Ben Saliamon Zalman  Elijas (Vilnius  Gaon) 1720-1793

smaller text: A legendary personality. Explicator of the Talmud and Zionist of racist persuasion. He left behind no academic works, but phrases such as “that Lithuania is God’s gift to the Jewish people,” which gradually was destined for implementation, could belong to him. His intellectual followers strove to populate the small towns, created businesses, set up trade and medicine. They created the social democratic Bund. This later become a/the Communist party through which there was the attempt to create Litbel, a Lithuanian-Belarusian state. After driving them out of Vilnius and following the creation of the Republic of Lithuania, the Bund was disbanded. Nevertheless in Lithuania, they didn’t give up that “gift of God,” and tried to incite riots in 1926. In 1939 they experienced the coming of the Soviets and only then understood they would have to move to the Jewish Autonomous Republic (this was Stalin’s gift). After World War II they had to reorient and with the help of Great Britain they had to take a different gift: Arab Palestine.

Much more typical of Baltic antisemitism is the notion that most or all of the Soviet operatives responsible for deportations in mid June 1941 were Jews. In addition to featuring Lithuanian government red-brown (Double Genocide) efforts as “Nuremberg 2” there is a design of a black mask atop both the (five pointed) Soviet and (six pointed) Jewish star.

This card lists the names of the alleged purveyors of “genocide,” here in the country with Europe’s highest rate of Holocaust murder of its Jewish population (around 95%). The names include: Gilelis [Hillel] Blochas, Moisiejus Bresneris [Moyshe Bresner], Abraomas Cheritonovas, Cukermanas, Icikas Dembo, Šeina Dikerytė, Nochmanas Dušanskis, Leo Finkelšteinas, Icikas Frankas, Davydas Levinas, Rašel Ošerytė [Rachel Osher], Motelis Šeras [Motl Sher], Kaplanas, Šeina Klipaitė, Judita Komodaite, Leiba Kotonas, Leiba Čepelinskas and others who have allegedly committed genocide against the Lithuanian people…

TRANSLATION

red title text: June 14 Day of the Genocide of the Lithuanian
People.

black text: After the Soviets occupied Lithuania in 1940, the repressive apparatus was set up under the leadership of V. Dekonozov, V. Niunka, Ch. Aizen and L. Gira. Moscow sent “brotherly support”: 20 especially “highly trained” specialists with V. Merulov in charge. The Moscow “cadres”—P. Gladkov, D. Todes, P. Shvartsman—were in command of the heads of the Security Department, A. Sniečkas and A. Guzevičius. Besides these leaders, the Special Commission was composed of: Maša Arlianskaitė, Davydas Bykovas, Gilelis Blochas, Moisiejus Bresneris, Semionas Choliavas, Abraomas Charitonovas, Cukermanas, Icikas Dembo, Šeina Dikerytė, Nochmanas Dušanskis, Erigo, Grigorijus Feugelsonas, Abraomas Feldmanas, Leo Finkelšteinas, Icikas Frankas, Garbas Mejeris, Peisach, Samuilas Silys, Calka Glezeris, Griša Grešnikas,  Davydas Levinas, Samuelis Lenskis, Ida Luchvinskaja, Jakov Minkevič, Naimavičius, Rašel Ošerytė, Mauša Pierskis, Eusėjus Razauskas, Aleksandras Slavinas, Motelis Šeras, Danil Švarcmanas, Aronas Greisas, Kaša, Kaplanas, Šeina Klipaitė, Judita Komodaitė, Kazys Macevičius, Leiba Kotonas, Fridis Krastinis, Petras Raslanas, Girša Rojak, Izaokas Rajackas, Domas Rocius, Mauša Rozentalis, Trinkūnas, Moisiejus Vilenskis, Viktoras Vilemas, Racha Vinaitė, Jakovas Zimanas, G. Zimanas, Anton Ambramovičius, Isokas Aranovičius, Boleslovas Baranauskas, Mauša Žabunskas, M. Zingeris, Leiba Čepelinskas, Karolis Grosmanas (Didžiulis), Leonas Koganas, and many more…

The “troika” tribunal operated, which was led by: A. Godliauskas, V. Baronas, A. Malvydas, J. Valfsonas, T. Žigala, J. Kuvšinovas and others…

Before the German occupation, 30,000 of the best Lithuanians of that time were deported.

After 1944, when the Russians had again occupied Lithuania, there was a flood of “international” specialists, and to fortify their activities 4,500 Jews who had fled and 1,200 other Soviet repession notables were returned.

After all the terror and genocide, Lithuania had lost a half million residents, [and] about 70,000 had managed to immigrate to the West and to save their own lives.

Tautininkų Žinios [Patriots’ News] No. 139 Lietuovs Aidas No. 143

hammer and sickle and swastika stamp: Nuremburg 2 It’s time to convict!

red stamp: June 14Genocide Day

The library of Vilnius University is located across the street from the Lithuanian Presidential Palace, where ceremonies took place on 21 September to honor gentiles who rescued Jews during World War II.

There are reports from several observers that in anticipation of the exhibition, the VU library already has an item on display praising one of the recent independence day Neo-Nazi marches through the center of the nation’s capital. One such march is called the “second act of independence.” DefendingHistory.com covered both both the Kaunas and Vilnius independence day marches in 2012.

TRANSLATION

March by Lithuanian Patriotic Youth to commemorate March 11. This was the day when the independent Lithuania state was restored a second time.

upper case green line at bottom: Patriotic Youth: The Guarantee of the People’s Indepedence

tricolor stamp: 1 Auksinas [old Lithuanian coin, means “golden”]

As of today, there has been no public reaction from the university’s “Vilnius Yiddish Institute” which was purged of Jewish academic staff in 2010 and is underpinned by the Bloomington-Borns Judaic studies program at Indiana University, for which the institute, and Vilnius University, have become a summer base for courses, celebrations, and self-congratulating literary evenings. Some observers believe such summer-season help cover for the antisemitic and Holocaust obfuscating policies pervasive among some of the country’s academic, political and intellectual elite.

Given the extraordinarily open antisemitism of the planned exhibit, it is expected that Indiana University’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism will issue a statement prior to the exhibit’s scheduled opening on  27 September 2012.

This entry was posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Bloomington-Borns Program Manipulated?, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Racism, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs. Bookmark the permalink.
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