anti-Semitism – Page 28 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Vilna Gaon Statue Vandalized Again

For the second time in two months, the stone statue commemorating the Vilna Gaon located at what is thought to have been his residence in Vilnius was vandalized by application of an unknown liquid.

Police reported they received a report of the newest act of vandalism at 5:20 P.M. local time on Sunday. Vilnius district police department representative Julija Samorokovskaja told Baltic News Service a tourist guide reported an unknown liquid, possibly some acid, had been poured over the monument.

“A report was received that sometime during a two-day time period acid possibly had been poured on the Vilna Gaon statue. A tourist guide made the report,” she said. She also said an criminal investigation had been launched for incitement to hatred, and that the physical damage done would be calculated more accurately later.

2020-08-032020-09-04

WJC Commemorates European Holocaust Remembrance Day

Press Release
July 31, 2020

In Memory of the 500,000 Sinti and Roma Killed in the Holocaust, World Jewish Congress Commemorates European Holocaust Remembrance Day

NEW YORK–The world is remembering the 500,000 Sinti and Roma murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe, in advance of August 2, which marks the tragic anniversary of the liquidation of the Zigeunerlager (“Gypsy camp”) at the former concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. On that day in 1944, the last 4,300 Sinti and Roma, despite their fierce resistance, were forced into the gas chambers by the SS, where they were murdered.

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) joins the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the Association of Roma in Poland, and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in observing European Holocaust Remembrance Day for Sinti and Roma on August 2. A short WJC video further explains the horrific history of the Romani Holocaust.

2020-08-03

Group of Vilnius Jewish Community Members Tell National Leaders: This Isn’t the First Time Kukliansky Is Acting Like This

After questions by Goodwill Foundation chairpeople Faina Kukliansky and rabbi Andrew Baker on the decision by the Lithuanian parliament to name the year 2021 as the Year of Juozas Lukša-Daumantas, four members of the Vilnius Jewish Community have sent a letter to president Gitanas Nausėda, the parliament, the Government and Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius.

Chona Leibovičius, Vitalijus Karakorskis, Dovydas Bluvšteinas and Leo Levas Milneris called on the president to review the composition of Lithuania’s International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania.

These members of the Jewish community called on the parliament and Government to find a way to halt temporarily the financing of the Goodwill Foundation until its leadership is replaced.

2020-07-30

Faina Kukliansky: We Need to Take a Chill-Pill When Discussing Lithuanian Partisans

Elections are a time when made-up pseudo-patriotic stories eclipse important social problems. By distorting, for example, my joint letter with American Jewish Committee representative Rabbi Andrew Baker on the Lithuanian parliament’s decision to name next year after the partisan Juozas Lukša-Daumantas. In order to avoid any “indirect” doubts, on July 18 I emphasized on LNK television that “We have no complaints on Juozas Lukša-Daumantas’s past.”

What does worry us is that the fascist anti-Semitic Lithuanian Activist Front might be honored along with him. The LAF formed the Tautos darbo apsaugos batalionas, or TDA, which was responsible for the mass murder of thousands of Jews at the Seventh Fort in Kaunas and elsewhere. The website of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania states: “during the first Soviet occupation in 1940 and 1941, Juozas Lukša-Daumantas belonged to the Lithuanian Activist Front. For this he was arrested and imprisoned at the Kaunas hard labor prison. On June 22, 1941, when the war between the USSR and Germany began, he escaped.”

I am being accused of “indirectly” belittling Juozas Lukša-Daumantas. I remember the time when people were sent to mental hospitals and prison for indirectly criticizing the Communist regime. Maybe someone would like to lock me up now and give me some re-education on what can and cannot be said. But that’s not the main thing. The main thing is that my words about the LAF have been applied to the entire partisan movement and equated with it, even though that’s like accusing all of Lithuania of anti-Semitism because of the statements of one or another irresponsible radical.

2020-07-302020-09-01

Claims Conference Holocaust Denial Campaign Launching This Week

Dear Presidents,
Dear Friends,

We hope this email finds you and your close ones well and healthy.

Tomorrow, July 29, a grass-roots campaign will be launched by The Claims Conference to urge Facebook to remove Holocaust denial from its platform.

Holocaust survivors are putting much effort in order to make Facebook classify Holocaust denial as hate speech and remove it. Claims Conference has been working with survivors globally who are now recording messages to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. These messages will be posted daily on Claims Conference social media.

