And the march that took place 16.03.2012, Riga , Latvia.
A wreath to the victims of Nazism was placed on the steps of the Monument of Freedom in central Riga, it was removed and desecrated.
Comment by Monica Lowenberg
And a question to the Latvian apologists, if as they maintain the Latvian SS were victims of not only Communism but also Nazism and only swore an oath by God and Hitler when they joined the Latvian SS, (as they saw Nazism as the lesser of two evils), then surely a wreath placed directly under the Monument for Freedom in central Riga for the victims of Nazism is also for them? Why feel the need to remove it unless of course victims and Nazi collaborators, in this case victims of Nazism and the Latvian SS legionnaires who prior to joining the legion had in 1941 and 1942 brutally help murder 95.6% of Latvia's pre-war Jewish population, are not the same and never will be.
It is a sad and important fact to remember that a third of the Latvian legionnaires had, prior to joining the Latvian SS legion, been members of the worst Jew killing machine the world has ever known. To honour such men is a travesty of justice. The legionnaires who were mobilised into the Latvian Legion, against their free will, are in some respects victims but as the video clips reveal their descendants do not perceive them as such as they desecrate the wreath to the victims of Nazism and hiss anti-Semitic statements.
Aside from any EU regulations that strictly forbid days that commemorate and glorify Nazism, for let us not forget Latvia is since 2004 a member of the EU, NATO and OSCE , apologists and supporters of the march would be wise to concede, after having viewed the You Tube clips below, that days that commemorate Nazism and any associations with Nazism will simultaneously generate anti-Semitic, homophobic and xenophic sentiments. All the flowers in the world will not dismiss this and the above mentioned tragic facts.
Is this the way Europeans, the descendants of millions of people who suffered terribly under Nazism want to go? Far right becomes a legitimised centre right and the leaders of the free world say nothing! Churchill is spinning in his grave. Have we become so blinded by Holocaust obfuscation that we are no longer able to tell the difference between right and wrong? It is time to wake up!
Add your voice to the petition 'Stop the 16th March marches in Latvia and Latvians revising history' by accessing the links directly below:
1.If you are a British citizen or normally live in the UK go to
http://
2. If you are not a British citizen and live outside the UK go to
http://www.petitions24.com/stop_the_16_march_marches_and_latvians_revising_history
See
Will
Intellectuals in Western Countries Continue their Silence on Latvia’s
Glorification of Hitler’s Waffen SS?
http://defendinghistory.com/32817/32817 by Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium) Full article pasted below
Photo Documentaries
of the 16 March and the Counter Demonstration, Riga, 2012
- http://www.imhoclub.lv/material/kalendar-21-go-veka.
(Latvian calendar glorifying Latvian SS)
- http://www.imhoclub.lv/material/latishskie-nacisti-oskvernili-venok/page/2
photo account that shows at 11:35 a.m. Deputies of the Latvian Saeima
(Parliament) from the ruling coalition attending the march
You Tube Clips:
The laying of the wreath for the victims of Nazism by:
·
Efraim Zuroff, Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (Israel),
·
Hermann Dvorzak, leader of the European Social Forum (Austria),
·
Monica Lowenberg , British academic and initiator of the petition 'Stop the
16 March marches and Latvians revising history' (UK),
·
Dovid Katz, ex-professor of the Vilnius University, owner of
DefendingHistory.com (USA/Lithuania),
·
Joel Rubinfeld, president of the European Jewish Parliament (Belgium),
·
Joseph Koren, president of the association "Latvia without
Nazism" (Latvia)
·
Helmut Scholz, EP deputy (Germany),
·
Tatjana Ždanoka (Tatyana Zhdanok), EP deputy (Latvia)
Two Latvian young men and two Latvian
young girls desecrate the wreath to the
victims of Nazism ( 17 mins of
footage)
Joseph Koren, president of the association "Latvia without
Nazism" (Latvia) and Dr Tatjana Ždanoka (Tatyana Zhdanok), EP deputy (Latvia)
try to restore the wreath to the victims of Nazism and remove the Latvian SS
plaque that was placed in front.
