CALL TO THE ACADEMIC COUNCIL OF YIVO

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMIC ADVISORY COUNCIL OF CJH -YIVO

Steven Zipperstein: Standford University, Chairman -  Derek Penslar:University of Toronto, Co-Chairman

Elisheva Carlebach: Colombia University  -  Jane Gerber: Graduate Center- CUNY

Debra Kaplan: Yeshiva  University  Marion Kaplan: New York University - Samuel Kassow: Trinity College

Arthur Kiron: University of Pennsylvania - James Loeffler: University of Virginia 

Tony Michels: University of Wisconsin -  Riv-Ellen Prell: University of Minnesota

Jeffrey Shandler: Rutgers University - Mark Slobin: Wesleyan University 

Sarah Stein: University of California - Los Angeles - Francesca Trivellato: Yale University

Jeffrey Veidlinger: Indiana University - Beth Wenger: University of Pennsylvania - Paul North: Yale University

Paul Shapiro:United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Dear Sir, Dear Madam

YIVO envisage making a harmful mistake by inviting the Minister of Foreign Affairs as “GUEST OF HONOR” during the Ceremony dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Ghetto of Vilna on 22 September.

I wrote a letter of Protest to the Board of Directors as well as did Professor Dovid Katz from Vilnius and Dr Efraïm Zuroff, Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem.

I send you in attachment the protest of Professor Dovid Katz as well as my letter.

I have received from Mr. Brent, executive Director of YIVO a worrying reply indicating that he does not intend to cancel this invitation. Mr. Brent explained that Guest of Honor does not really mean Guest of Honor and that he was convinced after having attended to a conference in Lithuania in last June that the Lithuanian authorities may improve their reserved position on the Holocaust.

You will see in our protest letter that since 1990 Lithuanian authorities have increasingly tolerated and supported anti-Semitic acts and a neo-Nazi events and organizations; for example they authorized Neo-Nazi Parades in the street, they have legalized the Swastika as a National Symbol in 2010 and obfuscate the holocaust.

Lithuania has clearly no intention to improve its position. As a matter of fact immediately after the conference that Mr. Brent attended, the Lithuanian Parliament (SEIMAS) has supported and welcome in its premises, on 28 and 29 June 2011, an international conference to rehabilitate as heroic patriots the member of the Lithuanian militia “LAF” which initiated the Pogroms of June 1941 and helped the Nazi to perpetrate the Holocaust.

Only few days ago, the Lithuanian Police has requested on 30 August 2011, the extradition from Israel of the Director of the Lithuanian Jews Association in Israel. The reason of this request is that Mr. Melamed (born in 1926) who is a survivor of the Holocaust and anti-Nazi resistant has mentioned the participation of “LAF” to the perpetration of the Holocaust. Before this event, the Lithuanian Police had tried to intimidate many Jews survivors of the Holocaust.

The presence of the Lithuanian Minister to the Ceremony as "GUEST OF HONOR" will be a “de facto” support to the current anti-Semitic policy of the Lithuanian Government by a major Jewish Organization and does not seem acceptable.

I would be grateful to you if you prevent this invitation

Yours Sincerely

Didier BERTIN

President of the Society for the Promotion of the European Human Rights Model