Welcome to Defending History

Defending History, founded in September 2009, is a modest but unique international address for the movement to counter the effort by some East European states to replace the history of World War II with “Double Genocide” which is a new and dangerous ultranationalist revisionism.

That revisionism insists that the entire West now “equalize” Nazi and Soviet crimes so that the Holocaust’s uniqueness is replaced by a bogus model of historical equivalence. It is a model that sometimes masks racism, antisemitism, ultranationalism, and a historical falsification that sanitizes local East European Holocaust perpetrators while defaming Holocaust survivors who joined the anti-Nazi resistance.

In 2012, the Lithuanian government repatriated, amid glittering events, the remains of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister who personally signed documents condemning the Jewish citizens of his city to annihilation. In 2013, the same 1941 Nazi puppet PM featured on the lead banner of the neo-Nazi parade held on the nation’s independence day in Kaunas.

The core moral simplicity — the difference between perpetrators and victims — is being clouded by many factors, including the Baltic states’ use of geostrategic issues to try to achieve American and West European acquiescence, and state honors and favors for foreign academics, politicians and other elites in return for becoming Double Genocide fellow travelers.

We hope to upgrade the site and its navigation as soon as resources permit. But we will stick with the traditional journal format over slick internet fashions. Thousands of documents are only a few clicks away. Please check out for starters what it’s all about; mission statement; contents page; about us; sections; authors; countries; books; media tracker, and, if you’re inclined to join us, donations and petitions.

Latest internationally

Latest in Defending History

From a wide variety of publications:

Yitzhak Arad; Yehuda Bauer; Danny Ben-Moshe; Gordon Brown; Abraham Cooper; Pinchos Fridberg; Sir Martin Gilbert; Clemens Heni; Dovid Katz; John Mann; Jonathan Freedland; Lord Janner; Leigh Phillips; Leyzer Ran Family; Tessa Rajak; Heidemarie Uhl; Efraim Zuroff; Voices of Holocaust survivors.

A growing part of our work is dedicated to preservation, defense and documentation of the Litvak heritage of northeastern Europe, including: Litvak resources; the Holocaust in Lithuania; tourism (and dark tourism); and, in Yiddish, a mini virtual museum of old Jewish Vilna. The Field of Litvak Studies.

• ♦ Litvak Resources
• ♦ Litvak Map
• ♦ Tourism
• ♦ Exotic Tourism
• ♦ Dark Tourism
• ♦ Cemeteries & more
• ♦ Reading Stones
• ♦ Litvak Studies
• ♦ Litvak Affairs
• ♦ Atlas of Litvish
• ♦ Yiddish Linguistics
• ♦ Holocaust Map
• ♦ Holocaust Readings
• ♦ On the Road
• ♦ ALJ website
• ♦ Old Jewish Vilna
• ♦ Editor’s website

Tribute to Milan Chersonski: a dozen years as editor of Lithuania’s last Jewish newspaper

VIDEO TRIBUTE HERE

Official at Economy Ministry is Still Hard at Work on Antisemitic-Racist-Homophobic “Economics”

Olga Zabludoff’s Open Letter to South African Litvaks, too hot for the South African Jewish Report, now appears here

Professor Karen Sutton’s Essential Book on the Lithuanian Holocaust

AVAILABLE AGAIN

RECENT BOOKS:

David Bankier’s Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania.  Efraim Zuroff’s review.

Grant Arthur Gochin’s Malice, Murder, and Manipulation: One Man’s Quest for Truth.

Keith Morgan’s Ruta’s Closet.  Interview with the author.

Books Reviewed.  Film and Theatre.  Video and Radio.

Holocaust Survivors Coming to Vilnius to Picket Red-Brown Commission’s October 2013 Vilnius Relaunch

Commission’s renewal comes with new defamation of Dr. Yitzhak Arad, former director of Yad Vashem. major scholar, and Holocaust survivor

DANNY BEN-MOSHE IN JERUSALEM REPORT

ON JEWISH COMMUNITY’S SITE. IN RUSSIAN: DH; LZB; Obzor.lt; Reporter; Shofar7.com

Yitzhak Arad’s paper covering the Commission’s role, government obfuscation of the Holocaust and the history of the Holocaust in Lithuanian sources

