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UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH
A Holocaust Story of Love and Partisan Resistance
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(Vilna) Vilnius, Lithuania

NEWS UPDATE: The government of Lithuanian has begun an anti-Semitic campaign to prosecute former Jewish resistance fighters who escaped the final liquidations of the Vilna ghetto and others ghettos in Lithuania, and joined in the fight against Hitlerism. These aging Holocaust survivors and heroes of the resistance movement are being judicially harassed by Lithuanian prosecutors. In May 2008, the Lithuanian Jewish community issued a statement that expresses their deep concern regarding instances of anti-Semitism and xenophobia aimed at Jews and other ethnic groups in Lithuania. In July 2008, an open letter from the Jewish community of Lithuania was issued. On August 1, 2008 a letter was sent from members of the United States Congress addressed to Lithuanian Prime Minister Kirkilas to express their mounting concerns.

On Sunday morning August 10th, Simon Gurevich (Gurevicius) Executive Director of the Jewish community of Lithuania reported there were Swastikas etc on the doors and windows of the Jewish Community Center in Vilnius, Lithuania located at Pylimo 4, Vilnius.

These documents are posted here to promote awareness of the issues and as an expression of support from THE BART FAMILY for the Lithuanian Jewish community.



  • For Additional Web-Posts: regarding Lithuania's efforts to prosecute Jewish partisans, please refer to The European Jewish Congress website, a Jewish advocacy group.



  • JTA: Lithuania drops probe of ex-partisan

    September 25, 2008

    • NEW YORK (JTA) -- Lithuania's prosecutor general dropped a war crimes inquiry of a World War II partisan. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor general said the 2-year-old investigation of Dr. Yitzhak Arad, the chairman emeritus of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, was dropped because of insufficient data. The probe interviewed 83 people...It is unknown whether the inquiry of two other elderly former partisans, Rachel Margolis and Fania Brantsovsky, also will be dropped. Read more...




  • JTA: Elderly partisans' backers hoping Lithuanian leader will stop probe

    Aug 26, 2008

    • NEW YORK (JTA) -- The president of Lithuania has promised that his country's investigation into the wartime activities of three elderly Jewish World War II partisans will be dropped, according to an official of the Simon Wiesenthal Center -- but can he keep the promise? Read more...




  • Economist.com (UK): Lithuania must stop blaming the victims

    Aug 21, 2008

    • IS LITHUANIA really persecuting Holocaust survivors as if they were war criminals? Not quite, but the story is still troubling. It starts with the Nazi occupation of Lithuania when the Germans, with local help, were murdering Jews (more than 200,000 Jews perished, around 95% of the pre-war population). The Nazis' main opponent was the Soviet Union, so Jews' only chance of survival was to fight alongside Soviet-backed partisan groups, who were fighting both against Hitler and to restore communist rule in Lithuania. Read more...




  • Simon Wiesenthal Center: Wiesenthal Center Denounces Tisha B'av Desecration of Jewish Community in Vilnius and sends a letter to the Lithaunian President

    Aug 11, 2008

    • Last night's antisemitic profanation of the Jewish community of Lithuania headquarters, in Vilnius, fell on the 9th (Tisha) B'av fast day. For Jews, this commemorates the fall of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the exile and, by association, the history of Jew-hatred culminating in the Holocaust. Read more...




  • Jerusalem Post: Yad Vashem blasts Lithuania for revisionism

    Aug 11, 2008

    • Yad Vashem is increasingly concerned over growing Holocaust revisionism and anti-Semitism in Lithuania, the Holocaust Memorial announced Monday. Read more...




  • BBC News Channel: Reopening Lithuania's old wounds

    July 20, 2008

    • By Tim Whewell BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents - A judicial inquiry into the wartime activities of Jewish anti-Nazi resistance fighters in Lithuania has led to accusations that the small Baltic state is trying to distort the history of World War II. Read more...

    Tim Whewell's BBC Radio 4 documentary, "Lithuania: The Battle for Memory," click here to listen >>



    Tim Whewell's BBC Radio 4 documentary, "Lithuania: The Battle for Memory" will be reaired this evening (Monday 21 July) at 8:30 PM British time (3:30 US Eastern).




  • Washington Times: MARIASCHIN: Lithuania's new Jewish concerns

    July 20, 2008

    • Commentary - Lithuania, a NATO ally with a Jewish history in turn glorious and tragic, has once again become a cause for Jewish concern more than 60 years after the Holocaust...Four problems, in particular, require immediate action: Read more...




  • Baltic Times, Latvia: Jewish community betrayed

    July 09, 2008

    • VILNIUS - Jewish community leaders on two continents have united to emphatically condemn the Lithuanian government for reneging on its promise to restore stolen Jewish property and for pandering to anti-Semites in Lithuania. Jewish leaders claim that the Lithuania authorities promised to return property stolen from murdered Jews during World War II in return for Jewish support for Lithuania's EU and NATO membership efforts. Jewish leaders say that since gaining membership, Lithuania has broken its promise. Read more...




