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Right-Wing Eastern European States Honor Nazi-Collaborating Fascists as 'Heroes' (Pt 1/2) - Duration: 12:41.
BEN NORTON: It's The Real News Network, and I'm Ben Norton.
Far-right governments in Eastern Europe are rewriting the history of World War II, and
turning Nazi collaborators into heroes.
In July 2017, NATO published a propaganda video that glorified Baltic Nazi collaborators
as anticommunist heroes fighting the Russian menace.
The film is about the so-called Forest Brothers, who were far-right ultranationalists in the
Baltic states who fought the Soviet Union after many had been former members of Nazi
Germany's Waffen SS.
The Baltic states- that is, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia- are all members of NATO and the
European Union.
And like much of Europe, they are also seeing a huge surge in far-right populist movements.
A recent scandal in Lithuania highlights the increasing erasure of the history of the Holocaust
amid these far-right movements.
The New York Times, surprisingly, published an article on September 10 that investigates
this issue, titled Nazi Collaborator or National Hero?
A Test for Lithuania.
This piece is about General Storm, whose name was Jonas Noreika, and who is today seen as
a local anticommunist hero.
In 1947, Noreika was executed by the Soviet secret police.
It was recently disclosed that Noreika was actually a Nazi collaborator.
Joining us to discuss this is Dovid Kotz, the world's leading expert on Jewish history
in Lithuania.
He has a long and impressive resume.
Dovid has taught at Oxford University and Yale, and has won many awards.
He is now a professor in Lithuania's capital, where he lives, and he is the founder and
editor of Defending History, which is a website and web journal dedicated to fighting Holocaust
revisionism in Eastern Europe.
Thanks for joining us, Dovid.
DOVID KOTZ: Pleasure.
Thank you, Ben.
BEN NORTON: So let's talk first about Lithuania, and then let's move to other parts of Eastern
Europe and look at how far-right movements are pushing a kind of Holocaust revisionism.
So we're going to look at Ukraine and Poland as well as LIthuania.
But going back to this history here, can you talk about the history of Lithuanian Nazi
collaborators?
In 1941, the Nazis occupied Lithuania, and during the occupation Nazi German forces and
Lithuanian collaborators murdered over 90 percent of Jews in Lithuania.
That is around 200,000 people.
And General Storm, this national hero Jonas Noreika, played a role in this genocide.
DOVID KOTZ: Right.
Well, I'd like to preface my remarks, Ben, if I may, by stressing that I'm a Jewish New
Yorker, as I hope you can still hear, who's been living here 19 years in Vilnius, the
beautiful Lithuanian capital.
I find the people in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, in this entire neighborhood, to be warm, friendly,
tolerant.
Not far-right at all in general.
I would say this is a problem of many of the mainstream nationalists.
Now, they are far right, this nationalist elite in politics, the media, academia.
They are far right in one major respect: that they want to make heroes out of Holocaust
collaborators who, in the Baltic countries as in western Ukraine, were not only collaborators,
they were tens of thousands of actual killers and assistants to killers in these countries
who actually carried out the killing.
You mentioned June 1941.
That was, of course, Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union on June
22, 1941.
In the week that followed, local nationalists in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine
started to murder thousands of innocent Jewish neighbors before the Nazis, the Germans even
got here, or before they set up their administration.
In fact, these these countries' record of success for Hitler was a major factor in the
Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution six months later.
In fact, it was 96.4 percent of Lithuanian Jews who were killed, along with Latvia and
Estonia, hovering around the 95 percent mark, the highest in Europe.
Now, we of course blame the perpetrators.
But the elites in these countries who want to make heroes out of the perpetrators are
trying to say, in effect, that this participation in murdering tens of thousands of neighbors,
ultimately hundreds of thousands, is not a big deal because they were anti-Soviet, and
we have to make a hero out of anyone who is anti-Soviet.
Now, all of us here hate the Soviet Union and Stalinism.
We detest current Putinism.
This is not at all about being pro-Soviet.
This is about history and the truth of history.
From 1941-1944 in these countries when the Holocaust took place, the Soviet Union was
the only force fighting against Hitler and the only hope for survival of any Jew slated
for extermination because of his or her birth.
Whether it's by escaping to Soviet-held territory that first week, that's the way most of the
survivors- they're called the flight survivors- survived; joining the Soviet partisans in
the forest.