Joseph Koren,
president of the association "Latvia without Nazism" (Latvia) Dr Tatjana Ždanoka (Tatyana Zhdanok), EP deputy (Latvia) are prevented by the
Latvian police from removing the Latvian SS plaque that was placed over the wreath for
the victims of Nazism.
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ49htk6jdk
One of the powerful
voices in the small counter-demonstration at last Friday's Waffen SS
celebration in central Riga was Joel Rubinfeld, co-president of the European Jewish
Parliament (Brussels). 'You are here to enforce the law!' Joel Rubinfeld tells a
Latvian policeman.
7.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnO9yQPorCs
25 minutes of coverage of the march which includes scenes showing the desecration of the wreath to the victims of Nazism; interviews with brave protesters including Janis Kuzins, (Latvia, Chairman of the Board for Associated Diversified Trade Unions); interviews with protester Kazimier Andrushkevich (Lithuania), Helmut Scholz, (Germany, MEP), Leonid Bard, (USA, America without Nazism); international round table discussion attended by the above demonstrators and including: Thilo Janssen, ( Germany, Assistant for Gabriele Zimmer MEP), Dr Valery Engel, (Latvia, Vice Chairman for World Without Nazism ,International Human Rights Movement), Artur Nevicky, ( Latvia, Chairman of Societies of National Minorities of Latvia), Algirdas Paleckis (Lithuania, Lithuania without Nazism), Masha Girshin (USA, Blue Card) and service given by Lutheran priest to SS veterans next to SS plaque and desecrated wreath to the victims of Nazism on the steps of the Monument of Freedom, central Riga, Latvia.
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXQqv1LiBro 'Have you read David Irving by the way?' asks a young Latvian man, (who claimed to be a lawyer), Monica Lowenberg and Algirdas Paleckis.
10. http://www.rubinfeld.be/newsletters/20120326.html A number of selected video clips from the day
25 minutes of coverage of the march which includes scenes showing the desecration of the wreath to the victims of Nazism; interviews with brave protesters including Janis Kuzins, (Latvia, Chairman of the Board for Associated Diversified Trade Unions); interviews with protester Kazimier Andrushkevich (Lithuania), Helmut Scholz, (Germany, MEP), Leonid Bard, (USA, America without Nazism); international round table discussion attended by the above demonstrators and including: Thilo Janssen, ( Germany, Assistant for Gabriele Zimmer MEP), Dr Valery Engel, (Latvia, Vice Chairman for World Without Nazism ,International Human Rights Movement), Artur Nevicky, ( Latvia, Chairman of Societies of National Minorities of Latvia), Algirdas Paleckis (Lithuania, Lithuania without Nazism), Masha Girshin (USA, Blue Card) and service given by Lutheran priest to SS veterans next to SS plaque and desecrated wreath to the victims of Nazism on the steps of the Monument of Freedom, central Riga, Latvia.
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXQqv1LiBro 'Have you read David Irving by the way?' asks a young Latvian man, (who claimed to be a lawyer), Monica Lowenberg and Algirdas Paleckis.
