anti-Semitism – Page 29 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Germany: Synagogues Vandalized, Anti-Jewish Marches for Palestine

Police vehicle at synagogue in Bonn, Germany. Photo courtesy Deutsche Welle.

Amid Israel’s heightened tensions two synagogues and a memorial site have been vandalized in Germany. Lawmakers and religious leaders said the acts were “shameful” and called for greater protection for places of worship.

All three incidents occurred Tuesday night in the cities of Bonn, Düsseldorf and Münster in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The incidents were reportedly motivated by the current violence in Israel and Gaza.

German broadcaster RTL reported a march by Palestine supporters outside a synagogue in Gelsenirchen also in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia Wednesday night which included the shouting of anti-Semitic slogans.RTL also reported a pro-Palestinian march in Hamburg. They reported increased security around synagogues in Germany and mentioned the city of Hesse in particular.

Full stories here and here.

2021-05-14

Lithuania’s Orwellian Genocide Center Celebrates Victory Day with Propaganda Poster Desecrating Memory of Holocaust Victims and Military Veterans

Lithuania’s Orwellian-named Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, more commonly abbreviated to Genocide Center, lived up to their reputation of ignoring the Holocaust by reportedly issuing a special computer-graphic propaganda poster on facebook May 8, presented below with a translation into English.

Translation:

The Work of the Red Liberators

[photos of corpses, coffins and a Soviet train]

The End of World War II in Europe on May 8

The Red Liberators Liberated Europe and the Baltic States, and This is What Their Liberation Brought Lithuania:

20,000 murdered partisans
110,000 deported Lithuanians
The self-immolation of Romas Kalanta
500 arrested during the Kaunas Spring
14 Lithuanians murdered on January 13
7 officials murdered at the Medininkai border post

World War II ended in Europe on May 8.
After Germany surrendered unconditionally
the Soviets marched into Berlin on May 9
and proclaimed to the entire world “Victory Day” which for many
countries including Lithuania brought only fear,
pain and death.

2021-05-102021-06-02

EJC President Applauds EU Declaration to Fight Anti-Semitism at All Levels

Brussels, December 2, 2020–European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor applauds the European Union Council Declaration on mainstreaming the fight against anti-Semitism across policy-areas, adopted unanimously by EU member states.

“This is an important decision, one that appreciates the sad growth of anti-Semitism and how it not only targets Jews, but is corrosive for any society,” Kantor said. “The EU firmly states that anti-Semitism is against European values and commits itself to a holistic program to eradicate it from the continent.”

“We are delighted that our strong message that fighting anti-Semitism robustly at all levels, that we have consistently delivered in our meetings and activities, is received.”

“The declaration adopted by the German presidency of the Council affirms several principles, including that anti-Semitism is an attack on European values, that protecting Jewish life and making it more visible as part of Europe’s identity is essential and that it is necessary to combat anti-Semitism head-on in all its forms, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“The importance that the EU is placing on protecting and emboldening Jewish life is also very important,” Dr. Kantor continued. “Jews have been a part of Europe for millennia and continue to contribute at all levels, so it is very gratifying to hear that our leaders will ensure that Jewish life will not only be protected but making it more visible.”

2021-05-07

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

The Lithuanian internet news site 15min.lt is reporting what everyone already knew: the new head of Lithuania’s so-called Genocide Center, appointed by secret ballot in the Lithuanian parliament following an internal power struggle, will maintain the status quo at the state institution whose mission is commemorate the alleged genocide of Lithuanians under the Soviets, not the genocide of the Jews in the Holocaust.

Arūnas Bubnys in the 15min.lt interview maintained the party line formed and maintained by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania over the last three decades: Lithuanian heroes such as Jonas Noreika are sensitive, tortured and complicated individuals who cannot be judged one way or another. In other words, you still can’t call Lithuanian Nazis Nazis at Lithuania’s new and improved but still fake Genocide Center.