Despite the meeting between Mark Zuckerberg and civil rights organizations (including ADL and NAACP), Facebook has refused to classify Holocaust denial as hate speech.

Therefore, we would like to ask you (and your affiliated organizations) to take a moment to promote this campaign on your social platform. It is our duty to help giving Holocaust survivors this missing, while so deeply needed voice.

Each day from July 29th, a recorded message from Holocaust survivors to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be posted on Facebook, Instagram (owned by Facebook) and other social media platforms such as Twitter.

The first video will be posted at 1PM (CET).

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClaimsConference/
Twitter: @ClaimsCon
Instagram: @claims_conference

Information can also be found at the Claims Conference website on July 29 at: www.claimscon.org.

EJC is fully supporting this campaign and we encourage you to share these video messages using the hashtag: #NoDenyingIt.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us for any further information you may require.

Best regards,
The EJC Team

tel. +32 25408159 fax +32 25408169
www.eurojewcong.org @eurojewcong

2020-07-292020-07-29

Public Still Knows Little about 2021 as Year of Lukša-Daumantas

The Lithuanian parliament’s draft resolution naming 2021 the Year of Juozas Lukša-Daumantas is largely unknown to the public, as is the man Juozas Lukša-Daumantas. The Lithuanian parliament has made a tradition out of naming years after people and events, but this time it isn’t clear what is being celebrated, and perhaps only Lithuanian MPs know the answer.

So far we only have official explanations on the Lithuanian Activist Front and Juozas Lukša-Daumantas’s membership in this organization, including on the official website of Lithuania’s Orwellian Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, where Juozas Lukša-Daumantas is listed as an LAF member.

We are presenting additional information from Chaim Bargman, amateur historian and tourist guide from Kaunas, to try to elucidate the nature of the historical figure. We would very much welcome additional information from scholars and academic works.

2020-07-172020-08-25

IHRA Statement on Rehabilitation

Adopted at the 2020 IHRA Berlin Plenary during the German Presidency

The IHRA condemns all attempts to rehabilitate the reputations of persons who were complicit in the crimes of the Holocaust and the genocide of the Roma.

Therefore, in light of rising anti-Semitism and Holocaust distortion, the IHRA is resolved to address the phenomenon of rehabilitation in member countries and across the organization. In the spirit of its 2020 Ministerial Declaration, the IHRA encourages “all countries and societies to address their respective pasts by dealing openly and accurately with the historical record.” Therefore, it is imperative for the IHRA to promote research, public awareness, and political responsibility around the issue of rehabilitation.

The countries affected by the Holocaust have long wrestled with the challenges of confronting the past and with thorny questions surrounding complicity for the crimes planned and carried out by Nazi Germany and those fascist and extreme nationalist partners and other collaborators who participated in these crimes.

These developments are not unique to any single country or historical experience, and they appear in IHRA member countries and beyond, including in those lands not directly affected by the Holocaust. Countries must engage with their national histories as they pertain to the Holocaust, as well as with the histories of those individuals who were complicit in its crimes.

Failure to remember truthfully demeans the living and disrespects the dead.

2020-07-152020-07-30

Down the Memory Hole: Orwellian Genocide Center Contradicts Itself Again

A week ago the Lithuanian news channel Info TV aired a program featuring a discussion between Mission to Siberia television program participant and Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania historian Mingailė Jurgaitė, and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky. They discussed the decision by the Lithuanian parliament to declare 2021 the year of Juozas Lukša-Daumantas, who was a member of the Lithuanian Activist Front in 1940 and 1941. The LAF was a pro-Nazi underground militia responsible for most of the atrocities against Lithuanian Jews in the early months of the German occupation in the summer of 1941, when the LAF declared an independent national government with Kaunas as its capital, the so-called Provisional Government.

LAF propaganda took aim mainly at Jews. In Kaunas in 1941 the LAF kidnapped several thousand Lithuanian Jews and their Provisional Government issued orders they be held at a concentration camp to be located at the Seventh Fort in Kaunas.

2020-07-132020-07-27

WJC Welcomes IHRA Members’ Strong Condemnation of Rehabilitation of Nazi Collaborators

July 7, 2020, NEW YORK–Today the 35 member and liaison countries of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) issued a statement condemning “all attempts to rehabilitate the reputations of persons who were complicit in the crimes of the Holocaust and the genocide of the Roma.” The statement conveys the IHRA’s resolve to address the phenomenon within IHRA members.

