HALF A MILLION HITS BY END JANUARY 2010 (see stats)    

EXCLUSIVE BULLETIN

Vilnius Prosecutors ‘visit’ the Lithuanian Jewish Community on Holocaust Remembrance Day to query ties to a Holocaust survivor in Israel who is the latest to be ‘investigated’

8 February 2010.  Confirmation has been obtained that on Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January (respected internationally as the day marking the liberation of Auschwitz), Lithuanian prosecutors visited the premises of the Jewish Community of Lithuania at Pylimo Street 4, Vilnius, to question community leaders about their ‘knowledge’ of Joseph Melamed, a Holocaust survivor resident in Tel Aviv.  A native of Kaunas and survivor of the Kovno Ghetto, Mr Melamed is a decorated hero of the anti-Nazi resistance in the forests (1943-44) as well as of the Israel War of Independence (1948). A lawyer, author and retired Israeli diplomat, he is today the elected director of the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, one of the world’s last active associations of Litvaks.

Mr Melamed told Holocaust In The Baltics: ‘If they want to ask me something why don’t they come and talk to me? Why do they disturb the tiny surviving Jewish community in Vilnius? Our offices are at King David Street 1 in central Tel Aviv, right off Rabin Square.’ Mr Melamed and the Association of Lithuanian Jews have provided a spirited and ongoing voice of disagreement with the Prague Declaration. They had been the first to challenge the underlying assumptions of Lithuania’s ‘red-brown’ commission back in 1998. Prosecutors have not disclosed what it is they wish to question Mr Melamed about. In the case of their ongoing campaign against other Holocaust survivors, there have been no charges, just defamatory statements and gestures of intimidation. Nor has any been cleared as their ‘investigations’ continue. By contrast, according to the Wiesenthal Center’s data, the Baltic countries have not punished a single Nazi war criminal since independence. Since 2006, they have been pursuing Holocaust survivors who joined the Soviet-backed anti-Nazi resistance, eliciting solid international condemnation, most recently from the United States Congress.

Photo of Joseph Melamed in his office with his book on Lithuanian Jewry (2010)

    Welcome!  

                 ►Stand up for Human Rights against the New Far Right
                 ►Defend small and embattled minority communities
                 ►Make their heritage into attractive objects of study
                 ►Defy defamation, discrimination and distortion
                 ►Say no to Holocaust Obfuscation
                 ►Build Inter-community friendship on the basis of
                                        frankness,  integrity,  dignity
             

    This site supports. . .

           ►loyalty to the remnant East European Jewish communities
           ►dedication to serious preservation of their heritage
           ►robust defense of the Holocaust Survivors defamed
           ►opposition to ‘Double Genocide’ & red-brown commissions
           ►bringing you the media coverage (scroll down for recent)      
           ►crediting the work of bold citizens who speak up proudly
           ►recording noble gestures of diplomats and organizations
           ►study of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian Holocaust
           ►providing background to the history and current debates
           ►research and education in the field of Litvak Studies
           ►the study of Yiddish language, literature and culture

    The site opposes. . .

           ►the campaign to defame Holocaust Survivors who resisted
           ►the movement to write the Holocaust out of European history
           ►the ‘Prague Declaration’ and the ‘Double Genocide’ industry
           ►‘Double Genocide’ bunkum & red-brown commissions
           ►the state tolerated morass of antisemitism, racism, bias
           ►efforts to stymie free debate

              INTRO CURRENT ISSUES.                     INTRO HISTORY.    

              MISSION.             SITE INFO.               EDITOR’S EVENTS.

              LEONIDAS DONSKIS'S REPLY TO 'DOUBLE GENOCIDE'.