Full propaganda interview in Lithuanian here.

2021-05-072021-06-02

If a Genocide Happens in the Forest and No One Hears It…

That’s the question the news service of the LNK television channel in Lithuania faced Friday when they were investigating the case of a mysterious Holocaust site which vanished somewhere along the Kaunas-Vilnius highway during reconstruction.

The mass murder site in the Strošiunas forest, aka Vladikiškės forest, near Bačkionys village in the Kaišiadorys region is the mass grave of about 1,800 women and children from Žiežmariai, Žasliai, Kaišiadorys, Rumšiškės and the surrounding areas murdered on August 29, 1941, according to Lithuania’s Cultural Heritage Department. The Lithuanian Holocaust Atlas says the number was 784 people from the same locations, with other, larger mass murder and mass grave sites in the same immediate area.

The paved road to the Holocaust memorial was fenced across and the sign announcing it as a mass murder site was removed about six months ago during reconstruction of Lithuania’s busiest highway. This is the only access to the site in the Kaišadorys region near Žiežmariai. LNK said they received a complaint from the Lithuanian Jewish Community and looked into it. After receiving mixed comments from Lithuania’s Department of Vehicle Routes Directorate, the fencing blocking access was removed within two hours–just in time for the evening news broadcast–with the promise to replace the road sign marking the Jewish mass grave in the immediate future.

2021-05-022021-07-21

Greece Takes Over IHRA Presidency from Germany

“As the years pass it is our duty to tell this story. To preserve memory, to learn the lessons, to never, never forget,” Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a video address on the occasion of Germany passing the IHRA presidency to Greece on April 1.

In the virtual ceremony ambassador Michaela Küchler handed over the role of IHRA chairman to ambassador Chris J. Lazaris, who stated: “The thread running through this presidency will be teaching the Holocaust, including combating denial and distortion in the new fields now opened by the net.”

The Greek deputy prime minister, the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of education and religious affairs added voices of support in the video, underlining Greece’s strong commitment to the mission of the IHRA.

2021-04-28

Lithuanian Parliament Secretly Appoints New Head of Genocide

The Lithuanian parliament Thursday held a secret vote to appoint Arūnas Bubnys to a five-year term as head of the country’s Orwellian-named Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania. Seventy-six MPs voted for him, 34 against, 8 abstained and 2 MPs ruined their ballots in apparent protest.

Bubnys had been director of the Center’s Research Department. When he was nominated for the new position by the speaker of parliament, he told the assembly if he were appointed he would seek to restore the institution’s “recently damaged prestige” and to normalize the work atmosphere there.

He also pledged “to disperse and negate the artificial opposition between Center researchers and public organizations, to restore an atmosphere of confidence and exemplary cooperation with political prisoner, deportee and partisan institutions, and other organizations of those who suffered under the occupational regimes.”

Bubnys has worked at the Center since 2009 and was part of the successful push to have the last general director, Adas Jakubauskas, removed from the post by parliament for alleged mismanagement. In 2020 Bubnys ran for parliament on the ticket of the little-known political party Nacionalinis susivienijimas, or National Unification. According to his personal statement, he was graduated from the History Faculty of Vilnius University in 1985 and defended his doctoral dissertation in 1994.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2021-04-232021-05-10

Lithuanian Educator Defends Lithuanian Nazis

The Lithuanian biweekly newspaper Karštas Komentaras, which describes itself as a sort of insider’s view of Lithuanian politics, published as its main article in the current issue for April 16 to 30 an editorial titled on the cover “Let’s Not Be Afraid to Be Ourselves” by professor Gediminas Merkys, PhD habil. The subheading is “Will We Celebrate and How Will We Celebrate the Anniversary of the June, 1941 Uprising?” The cover image is a combined portrait of Lithuanian Nazi collaborators Jonas Noreika and Kazys Škirpa.

