News – Page 102 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

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

Brazilian Jewish Press Discusses LJC Response to Putin

Lithuanian consul general in Sao Paulo Laura Tupe has sent notification to the two authors that their piece “Don’t Speak in Our Name, Mr. President of the Russian Federation” written especially for publication on the www.lzb.lt website, a response to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s article on World War II, was discussed in Kadimah, the Brazilian Jewish community magazine:

Judíos lituanos critican a Putin por “falsificar” la historia soviética

Los líderes de la comunidad lituana apuntaron contra el intento del presidente ruso de minimizar los crímenes soviéticos en el Báltico, afirmando que la población judía se convirtió en el grupo étnico más perseguido por la URSS durante la “esclavización” de Lituania después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial…

https://www.ynetespanol.com/actualidad/mundo-judio/article/r1Y0tAdAI

2020-07-032020-07-10

Congratulations to Ruth Reches on Becoming Principal of the Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium

The Lithuanian Jewish Community, school students, parents and staff congratulate Ruth Reches on her selection to become the next principal of the Sholem Aleichem school in Vilnius. She had acted as temporary principal following the retirement of Miša Jokubas last year.

The world ORT organization has also sent congratulations to the new principal of their affiliate school.

Ruth has been doing an outstanding job as acting principal and we wish her continued success at the multicultural school which has consistently placed in the top ten best schools in Vilnius and Lithuania.

Ruth Reches recently earned a PhD in clinical psychology at an Israeli university following her master’s work at Vilnius University in the same subject. She has long worked at the Sholem Aleichem school as a Hebrew teacher and psychologist. She earned her teaching certificate in Vilnius as well at the Vilnius Pedagogical University.

2020-07-03

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

Sabbath under the Stars Litvak Scouting Camp

The Lithuanian Jewish Community presents the second annual Sabbath under the Stars Litvak scouting camp at the Kernavė spa in the Širvintos district from July 3 to 5, 2020. Please register by July 1.

For more information contact sofja@lzb.lt

Registration: https://bit.ly/3g4Z4Wq

2020-07-012020-07-02

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

Don’t Speak in Our Name, Mr. President of the Russian Federation

We read the article “The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II” by Russian president Vladimir Putin in the American conservative magazine National Interest and reprinted by media representing the Russian opposition and pro-government position.

We feel the need to share our thoughts with readers on the fate of Jews, citizens of Lithuania, as red totalitarianism was replaced by brown totalitarianism in our country.

Many of my relatives, those of the chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and those of many citizens of Litvak origin were imprisoned in the Stutthof (liberated by the USSR) and Dachau (liberated by American forces) concentration camps. My mother and Faina Kukliansky’s mother miraculously survived Stutthof.

2020-06-292020-07-13

New Genocide Center Director

The Lithuanian news site 15min.lt reports Teresė Birutė Burauskaitė has been replaced as director of Lithuania’s Orwellian Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania by Adas Jakubauskas, the 55-year-old chairman of the Union of Lithuanian Tatar Communities. Last week parliamentary speaker Viktoras Pranckietis called for replacing Burauskaitė. The director is appointed by vote of parliament to a 5-year term. Jakubauskas’s candidacy was put forth by the Lithuanian parliament’s Battles for Freedom and State Historical Memory Commission, whose member Arūnas Gumuliauskas recently promised to present a resolution to parliament claiming the Lithuanian state and people were guiltless in the Holocaust because they were both occupied at the time. The new director of the Genocide Center faced stern questioning by MPs during his confirmation process, with former Genocide Center historian and now conservative MP Arvydas Anušauskas digging into the Lithuanian Tartar community’s financial ties with Tartar communities in Russia.

Anušauskas once hosted a history program on state television and once spent more than an hour exploring the idea the Nazis and the Soviets staged the Lietūkis garage massacre in order to defame Lithuanians.

Tartars are an ethnic minority in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere who mainly adhere to Sunni Islam. There are major communities of Tartars in Tartarstan and in the Crimea.

The Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania has consistently defended Lithuanian Nazis including Kazys Škirpa and Jonas Noreika.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2020-06-262020-06-26

Kaunas Jewish Community Invites You to Remember Victims of Lietūkis Garage Massacre

The Kaunas Jewish Community will hold a commemoration of the victims of the Lietūkis garage massacre at Miško street no. 3 at 4:00 P.M. on June 26. Joris Rubinovas will perform Maurice Ravel’s Kaddish and Gabrielė Jocaitė will perform a song in member of the victims. The public is invited and encouraged to attend. Following the ceremony we will move to the Slobodka (Vilijampolė) Jewish cemetery on Kalnų street and then the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery on the Radvilėnų highway.

2020-06-26

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

New Attraction in Lithuania: Catcher in the Rye Commemorated by Statue in Sudargas

A new sculpture has gone up to celebrate J. D. Salinger’s novel Catcher in the Rye.

Kenneth Slawenski in his Salinger biography said the family came from Sudargas, a small Jewish village near the Polish-Lithuanian border which belonged to the Russian Empire at the time.

Salinger’s grandfather came from the Sudargas area in the Šakiai district and the statue commemorating Catcher in the Rye was unveiled there in a ceremony held on June 19. A press release for the ceremony said: “The Sudargas area is rich in its history. This was where the book smugglers operated. The famous people who come from here are famous not just in Lithuania, but around the world. We are happy there is yet another attraction where Catcher in the Rye will be commemorated. This will encourage tourists and all of us to remember again this work, and perhaps to read it again. When the novel became popular, our country was occupied. The young people didn’t have a chance to feel the spirit which surrounded the protagonist Holden Caufield in America.”

Sudargas area alderwoman Rita Grigaitienė said the book is still topical among youth because it addresses the problems youth still face. She said adults who read the book will gain insight into the problems young people face.

Full text in Lithuanian here.

2020-06-23

Statue to J. D. Salinger to Appear Near Ancestral Home Friday, June 19

American novelist J. D. Salinger’s novel Catcher in the Rye will be commemorated with a statue near the family’s ancestral home in the Sudargas area of Lithuania Friday. Lithuanian Jewish Community member Geršonas Taicas looked into the man’s genealogy more deeply, using information from Lithuanian and American archives.

The parents of the great-grandfather of Jerome David Salinger were Solomon Zalinger and Sara Kan.

2020-06-19

Stop European Holocaust Denial, Focus on Lithuania

Please join us for a special online town hall event Stop European Holocaust Denial Focus: Lithuania co-hosted by ICAN and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ).

Tuesday, June 23, at 8 PM EDT | 5 pm PDT

Watch live!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ICANAction/videos/285276522660390/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v6KNnjikfs

Please join us for a special live event, a virtual town hall featuring Grant Gochin and Silvia Foti speaking about state-sponsored Holocaust denial in Lithuania. Grant Gochin asked the question: “Who actually murdered my family during the Holocaust?” and discovered the fact that the murderer is a current national hero of Lithuania. Silvia Foti was asked by her mother to write the biography of her national hero grandfather, only to discover that he was one of the worst genocidal murderers of Jews during the Holocaust. Silvia Foti’s grandfather murdered Grant Gochin’s family. They have come together to tell the awful truth of how their families have been connected for the past 100 years, and how the Lithuanian government has engaged in a massive cover-up to implement the tenth stage of genocide: denial. In this town hall meeting, we will discuss with Gochin and Foti their paths to discovery of this cover-up, and how it impacts the real world today.

2020-06-19