RECENT  COMMENT 

►Dovid Katz on Warsaw Yiddish radio (31 Jan 2010)                                     ►Yehuda Bauer in the Jerusalem Post  (25 Jan 2010)
►Cnaan Liphshiz  in Haaretz  (26 Jan 2010)                                    ►Mikhail Iossel on SLS Writes  (9 Jan 2009)  
►Moacir P. de Sá Pereira on Lithchat  (8 Jan 2010)              
►Dovid Katz in the Guardian  (8 Jan 2010) 
►Efraim Zuroff in the Jewish Chronicle  (7 Jan 2010)
►Aage Myhre on VIC’s VilNews  (7 Jan 2010)
►Clemens Heni on SPME  (4 Jan 2010)                                    
►Dovid Katz in the Washington Jewish Week  (30 Dec 2009)             ►David Hirsh in Haaretz  (25 Dec 2009)
►Efraim Zuroff in the Jerusalem Post  (23 Dec 2009)    
►Benny Weinthal in the Jerusalem Post  (17 Dec 2009)
►Izi Leibler in the Jerusalem Post  (16 Dec 2009)  
►Dovid Katz and Clemens Heni in the AJ  (4 Dec 2009)                            
►Mehdi Hasan in New Statesman  (1 Nov 2009)   
►Dovid Katz in the Irish Times  (31 Oct 2009)
►John Mann MP (UK) in the Jewish Chronicle  (29 Oct 2009)                
►Milan Chersonski in Jerusalem of Lithuania (Fall 2009)►Daiva Repečkaitė on Wonderland  (28 Oct 2009)
►Clemens Heni on WPK  (26 Oct 2009)
►Roger Cohen in the New York Times  (22 Oct 2009)
►Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian  (20 Oct 2009)   
►Shimon Samuels at OSCE  (5 Oct 2009)
►Paul Hockenos in Newsweek  (2 Oct 2009)                                                 ►Faina Kukliansky in Jerusalem of Lithuania (Fall 2009)
►Seumas Milne in the Guardian  (9 Sept 2009)
►Dovid Katz on Three Definitions  (Sept 2009)              
►Jonathan Steele in the Guardian  (19 Aug 2009)                            
►Leonidas Donskis on Europeanvoice.com  (24 July 2009) 

                                 MORE  MEDIA  HERE

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U.S. Congress Protests Lithuanian Gov. Campaign against Rachel Margolis and other Holocaust Survivors who joined the anti-Nazi Resistance

27 January 2010.  On the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Margolis family in the United States released to the media a letter from the United States Congress to the prime minister of Lithuania, protesting in no uncertain terms the campaign being waged against 88 year old historian, museum builder and biologist, Dr Rachel Margolis; 87 year old Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, librarian of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute; and 83 year old Holocaust scholar Dr Yitzhak Arad, who was founding director of Yad Vashem. All three have been the subject of ongoing ‘investigations into war crimes’ by Lithuanian prosecutors and of extensive defamation by the country’s mainstream media. Since the saga got underway in the spring of 2006, none has been charged, and not one has been cleared. Holocaust studies specialists increasingly suspect a ruse to create a bogus paper trail of ‘investigations’ of Holocaust survivors as a diversion to the documented history of massive Baltic participation in the Nazi-led genocide of the Jewish popoulation, as well as to the region’s dismal record of not punishing a single Nazi war criminal since independence. See the media coverage; responses to the anti-survivor campaign; critiques of the underlying ‘red=brown’ movement and the state-funded apparatus that underpins it.

The three page letter (available here) is signed by the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman; the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe, Robert Wexler; Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, and Congressmen Paul Hodes and James P. Moran. The letter addresses the Lithuanian prime minister, Andrius Kubilius in stark terms: ‘Prime Minister Kubilius, we request your written assurance that Ms Margolis can return to Vilnius without fear of being questioned by the prosecutor.’ It goes on to say: ‘Ms Margolis and other partisans should not have to live in continued fear from reprisals, media defamation or harassment from authorities. As the leader of Lithuania, please take this opportunity to speak directly to your citizens and set the record straight on this critical issue.’

Earlier this month, Jerusalem-based Avi Lehrer posted a second clip of a recent series of interviews with Dr Margolis, filmed at her hut in Rechovot,   concerning the attempts of prosecutors and press to turn history on its head. She addresses the 2008 visit by uniformed officers looking for her in Vilnius. This follows an earlier segment where Dr Margolis, 88, explains why she yearns to see her native Vilnius (Yiddish Vilne) one more time. See below (at: 28 Oct), and at Blaming the Victims (→ 2008: 5 May; 28 May). Rachel Margolis and other survivors are being filmed (in their native language, Yiddish), thanks to the generosity of Verbe et Lumière – Vigilance (Paris). A 2008 letter to Dr Margolis from 9 ambassadors here; 2009 Tel Aviv event here, and at Responses (→ 19 June 2009). Smithsonian.

