Estonia: Police looking into verbal attack on head of Jewish Congregation

Via err.ee:

Several Estonian news portals have reported that Rabbi Shmuel Kot, head of the Estonian Jewish Congregation, was verbally attacked on his way to the Tallinn Synagogue on Saturday. According to a friend of Rabbi Kot, who wrote about the incident on social media, an Estonian-speaking man shouted antisemitic slurs at the rabbi and his family. The police are investigating the incident.

The reason why Rabbi Kot had not reported the incident right away is that his belief forbids the use of a telephone on shabbat. The incident has since been reported to the police, who are looking into the matter.

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Estonia: Holocaust victim memorials vandalised at Kalevi-Liiva

Via err.ee:

Sometime Saturday overnight or on Sunday, just days ahead of the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, unidentified individuals vandalised multiple Holocaust memorials at Kalevi-Liiva, Harju County, the execution site of thousands of victims of Nazism.

The memorials were tagged with a swastika, penises and antisemitic and Nazi messages as well as burned, likely using a blowtorch.

The vandalism was discovered by local residents, who notified the police, the municipal government and Estonia's Jewish community about it.

Jewish Community of Estonia chairwoman Alla Jakobson said that she was shaken and outraged by the news.

"I can't call these Nazi-sympathisers who attack the memory of innocent victims with such brutality and anger human," she said. "The memory of the dead has always been regarded with such great respect and honour in Estonia, regardless of ethnicity. An Estonian resident cannot act like this, which is why I am sure that the memorial was vandalised by people who hate Estonia, and this should also be seen as a provocation timed to coincide with the Day of Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Estonia."

Jakobson also thanked those who alerted the authorities and the Jewish community to the incident.

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Estonia: Far-right politician vows to legalize Holocaust denial

Via JTA:

Georg Kirsberg

An Estonian nationalist politician vowed in his election campaign to decriminalize Holocaust denial and instead penalize those who would downplay the Soviet domination of the country. 

Georg Kirsberg, who is running for a lawmaker’s seat for the Conservative People’s Party in Estonia’s elections in October, was quoted Wednesday by the Estonian National Broadcasting Company. 

“We will decriminalize Holocaust denial and enter a correct teaching of the history of the Third Reich,” Kirsberg said. 

His far-right party supports revoking the citizenship and deporting what it defines as “Russians hostile to Estonia” – a reference to ethnic Russians or speakers of that language living in Estonia, including most of the country’s Jews. Last month, the party, which was founded in 2012 and currently has seven out of 101 seats in the Estonian parliament, submitted a bill proposing such deportations. It is likely to be defeated. The party also supports a ban on the construction of new mosques and Eastern Orthodox churches. 

Doing away with Estonia’s laws against denying the Holocaust is however not an official party position, Martin Helme, the party’s leader, told the broadcasting authority. 

“He does not claim that it is the party’s position, it is only the thought of one person,” Helme said. Asked whether the party plans to sanction Kirsberg over his comment, Helme said he “sees no reason to do this.”

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Sweden, Russia support UNESCO measure condemning "Israeli occupation of Jerusalem"

Russia and Sweden supported the measure.  Sweden was the only Western and democratic regime to support it.

The measure passed thanks to all the countries who abstained.  In Europe these include: Albania, Spain, Estonia, France and Slovenia


Via UN Watch:

The resolution on Jerusalem, despite a passing mention of “the three monotheistic religions,” ignores Jewish and Christian religious and historical ties to the city, condemning Israel for excavations of the Jewish capital that have revealed the ancient City of David, along with pottery inscriptions, coins and artifacts connected to Jewish life during and before the time of Jesus.

“Once again, the United Nations agency for education, science and culture is being hijacked by genocidal regimes and serial human rights abusers like Sudan, Iran, Algeria, Qatar, and Russia,” said Neuer.

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Estonia: Unknowns vandalized a monument to Holocaust victims

Via CFCA:

Kalevi-Liiva - unknowns vandalized a monument in the memory of Jews murdered by the Nazis in Kalevi-Liiva, Estonia. A swastika was painted on the monument board. The Jewish community cleaned the monument and reported about the incident to the local authorities and police.

