Summary

While the study of the Holocaust and its historical lessons has traditionally been considered in the Western world as one of the most effective means of combating anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia, in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe Holocaust-related issues have been a major cause of anti-Semitic incidents and growing animus against Jews. In these societies which are being forced for the first time to confront the complicity of their own nationals in the crimes of the Holocaust, practical issues such as the acknowledgement of the crimes, commemoration of the victims, prosecution of the perpetrators and documentation of the events are proving to be a major source of tension and conflict between Jews and non-Jews. The author presents numerous examples from eight different post-Soviet and post-Communist societies to explain how this phenomenon has developed over the past fifteen years and calls for greater scrutiny and active steps to address this issue.

No discussion of contemporary European anti-Semitism can avoid dealing with the Holocaust and its impact on Europe, from the bloody events of the Shoa to its present-day influence on European attitudes, policies, culture and relations with Israel and the Jewish people. The subject is unavoidable, not only because of the enormous trauma wrought by that watershed event in the annals of Jewish history and of mankind, but also due to the interesting and surprising developments over the course of the past half-century in how that event has been perceived in Europe and throughout the world.

For the past fifty years, and with particular intensity during the past three decades, the Jewish world has invested many millions of dollars in Holocaust commemoration and education. 1 The general assumption behind this enormous investment was that knowledge and understanding of that unique catastrophe and its historical context and lessons would constitute the best antidote possible to contemporary anti-Semitism, increase ethnic and religious tolerance, and help combat racism, xenophobia, and nationalist extremism.2 After all, how could anyone but the most peripheral elements in society even consider being anti-Semitic after the Shoa? In that respect, the unwritten, never-fully-formulated and openly admitted goal, was to turn the Holocaust into the universal paradigm for the violation of human rights and the most-widely acknowledged symbol of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man, and World War II into the classic conflict between the forces of Good and Evil and thereby help ensure the security and physical future of the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora and in the State of Israel.

The extent to which this strategy has been successful, and that the Holocaust has indeed been turned into the universal symbol of barbaric cruelty par excellence and of unwarranted human suffering and has thoroughly permeated the European mind-set, can be illustrated by three random events which took place in three different European countries in the course of several days during the second week of October 2004. The first is an initiative by the local council of the Scottish village of Dunscore, launched in early October 2004, to honor a Christian missionary named Jane Haining who was born nearby and in 1944 was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz as “a victim of the Holocaust.” The idea that those seeking to honor a woman who devoted her life to influencing Jews to abandon their faith want her recognized as “a victim of the Holocust,”3 clearly underscores the special resonance attributed to those victimized by the Nazis, and the pseudo-sanctification of those victims.

The second example relates to an honor bestowed by the Spanish government upon a soldier named Angel Salamanca who was among the Spanish troops sent by Franco to fight with the Nazis against the Soviet Union during World War II. Salamanca was honored at the October 12 parade to mark Spain’s annual celebration of its armed forces, a step which aroused considerable controversy, and particularly angered leftist politicians who rejected this gesture as an attempt to create a false equivalency between those who fought against fascism and those who fought alongside the Nazis. Spanish Defense Minister Jose Bono claimed, however, that the initiation was motivated by a desire to achieve reconciliation and that the parade sought to honor “all Spaniards who fought for the principles they believed in.”4 This attempt to grant recognition to all the Spaniards who fought in World War II regardless of the side they took, clearly emphasizes the enormous importance attached by Europeans to the events of World War II and the desire to achieve moral legitimacy for all those who served in that conflict.

The third incident took place on October 11, 2004 in France, where Bruno Golnisch, who is regarded as the second-ranking leader of the French extremist right-wing party, the National Front, expressed doubts as to the existence of gas chambers and hinted that he believed that the number of victims of the Shoa was less than the generally-assumed figure (of six million).5 The ongoing efforts by leaders of anti-Semitic elements such as the National Front to undermine the credibility of the commonly-accepted narrative of the Holocaust are at least in part a reflection of the growing awareness of the importance of the Holocaust as a watershed event in European history and the effect of this recognition on the attitude of Europeans and others towards Jews and the State of Israel.

With the memory and awareness of the Holocaust an increasingly powerful factor in contemporary European life, and with Holocaust education increasingly regarded as a bulwark against anti-Semitism,6 it is ironic that during the past fifteen years it has been Holocaust- related issues, more than any others, which have been the major catalyst for anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe.

Yet since this anti-Semitism, which has primarily focused on undermining the credibility and authenticity of the Jewish Holocaust narrative, has not resulted in widespread anti-Jewish violence, similar to the attacks which reached such dangerous levels in Western Europe, it has hereto attracted minimal attention. But the underlying motivation for the animus against Jews and its impact on local societies throughout Eastern Europe are definitely worthy of scrutiny since they pose a serious potential danger, and already are having a negative impact on Jewish life in these countries.