Rachel Margolis’s A Partisan from Vilna, in English translation and with a new preface by Professor Antony Polonsky, is now in press (Academic Studies Press, Boston); see Recent Books (→ Rachel Margolis).

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German Parliamentarian wins award in Jerusalem, blasts the ‘Prague Declaration’

23 December 2009.  German Social Democratic parliamentarian Gert Weisskirchen was awarded a certificate of honor at the Israeli Knesset on 16 December for a lifetime of fighting antisemitism, racism, and Holocaust distortion. The Knesset session was integrated into the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism. During an informal celebration at Jerusalem’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, Mr Weisskirchen penned, in his famed telegraphic style, on Global Forum letterpaper, his opposition to the ‘Prague Declaration’ in the spirit of three new ‘DEs’:  ‘De-valuation of the victims, De-stortion of history, De-legimitization of the Holocaust. These are the reasons why I oppose the Prague Declaration’ — Gert Weisskirchen

(images courtesy of Dr Clemens Heni of WPK)

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Holocaust Survivors call on Global Forum to condemn the ‘Prague Declaration’

15 December 2009.  In a statement issued at the launch in Jerusalem of the 2009 Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, the Association of Lithuanian Jews called on the Forum ‘to forcefully condemn the Prague Declaration, which seeks to create a false symmetry between Nazi and Soviet crimes, and is an attempt to obfuscate and diminish the Holocaust by various means (including an attempt to redefine genocide)’. The statement describes the Prague Declaration as ‘a prime symptom of a new and dangerous strain of antisemitism that seeks to distort the history of the Holocaust and to confuse perpetrators and victims’.

Jerusalem Post coverage: 17 Dec 2009 and 18 Dec 2009.

The Prague Declaration was proclaimed in June 2008 as the de facto manifesto of the ‘Double Genocide’ movement. It and its associated resolutions have been widely condemned by human rights activists, including British MP John Mann, chairman of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism.

MP John Mann was honored by Israel’s Knesset on 16 Dec 2009. He spoke out forcefully at the Global Forum against the Prague Declaration and various ultranationalist campaigns in Eastern Europe to declare ‘equivalence’ of Nazi and Soviet crimes.

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Foreign Minister, on eve of Jerusalem visit, explains his view of ‘red and brown’

9 December 2009.  In a wide-ranging interview (English here), Lithuania’s foreign minister remarked before his visit to Jerusalem that Nazi and Soviet crimes were indeed different, but in this sense: ‘Lithuania suffered from both, but civilized humanity universally condemned the crimes of the Nazis a long time ago, whereas the memory of the Soviet victims was neither morally nor legally assessed for a long time’. There is no retreat from the implicit equation of the unequatable, no comment on the unique scale of Holocaust genocide which has left Litvak Jewry on the brink of extinction; on his country’s legacy of massive collaboration; on his state agencies’ continuing defamation of elderly Holocaust survivors who joined the anti-Nazi resistance; on his ministry’s investment in the Prague Declaration and other red-brown initiatives; on the attempts to forge a single ‘state truth’ history for Europe. Hopefully, the minister, who has forcefully condemned racist, antisemitic and homophobic outbursts in the media, will now announce removal of the ‘red-equals-brown movement’ from his ministry’s agenda.

Mr Foreign Minister, the unspeakable pain inflicted on the tiny remnant Jewish communities of Eastern Europe by the unconscionable defamation of Holocaust survivors by your prosecutors (in Lithuania alone among the nations of Europe); by the Prague Declaration and red-brown commissions; by all the state sponsored efforts to obfuscate the Holocaust — these are even more hurtful and damaging than those crude outbursts in the media that you have boldly condemned. There is little to be gained by condemning primitive antisemitism with one hand while espousing its sophisticated new incarnation with the other. The Prague Declaration is the new antisemitism par excellence (see. e.g. Heni 2009, Katz 2009, Katz and Heni 2009, Samuels 2009). Jerusalem’s Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism presents a splendid opportunity for your government to abandon the red-equals-brown movement and the dictation of ‘truth in history’ by politicians (see Milne 2009; Steele 2009). Leave history to the competing ideas of historians.