World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder welcomed the move, adopted at the 2020 IHRA Berlin Plenary, as a clear sign of a commitment to oppose and isolate such efforts. He said, “Historical truth and accuracy need to be safeguarded for the sake of future generations. Any efforts to distort or deny the true facts of the Holocaust, including the rehabilitation or even glorification of Nazi collaborators, are extremely dangerous as they open the way to all kinds of racist and xenophobic movements.”

Lauder warned that “all societies need to remain vigilant, educate the population about the true facts of history and strongly condemn any efforts to challenge the historical record.”

The World Jewish Congress has long focused on advocating against the phenomenon of rehabilitation and glorification of Nazi collaborators, a widespread issue, particularly in post-Communist countries.

Lauder added, “Efforts to create false national narratives lead to a whitewash of countries’ histories during the Second World War. This rewriting of history, where the people of respective countries are represented as victims and heroes and never villains, can become fertile ground for blind nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, neo-Naziism and xenophobia.”

2020-07-082020-07-30

European Jewish Congress President Calls on Portuguese Parliament Not to Harm Sephardi Citizenship Law

Thursday, July 2, 2020–European Jewish Congress president Dr. Moshe Kantor has written to Portugal’s president of the Assembly of the Republic Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues calling on him to insure that a law passed in 2013 which provides Sephardi Jews with the possibility to apply for Portuguese citizenship is not harmed by recent attempts to pass amendments which would damage the applicability, intention and spirit of the original law.

“I urge you to amend the administrative flaws in the implementation of this historic law without losing sight of, or endangering, what is essential: the opening of a real, achievable path to citizenship of the Portuguese Republic to the descendants of persecuted Portuguese Sephardic Jews,” Dr. Kantor wrote. “This act of tolerance and reconciliation is as relevant, symbolic and inspiring to other nations as it was when it was approved five years ago.”

In recent years there has been a discernible increase in the number of applications by Sephardi Jews for Portuguese citizenship, and some parliament members have sought ways to stem the numbers, including proposing that applicants must reside in Portugal or have a “effective connection” to the Iberian nation.

2020-07-032020-07-17

Lietūkis Garage Massacre Commemorated June 26

The Kaunas Jewish Community and members of the public gathered in Kaunas June 26 at the site of the infamous Lietūkis garage massacre of Jews by Lithuanians in the early days of the Holocaust in the last days of June of 1941. Relatives of victims attended as well. The ceremony was followed by kaddish for the Jews buried at the Slobodka (Vilijampolė) and Žaliakalnis Jewish cemeteries in Kaunas.

2020-07-032020-07-17

Renowned German Historian Christoph Dieckmann Says Lithuanian Heroes Noreika, Škirpa Were Both Fascists

by prof. Pinchos Fridberg

Vilnius

At 5:30 A.M. yesterday, July 2, 2020, the Lithuanian Public Radio and Television (LRT) web page posted an interview with noted German historian Christoph Dieckmann:

“Vokiečių istorikas apie Holokaustą Lietuvoje: žydus priversdavo šokti, dainuoti, o tada sušaudydavo” [German Historian on Holocaust in Lithuania: Jews Were Forced to Sing, Dance, Then Were Shot]

The point of my text here is to point the reader’s attention to the phrase “Both of them were fascists.” To avoid mistakes, here is that portion of the interview which I captured:

Translation:

In the book you wrote the majority collaborated with the Nazis seeking to serve their country and led by a certain vision of the future of their country, usually a fascist one, to create an ethnically pure, militarily strong nation state. So didn’t Kazys Škirpa and Jonas Noreika also believe they were serving their country?

Both of them were fascists. Noreika became one while very young, Škirpa at a bit later age. Škirpa had a fascist vision of Lithuania, a Lithuania without Jews. He spoke out in favor of driving the Jews out rather than murdering them. Noreika held similar views, he saw a Lithuania without Jews because he believed they were powerful and hindered the creation of statehood. …]

P.S. The same day at 9:57 A.M. the LRT internet site posted an abbreviated translation of the interview in Russian.

It’s interesting to note that this passage was omitted in the Russian version.

2020-07-032020-07-03

Co-Chairs of Goodwill Foundation Send Letter to Parliamentary Speaker on Naming 2021 Year of Lukša-Daumantas

July 2, 2020

His Excellency Viktoras Pranckietis
Speaker of the Seimas
Vilnius, Lithuania

Dear Speaker Pranckietis,

We are deeply troubled to learn that the Seimas will entertain a resolution which would dedicate 2021 the Year of Juozas Lukša-Daumantas, a leader of the World War II-era Lithuanian Activist Front.