So if we talk about the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, where the bulk of it occurred, that's
where most of the Jews live, we are talking about murderers who were all anti-Soviet.
They all prayed for a Nazi victory and a Soviet defeat, just as every decent person and every
victim of Nazism prayed for an Allied victory.
And in those years, of course, the Soviet Union was in alliance with the United States
and Great Britain.
So after the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, a number of these countries, including
the three Baltic states, started on a campaign to rewrite history.
The campaign, or the revisionism, is usually called 'double genocide.'
It doesn't deny the Holocaust.
It doesn't deny a single death.
So it's a very strange phenomenon in the field of Holocaust denial.
What it does is it downgrades the Holocaust, upgrades Soviet crimes, redefines genocide
by inflation so it can include deportation, loss of religious freedom, loss of employment,
imprisonment, all sorts of crimes that are not genocide.
Then another component was the glorification of the perpetrators as national heroes, which
is enormously painful to the remnant Jewish communities in these countries and to many,
many other people who do not want their national heroes to be murderers.
This is a decision of the elite.
Well, you mentioned the United States and NATO.
Sadly, for some years now, NATO and the West, the United States, has been investing a lot
in helping the Baltic states and Ukraine, among others, to help all this stay under
the radar.
In 2010 or so, the American Embassy here cut off relations with all of us who have a second
opinion.
This had to do, in part, with worsening relations with Russia.
And that takes me to another component, that today's political thinkers here somehow think
that fixing the Holocaust is going to be a valuable weapon against Putin, which I think
is total nonsense.
They are two different questions.
BEN NORTON: Well, there's a lot to address there, and you raise several important points.
I want to come back to this phenomenon of double genocide.
This is very important.
But before that, let's talk a bit more about some of the other countries in the region.
We were talking about the Baltic states.
Let's look at Ukraine, because I mentioned General storm in Lithuania.
And maybe you can talk more about him.
But let's also talk about Stepan Bandera.
This has become a major national hero in Ukraine, even though he was also a Nazi collaborator.
This is a Ukrainian ultranationalist leader.
And now in Ukraine there are roads being named after him, and even government commemorations
of Stepan Bandera.
DOVID KOTZ: Right.
Well, here in Lithuania there are, sadly dozens, of Nazi collaborators, if not more, who have
streets named after them.
Jonas Noreika happened to be the one that made it into the news in 2018, thanks to his
granddaughter Sylvia, for this very brave article in Slate.
And that then being picked up in the New York Times.
So we're happy that finally something happened to bring this issue out of the secrecy the
shrouds of taboo that has been surrounding it by the mainstream Western media and Western
embassies in this part of the world.
Now, it's important to state that in each biography of a Nazi perpetrator, as in any
biography, there are many ins and outs.
The person may have been a model citizen before the Holocaust and after the Holocaust; the
person may have joined a post-war legitimate anti-Soviet protest group after the war.
We are talking about the moral issue.
If someone participated in the Holocaust, should they become a hero and have streets
and schools and buildings named after them?
What message does that send, not only about the Holocaust, but frankly about racism and
genocide, and the minimisation of campaigns to eradicate a group of people of a certain
birth?
Now, that issue, as I say, was brought to the fore with Noreika, but he's one of many.
In the case of Stepan Bandera in Ukraine, he was the leader, and the moral leader, of
two major fascist organizations responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of
Jewish and Polish people based on ethnicity.
All civilians.
Now, whoever writes a biography of Bandera will have occasion to find all sorts of of
winding ins and outs.
But none of that is relevant to the moral question.
If an ally of the United States, of the West, of NATO, is glorifying a Nazi perpetrator,
a Nazi collaborator, someone in part responsible for the millions of innocent people killed,
we have a big problem.
Because these are not the Western values we are seeking in our partners, or ultimately
in ourselves.
And I say in ourselves because the double genocide, or as the country, the governments
and many of these countries have set up commissions with millions of dollars in budgets to spread
double genocide to the United States, to Canada, to Britain, to Israel, in all cases taking
advantage of current geopolitics.
So it's a danger of a ultranationalist, far-right revision of history masking itself, pretending
to be center-right or mainstream, and in the meantime rewriting history at a moment when
the last survivors, perpetrators, and witnesses are disappearing with with old age.
So it's a very sensitive moment in history.