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Justice Minister defies documented history, denies Lithuanian Holocaust collaboration

2 December 2009.  On his blog, the justice minister of Lithuania dismisses the internationally known history of massive (and official and institutional) Lithuanian collaboration with the Nazi annihilation of the country’s Jewish population during the Holocaust. English translation. Delfi summary in Lithuanian.  BNS summary in English. He makes no mention of his own prosecutors’ continuing defamation of Holocaust survivors who joined the anti-Nazi resistance, or the international condemnation of his prosecutors' activities. He does, however, fault the US, Great Britain and the USSR in connection with the Holocaust.

His blog cites his prime minister’s earlier HARDtalk interview with the BBC’s Jonathan Charles on 30 Nov (video here; → Holocaust issues at timecode starting ±18:40; alternate here at ±5:55). The PM effectively let slip the policy of investing in Jewish memorials and projects while trying to (a) equate the Holocaust with Soviet crimes, and (b) downplay local collaboration.

Ronald Lauder (4 Dec 2009), Daiva Repečkaitė (4 Dec 2009) and Efraim Zuroff (7 Jan 2010) reply.

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Key Diplomats in Vilnius ‘walk in the rain’ with VYI Librarian Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky

26 November 2009.   A group of ambassadors and chiefs of mission defied persistent rain to go on a historical walking tour of the Vilna Ghetto, where Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, 87, librarian of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, recounted the history of the city's anti-Nazi resistance. They represented the embassies of Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Russia. Britain, Canada and the United States had participated on a previous date.

The walk was preceded by a meeting at the Jewish Community of Lithuania addressed by Norwegian ambassador HE Steinar Gil, JCL chairman Dr Shimon Alperovich, executive director Mr Simon Gurevich, and Professor Dovid Katz of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute. The event is perceived as a meaningful response to the campaign of defamation targeting Jewish veterans of the anti-Nazi resistance (see below at 28 October 2009). Report at: Responses (→ 26 Nov 2009). 

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Shimon Peres Attacked for holding Nazi and Soviet crimes to be Different

14 November 2009.  Leading Baltic news portal Delfi.lt attacks Israel’s president Shimon Peres for differentiating Nazi and Soviet crimes. English translation. Peres’s remarks were distorted (see original; English translation). The Delfi piece includes this graphic:

Daiva Repečkaitė replies.

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Erasmus Students invited to ‘Exchange Genocide Project’

November 2009. European exchange students on the Erasmus program in Lithuania have received this email from the program’s local leadership inviting them to join for free an interactive ‘Exchange Genocide Project’ complete with Russian speaking actors and psychological and physical punishment. Participating Erasmus students are required to sign this confirmation form. Erasmus is financed by the European Union. There is no mention of any ‘Exchange Genocide Project’ to commemorate the Holocaust or to visit peacefully any of the 202 mass murder sites in the country.

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German President awards Fania Brantsovsky the Federal Cross of Merit; Antisemitic Tirade Follows in Vilnius

28 October 2009.  Antisemitic reaction on Lithuania’s main news portal came within minutes of the German embassy’s press release announcing its award to anti-Nazi Jewish partisan veteran Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, librarian of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute. The award is the president’s Federal Cross of Merit. It was presented to her by Germany’s ambassador to Lithuania Hans-Peter Annen in a ceremony at his embassy in Vilnius. Details at Responses (→ 28 Oct 2009). 

English translation of the report on the Baltic internet portal Delfi, including the remarks of a ruling-party member of  parliament. It appeared with this caricature of the 87 year old Holocaust survivor who had just been honored by Germany’s president. Posted comments that threatened her with violence have now been removed. More details at Blaming the Victims (→ 28 Oct 2009). Daiva Repečkaitė and Milan Chersonski reply.

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Rachel Margolis turns 88

28 October 2009  also marked Dr Rachel Margolis’s 88th birthday. Dr Margolis, anti-Nazi partisan veteran, historian and biologist, lives in Rechovot, and feels unable to return to Vilnius because of the situation. Birthday greetings at Responses (→ 28 Oct 2009, II).