10. http://www.rubinfeld.be/newsletters/20120326.html A number of selected video clips from the day
News Articles:
- http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/europe/waffen-ss-commemoration-riga-latvia
Global Post by Michael Goldfarb
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-brodsky/the-nazi-resurgence-in-europe_b_1331666.html
Huffington Post by Richard Brodsky
- http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501714_162-57398741/latvians-pay-annual-tribute-to-waffen-ss-fighters/
CBS News by Gary Peach
- http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Latvian+veterans+march+sparks+anger/6317342/story.html
Montreal Gazette by Patrick Lannin and Aleks Tapinsh, Reuters
- http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153838#.T2UTnREgeSp
Israel National News by Rachel Hirshfeld
- http://www.operationlastchance.org/LITHUANIA_35-131.htmby
Frank Brendle first published in Die Tageszeitung Junge Welt 29.02.2012
- http://www.baltische-rundschau.eu/2012/03/16/veteranenmarsch-ohne-zwischenfalle-beendet/
Baltische Rundschau
- http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/2.220/ehemalige-ns-kollaborateure-lettische-ss-veteranen-marschieren-durch-riga-1.1310836
Sueddeutsche Politik
- http://derstandard.at/1330390591974/Riga-verbietet-Aufmarsch-der-Waffen-SS-Veteranen
Der Standard
- http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/03/latvia-riga-waffen-european The New Statesman by Dr Denis MacShane MP and open letter to Dr Denis MacShane by Monica Lowenberg
- http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/64800/calls-ban-baltic-neo-nazi-marches
The Jewish Chronicle by Emma Stock
- http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/9586844.Teacher_fights_to_stop_Latvian_march_that_treats_Nazi_s_like__heroes_/r/?ref=rss
Harrow Times by Anna Slater and Emma Stock
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2108789/Youre-trying-justify-crimes-Nazis-Russias-fury-neighbour-Latvia-plans-hold-rally-commemorate-SS.html
Mail on Line by Will Stewart
- http://www.15min.lt/en/article/in-lithuania/international-petitions-call-to-ban-neo-nazi-marches-in-latvia-and-lithuania-525-202155#axzz1p2cmRIk0
The Jewish Chronicle
- http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/whereilive/northwest/harrow/9586844.Teacher_fights_to_stop_Latvian_march_that_treats_Nazi_s_like__heroes_/This
Is Local London
- http://www.anglobalticnews.co.uk/profiles/blogs/4477516:BlogPost:69010
Anglo Baltic News
- http://defendinghistory.com/
Defending History.com
- http://stopnazism.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/waffen-ss-legionnaires-and-march-march-16th-background/
published by Latvia without Nazism by Monica Lowenberg and Joe Koren
- http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/international/article/114/latvian-pm-and-ambassador-condone-waffen-ss-
Hope Not Hate
- http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/international/article/139/waffen-ss-commemoration-in-riga
Hope Not Hate
- http://cronicaromana.com/2012/03/16/complexe-dureroase/
Cronica Romana.com
- http://romasolidaritynews.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/waffen-ss-commemoration-in-riga/
Roma Solidarity News
- http://www.humanrights.org.lv/html/30659.html
Human Rights.org
- http://www.icare.to/news.php?en#LATVIAN
Icare
- http://www.meinpolitikblog.de/tag-der-kollaborateure
- http://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/valismaa/natsikutt-efraim-zuroff-osaleb-riias-antifasistide-konverentsil.d?id=64081851
Delfi
- http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/veteranen-der-waffen-ss-in-riga-missbrauchte-lebenslaeufe-11682993.html Frankfurter Allgemeine Politik
- http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,druck-821816,00.html Spiegel
- http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/lettland138.html Tagesschau
- http://derstandard.at/1331779852131/Hohe-Beteiligung-bei-Aufmarsch-der-Waffen-SS-Veteranen Der Standard
- http://kloty.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/veteranen-der-waffen-ss-als.html
- http://www.globalpost.com/series/echoes-hitler Global Post Eastern Europe's Hitler Nostalgia by Michael Goldfarb
- http://rubinfeld.be/publications/etudes/272-la-marche-des-waffen-ss-lettons Joel Rubinfeld, president of the European Jewish Parliament (Belgium
- http://eastjournal.net/2012/03/21/lettonia-le-waffen-ss-manifestano-a-riga by Giovanni Bensi
- http://www.marx21.it/internazionale/europa/1371-lettonia-riabilitate-e-commemorate-le-ss-e-discriminata-la-minoranza-russa.html
- http://www.abendblatt.de/politik/ausland/article2217992/Aufmarsch-der-Veteranen.html Hamburger Abendblatt by Gerhard Gnauck