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Holocaust denial on the rise in Eastern Europe

Via Ynet News:

After Lithuania changed the definition of 'genocide' and Baltic countries have turned murderers of Jews into national heroes, Holocaust researchers are accusing the State of Israel of standing idly by as history is being re-written.

The testimonies are fading away, the memorial sites are turning into entertainment centers, and the historical story is seen as just another "Jewish narrative": If anyone thought that Holocaust denial was a marginal phenomenon among a few anti-Semites and Israel haters, evidence shows that is it a much wider, more well-established and dangerous phenomenon that is receiving reinforcement on the ground from eastern European countries.

In Lithuania, for example, people are doing everything to downplay the significance of the horrors of the war as a unique event in the history of mankind, and in Ukraine a famous mass murder site has turned into a thriving jogging spot.

(...)

Rabbi Avraham Krieger, head of the Shem Olam Institute for Holocaust education and research, believes the new Holocaust deniers are driven by a psychological motive, namely an attempt to dissolve the perception of the Holocaust as a unique phenomenon in favor of a historical description which will minimize the feelings of guilt among the countries which actively participated - or whose citizens actively participated - in the murder of Jews.

Dr. Zuroff sees it too. He says there is an attempt to conceal and blur the eastern Europeans' role in the massacre. "In Lithuania there was a systematic killing of Jews by the local population," he explained. "That is the reason why 96 percent of the Jews there did not survive and many communities were completely erased. The intentional goal is to conceal this fact.

"The mass murderers of Jews among the local population are perceived as national heroes because of their war against the communists, and streets, squares and governmental institutions have been named after them. How can anyone acknowledge their role in the annihilation if the murderers are considered heroes?"

Lithuania is not alone. According to the two researchers, "soft denial" is taking place in Baltic countries like Estonia and Latvia, as well as in Poland, Croatia and Hungary.

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With full European support, UNHRC backs Israel-bashing Gaza report

No wonder so many European citizens do not trust their politicians.

The Times of Israel reports:
 
EU nations lament lack of Hamas criticism but approve motion anyway; only US votes against resolution which Jerusalem calls an ‘anti-Israeli manifesto’

he UN Human Rights Council voted in favor of a resolution on Friday backing the Gaza Conflict Commission of Inquiry, which last week issued a report charging that Israel and Hamas may have committed war crimes during Operation Protective Edge last summer.

Forty-one of the 47 UNHRC council members voted in favor of the resolution, including the eight sitting European Union members: France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Latvia and Estonia. 

Only the US, which last week slammed the report as biased, voted against. Israeli officials thanked the US for its “principled” position.

The vote in Geneva coincided with the explosion of a rocket in southern Israel.

The resolution made no mention of Hamas or of its role in the conflict, though it stressed that all those responsible for human rights violations must be held to account and effective remedies should be given to all victims, including reparations.  It also recommends the UN General Assembly take on the matter “until it is satisfied that appropriate action” is taken to implement the report’s recommendations.

The decision by the council has no binding effect, but adds to pressure for war crimes prosecutions before the International Criminal Court.  More.

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: Jews in Baltics fear creep of anti-Semitism. EU indifferent.

Fox News reports:

Nazi paraphernalia sold in tourist shop in Tallinn, Estonia

Jews in the Baltics fear a series of disturbing events in the three-nation region of Eastern Europe may be signaling a revival of the Holocaust-era hatred that once nearly wiped out their numbers.  Across the countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Jewish leaders say their communities are feeling increasingly uncomfortable as anti-Semitism once again appears to be on the rise. An Estonian museum exhibition mocking the Holocaust, a stage musical celebrating the life of a notorious Latvian Nazi mass murderer and the repatriation of the remains of a Lithuanian leader  long linked to Nazis have all contributed to a climate of hate that has Jews on edge.

“We have to say that the support of Hitler and rewriting history to turn Hitler into a liberator of this area is not a western value,” Yiddish scholar Dovid Katz, founder of the DefendingHistory.com website, told FoxNews.com. “If you’re repatriating Nazi war criminals to be re-buried and honored as part of national history, that is not behavior compatible with western ethics and values.”