Commission’s website features the Prague Declaration and promotes Double Genocide; its chairman urged his country to adopt PD. Website defames Vilnius Holocaust survivor Prof. Pinchos Fridberg for having corrected an error. Still no public condemnation of the defamation of its own founding member Yitzhak Arad (or of Dr. Rachel Margolis and Joseph Melamed)

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND COMMENT BY HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

PAGE, CRITIQUES AND SECTION ON THE COMMISSION. Recent PR event in Vilnius

Renewed Red-Brown Commission, funded by government, has members from the Genocide Center, the parliamentary state security committee, scholars who have tried to mitigate the Nazi loyalties and Holocaust collaboration of the 1941 Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and Provisional Government, and, shockingly for Holocaust survivors (and under political pressure) — Yad Vashem

Resignations from the Commission (& associated bodies) on principle include Dr. Yitzhak Arad, Sir Martin Gilbert, Professor Gershon Greenberg, Professor Konrad Kwiet, Prof. Dov Levin

Commission Executive Director gives a very different spiel to Lithuanian audiences…

Are the Commission’s academic members aware of the body’s entanglement in the political imbroglio over demands for Russian compensation? Is the East European Holocaust being instrumentalized in a contemporary geopolitical context?

De-Obfuscating a Complicated Story into its Simple Core:

2013: Bernard Dichek in The Jerusalem Report. 2012: Efraim Zuroff in Haaretz. 2011: Danny Ben-Moshe’s film Rewriting History. 2010:  Wendy Robbins on BBC World Service. 2010: Ricky Ben-David in the Jerusalem Post. 2010: Dovid Katz in the Guardian. 2009: Rafael Aaren in Haaretz. 2008: Arne Bengtsson in Baltic Worlds.

Survivors, Scholars and Public Figures Speak Out:

See: Yitzhak Arad  ◊  Yehuda Bauer  ◊ Danny Ben-Moshe  ◊  Gordon Brown  ◊  Abraham Cooper  ◊  Pinchos Fridberg  ◊  Sir Martin Gilbert  ◊  Clemens Heni  ◊  John Mann  ◊  Jonathan Freedland  ◊  Lord Janner  ◊  Leigh Phillips  ◊  Leyzer Ran Family  ◊  Tessa Rajak  ◊  Heidemarie Uhl  ◊  Efraim Zuroff  ◊  More voices of Holocaust Survivors

AS

“Double Genocide” Lands in the United States of America

BY STEALTH BOMBER OUT OF THE EAST, UNDER THE RADAR

One of the demands of the 2008 Prague Declaration is “approved” by the US

Are US officials aware of the 2012 Seventy Years Declaration response?

What is “Double Genocide”?

                                                                                            by Irina Izhogina

Holocaust Survivors from Lithuania Propose a Simple Honesty Test for Gala Sutzkever Events in Vilnius

Avrom Sutzkever as a young poet inVilna (from Defending History archive)

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SEE ALSO:

TRANSLATION PRIZE SAGA;  OPINIONS OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS; THE PATTERN OF DOUBLE GAMES; 2012 SLSer SADDENED THAT MILAN CHERSONSKI WAS DROPPED FROM FACULTY. WAS HIS MESSAGE  UNACCEPTABLE? SEE MILAN CHERSONSKI SECTION.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA: REWRITING HISTORY COMING ON WEEKEND OF 3-4 AUGUST 2013

UK: GLASGOW, LEEDS, LIVERPOOL, LONDON, MANCHESTER, NEWCASTLE IN JULY 2013

A DOZEN SYNAGOGUES SCREEN DANNY BEN-MOSHE’S REWRITING HISTORY

United Synagogue of Great Britain Signs the Seventy Years Declaration

Film’s website  ◊  Reviews  ◊  Seventy Years Declaration (SYD)  ◊  SYD debates   ◊  SYD text  ◊  in European languages  ◊  Danny Ben-Moshe

A European Battle for Memory — and for Human Rights

The Debate in: Australia, Canada, EU, Israel, South Africa, UK, USA

London screenings of the documentary film Rewriting History

Litvak tourism, exotic tourism and dark tourism

Racism, antisemitism and homophobia in high places: Zeppelinus is key official at the Economy Ministry; Doesn’t like our editor…

Antisemitism and Honors for Holocaust collaborators

Red-Brown Commission blues

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Evaldas Balčiūnas on Holocaust perpetrators made into “heroes”

Milan Chersonski on young Lithuanian anti-fascists who speak up against the glorification of Holocaust perpetrators