The best way to analyze this phenomenon is to examine the reactions in various countries to four of the six specific Holocaust-related issues, which have emerged as central questions in Eastern Europe in the wake of the fall of Communism and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.(While the fifth, and especially the sixth, issue are also relevant in this context, they are beyond the scope of this article and will be dealt with in future research.) Those events have produced the historical and political circumstances in which the newly-independent and newly-democratic regimes of Eastern Europe have been forced to confront their Holocaust pasts, which in most cases included extensive complicity by the local population in the murder of the Jews.7 Thus, whereas all questions relating to the events of the Shoa were previously determined by Communist ideology and interests,8 these questions were re-opened in the late eighties and early nineties and for the first time these countries could acknowledge the truth and act upon it in a practical manner.

The specific Holocaust-related issues which had to be addressed by these governments were the following:

1. acknowledgement of complicity by the local population in the murder of the Jews and an apology for those crimes;
2. commemoration of the victims;
3. prosecution of the perpetrators;
4. documentation of the crimes;
5. introduction of Holocaust education into the curriculum and the preparation of appropriate educational materials;
6. restitution of communal and individual property.

A. Acknowledgement of Holocaust Crimes

Invariably, the first step which had to be taken in the process of facing the past, was an acknowledgement of the crimes of the Holocaust and the participation of locals in the murder of the Jews. In many instances such an apology was made in the framework of a visit by the head of state to Israel, although there were also cases in which the local parliament passed such a resolution. Thus, for example, both Lithuanian Prime Minister Adolfas Slezevicius and President Algirdas Brazauskas formally apologized for Holocaust crimes during visits to Israel,9 as did Latvian President Guntis Ulmanis,10 Croatian President Stjepan Mesic,11 and Polish President Lech Walesa.12

While these acknowledgements of guilt and apologies were considered in Jewish circles as a necessary first step toward reconciliation, such statements were often distinctly unpopular and severely criticized at home, where nationalist and other elements either denied the historical facts or believed that reciprocal apologies for crimes by Jewish Communists should have been made by Israeli leaders. Thus, for example, both Slezevicius and Brazauskas were roundly criticized by a wide spectrum of Lithuanian public opinion for their apologies,13 as was Polish President Lech Walesa for asking for forgiveness from the podium of the Israeli Knesset.14 In Hungary, Prime Minister Gyula Horn was sued by the publisher of a local edition of Mein Kampf, who argued that by apologizing for Hungarian Holocaust crimes, the premier had violated his personal rights by suggesting that he was a member of a guilty nation.15

Particularly telling in this regard is the declaration condemning “the annihilation of the Jewish people during the years of the Nazi occupation in Lithuania” passed by the Lithuanian Supreme Council on May 8, 1990. Although the declaration specifically stated that it is being issued “on behalf of the Lithuanian people,” it attributes guilt for the crimes committed in Lithuania during the Holocaust to “Lithuanian citizens,” a category clearly not restricted to those of Lithuanian nationality, which could even (by a twist of perverted logic) include Jews. Thus the Lithuanian parliament seek to differentiate between the ostensibly blameless “Lithuanian people” and the murderers who were “Lithuanian citizens,” a distinction which is not supported by the historical record.16

B. Commemoration of the Victims

While this issue takes many different forms, the most important in our opinion, is the decision to establish a special memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust. In fact, the growing number of countries which have taken this step, which originally was initiated by the State of Israel, which for many years was the only country to do so,17 is another powerful indicator of the growing significance with which the Holocaust is regarded, especially in Europe. In this context, however, one of the key issues is the choice of the date for the memorial day, which often reflects local attitudes toward dealing with the Holocaust. Thus, for example, twelve countries, including Germany, have chosen January 27, the date of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, rather than a date linked to historic events in their own country, which could probably have added significantly to the impact of local observance. (Eleven countries have preferred to adopt a date linked to their own history.)18

One of the latest countries to choose January 27 has been Estonia, where the decision to observe a memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust aroused considerable controversy and was singularly unpopular. Thus, for example, typical of the local reactions to the decision was the following question posed to an official of the Simon Wiesenthal Center who had lobbied the government to choose a special day to commemorate the Holocaust:

“You’re demanding that all the peoples of the world including Estonia introduce the Jewish Holocaust memorial day. I’m wondering when will the memorial day for [the] Estonian mass deportations of 1941 and 1949 be introduced in Israel. Do you think that the war sufferings of one nation should be put above others and the suffering of other nations are nothing to speak of?”19

This sentiment was clearly expressed in a public opinion poll conducted by the popular Estonian daily Eesti Paevaleht, which asked Estonians whether they supported the establishment of a special memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust. Ninety-three percent of the respondents disapproved and only seven percent approved.20