BEN NORTON: All right.
We're going to have to take a pause in our conversation here.
I'm joined by Dovid Katz, who is a world expert on Jewish history in Lithuania and Eastern
Europe.
We're talking about the historical revisionism in Eastern Europe, and the attempt to turn
Nazi collaborators into anticommunist heroes.
Join us in part two for the rest of our discussion.
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Federal Flash: Are States Shirking ESSA Responsibilities? - Duration: 4:44.
Welcome back to Federal Flash.
I'm Jason Amos and I'm joined by Lindsay Dworkin.
A new Alliance for Excellent Education analysis finds that many states are not fully implementing
the letter--or the spirit--of the Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA.
All4Ed released the analysis ahead of a Senate education committee hearing on ESSA implementation,
which we'll cover in just a minute.
All4Ed previously created "ESSA Equity Dashboards" for most state ESSA plans.
These dashboards, available at the link below, assess states on 14 equity-focused policies
in the law.
In terms of actual outcomes for kids, however, not all of our indicators are created equal.
That's why our new analysis summarizes the two most important equity policies from the
dashboards: (1) inclusion of subgroups in school ratings
and (2) definitions of "consistently underperforming"
subgroup used to identify schools for targeted support.
Unfortunately, the results are mixed, with many states at risk of masking the performance
of historically underserved students.
In other words, a school could receive an A rating, but have a graduation rate for African
American or Latino students of only 60 percent – which is hardly an A.
And in many states, low-performing students may not receive the assistance they need to
excel because their schools are not identified for support.
Specifically: 12 states are red because they don't include
subgroups of students in all school ratings.
Another 23 states get a yellow because they don't include all of ESSA's subgroups
in ratings or are at risk of obscuring subgroup performance on school report cards.
Just 17 states get a green rating for including all ESSA subgroups in all school ratings.
On the second indicator, 16 states are red because they are at risk for under-identifying
schools for targeted support.
30 states earn a yellow because students will likely need to fail across multiple indicators
before the school is identified for support.
In other words, it won't be enough for a subgroup to simply
be below grade level in reading.
Students would need to struggle in reading, math, and other areas before being identified.
Only 6 states get a green for using a definition of consistently underperforming where subgroups
receive support if students are struggling on a few key measures – like achievement
and/or growth.
Our full analysis is available at all4ed.org/essa.
These two issues – school ratings and school identification – were major concerns raised
by senate democrats in this week's committee hearing .
Here's a clip:
But ESSA accountability wasn't the only issue raised.
Democratic senators called on Secretary DeVos to use her authority to prevent states from
using federal funds for guns.
Republican chairman Lamar Alexander, while he dislikes the idea of arming teachers, said
states have the flexibility to use funds under Title IV of ESSA as they see fit.
Finally, the fiscal year 2019 funding bill for the U.S. Department of Education and several
other agencies passed both chambers of Congress this week and President Trump has said he
will sign it.
This is the first time since 1996 that the bill funding the Department of Education has
been signed into law before the start of the new fiscal year.
This is notable because it allows states, districts, and schools to know what funding
they will have for certain education programs prior to the beginning of the fiscal year.
That's a wrap.
For an alert when the next episode of federal flash is available, email Alliance@all4ed.org.
Thanks for watching.
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Abuja, Kaduna 3 other Nigerian states likely to suffer earthquake - NASRDA - Duration: 2:07.
The National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) on Thursday, September 27, warned that communities in Abuja, Kaduna, Ogun, Oyo and Bayelsa may likely be epicentres of major earthquake if precautions are not taken.
Daily Trust reports that the director general of NASRDA, Seidu Mohammed, identified the communities as Mpape in Abuja, Kwoi in Kaduna, Ijebu-Ode in Ogun, Shaki in Oyo and Igbogene in Bayelsa state.
Speaking on the sideline of an annual lecture in Abuja, Mohammed, who is also the chairman of the presidential committee on the Abuja tremor, said an earthquake in the country was likely as the erstwhile inactive faults system in the country are gradually becoming active.
He called on the federal government to do something fast to avert a big disaster from happening as a number of tremors recorded in parts of the country was a cause of concern.
Citing a 100 year-old data done by the members of the presidential committee on Abuja tremor, Mohammed said the data showed that Mpape in Abuja is a hotspot which is highly susceptible to earth tremor and other earth shakeups.