The newspaper singled out the following lines in the article for special attention as a separate text box:

The current colonial Lithuanian administration, it is to be believed, received an informal request from the supreme international master class to insure this important date not be marked officially in any way, i.e., in the name of the Lithuanian state. It was namely the competent patriotic director of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania [former director Adas Jakubauskas] and the Center itself which would have posed an obstacle to fulfilling this aforementioned order of political servility. For that reason the leadership of the Center had to be changed quickly and the institution itself immediately reformed.

2021-04-202021-07-21

Battle for the Soul of Lithuania on BBC HARDtalk

The BBC television interview program HARDtalk interviewed granddaughter of Lithuanian Nazi Jonas Noreika on April 16, 2021, and has been airing the episode this week.

The description for the episode called “Silvia Foti: When truth trumps family loyalty. Silvia Foti on grappling with family responsible for the Holocaust” reads:

“Silvia Foti’s grandfather was a Lithuanian man hailed as heroic patriot who paid with his life resisting the Soviets. But according to her, Jonas Noreika was no hero–he had the blood of thousands of Jews on his hands. She’s chosen to speak out, angering many in Lithuania. What happens when truth trumps family loyalty?”

Interviewer Stephen Sackur pressed Silvia Foti for documentary proof her grandfather was responsible for the murder of around 1,800 in Plungė–the entire Jewish population–in 1941. Foti went further and said she had reliable documents and sources showing Noreika was responsible for mass murders of Jews in Plungė, Telšiai and Šiauliai. Sackur was interested in Foti’s journey from that of a proud Lithuanian-American to the point where she had to confront Holocaust crimes within her immediate family. Foti countered the problem was much more widespread than her family, that the perpetrators and their descendants were still covering up the Holocaust in present-day Lithuania, and cited the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania as one party involved in the nation-wide cover-up. She said her and Grant Gochin’s legal battles to have the plaque commemorating Noreika on the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences building in Vilnius was really a battle for the soul of Lithuania. Sackur asked whether Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was correct in calling Lithuania the locomotive in the train of Holocaust distortion in Eastern Europe. Foti admitted she didn’t know the situation in Eastern Europe in general, but that this was possible.

An audio recording of the interview is available here and here.

2021-04-202021-05-10

Shuffling Directors at Lithuania’s Genocide Center

As was completely predicable from the start of the latest power struggle inside Lithuania’s Orwellian Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, the news website 15min.lt reports the Lithuanian parliament will consider historian Arūnas Bubnys as director following their dismissal of Adas Jakubauskas:

Arūnas Bubnys Nominated to Head Genocide

A new candidate for director of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania has been presented to the Lithuanian parliament: Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania Genocide and Resistance Research Department director Arūnas Bubnys. MPs fired former director Adas Jakubauskas April 1 after an inquiry panel set up by the leaders of the parties in parliament found he was unable to guarantee the smooth operation of the institution.

Parliamentary speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen nominated Bubnys to serve as director, a term which is usually five years long. “I have nominate Bubnys following comprehensive consultations with Lithuania’s historians and my colleagues and members of parliament from different factions. This candidacy has firm support in the community of historians and inside the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania itself. Bubnys has earned confidence which, I hope, will allow him to insure smooth operation by introducing objectivity and transparency standards in the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, and to return the public’s trust to this institution,” the speaker of parliament said introducing her candidate.

Full story here.

2021-04-162021-04-23

IHRA Recommendations on How to Teach the Holocaust in Schools

The Recommendations aim to deepen the understanding of the Holocaust by asking crucial questions concerning the historical context of the Holocaust, its scope and scale and why and how it happened.

Download the full IHRA Recommendations for Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust here.

Educators should be confident that the Holocaust can be taught effectively and successfully with careful preparation and appropriate materials. The section “How to teach about the Holocaust” discusses possibilities and challenges for teaching and learning about the Holocaust by presenting practical approaches and methods to apply in both formal and informal educational settings.