Also of note is the choice of January 27, which has no ostensible link whatsoever to the history of the Holocaust in Estonia. (No Estonian Jews were deported to Auschwitz.) In fact, Estonian officials rejected a suggestion by the Simon Wiesenthal Center that they choose either January 20, the date of the infamous Wannsee Conference in 1942, at which the implementation of the Final Solution was discussed and Estonia was declared Judenrein (free of Jews), or August 7, the date on which the 36th Estonian Security Battalion murdered Jews in Nowogrudok, Belarus.21

Another Eastern European country which chose a date for its Holocaust memorial day, which is of questionable value, is Lithuania. The date chosen in Vilnius is September 23, which marks the day of the evacuation of the Vilnius (Vilna) Ghetto,22 which was primarily carried out by the Germans and was not accompanied by the mass murder of the remaining Jewish inmates. More importantly, it is not linked to the extensive mass murders carried out throughout the country by Lithuanian vigilantes and security police during the initial half year of the Nazi occupation. This (most probably intentional) decision to divert the focus of the Lithuanian observances of Holocaust memorial day facilitates the minimalization of Lithuanian participation in the crimes of the Holocaust, a tendency clearly reflected in government policy from the regaining of independence.23

C. Prosecution of Perpetrators / Nazi War Criminals

Of all the practical Holocaust–related issues which have faced Eastern European governments in the aftermath of the fall of Communism, this has undoubtedly been the most problematic and on which the least has been achieved. Thus almost fifteen years after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the return of democracy to Communist Eastern Europe, a total of three Nazi war criminals -Lithuanian Security Police commander Kazys Gimzauskas in Lithuania, Chelmno death camp operative Henryk Mania in Poland and Jasenovac concentration camp commander Dinko Sakic in Croatia - have been convicted, with only the latter two actually having been punished for their crimes. These figures, more than anything, reflect a distinct lack of political will to deal with such cases, which have proven to be extremely unpopular in these societies, and have aroused considerable anti-Semitic sentiment which has been reflected in various ways.

Numerous examples can be adduced to illustrate the abysmal failure to prosecute Holocaust perpetrators. In fact, with the exception of Poland, there has not been a single country, which has initiated an investigation of such a case upon its own initiative. To the extent that any such cases were ever dealt with, it was invariably instances in which the suspects were investigated and/or prosecuted elsewhere, primarily in the United States, or were located by groups such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center which lobbied for their investigation, a demand usually supported by the United States and Israel. Even worse, several of the countries, such as Lithuania, Latvia and Romania, granted pardons to Holocaust perpetrators convicted by the Soviets or Communists, even though individuals who had participated in genocide were not eligible for such rehabilitations.24

This problem had been particularly acute in the former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia where local participation in the crimes of the Holocaust was particularly extensive, and contributed to the high rates of Jewish victimology in all three countries. Yet despite the existence of numerous unprosecuted Nazi war criminals in the Baltic countries, as well as others living overseas, practically no concrete results have been achieved on this issue.25

This failure is most evident in Lithuania, which had the largest by far pre-World War II Jewish community in the Baltics, and in which over 210,000 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, many by Lithuanians. Among those actively involved in these crimes were twelve individuals who had escaped to the United States shortly after World War II and against whom the United States had taken legal action for concealing their wartime activities, at least eleven of whom returned to Lithuania once she obtained independence. Among the returnees were several prominent figures in the World War II Lithuanian Security Police (Saugumas), such as Vilnius district commander Aleksandras Lileikis and his deputy Kazys Gimzauskas. Although both arrived in Vilnius (Gimzauskas in 1993; Lileikis in June 1996) in relatively good health, they were only indicted after they were no longer medically fit to stand trial (Gimzauskas on November 20, 1997; Lileikis on February 6, 1998). Neither was forced to appear in court (Lileikis did so voluntarily once for ten minutes on November 5, 1998 and briefly followed one session by video hookup on June 23, 2000), nor were they ever punished for their crimes. Liliekis died on September 26, 2000 before his trial was completed, whereas by the time Gimzauskas was convicted on January 14, 2001, he was ruled unfit for punishment. Neither sat even one minute in jail despite the important role they played in the mass murder of the Jews of Vilnius.26

The cases of these Nazi war criminals served as focal points of opposition by various segments of Lithuanian society to the prosecution of local Nazi collaborators, and especially to the exposure of the critical and extensive role played by Lithuanians in Holocaust crimes. In fact, any initiative to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice in Lithuania, invariably led to a variety of negative reactions, some of which included elements of violence. Thus, for example, in response to the launching in Lithuania of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s “Operation: Last Chance” project, which offers financial rewards for information which will facilitate the prosecution and punishment of Nazi war criminals, a member of the Taurage city council burned an Israeli flag in the center of town and drove around the town playing Nazi marches on a loudspeaker.27