- http://www.antisemitism.org.uk/press/press-releases/year-2012/latviamarch PCAA Foundation (All Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, UK, March 2012 'Calls to ban Baltic neo-Nazi marches'
- http://www.het.org.uk/index.php/blog/entry/latviau2019s-difficult-legacy?template=het_blog 'Latvia's difficult legacy' by Monica Lowenberg April 2012 published by The Holocaust Educational Trust, UK
- http://www.ajr.org.uk/journalpdf/2012_April.pdf AJR Journal (Association of Jewish Refugees, UK) , Volume 12, April 2012 page 4 'Latvia: A Personal March Through History' by Monica Lowenberg
- http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/11731494/__Omstreden_mars_Letse_SS_ers__.html De Telegraaf, Netherlands
- http://stopnazism.net/?p=368
- http://1click.indiatimes.com/article/0ewt4ea8319uD
- http://www.denismacshane.com/?tag=denis-macshane&paged=2 Dr Denis MacShane MP
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1258331/Nazi-SS-veterans-march-Riga-event-organised-right-wing-party-linked-Tories.html Daily Mail by Allan Hall
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10147739 The Guardian by Gary Peach
Petition advertised in the Latvian paper Telegraf and then written
about in the main Latvian paper Delfi,
Front cover news 24 and 25 February 2012
- http://defendinghistory.com/
monica-lowenberg-in-dialogue- with-latvias-ambassador-to- the-uk/32025 by Monica Lowenberg For full correspondence see March blog 1 on this blogspot
Reports:
1. Feb 2012 by World Without Nazism-International Human Rights Movement
Monitoring the social foundations of the revival of Nazi Sentiment, Xenophobia and Extremisim
http://stopnazism.net/?page_id=231
2. Report on Latvia by the ECRI
In the framework of its statutory activities, ECRI conducts country-by-country monitoring work, which analyses the situation in each of the member States regarding racism and intolerance and draws up suggestions and proposals for dealing with the problems identified.
In the Report on Latvia published on February 21, 2012 ECRI expresses concern as regards the authorisation of certain public events to commemorate two incidents and the authorities’ reaction in this connection. As concerns the first incident, every year, on 16 March, a gathering commemorating soldiers who fought in a Latvian unit of the Waffen SS is held in the centre of Riga. In this connection, ECRI regrets that, in spring 2010, an administrative district court overruled a decision of the Riga City Council 27 prohibiting this march.
Moreover, ECRI is concerned that the speaker of the Latvian Parliament allegedly publicly expressed regret for the formal prohibition of this event and that certain MPs have voted for the restoration of March 16 as day of remembrance.
http://stop16marchinriga.blogspot.co.uk/
Will Intellectuals in Western
Countries continue their Silence on Latvia’s Glorification of Hitler’s Waffen
SS?
19th March, 2012
By Roland Binet (Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium)
The day is
a festive one despite the grey and low sky.
Young pretty girls have bunches of roses which they soon distribute to
elderly and solemn gentlemen arriving, row upon row ion an interminable
procession. Numerous national flags are
held in a heraldic and staid way by young men forming a kind of double guard of
honor.
The elderly
men – some in brown uniforms of unknown nature – accompanied by adults, young girls and men,
defile. They are singing a haunting
song. There is a sense of joy, of
accomplishment, of fond memories. There
is, also, a general feeling of togetherness and purpose.
These men
know why they are here. They relish
the memory of what they did, of what they were able to accomplish.
They are
old combatants united in the belief that they fought to preserve the
independence and honor of their Latvian country of birth.
This is
March 16, 2012 in Riga. A time of
celebration.
Some of
these men fought in Russia
What did
they do in Leningrad Latvia Leningrad
And, before
the “official” creation of two Waffen SS divisions in Latvia in early 1943, other
equally tough and motivated military or semi-military units (Schutzmannschaften
Battalions, Police Auxiliary Units – the Hiwis - , the Arājs
Kommando, self-proclaimed partisans groups, etc.) had acquired a large amount of military experience
in Latvia in combating unarmed civilian Jews, in helping to deport them to
killing zones, robbing them of their clothes and dignity, assembling them along
mass graves and giving a hand to shoot them (sometimes pausing in order that
someone – as for example Oberscharführer Carl Emil Strott – might take a
picture of the mass massacres in Skēde in the Liepaja region).