Aleksanders Feigmanis on an unmarked Holocaust grave in Riga

Leena Hietanen on Germany’s president who is getting into bed with Estonian Holocaust revisionists

Dovid Katz in Hope not Hate on glorification of Nazi war criminals by an EU/NATO government and the same country’s neo-Nazis

Geoff Vasil on sophisticated attempts to sanitize Holocaust perpetrators

Lina Žigelytė on the neo-Nazis’ hatred of feminists

Efraim Zuroff in The Times of Israel on a Latvian celebration of the anniversary of… the 1941 Nazi invasion

Explore Defending History

What it’s all abut.  Articles.  Authors.  Countries.  Sections.  Opinion.  Books.  Film.  Litvak Culture,  Litvak Studies (& map).  Litvak Tourism (Dark Tourism too).  Lithuanian Holocaust Studies (& map with shtetl list).  Human Rights & LGBT issues.  Antisemitism.  Local citizens who stand up.  More

ISSUES INCLUDE: “Double Genocide” & “Red-Brown Commission”; “Prague Declaration” (response: Seventy Years Declaration);   “heroization” of collaborators; accusations against survivors;  criminalization of debate;  More

German and Estonian Presidents in Photo-op at “Double Genocide” Shrine in Tallinn

LEENA HIETANEN REPORTS FROM TALLINN

Tallinn photo-op with red-brown backdrop: Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves (left) with German president Joachim Gauck (Postimees—Erik Peinar). The modernist sculptural salute to red-brown equivalence, in the heart of an EU capital, showcases the curious supposed equality of the perpetrators and the liberators of Auschwitz. More red-brown iconography here.

A Vilnius Library with an Agenda?

Wyman Brent’s prophecy fulfilled?

Official invitation of the “Vilnius Jewish Public Library” to recent event glorifying the “Red-Brown Commission” without a single critic of the commission included in the panel.  Geoff Vasil’s eyewitness report.  The evening of elite Red-Brown Commission worship  featured two top Commission operatives.

Previous event at “Jewish Library” included featured speaker from the antisemitic Genocide Center who the previous week (in the mainstream Lithuanian media) publicly belittled the Holocaust history of “Israeli [he means: Jewish] scholars” in his attempt to sanitize the LAF/PG 1941 killers of Lithuanian Jewry. English translation of his interview; Geoff Vasil replied in Defending History.

See section on the Library

But where were all these “Jewish culture loving dignitaries” when over a thousand neo-Nazis, some sporting swastikas, marched passed the library’s entrance on the nation’s independence day?

IS THE “JEWISH” LIBRARY STILL COURTING NAIVE FOREIGNERS AND ‘USEFUL JEWISH IDIOTS’ IN ZINGERIAN RED-BROWN CAMPAIGN?

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From the Red-Brown Commission’s website:

Commission’s executive director calls beloved Vilnius Holocaust survivor a “liar” on Commission’s website;  Exec director’s performance in Riga; at Seimas (for a different audience…); in Rewriting History. 

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Background on the “Red-Brown Commission”

Vilnius: Would a “Jewish Museum” Graywash the Holocaust?

RELATED: DARK TOURISM (FOCUSED ON THE ADULATION FOR HOLOCAUST COLLABORATORS THAT LEADS TO SANITIZATION AND GLORIFICATION);  WHAT WERE THE INTENTIONS OF THE LITHUANIAN ACTIVIST FRONT (LAF) BEFORE WAR BROKE OUT? MORE. 2011 EVENTS TO HONOR THEM…

SEE ARTICLES BY EVALDAS BALCIUNAS AND MILAN CHERSONSKI

Bernard Dichek in Jerusalem Report

Monica Lowenberg in London Jewish News

Efraim Zuroff on Baltic antisemitism

A MAJOR NEW PAPER BY YITZHAK ARAD

BEFORE NATO/EU ACCESSION  &  AFTERWARDS

By Author. By Section: •Books •Exotic Tourism •History •Fascists Glorified? •Litvak Affairs •Seventy Years Declaration (TEXT) •Film & Theatre  •Politics of Memory

By Country: •Canada •Estonia •Hungary •Israel •Latvia •South Africa •Ukraine •UK •USA

For Lithuanian-Jewish (Litvak) study & tourism.