"What it means is that we need a thorough study across the country to identify such hotspots so that we can constantly monitor them from satellite system and from data from outer space," he said.
''More than 330 metric tonnes of water being taken out every day in Abuja is causing a vacuum; is straining the earth.
The director general of NASRDA called on the federal government check indiscriminate drilling of boreholes and noted that engineers should now take cognizance of likely earth tremor when designing and constructing buildings.
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Breaking: APC releases list of all cleared governorship aspirants across 26 states (full list) - Duration: 10:09.
On Thursday, September 27, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) said it had screened members of the party with ambitions to become governors in various states across Nigeria.
The party in a statement signed by its spokesperson, Yekini Nabena, said the governorship aspirants from states of the federation that were cleared to contest the primaries were screened by APC's Governorship Screening Committee.
The list also contained names of aspirants that were not cleared and those that withdrew from the race. Below are details from the screening committee on the governorship aspirants in APC:.
- Obong Nsima Ekere - Cleared. - Senator John Akpan Udoedeghe, Phd - Cleared. - Dan Abia, Esq. - Dr Edet Okon Efretui - Cleared.
- Professor Pat Utomi - Cleared. - Dr Cairo Ojugbo - Cleared. - Mr Victor Ochei, Esq. - Chief Great Ovdje Ogboru - Cleared.
- Chief Osiobe Eric Okotie - Not cleared. - Pastor Usani Uguru Usani - Cleared. - Senator John Owan Enoh - Cleared.
- High Chief Edem Duke- Cleared. - John Upan Odey- Cleared. - Professor Nyong Eyo - Cleared.
- Tonye Cole - Cleared. - Senator Magnus Ngei Abe - Cleared. - Dumo Lulu Briggs - Cleared. Dawari George - Cleared.
Southeast. - Dr Uche Ogah, OON - Cleared. - Chief Ikechi Emenike - Cleared.
- Mr Chris Akomas - Cleared. - Mr Martins Azubuike, Esq. Friday Nwosu, Esq.- Cleared. - Ambassador Okey Emuchay - Cleared.
- Prince Paul Ikonne - Cleared. Sunny Ogbuoji - Cleared. - Dr Edward Nkweagu - Cleared.
- Senator Emmanuel Agboti- Cleared. - Obasi Ogbonnaya Obasi - Cleared. - Mr Kelechi Chima - Cleared. - Mr Paul Okorie - Cleared.
- Mr Christain - Cleared. - Mr Austine Igwe Edeze - Cleared. - Senator Ayogu Eze - Cleared. - Mr Ifeanyi Nwaoga, Esq.
- Akubue Augustine - Cleared. - Ben Eche - Cleared. - Mr George Ogara, Esq. - Mr Ejikeme Ugwu - Not Cleared.
- Senator Hope Uzodinma- Cleared. - Mr Uche Nwosu - Cleared. - Prince Eze Madumere - Cleared. - Mr Jude Ejiogu - Cleared.
- Mr Chima Anozie - Cleared. - Dr Chris Emenike Nlemoha - Cleared. - Mr Eche George Ezenna - Cleared. - Chukwudi Celestine Ololo - Cleared.
- Air Commodore Peter Gbujie - Cleared. Southwest. - Mr Akinwunmi Ambode - Cleared. - Dr Kadir Obafemi Hamzat - Cleared.
- Jide Sanya-Olu - Cleared. - Niyi Akintola, SAN - Cleared. - Mr Christopher Alao Akala - Cleared.
- Joseph Olasunkanmi Tegbe - Cleared. - Dr Olusola Ayandele, PhD - Cleared. - Dr Owolabi Babalola - Cleared. - Dr Azeez Popoola Adeduntun - Cleared.
- Adebayo Adekola Adelabu - Cleared. - Mr Adebayo Shittu, Esq - Not Cleared (No NYSC Certificate). - Jimi Lawal - Cleared. - Dapo Abiodu - Cleared.
- Mr Bimbo Abiodun - Cleared. Adegbenga Kaka - Cleared. - Mr Kunle Akinlade - Cleared. - Abayomi Semako Koroto Hunye - Cleared.
Northwest. - Alhaji Abubakar Badaru- Cleared. - Alhaji Hashim Ubale - Cleared.