No single “correct” way of teaching, no ideal methodology appropriate for all educators and their learners exists for any subject. The recommendations offered here are, however, based on practical experiences and intended to be useful to schoolteachers and other educators in constructing their own schemes of work, taking into account the learning needs of individuals.

2021-04-152021-04-29

Jews Remember Philip as Son of Righteous Gentile

Over centuries of persecution and viewing history “from the bottom,” most Jews have a healthy sense of criticism when it comes to celebrity, which is regularly reinforced by anti-Semitic statements issuing from the most unlikely people. The recent death of the United Kingdom’s prince Philip is different.

While Philip might have been, as Buckingham Palace likes to put it in hindsight, “authentically himself,” making off-the-cuff ethnic and racial statements deemed universally offensive, Jews are more likely to look back with respect and sadness on the passing of the queen’s consort. Philip’s mother princess Alice, wife of the Greek prince, rescued a Jewish family–the widow of Greek member of parliament Khaimaki Cohen and two of their five children–and hid them in her basement in Athens during the Nazi occupation.

The good deed might never have to come to light if not for a request from a member of the Cohen family to the Jerusalem municipality to name a street after princess Alice. Yad Vashem got involved, checked the facts and awarded the title of Righteous Gentile to the late princess. Prince Philip and his sister Sophia attended the awards ceremony and planted a tree at Yad Vashem in honor of their mother.

Strangely enough, Alice was reburied at the Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in 1988, two years after her death but several years before being awarded the Yad Vashem title in 1993. This was reportedly done at her own request.

On the Jewish scale of values, one could say prince Philip came from a very good family, and deeds say so much more than words.

2021-04-132021-04-19

Vatican Says Anti-Semitism Intolerable

Photo: Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, courtesy Vatican.

Great strides forward have been in recent decades in Jewish-Catholic relations, with better recognition on both sides allowing for more mutual understanding at the theological but also the social and political levels, Holy See secretary for relations with states Paul Richard Gallher said as part of a campaign by the Israeli embassy to the Vatican called #StopAntiSemitism.

Archbishop Gallagher in a video message posted last Thursday reiterated the Holy See’s commitment against intolerance towards people of Jewish heritage. He said the “Nostra Aetate” [In Our Age] declaration defining relations between the Church and non-Christian religions adopted by the Vatican II Council 55 years ago has helped broaden dialogue between Jews and Christians.

Archbishop Gallagher highlighted two points in Nostra Aetate: its emphasis on the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and the condemnation of anti-Semitism in every form and species.

“In this regard, much progress has been made in recent years,” the archbishop affirmed. “Mutual knowledge has led to a better understanding on theological, social and political levels, including bilateral Agreements by which diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel have been established,” the Vatican reported on its official news website.

2021-04-122021-04-14

Op-Ed: My Grandfather’s Role in the Nazi Occupation Is Forcing a Reckoning in Lithuania

Photo: Silvia Foti holds a photograph of her grandfather Jonas Noreika at her home in Chicago in 2019. (Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)

by Silvia Foti

A little bronze plaque hanging on a library wall in a city most Americans know nothing about is at the epicenter of a battle over the Holocaust.

In the last six years, this modest plaque in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, inspired 20 legal actions in five courts, vigilante action by a disgruntled citizen with a sledgehammer, a scandal for the city’s mayor and candlelit vigils by protesters seeking to resurrect it in a grander incarnation.

The power of this plaque comes from a question of whether its honoree is guilty of murdering thousands of Jews in Lithuania. Those who want the plaque up say its namesake is a brave patriot who fought against the Communists, took orders from Nazis and had no idea his signature would lead to murdered civilians. By extension, it’s about more than one person’s guilt or innocence–it’s about the guilt or innocence of Lithuania.

Full opinion piece here.

2021-04-09

On Yom HaShoah, Why We Must Remember the Holocaust…

Dear friend,

It is now 76 years since the death camp at Auschwitz was liberated. As we commemorate Yom HaShoah today, it is useful to take a look at how the Holocaust is affecting public morality all these years later — and how it is still being abused.