The Lithuanian Activist Front was founded in Berlin and was an early ally of the Nazis in the occupation of Lithuania. It was proudly anti-Semitic, and many of its members were directly involved in the persecution and murder of Lithuanian Jews. Despite its anti-Soviet focus and later conflict with the Nazi powers, its vision of an independent Lithuania was of an ethnically “pure” homeland with no place for Jewish citizens.

Some may question if there is sufficient documentary evidence to show that Lukša-Daumantas was guilty of war crimes. That is not relevant to the decision before the Seimas. There is today a worldwide reckoning with history and growing recognition in all Western democracies that even past leaders of great accomplishment must forfeit any honor if they were also racists, bigots, or anti-Semites. Surely Lithuania should do no less.

With that in mind we implore you to take no action which might give honor to any leader of the Lithuanian Activist Front. Instead you should defer such matters to the International Commission for Evaluating the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes appointed by the Lithuanian president for a clear and critical understanding of this tragic period in the country’s history.

As co-chairpersons of the Lithuanian Goodwill Foundation, we have valued the warm cooperative relationship we have had with you since your first days as Speaker. We know we share a common commitment to maintain the legacy and history of Jewish life in Lithuania and to build an inclusive and tolerant future. It is in this spirit that we write to you.

With sincere regards,

Faina Kukliansky, Chairwoman, Lithuanian Jewish Community; Co-Chairperson, Goodwill Foundation

Rabbi Andrew Baker, AJC Director of International Jewish Affairs; Co-Chairperson, Goodwill Foundation

2020-07-022020-07-15

Lithuanian Jewish Community Requests Information on Neo-Nazi Terrorist Act in Vilnius

June 29, 2020

To:
Israeli embassy to Lithuania
info@vilnius.mfa.gov.il

US embassy to Lithuania
WebEmailVilnius@state.gov

Lithuanian Foreign Ministry
urm@urm.lt

Last week Lithuania media reported an act of terrorism planned in Lithuania in 2019 and the arrest of a suspect in this case who allegedly belongs to the ultra-right extremist organization Feuerkrieg Division. The male suspect, born in 1999, left a homemade bomb at a building on Balčikonio street in Vilnius next to the Technopolis building and spray-painted the name of his organization and a swastika at the same location.

According to the news website 15min.lt, this extremist group targets Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, religious leaders and police.

The incident was only reported last week in mid-June of 2020 although the crime was allegedly committed in October of 2019.

For that reason the Lithuanian Jewish Community is requesting information from you on whether your institutions were informed last year about the attempted terrorist act and/or about the arrest of this person who belonged to a radical group.

The LJC is concerned the Community received no information about this, no one contacted us, and the police took no measures to insure security. While many Jewish communities in a number of European countries enjoy protection provided for by the state, the LJC in Lithuania has for many years now provided and paid for our own security at headquarters and the synagogue in Vilnius. In situations such as this one, the LJC believes the police and Lithuania’s State Security Department should contact LJC leaders and inform them of such events, all the more so since this ultra-right group targets Jews specifically.

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community

2020-07-012020-07-03

Message of Support from ORT to Vilnius

Letter to Faina Kukliansky 30.06

2020-06-302020-06-30

Neo-Nazi Terrorist Case Announced 8 Months Later

Photo montage courtesy LRT

Lithuania media are reporting a case against alleged neo-Nazi terrorist Gediminas Beržinskas went to court June 17. The case concerns his placing a homemade bomb outside a Western Union office in Vilnius and leaving neo-Nazi graffiti on the wall next to the bomb back on October 6, 2019. The bomb was quickly diffused by Lithuanian law enforcement bomb experts and the suspect was traced and arrested on October 15, 2019, despite trying to disguise himself from video cameras during the attempted bombing. Police and prosecutors are refusing to say why they hid the crime so long and are claiming at the same time there are no other suspects in the case and the accused acted alone.

Beržinskas allegedly used spray paint to write “FK Division,” “Siege” and to paint a swastika at the crime scene. Police and prosecutors say FK means “Feuerkrieg Division,” a now mostly-defunct group of right-wing neo-Nazi extremists who targeted Jews and others they considered non-white. Lithuanian police say their ideology was based on the book “Siege” by American neo-Nazi James Mason. According to police, Beržinskas’s bomb was functional and would have exploded with a force equivalent to 2.5 kilograms of TNT.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community believes police should have given some indication earlier of imminent terrorist activities against Jews in Vilnius in order to take better security precautions, security which the Community pays for out of its own pocket. We also wonder why other incidents of neo-Nazi activity including vandalism and graffiti aren’t investigated with even a fraction of the same enthusiasm shown when a foreign financial institution is involved.