Additional efforts to facilitate the prosecution of local Nazi criminals spawned numerous anti-Semitic reactions, particularly in local Internet forums and especially on www.delfi.lt, and who knows how many instances of vandalization of Jewish memorials and cemeteries.28 I also believe that they had an important impact on the decision of the Lithuanian government to seek the extradition from Israel of two Lithuanian Jews alleged to have committed crimes against Lithuanians in the service of the KGB.29 In fact, Israel refused a Lithuanian request for judicial assistance in at least one of these cases, on the grounds that since approximately two dozen Lithuanians of equivalent or higher rank who served in the same unit as the suspect were never investigated, let alone prosecuted, the decision to investigate him stemmed from anti-Semitism and could therefore be legally rejected.30 This fact was highlighted by nationalist elements whenever Jewish groups lobbied for the prosecution of Lithuanians for Holocaust crimes.31

Another country which has done very little to prosecute its own Nazi war criminals has been Estonia. The Estonian authorities have hereto never initiated a single investigation of a local Holocaust perpetrator and the case of an Estonian suspect who returned to the country after being prosecuted in the United States, for example, has dragged on with no results. In July 2002, the Wiesenthal Center submitted the names of sixteen members of the 36th Estonian Police Battalion, who were decorated in December 1942 for their service with the Nazis, to the Estonian Security Police Board as possible suspects in the murder of the Jews of Nowogrudok, Belarus on August 7, 1942, which was carried out by members of this unit (among others). The Security Police Board announced approximately two weeks later that there was no evidence to link the unit to the murder of the Jews of Nowogrudok, despite the fact that its participation in this crime was established by the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity and confirmed by survivor witnesses. The fact that the Estonian Security Police Board did not even bother to mention their investigation of this case in responding to the Wiesenthal Center annual questionnaire on Nazi war crimes investigations is perhaps the best indication of the total lack of political will in Tallinn to prosecute Holocaust perpetrators.32

The situation in this regard is even worse in countries like the Ukraine, Romania, and Belarus, which since achieving independence or returning to democracy have not initiated a single investigation, let alone prosecution, of a local Nazi war criminal. Cases of crimes committed by their nationals or on their territory which have been prosecuted elsewhere, have never elicited any interest or response by these countries.33

D. Documentation of Holocaust Crimes

The sins of omission and commission in this regard take various forms, among them the relativization of Holocaust crimes, the attempts to equate Communist crimes to those of the Shoa, the minimalization of the participation of the local population in the mass murder of the Jews, the exaggeration of the help provided to Jews by local residents and last, but certainly not least, outright Holocaust denial and even the attribution of Shoa crimes to the victims themselves.

One of the most prevalent tendencies in post-Communist Eastern Europe has been the attempt to create a false symmetry between Nazi and Communist crimes, and the erroneous classification of the latter as genocide. This can clearly be seen, for example, in the Baltics where all three post-Soviet republics established historical commissions of inquiry to investigate the Nazi and Soviet occupations of their country. Despite protests from various quarters,34 each country insisted upon the establishment of a single commission to investigate both the Nazi and Communist occupations, thereby strengthening their contention of the equivalency of the tragedies.35

The theory of the “double genocide” or the symmetry between Nazi and Communist crimes was particularly strong in Lithuania, where it achieved prominence in the wake of the revelations by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 1991 that the Lithuanian government had granted rehabilitations to numerous Lithuanian Nazi collaborators.36 Part of the response to these accusations was to emphasize the role of Jewish Communists in Soviet crimes committed in Lithuania as a counterbalance and/or as justification for the participation of Lithuanians in Holocaust crimes, a tendency which continues to remain strong in Lithuania.37 Along the same lines, in the wake of the apology for the crimes of the Shoa proffered by President Brazauskas in Israel, numerous Lithuanians countered by pointing to Jewish participation in Communist crimes, asking “Who will apologize to the Lithuanian nation?”38 Typical of these comments was the article by popular writer Jonas Avzyius who wrote that:

“His Excellency obediently apologized for Lithuanian criminals, who murdered Jews during the Nazi occupation. But there was not the slightest hint that the President of Israel should do something similar, condemning his Jewish countrymen, who worked in repressive institutions in Lithuania occupied by the Soviets and sent thousands of Lithuanians to concentration camps.”39

Another example of the effort to present Communist crimes as the equivalent of those of the Holocaust can be seen at the very highest level in Latvia. Thus in January 2004, at a conference sponsored by the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education Remembrance and Research, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga emphasized two major points: that Communist crimes were just as terrible as those of the Holocaust and that the measures taken by the Communists in Latvia constituted genocide. Despite the relevance of the Holocaust in this context, the Latvian president only mentioned it once in passing, with nary a word about Latvian complicity in Shoa crimes.40 When an official of the Simon Wiesenthal Center explained in an op-ed that the president’s presentation did not reflect the historical events accurately,41 there were calls for his murder, as well as various anti-Semitic comments on a prominent Latvian news website.42