  • Baltic News Service: Press release on court's decison re: Dailide

    July 04, 2008

    • VILNIUS, Jul 04, BNS - The Lithuanian Court of Appeals ruled Friday to keep valid Vilnius district court's ruling pronounced two years back, declaring Algimantas Mykolas Dailide - now a senior citizen - who partook in crimes against Jews, not dangerous to society and pardoning him from a jail sentence. Read more...




  • The Jewish Daily FORWARD: Tensions Mount Over Lithuanian Probe

    July 03, 2008

    • A meeting between Jewish communal officials and Lithuania's prime minister did not dispel increasing tension over Lithuania's investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Jewish partisans during World War II. Read more...




  • The World Jewish Congress: Jewish organizations urge Lithuania to speed up restitution

    July 02, 2008

    • The World Jewish Congress has called on the Lithuanian government to urgently address the negative climate in the country vis-a-vis members of its Jewish community and to speedily enact legislation allowing for the restitution of properties seized under the Nazi occupation. At a meeting in New York attended by several leaders of Jewish organizations, WJC secretary-general Michael Schneider told Lithuanian prime minister Gediminas Kirkilas: "The World Jewish Restitution Organization began its negotiations with your government six years ago. Until today, no piece of legislation has even been sent to the Lithuanian parliament for deliberation." Read more...




  • The Guardian (UK): In the Jerusalem of the North, the Jewish story is forgotten

    June 20, 2008

    • Three times as many people died in Lithuania under the Nazis than the Soviets, but the state is myopic about the past. Read more...




  • YIVO News: Lithuanian Prime Minister Visits YIVO

    June 30, 2008

    • NEW YORK, June 2008 - As part of his recent trip to the United States, Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas of Lithuania visited YIVO on June 30, 2008. He was given a tour of YIVO's Rare Book Room and Archives, followed by a discussion that touched on YIVO-owned Hebrew- and Yiddish-language books, rediscovered in 1989, that are now housed in the Bibliographical Center of the Lithuanian National Library. Read more...




  • American Jewish Committee: U.S. Jewish Leaders Press Lithuanian Prime Minister to Resolve Property Restitution

    June 30, 2008

    • New York - The American Jewish Committee (AJC), joined by the leaders of other U.S.-based Jewish organizations, today pressed Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas and his government to exert the political will to pass legislation that will finally resolve the matter of Jewish communal property restitution. Read more...




  • The Jewish Daily FORWARD: Europe's Shameful Honoring of Vilnius

    June 26, 2008

    • The European Union has designated Vilnius as the "European Capital of Culture" for 2009. It is a recognition Lithuania does not deserve. Read more...




  • Simon Wiesenthal Center: Wiesenthal Center Protests Lithuanian Judicial Campaign to Discredit Jewish Heroes of Anti-Nazi Resistance

    May 28, 2008

    • Jerusalem - The Simon Wiesenthal Center today sent an official protest to the Lithuanian authorities in the wake of a second investigation launched in Vilnius against a Jewish anti-Nazi partisan. In a strongly worded letter sent by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, to the Lithuanian ambassador to Israel, the Center accused the Lithuanian judicial authorities of launching a campaign to discredit Jewish resistance fighters by falsely accusing them of war crimes in order to deflect attention from widespread Lithuanian participation in the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust. Read more...




  • Haaretz.com: Jerusalem to honor WWII Jewish partisans with new monument

    April 30, 2008

    • Jerusalem, April 30, Haaretz - A memorial to the thousands of Jewish partisans who fought against the Nazis in World War II is to be erected before the end of the year at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem...According to estimates, about 10,000 Jews fought behind German lines in occupied Europe. Read more...




  • Simon Wiesenthal Center: Wiesenthal Center Criticizes Failure of Lithuanian authorities to Prevent Neo-Nazi Anti-Semitic Demonstration in Vilnius and Demands harsh Punishments

    March 18, 2008

    • Jerusalem - The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized the manner in which the Lithuanian authorities handled a demonstration held last Tuesday in the capital of Vilnius in which hundreds of neo-Nazis marched chanting anti-Semitic slogans in the city center. Read more...




  • Simon Wiesenthal Center: NAZI WAR CRIMINAL DIES IN LITHUANIA; WIESENTHAL CENTER URGES LITHUANIAN GOVERNMENT TO PROSECUTE ALL NAZI WAR CRIMINALS LIVING THERE

    September 27, 2000

    • In the wake of the death late yesterday of Lithuanian Nazi war criminal Aleksandras Lileikis, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Israel director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued the following statement in Jerusalem: "The death of Aleksandras Lileikis without a trial clearly shows the lack of political will in Vilnius to face Lithuania's bloody past during the Holocaust. Read more...




    Related Links:

  • Simon Wiesenthal Center: Up-to-date news on "Operation Last Chance"




    • Until Our Last Breath - (Vilna) Vilnius, Lithuania: Current News-Headlines


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