It is both helpful and not helpful to talk about the Holocaust when discussing the disturbing resurgence of antisemitism in the world today.

On the one hand, as reflected in ADL’s pyramid of hate, it is instructive to recognize, as the history of the Holocaust demonstrates, that things can escalate from stereotypes, to discrimination to anti-Jewish legislation to mass murder if hate is not addressed early on. The Holocaust continues to teach us that society cannot be complacent, so that so-called low levels of hate won’t mutate into much more serious and devastating manifestations, culminating in genocide.

2021-04-08

Lithuanian Genocide Center Director Adas Jakubauskas Fired

ELTA, BNS

The Lithuanian parliament fired Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania (Genocide Center) general director Adas Jakubauskas Thursday.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2021-04-02

This is How It Was Done in Vilne…

Photo: Pinchos Fridberg, the only Jew left in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius who was born there before the Nazis invaded in 1941. By Brendan Hoffman for the New York Times.

by professor Pinchos Fridberg, an alter vilner id [an old Jew born and raised in Vilnius]

“Rebe, will there ever come a time when the words Vilne and Yidish will be inseparable again?”
“Saydn nor mit Meshiakh’n ineinem.” [Not unless it comes with the Messiah.]

Introduction

The article “Как это делалось ин Вилнэ…” [This Is How It Was Done in Vilne] became the main feature for issue no. 505 of the international magazine “Мы Здесь” [We Are Here] in 2015. More than 7,000 people read it, and I began receiving letters from people whom I didn’t know.

The largest Russian-language weekly newspaper in Lithuania “Обзор” [Review] reprinted this article on its website on March 8, 2021.

The article concerns the history of Jewish Vilnius.

I think it might be interesting to non-Russian-language readers as well. *

“This is How It Was Done in Vilne…”

As I was putting my archive in order, I came across a small program for a concert to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Jewish volunteer collectives. This program is more than half a calendrical century old. I think the reader might be interested to see “how it was done in Vilne.” The program contains over 30 photographs. I will present a few of them. I believe it has long been time for them to be revived on the wider internet.

2021-04-012021-09-15

Art Creates Tolerance Project Features Samuel Bak

www.DELFI.lt

The Vilnius Gaon Jewish History Museum and the EZCO creative agency are presenting an initiative called “Art Creates Tolerance” inspired by the life and work of Samuel Bak.

The project’s goal is to use Vilnius-born Holocaust survivor Samuel Bak’s art “to encourage public discussion using modern multimedia on the past and socially-sensitive issues of the present, to find historical signs and to discover the value of tolerance,” according to museum director Kamilė Rupeikaitė.

The project will use the museum’s existing physical and virtual exhibits about Bak and expand them with new exhibits.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2021-03-31

EJC: EU Grant for Jewish Communities Confirmed

Dear Presidents,
Dear Friends,

For the last few years, one of SACC to the EJC’s objectives has been to increase its cooperation with the European institutions to enhance security, support and preparedness for our communities.

The European Council Declaration of 6 December 2018 on the fight against anti-Semitism underlined that the security of Jewish people is an immediate necessity and requires timely action.

Our engagement with the European Commission, in particular at the Working Group for the Protection of Public Spaces, has strengthened our belief in the importance of working together with other communities and finding synergies in the fight against hatred and terror.

Helping other communities with the security challenges that they face is of course in line with Jewish core values and with our mission.

2021-03-26

WJC Video Guide to Passover

A time to reflect, learn and continue to fight for justice, freedom and rule of law

Katharina von Schnurbein, coordinator on combating anti-Semitism and fostering Jewish life, endorsing the tradition of asking questions in a video guide to Passover produced by the World Jewish Congress (WJC), reflects on the following:

“It’s been thousands of years since Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, yet Jews still read the story of this miracle each year. What can the world learn from the story of Passover in 2021?”

2021-03-26