Katz has been amongst the most vocal objectors to a growing list of questionable events in the Baltics, including the 2012 repatriation from the U.S. to Lithuania of the body of wartime leader Juozas Ambrazevicius Brazaitis. He was re-buried with full honors, endorsed by the Lithuanian government, despite having been a Nazi puppet during his brief tenure. Brazaitis was accused of overseeing the establishment of a concentration camp, and also signed off on the establishment of the Kaunas ghetto. [...]

In Talinn, Estonia, a highly controversial Holocaust-themed exhibition caused outrage last month when, among its exhibits, was a picture showing the iconic Hollywood sign replaced by the word "Holocaust," which some perceived as a suggestion the genocide was an entertainment event. Another sick exhibit recreated a gas chamber and had 20 naked actors pretending to be Jews playing tag, seemingly suggesting there was humor in the gas chambers experience. The exhibits were eventually withdrawn.

In October 2014 a Latvian musical ‘Cukurs, Herbert Cukurs’ premiered celebrating the life of the ‘Butcher of Riga,’ Herbert Cukurs, who was tracked down and killed by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service in Montevideo, Uruguay, more than 20 years after he fled Europe. He had overseen the murder of many thousands of Jews in his native Latvia where he had been a pre-war national hero. He was witnessed personally shooting more than 500.  [...]

“The European Union… does not appear to be particularly perturbed by genuinely disturbing phenomena in the Baltic countries and elsewhere, which, of course, in no way would justify Russian aggression, but deserve to be handled seriously and promptly before they get out of hand,” Zuroff wrote in the International Business Times. More.

Estonia: Polish exhibit features 'humorous' Holocaust art

Photo via CFCA

Via Sputnik News:

A scandalous art exhibit opened in the Estonian city of Tartu over the weekend, featuring comics, paintings and video projects by Polish artists offering a 'humorous' treatment of the Holocaust.

The exhibition features work by artists including Artur Zmijewski's, whose humerous Holocaust 'art' has already been banned in Germany.

A piece of film art by the artist features naked people happily playing tag in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Another shows what appears to be a former inmate of the infamous concentration camp deciding to update the serial number tattoo on his wrist. 

(...)

Vladimir Simindey, historian and director of the 'Historical Memory Fund' expressed his outrage over the exhibition. Rossiyskaya Gazeta quoted him as saying that "it is not by accident that Polish artists speculatively giggling over Jews and other victims of Nazism found 'shelter and bread' in the Estonian city of Tartu; this is one of the centers of neo-Nazi sentiment in this country. The Visiting scandalists delight Estonian Neo-Nazis and their sympathizers, given that previously even they themselves did not dare to show their hatred in such an 'artistic' manner. This [exhibition] serves to demonstrate a kind of 'liberation' from the uncomfortable memory of complicity of some Tartuans in the terrible Nazi atrocities. Now it's just become a joke for them."

Bulgaria: "What's wrong with that? Hitler is good"

Hitler and Nazi items are being sold in various tourist shops across Europe.

Nazi mugs on sale in Bulgarian store (Photo: Janna Kushnir)

On the final day of their five-day trip, the mother and son entered a gift shop in the town's main street and were surprised to find the mugs with swastikas and Hitler's picture offered for sale, stacked near cosmetic items and various trinkets.

Kushnir, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, asked the cashier if selling such items was not forbidden, to which she said the clerk had replied: "What's wrong with that? Hitler is good.

More: Ynet

Israeli journalist found the following Hitler poster hanging in a market in Budapest, Hungary.  The stand also had various Nazi emblems and insignia for sale. (news1)

Hitler poster in Budapest market, Yoav Limor

Tourists found the following in Tallinn, Estonia (Europe-Israel)

Nazi paraphernalia sold in tourist shop in Tallinn, Estonia

Estonia: Nazi veteran buried with full honors

Urmas Freedman / Pärnu Postimees

Estonia granted a burial with full military honors Friday to a decorated Nazi SS veteran who distinguished himself in combat against Soviet troops during World War II. 

Harald Nugiseks, the last surviving Estonian recipient of Nazi Germany’s Knight’s Cross, died on January 2 at the age of 93. 

The history of Estonian collaboration with the Nazis is subject of widespread revulsion in neighboring Russia, but is viewed by many in the Baltic nation as having been a necessity for achieving national independence.

More: Baltic Review