Three additional tendencies prevalent in Eastern Europe, which reflect the failure to confront the participation of local residents in the crimes of the Holocaust are: the attribution of Holocaust crimes entirely to German and Austrian Nazis (as opposed to locals); the exaggeration of the number of, and scope of the assistance provided by, local Righteous Gentiles, and the attempts to claim that the only local participants in Holocaust crimes were criminals and/or totally peripheral elements of society. Instances of each tendency may be found in practically every post-Communist society. Thus, for example, various Polish historians refused to accept the findings regarding the responsibility of Poles for the murder of the Jews of Jedwabne as described by historian Jan Gross in his book Neighbors. In Lithuania, local officials opposed the inclusion of the phrase “and their local accomplices” on a memorial monument at Ponar (Paneriai), the site of the mass murder of the Jews of Vilnius, which attributed the killings to the Nazis. The Hungarian government planned in 1998 to rebuild the Hungarian pavilion at Auschwitz in such a manner that the blame for the annihilation of the Jews was almost exclusively placed upon the Germans.43 In Estonia, the local media invested much effort to disprove the findings of the international commission of historians which established that the 36th battalion of the Estonian Security Police actively participated in the murder of the Jews of Nowogrudok, Belarus.44

In Lithuania, the number of Righteous Gentiles and the scope of their assistance has been often exaggerated and presented as a counterbalance to the deeds of the local perpetrators, to the extent that they are acknowledged.45 The latter are often portrayed as being on the fringe of Lithuanian society, such as in the speech made by Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius at the dedication of a memorial monument at Ponar where he referred to the killers as “a group of criminals.”46 In Latvia, the role of the Arajs Kommando has been emphasized to the virtual exclusion of any other Latvians, despite the involvement of many others in the killing of Jews.47 In Hungary, the tendency has been to focus solely on the Arrow Cross, ignoring the role played by the Hungarian gendarmerie and others throughout the entire country, whereas in Romania the blame is often cast solely upon the Iron Guard, despite the fact that the Romanian government bears most of the responsibility for the murder of the Jews.48

Finally, there are the cases of outright Holocaust denial and those in which the Jews themselves are blamed for the Holocaust. Thus, for example, Slovak Deputy Minister of Culture Stanislavs Panis claimed in 1992 that it was “technically impossible” for the Nazis to murder six million Jews in camps and that Auschwitz was an “invention” of the Jews to extort compensation from Germany. Romanian presidential candidate Corneliu Vadim Tudor of the Greater Romania Party (PRM) described the Holocaust in 1994 as “a Zionist scheme aimed at squeezing out from Germany about 100 billion Deutsch marks and to terrorize for more than 40 years, all those who do not acquiesce to the Jewish yoke.” (He has since changed his mind.) In Poland, neo-fascist political leader Boleslaw Tejkowski claimed that the Shoa was actually a Jewish conspiracy to enable Jews to hide their children in monasteries during World War II in order for them to be baptized and thereby take over the church from within. In fact, according to Tejkowski and the Romanian Radu Theodoru, Pope John Paul II was actually a Jew.49

Perhaps the most fitting conclusion for an article on this topic is to cite several examples in which the Jews themselves are blamed for the Holocaust. Such arguments, as illogical as they are, have appeared in several East European countries. Thus, for example, right-wing elements in Slovakia claimed in 1997 that the Holocaust is the price the Jews have to pay for crucifying Jesus. According to Hungarian right-wing extremist Aron Monis, it was “Jewish world power” which produced Hitler, who was actually a Zionist agent. In Romania, Theodoru argued that Hitler had been a puppet in Jewish hands50 and Prof. Ion Coja claimed that during the infamous Bucharest pogrom of January 1941, Jews disguised as Iron Guard Legionnaires murdered Romanians whom they dressed up as Jews.51 In Croatia, President Franjo Tudjman wrote in his book The Wastelands of Historical Reality that the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust was grossly exaggerated and that Jewish inmates ran the Jasenovac concentration camp and controlled its liquidation apparatus. According to Tudjman, “The Jew remains a Jew, even in the Jasenovac camp…Selfishness, craftiness, unreliability, stinginess, deceit, are their main characteristics.”52

The material presented in this article is only a small sample of the numerous cases in which attempts are being made throughout Eastern Europe to distort and negate the history of the Holocaust. Although it is true that some of the main culprits are minor figures or leaders of peripheral political movements, others are even heads of state, and clearly reflect (and influence) mainstream public opinion. In this regard, it is important to heed the warning of American Jewish historian Randolph Braham who survived the Holocaust in Hungary and continues to follow the political developments in that country. In his words:

“While the number of populist champions of anti-Semitism, like that of the Hungarian neo-Nazis actually denying the Holocaust, is relatively small, the camp of those distorting and denigrating the catastrophe of the Jews is fairly large, and judging by recent developments, growing. Wielding political power and influence, members of this camp represent a potentially greater danger not only to the integrity of the historical record of the Holocaust, but also, and above all, to the newly established democratic system. For unlike the Holocaust deniers – the fringe groups of “historical charlatans”… the history cleansers who denigrate and distort the Holocaust are often “respectable” public figures – intellectuals, members of parliament, influential governmental and party figures, and high-ranking army officers.”53

These developments, which have hereto attracted relatively little attention, clearly constitute a potential danger, which should be fully clarified and addressed before the negation of Jewish history escalates into physical attacks on living Jews.