The Seventy Years Declaration (SYD)

Europe’s first parliamentary response to the Prague Declaration of 2008

An end to the “Prague Process” era of unchallenged Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation spin

Text of the Declaration: in English ◊ in Finnish ◊ in French ◊ in German ◊ in Lithuanian ◊ in Russian ◊ in Polish ◊ in Yiddish

Presented to the President of the European Parliament; video clip

Early debates & coverage

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Just Released:

Website ◊ Reviews ◊ YouTube

Lithuanian Citizens Spoke Out

Eight Signatories of SYD: MEPs Justas Paleckis, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė; MPs Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, Justinas Karosas, Marija Aušrinė Pavilionienė, Julius Sabatauskas, Algirdas Sysas, Birutė Vėsaitė

Dr. Shimon Alperovich (Simonas Alperavičius)

MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, 2, 3, 4

MPs V.P. Andriukaitis and A. Sysas

Algis Davidavičius

MEP Leonidas Donskis: 1 & 2

Dr. Darius Udrys

Documentary films by: Saulius Beržinis; Alicija Žukauskaitė

Nine demonstrators at the opening of Vilnius University’s exhibit for an antisemitic and homophobic artist

plus many Lithuanian-citizen signatories of Olga Zabludoff’s petition against the capital’s neo-Nazi march, Krystyna Anna Steiger’s against memorials to Nazi collaborators, and Monica Lowenberg’s calling on the Lithuanian government to take simple and honorable steps

plus DefendingHistory regulars Evaldas Balčiūnas, Milan Chersonski, Geoff Vasil

Ambassador Chen Ivri Apter

Prof. S. S. Prawer

Prof. Harry Shukman

JAILHOUSE ROCK AT VILNIUS PRISON

in 2012!

CONGRESSMEN SPEAK OUT

Tourism. Map of Jewish Lithuania. Litvak Heritage. Exotic Tourism. Dark Tourism. Litvak Forum. Holocaust map. Efraim Zuroff on 3 new books.

Estonia: Valentine’s Day Law

Latvia: Waffen SS

Lithuania: Nazi ‘PM’ Honored. UN on swastikas.

When the news came out, he issued a bold statement within minutes

Then he wrote an essay that could outlive all the rest

State honors collaborator:  Elie Wiesel & Knesset Speaker Rivlin react

Romania

Obfuscator is appointed minister

Hollande on French collaboration; but Lithuanian FM wants Double Genocide to feature in EU presidency

“Bloodlands” debate

• • Litvak Lands (map)
• • Place Names
• • Litvak Studies
• • Seven Kingdoms
• • Lithuanian Jewish Culture (excerpt)
• • Vilna Book Stamps (excerpt)
• • Intro to Sounds of Silence
• • Yeshivas (map)
• • Atlas
• • YouTube
• • Reading Gravestones
• • Holocaust (readings)
• • Holocaust (map)
• • More

• •Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius (Vílne); tourism advice
• • Kaunas (Kóvne)
• • Klaipeda (Meml)
• • Panevėžys (Pónevezh)
• • THE GREEN HOUSE
• • SUGIHARA HOUSE
• • EXOTIC TOURISM
• • DARK TOURISM
• • IN YOUR POCKET
• • Communities in Belarus
• • Communites in Latvia
• • Riga’s Jewish museum
• • Riga’s Holocaust museum

Boldly defying the right wing government’s Holocaust politics, a number of leading Lithuanian Social Democrats have stood up with courage. Six MPs and two MEPs signed the SYD. They were attacked by the current foreign minister in his “moustache reply” and an article (and in a “cooked” radio panel).

MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, the SD foreign affairs spokesman, replied robustly. UK MP Denis MacShane sent personal letters to each of the signatories. Then, two Social Democratic MPs issued a statement in the Seimas protesting the state’s honoring of the 1941 Nazi puppet prime minister.

MP Andriukaitis challenged the foreign minister on the floor of the Seimas.

OTHER BOLD CITIZENS SPEAK OUT

Rewriting History (Marc Radomsky & Danny Ben-Moshe) challenges East European governments’ “Double Genocide” politics and the 2008 “Prague Declaration”

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The film highlights the 2012 arrival of the Seventy Years Declaration at the European Parliament, where it was received by EP president Martin Schulz

Promo on YouTube; Website; at Classic Cinemas; Facebook

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Reviews by the Critics 

The Seventy Years Declaration

Solemnly commemorates the Holocaust and reaffirms human rights of all people. Opposes the Prague Declaration and ‘Double Genocide’ politics. Rejects glorification of the Waffen SS of Estonia and Latvia and the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF).