Aminu Masari - Cleared. Abubakar Ismaila Isa - Cleared. Garba Sani Dankani - Cleared.
- Alhaji Atiku Bagudu - Cleared. - Ibrahim Mohammed Mera, OON - Not Cleared. - Abbakar Abdullahi Gumbi - Cleared. - Farouk Malami Yabo - Cleared.
- Ahmed Aliyu - Cleared. - Senator Abubakar Umar Gada - Cleared. - Dauda Lawal - Cleared. - Mukhtar Idris Shehu - Cleared.
- Brigadier General Mansur Ali - Cleared. - Alhaji Ustaz Ibrahim Mohammed Wakala - Cleared. - Senator Kabiru Marafa - Cleared. - Alhaji Mahmuda Aliyu Shinkafi - Cleared.
- Aminu Sani Jaji - Cleared. Abubakar Magaji - Cleared. - Mohammed Sagir Hamidu - Cleared.
Emmanuel Jime - Cleared. - Akange Audu - Cleared. - Mr Aema Achado - Cleared.
- Benjamin Tilley Adanyi - Cleared. - Micheal Iordye, mni - Cleared. - Sule Audu - Cleared. - Mr Silas Agara - Cleared.
- Alhaji Aliyu Wadada - Cleared. - Zakari Idde - Cleared. Liman, SAN - Cleared. - Mohammed Musa Maikaya - Cleared.
- Mr Shehu Tukur - Cleared. - Dauda Shuaibu Kigbu - Cleared. - Dr James Angbazo - Cleared. - Alhaji Jafar Mohammed Ibrahim - Cleared.
- Danladi Envulu-Anza Halilu - Not Cleared. - Alhaji Sani Bello -Cleared. - Abubakar Mamma Jiya Maaji - Not Cleared.
- Mr Simon Lalong - Cleared. Northeast. - Senator Mohammed Jibrilla - Cleared. - Nuhu Ribadu - Cleared.
- Mahmood Halilu Ahmed - Cleared. - Alhaji Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar - Cleared. - Dr Ali Pate - Cleared.
- Captain Bala Jibrin - Cleared. - Dr Yakubu Lame - Cleared. - Kashim Imam - Cleared. - Professor Babagana Umaru -Cleared.
- Gambo Lawan - Cleared. - Mustapha Baba Shehu - Cleared. - Alhaji Umaru Kumalia - Cleared. - Muhammad Aba Lima - Cleared.
- Mr Kaka Shehu Lawan, Esq. - Alhaji Adamu Dibal - Cleared. - Mustapha Fannarambe - Cleared. - Mohammed Jafaru - Cleared.
- Senator Baba Kaka Bashir Garba - Cleared. - Mohammed Makinta - Cleared. - Mr Babagana Tijjani Cleared. - Adamu Alhaji Lawan - Cleared.
- Mai Sherrif - Cleared. Abba Jato - Cleared. - Attom Magira Tom - Cleared. - Umar Alkali - Cleared.
- Baba Ahmed Jidda - Cleared. - Idris Mamman Gatumbwa - Cleared. - Senator Abubakar Kyari - Cleared.
- Mohammed Jibrin Barde - Cleared. Ibrahim Dasuki Jalo - Cleared. - Mohammadu Inuwa Yahaya - Cleared. - Kamisu Ahmed Mailan - Cleared.
- Umaru Kwairanga - Cleared. - Abubakar Muazu Hassan - Cleared. - Umar Farouk Musa - Cleared. - Senator Idris Audu Umar - Cleared.
- Aliyu Haidar Abubakar - Cleared. Sani Abubakar Danladi - Cleared. - Senator Joel Danlami Ikenya - Cleared.
- Garba Umar-UTC - Cleared. - Professor Mohammed Sanni Yahaya - Cleared. - Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama - Cleared. - Aliyu Omar, MON - Cleared.
- Chief Ezekiel Afunkuyo - Cleared. - Chief David Sabo Kente - Cleared. - Mohammed Tumba Ibrahim - Cleared.
- Aliyu Omar, MON -Cleared. - Senator Hajia Aisha Alhassan -Not Cleared. Mai Mala Buni - Cleared. - Umar Ali Kromchi - Cleared.
Sidi Yakubu - Cleared. - Ali Kolomi - Cleared. - Ibrahim Mohammed Bomai - Withdrew.
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