Notes

* This article is based on a lecture delivered at a conference on “Anti-Semitism And The Contemporary Jewish Condition,” sponsored by the Sigi Ziering Institute of the University of Judaism, October 17-19, 2004.

1. During the past two decades alone, three multimillion-dollar Holocaust museums, or museums with a major Holocaust component, have been constructed: in Los Angeles (Simon Wiesenthal Center – 1993), Washington (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – 1993), and New York City (Museum of Jewish Heritage - 1997), besides dozens of smaller museums throughout the world. See, for example, Edward Linenthal, Preserving Memory; the Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995; James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.

2. One of the most important expressions of this approach has been the activities of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education Remembrance and Research (hereafter – TFICHERR) established by Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson in 1998. See his remarks in Stockholm meeting on the Holocaust; Summary from the meeting of 7 May 1998 in Stockholm, Stockholm, n.d., pp. 4-9. For a dissenting view on the effectiveness of Holocaust education in combating anti-Semitism, see Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999, pp. 239-263.

3. John Innes, “Villagers plan to honor Scot victim of Holocaust,” The Scotsman, October 14, 2004.

4. Renwick McLean, “Spain reopens old wound,” International Herald Tribune, October 13, 1944, p. 1.

5. “Bachir ba-Yamin ha-tzorfati: Mutar Lehitvakeiach al Mispar ha-Nispim ba-Shoa,” Ha-Aretz, October 13, 2004.

6. Whereas the TFICHERR was originally established in 1998 by Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom, it presently has eighteen members (fifteen from Europe), with at least four additional European countries candidates for membership. See “Fact Sheet,” www.taskforce.ushmm.org

7. See, for example, Efraim Zuroff, “The Memory of Murder and the Murder of Memory, in ”Emanuelis Zingeris(ed.)Atminties Dienos; The Days of Memory), Vilnius: baltos lankos, 1993, (hereafter – Zuroff: Memory) pp. 391-405.

8. Soviet memorials, for example, were notorious for hiding the Jewish identity of the victims of Nazism who were described as “Soviet citizens” or “victims of fascism,” while the national identity of local participants was masked by references to “bourgeois nationalists” or Hitlerite fascists.” See ibid., p. 396 and William Korey, The Soviet Cage;Anti-Semitism in Russia, New York: Viking Press, 1973, pp. 83-98.

9. Vygantas Vareikis, “Double Genocide and the Holocaust Gulag: Rhetoric in Lithuania” (hereafter – Vareikis) and Dov Levin “New Forms of Anti-Semitism in the New Established Lithuania,” (hereafter – Levin) in “Jews and anti-Semitism in the Public Discourse of the Post-Communist European Countries,” a conference held on October 24-26, 2000, at the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

10. Efraim Zuroff, “Latvia’s Holocaust Role,” Jerusalem Post, February 18, 1998, p. 10.

11. Efraim Zuroff, “Visiting President Mesic courageously tackles his country’s past,” Jerusalem Post, October 31, 2001, p. 4. Marinko Culic, “Mesic’s Apology to Jews,” November 5, 2001, www.aimpress.ch

12. Michael Shafir, Between Denial and “Comparative Trivialization”; Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe (hereafter – Shafir), Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, No. 19, 2002, p. 28.

13. See note no. 9.

14. See note no. 12.

15. Ibid., p. 40.

16. “Declaration of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania Concerning the Genocide of the Jewish Nation in Lithuania During the Period of the Nazi Occupation,” May 8, 1990. For an analysis of the wording of the declaration see Zuroff: Memory, pp. 397-398.

17. Michael Berenbaum, “On the Politics of the Public Commemoration of the Holocaust,” Shoah, fall-winter 1982, pp. 6-37.

18. Amiram Barkat, “Many Western countries also mark Holocaust day,” Ha-Aretz, April 19, 2004.

19. “Dr. Efraim Zuroff online: answers in English,” Eesti Paevaleht, August 8, 2002, p. 6.

20. “Kas Eesti peab sisse holokausti paeva? (Does Estonia need to impose a Holocaust memorial day?),” Eesti Paevaleht, August 7, 2002; Internet Poll on Marking the Holocaust Day, “Estonian Media Summary,” US Embassy, Tallinn, Estonia, August 7, 2002.