2020-06-302020-07-03

Tsemakh Shabad Statue Vandalized

The statue made by Lithuanian sculptor Romualdas Kvintas ensemble featuring Vilna Jewish doctor Tsemakh Shabad–the prototype for the Dr. Aybolit character in children’s poems and stories by the Russian writer Korney Chukovsky–and a child was vandalized with acid or paint.

The attack was the second over the weekend on Jewish monuments in the Vilnius Old Town. On June 26, the day before, the monument to the Vilna Gaon was also vandalized, also using acid or paint.

The Tsemakh Shabad was vandalized before soon after its unveiling in 2007 using acid. Some in the Lithuanian media are speculating the attacks are intended to mirror the wanton destruction of statues in the USA and UK by mobs. Meanwhile Lithuanian Nazi leader and Holocaust perpetrator Jonas Noreika’s shrine at the very center of Vilnius remains unharmed and under 24-hour surveillance by video cameras. Recently news media have reported on a repeat-offender intent on making her mark on statues around Vilnius even before the Black Lives Matter mass hysteria swept the United States. The elderly primary school teacher was arrested last year after police reviewed video surveillance showing her throwing red paint on an installation at Vilnius’s Lūkiškės Square intended to commemorate Lithuanian anti-Soviet partisans.

2020-06-292020-07-03

Vilna Gaon Monument Vandalized June 26

That statue commemorating the notional residence of the Vilna Gaon and the shulhoyf where the Great Synagogue and a number of other shuls once stood, built around the Gaon’s residence, was vandalized on June 26 using acid.

2020-06-29

How It Happened

Lithuanian writer Rūta Vanagaitė and German historian Christoph Dieckmann presented their new book called “How Did It Happen?” at a launch ceremony held at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius on June 25.

Dieckmann delivered what amounted to a lecture on the topic of the Holocaust in Lithuania lasting about one hour, and proposed rejecting some accepted Holocaust terminology as judicial rather than historical. He said looking through the lens of ethnicity creates a false picture, even though the actors at the time did so. He also said the idea of perpetrators, victims, collaborationists and so on should be revisited and the true picture is more complex, with people collaborating with the Nazis at one point and the same people resisting them at another. He said the grey cover of the Lithuanian-language edition of the book reflects this ambiguity.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky served as moderator and challenged Dr. Dieckmann’s seeming rejection of the legal aspects in favor of the historical truth. Dieckmann responded saying so much of the narrative is dominated by legal defense and prosecutorial arguments that it’s difficult to see what really happened.

2020-06-252020-07-03

Four Historical Shames Which Afflict Us Lithuanians

by Arkadijus Vinokuras DELFI.lt

History forms the collective experience and mentality of the generations of today and tomorrow. Running away from the unpleasant facts of history which are perceived as shameful, the aspiration of denying or justifying them, leads to a psychological, cultural and political dead end. Today Lithuanians are afflicted by four historical shames. These are the impotency of the debased pre-war government of Smetona, the first Soviet occupation, the Holocaust and the second Soviet occupation.

The first historical shame for Lithuanians. The rule of Antanas Smetona, the period from 1939 to 1940. The fissure in the Lithuanian state began in 1926 when the Tautininkai carried out a coup. Civic society along with democracy which is characterized by a political opposition in parliament were buried almost as soon as they were born.

You can go as deep as you want into the negative and positive side of each and every political figure from the time, into his assumptions concerning political decisions, or look at the global geopolitical processes of the time. You also can, in the name of justification, use the argument “we cannot decide about the events of that time from the tower of our present knowledge” to justify any stupidity or crime against peoples and humanity. But the handover of Klaipėda to the Nazis without any fight on March 23, 1939 and that same year the consent to allow 20,000 Soviet soldiers into Lithuania, and finally the handover of Lithuania without any resistance to the Soviets on June 15, 1940–these things are unanimously considered shameful by the Lithuanian public today. Even the public back then understood non-resistance to the Soviets was shameful, as was president Smetona’s flight, the public sees these as negative. (It should be noted here that under international law consent received under duress or by force is not binding, it is null and void, and doesn’t change the fact of aggression and the occupation of Lithuania).

2020-06-232020-07-02