Lithuania’s foreign minister’s “moustache response” came within minutes of SYD’s release.

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TEXT AND LIST OF FOUNDING SIGNATORIES

PRESENTED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

UPDATE: DOCUMENTARY FILM RELEASED

SYD TEXT IN BELARUSIAN; ENGLISH; FRENCH;  GERMAN;  LITHUANIAN;  POLISH; RUSSIAN; SPANISH; YIDDISH; LIST OF UK SIGNATORIES;  LITHUANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ATTACKS SIGNATORIES WITHIN MINUTES

MEDIA COVERAGE

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Danny Ben-Moshe launches SYD in the Jerusalem Post. SYD published. Lithuanian Foreign Minister responds in minutes with infamous “moustache comparison” of Hitler and Stalin, later attacks Lithuanian parliamentarians who signed. UK MP Denis MacShane congratulates the Lithuanian Eight who signed. Vytenis Andriukaitis, signatory of nation’s Declaration of Independence, replies to FM. Roger Cohen in the New York Times. Gang-up on Lithuanian radio panel. AJ, Forward, Haaretz, JC.

British parliamentarian tells Lithuanian signatories of the 70 Years Declaration:

“I know it must be lonely to take a stand on such a controversial subject but wanted to write to you to say you are not alone and every decent British and European citizen stands with you.”

— UK MP Denis MacShane

DefendingHistory.com congratulates the Lithuanian parliamentarians among the founding 70 signatories of the Seventy Years Declaration for their courage, integrity, love of all their country’s peoples, and genuine commitment to European values:

Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, MP

Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, MEP

Justinas Karosas, MP

Justas Paleckis, MEP

Marija Aušrinė Pavilionienė, MP

Julius Sabatauskas, MP

Algirdas Sysas, MP

Birutė Vėsaitė, MP

Marcher sports a designer swastika on her handbag at the March 11th 2012 neo-Nazi march on Gedimino Prospect in the heart of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.

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EYEWITNESS REPORT & IMAGES

The president of Latvia endorsed this year’s Waffen SS march, “bowing his head” to his nation’s Waffen SS.  Latvia’s ambassador to the UK defended the march.  Council of Europe condemns the event.  UK MP John Mann.  UK Parliament Early Day Motion 2866. 1500 Turn Out.

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A wreath for Holocaust survivors was covered by the Waffen SS logo by the event’s organizers. Two anti-Nazi activists exposed the wreath again for a short time, before they were removed by police.

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Foreign protesters included Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (Jerusalem), Joel Rubinfeld of the European Jewish Parliament (Brussels), Monica Lowenberg, creator of the anti-march international petition (London).

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EYEWITNESS REPORT & IMAGES.  2ND REPORT.  MEDIA COVERAGE.

New ‘Holocaust Room’ in the Cellar of Vilnius’s State Sponsored Genocide Museum Sanitizes the Local Fascists who Unleashed the Genocide of Lithuanian Jewry

 Culmination of a year of government events glorifying the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and other Hitlerist groups that initiated (and whose members became the backbone of) the annihilation of the country’s Jewish minority

LAF leaflets set out plans for genocide prior to the German invasion. Historians on the 1941 campaign of mass murder. Survivors testify. Map. Recent nationalist glorification. Now, the new Holocaust Room in the cellar of a major state museum in an EU capital has this to say:

Year to commemorate the perpetrators ran parallel with a year to commemorate the Holocaust, too; One in a series of ‘dual tracks’ to satisfy at once the antisemitic, Holocaust-revisionist Far Right and foreign Jewish groups

PR: ‘Fake Litvak’ initiatives (Identity Theft) & Double Games

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ANTISEMITIC EXHIBITS IN MAIN HALL OF GENOCIDE MUSEUM DISPLAYED AS BEFORE, WITH NO CURATORIAL COMMENT

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MEANWHILE, IN WASHINGTON DC, NEW JEWISH ‘SUNFLOWER’ GROUP MANIPULATED BY LITHUANIAN EMBASSY TO DISTORT AND TRIVIALIZE THE 1941 GENOCIDE OF THE JEWISH POPULATION AS ‘FREEDOM FROM THE SOVIETS’  AND — ‘AT THE PERIL OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY’; RESPONSE HERE.