21. Efraim Zuroff, “Holokausti Paev Eestis oleks suur samm desi (Holocaust memorial day in Estonia would bea big step forward), Eesti Paevaleht, August 7, 2002, p. 9.

22. See for example coverage of Holocaust remembrance day 2001 in Lithuania, “Lithuanian Review,” September 24, 2004, p. 1; Rachel Eisenberg, “Rivlin marks 60th anniversary of Vilna Ghetto’s destruction,” Jerusalem Post, September 24, 2003, p. 4.

23. Zuroff: Memory, pp. 391-405.

24. See Efraim Zuroff, “Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals; An Annual Status Report” for the period from January 1, 2001 until March 31, 2004, (3 reports) published annually by the Simon Wiesenthal Center – Israel Office.

25. Efraim Zuroff, “The Failure to Prosecute Nazi War Criminals in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, 1991-1998,” Antisemitism Research, Vol. II, No. 1, summer 1998, pp. 5-10.

26. See, for example, Michael MacQueen, “The Office of Special Investigations and the Case of Aleksandras Lileikis,” a lecture delivered at the “Holocaust in Lithuania in the Focus of Modern History, Education, and Justice,” conference conducted in Vilnius on September 23-25, 2002; Liudas Truska, “Contemporary attitudes toward the Holocaust in Lithuania,” Jews in Eastern Europe, 2 (45), fall 2001, p. 24; Efraim Zuroff, “Can Lithuania Face Its Holocaust Past; Reflections of a Concerned Litvak,” Gachelet, March 2002, pp. 75-76.

27. See for example “Laiko zenklai (Signs of the times),” Lietuvos Rytas, June 21, 1996, p. 4; “E. Zuroffas pasigenda normalaus naciu nusikalteliu teismo proceso (E.Zuroff finds a lack of normal trials of Nazi criminals),” Baltic News Service, July 13, 2002 and comments on www.delfi.lt ; Geoffrey Vasiliauskas, “No one rules the world,” Laisvas Laikrastis, March 16, 2004 (hereafter – Vasiliauskas), pp. 1-8.

28. “Taurageje surengta antisemitine akcija (An anti-Semitic incident was organized in Taurage),”Lietuvos Rytas, July 29,2002,p.2.”Lithuanian politician burns Israeli flag, plays Nazi songs,” Agence France Press, June 29,2002.
Among the Jewish sites vandalized during the period since Lithuania obtained its independence were several Holocaust memorial monuments, particularly in smaller communities. See for example, “The Baltic States” in Dina Porat(chief editor),Antisemitism Worldwide, 1994, Tel-Aviv: The World Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League, 1995, p. 129.

29. Mel Huang, “History Greets the New Year on The Baltic,” Central Europe Review, Vol. 2, No. 1, January 10, 2000. The individuals in question are Nachman Dushanski and Semyon Berkov.

30. Letter of Irit Kahan, Director of the Department of International Affairs of the Israeli Ministry of Justice to Lithuanian Prosecutor-General Kazys Pednycia, February 2, 2000, Archives of the Israel Office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (hereafter – SWCIA), Lithuania, file no. 28.

31. Vasiliauskas relates that following a visit to Lithuania by this author who had submitted particularly damning testimony, obtained in the framework of “Operation: Last Chance,” (which featured special ads calling upon individuals to volunteer information regarding the identity of local Nazi perpetrators) regarding the participation of Lithuanians in the murder of Jews in the town of Rokiskis to the Lithuanian Special Prosecutor for genocide crimes, the Lithuanian Center for the Study of Genocide and Resistance sponsored special radio advertisements calling for people with information on Communist crimes in the Rokiskis area during and after World War II to come forward. Vasiliauskas, p. 4.

32. Efraim Zuroff, “Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals: An Annual Status Report,” June 2003, pp. 30-31.

33. See note no. 24.

34. See for example, “Lithuanian State Head Spurns Jewish Organization’s Rebuke,” Elta (Lithuanian News Agency), November 20, 1998; “E. Zurofas nerimsta (E.Zuroff is nervous),” Kauno Diena, November 20, 1998.

35. See for example the history of the Lithuanian “International Commission For The Evaluation Of The Crimes Of The Nazi And Soviet Occupation Regimes,” at www.komisija.lt.

36. Stephen Kinzer, “Lithuania Starts to Wipe Out Convictions for War Crimes,” New York Times, September 5, 1991, p. 1.

37. Typical of the articles expressing this notion was a piece by Valentinas Ardziunas in Lietuvos Aidas (March 14, 1995) which was accompanied by two illustrations: a monument to the victims of the Holocaust in Alytus and a chapel built to commemorate the murder of dozens of Lithuanians by the Communists at Rainiai forest. Vareikis, pp. 4-6.

38. Ibid. pp. 6-8.

39. Jonas Avyzius, “Kam Prezidentas tikras tevas? ((Who is the person whose real father is the President),” Respublika, March 25, 1995, quoted in ibid., p. 8.