And after
the formation of the famed and much decorated Latvian Legion as part of the 15th
and 19th Waffen SS Divisions, in 1943, many of these men with
previous military experience dealing with Jews and partisans, joined Hitler’s
elite troop. Others, as for example the
22nd and 227th Police Battalions were otherwise busy in
the summer of 1942 rounding up Jews in Warsaw for
deportation to Treblinka, or later in April/May 1943 in repressing the
uprising in the Warsaw
March 16 is
the day of the Legionnaires in Latvia
Was it not Latvia
The Waffen
SS soldiers had to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler.
These men
were the ideological arm of the Nazi regime, the personal military guardians of
Hitler, the defenders and propagators of the ideas he so precisely crafted in Mein
Kampf. Two of which dealt with
sub-races, the Jews and the Slavs: Untermenschen. To be eradicated at all costs. By his armed elite. The SS.
Some would
say, a bit naively, that the Latvian Legionnaires did not participate in
killing Jews, Soviet citizens and everybody smacking or suspected of Communism.
Well, let
me say this: first of all, the SS in its totality was declared a criminal
organization by the Nurnberg Trials of 1945/1946. And apart from the Stalin representatives
(who might have been biased), there were judges from democratic nations such as
the United States, the United Kingdom and France, as well as observers from
other allied nations. The pronounced sentence
of criminal activity included the Waffen SS soldiers.
Moreover, even
if the Latvian Waffen SS did not participate at all in the extermination of
Jews in Latvia and civilian Soviet populations – an affirmation far from proved
-, the fact that they fought so well (the highest number of decorations was
attributed to the men of the 15th and 19th Waffen SS divisions
among all SS volunteers of Europe), so toughly “for” their Latvian Fatherland,
even outside its frontiers, created the conditions to delay unnecessarily the
end of the war, created the ideal conditions so that Himmler’s well-oiled destruction
machine could send more Belgian, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, Slovakian Jews,
among many others,. to the gas chambers in Birkenau and elsewhere. With millions of lives lost.
And, I may
be naïve but now that the European Commission has, on February 21, 2012, put
its Report on Latvia online, strongly condemning the annual march in honor of
the (SS) Legionnaires in Riga, why do the European Parliament members remain
silent about a EU country honoring soldiers who, directly or indirectly,
participated in a mechanism conducive to crimes against humanity and genocide?
And why, also, apart from Jewish and Russian individuals, are there so few reactions from intellectuals in Western European countries?
Aren’t
there intellectuals with a modicum of courage in Western Europe anymore?
Or maybe the
fact that a country member of the EU is honoring Hitler’s dear children of war
is not important or exciting enough to warrant comments?
The late Raoul Hilberg documented a substantial amount of information on how Latvians, well before the formation of specific Latvian SS units, murdered first the local Jewish population and then several trainloads of German Jewish people, especially in Riga, under the loose supervision of German SS. It becomes clear from historical evidence that Latvians (and other) so-called Hilfswilligen (= willing helpers) did not need much encouragement to plunder and murder Jewish communities, their own and the ones delivered by the Nazis). Relevant literature (excerpt):
• The Destruction of the European Jews (Yale University Press, 2003; originally published in 1961).
• The Holocaust today (Syracuse University Press, 1988).
• Sources of Holocaust research: An analysis (Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 2001).
• The politics of memory: The journey of a Holocaust historian (Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1996).
• Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish catastrophe, 1933-1945 (Aaron Asher Books, NY, 1992).
• "The Fate of the Jews in the Cities." Reprinted in Betty Rogers Rubenstein (ed.), et al. What kind of God? : Essays in honor of Richard L. Rubenstein (University Press of America, 1995).
• "The destruction of the European Jews: precedents." Printed in Bartov, Omer. Holocaust: Origins, implementation, aftermath (Routledge, London, 2000).
• Hilberg, Raul (editor). Documents of destruction: Germany and Jewry, 1933-1945 (Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1971).
(Bibliography excerpts from Wikipedia entry RAOUL HILBERG)