40. Address by H.E. Vaira Vike-Preiburga, President of the Republic of Latvia at the International Forum Preventing Genocide: Threats and Responsibilities, Stockholm, January 26, 2004.

41. Efraim Zuroff, “Misleading comparisons of 20th century tragedies,” Baltic Times, February 19-25, 2004.

42. Among the comments on www.delfi.lv were the following:
1. “To the wall [to be shot] this person and finish[him off].” (February 20, 2004, 9:31).
2. Zuroff thinks that the only nation which suffered in world history are the zhids [derogatory
term for Jews – EZ], All the other people are their butchers…Jews were always successful in
trade and usury.” (February 20, 2004, 9:33)
3. “It is written in the Bible that zhids are an experimental mistake. G-d himself wanted to
annihilate them because the nation is wicked, without honor and virtue . All their history is
war, killings, and treachery. We must state clearly: Zuroff and the zhid government in Israel
are criminals.” (February 20, 2004, 16:27).

43. Michael Shafir cites these examples to describe a phenomenon, which he calls “deflective negationism,” which in this case relates to the attempts to attribute guilt for the crimes of the Holocaust solely to the Nazis. Shafir, pp. 24-37. In the case of the monument at Ponar, the term “and their helpers” appears in the inscriptions in Yiddish and Hebrew but not in Lithuanian or Russian, and the all-important adjective “local” does not appear anywhere. Efraim Zuroff, “Can Lithuania face its past?,” Jerusalem Report, August 1, 1991, p. 48.

44. The Estonian daily Eesti Paevaleht was so intent on discrediting the findings of the international commission regarding the participation of the Estonian 36th battalion in the murders at Nowogrudok, that it featured an interview with Vassili Arula who served in the unit and denied its involvement, but whose testimony in this regard was of little relevance since he only joined the battalion long after the murders had taken place. Toomas Kummel, “Ainus elav tunnistaja kaitseb 36. eesti politseipataljoni (Only living witness defends 36th Estonian Police Battalion),” Eesti Paevaleht, August 5, 2001.

45. The most obvious reflection of the Lithuanians eagerness to uncover Righteous Gentiles (as opposed to their reluctance to prosecute Nazi war criminals) is the large discrepancy between the numbers claimed by the Lithuanians (approximately 2,300 families as of late 2000) and the far smaller figure officially recognized by Yad Vashem, the Israel national remembrance authority (513 individuals). Thus, for example, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin on a visit to Lithuania on Holocaust memorial day there, refused to participate in a ceremony honoring thirty Lithuanians, whom Lithuanian sources claim helped save Jews during the Holocaust, since only twelve of them had been recognized by Yad Vashem. Rachel Eisenberg, “Rivlin marks 60th anniversary of Vilna Ghetto’s destruction,” Jerusalem Post, September 24, 2003, p. 4. For mention of the symmetry Lithuanians seek to create between local perpetrators and rescuers see Jonas Patrubavicius, “Blatant and latent asymmetry of Lithuanian anti-Semitism,” Laisvas Laikvastis, April 13, 2004, p. 9. The figure on the Righteous Gentiles recognized in Lithuania appears in Solomonas Atamukas, “The Hard Long Road Toward The Truth: On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of The Holocaust In Lithuania,” Lituanus Volume 47, No. 4 – Winter 2001, p. 11. The figures for Yad Vashem are correct as of January 1, 2004 and were supplied by that institution. “Righteous Among the Nations – per Country & Ethic Origin, January 1, 2004, Yad Vashem Department For the Righteous Among The Nations.

46. “Address by Gediminas Vagnorius, Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania on 20 June 1991 At Dedication Ceremony Of The Memorial At Ponar,” SWCIA, Lithuanian criminals, file no. 3.

47. Andrew Ezergailis, “Sonderkommando Arajs,” lecture at 9th International conference on Baltic studies in Scandinavia, June 3-4, 1987; idem., The Holocaust in Latvia 1941-1944, Riga and Washington D.C.: The Historical Institute of Latvia in association with The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1996.

48. Shafir describes this phenomenon as another example of “deflective negationism,” with the primary guilt being attributed to fringe elements. Shapir, p. 37.

49. Ibid., pp. 14-15.

50. Ibid., pp. 42-43.

51. Prof. Coja wrote an article with this spurious accusation as recently as January 2004 after his political patron Tudor had already apologized for his previous Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic comments. Ion Coja, “De ce n-au luat romanii Premiul Nobel pentru Pace in 1994 (Why the Romanians did not win the Nobel Prize in 1994),” Romania Mare, January 21, 2004.

52. Thomas O’Dwyer, “Where’s the Croat Havel?” Jerusalem Post, August 7, 1997; “Nazi-hunter slams Croatian links,” Jewish Chronicle, September 12, 1997.

53. Quoted in Shafir, p. 11.