Article

2022-06-21 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Documents about Nazi atrocities in Latvia are not only history

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by badanov 2022-06-21 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

#1 when fighting for the restoration of Russia's positions in the Baltics

And there it is. Putin making claims for the territory of yet another former SSR.

I have no doubt there will be some who defend every word of this piece. That will buy into yet another "denazification".

Posted by Rob Crawford 2022-06-21 06:54|| 2022-06-21 06:54|| Front Page Top

#2 Latvians march to honor troops who fought alongside Nazis

About 1,000 gather in Riga for annual march of veterans of local Waffen SS units, with some 50 counter-demonstrators separated by police

By TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF and JTA
17 Mar 2019

About 1,000 people gathered in the Latvian capital Riga for an annual march by local veterans and supporters of two Nazi SS divisions that made up the Latvian Legion during World War II.

Marchers paraded with Nazis insignias and other flags, laying wreaths on the Freedom Monument, while some 50 anti-fascist demonstrators protested the gathering.

The march was larger than in years past, reflecting the growing popularity of far-right movements in eastern and central Europe.

Posted by Angaish Elmaing4471 2022-06-21 07:22|| 2022-06-21 07:22|| Front Page Top

#3 Double Genocide
Lithuania wants to erase its ugly history of Nazi collaboration—by accusing Jewish partisans who fought the Germans of war crimes.

BY DANIEL BROOK
JULY 26, 2015

In one of its very first independent actions, before even fully breaking free of Moscow, Lithuania’s parliament formally exonerated several Lithuanian nationalists who had collaborated in the Holocaust and had been convicted by Soviet military courts after the war. The right-wing paramilitaries who had carried out the mass murder of Lithuania’s Jews were now hailed as national heroes on account of their anti-Soviet bona fides.

Among many now-glorified leaders was Jonas Noreika, a paramilitary fighter who was executed for his anti-Soviet activities in 1947. According to a Holocaust survivor’s account published in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, Noreika led the extermination of the Jews in the Lithuanian city of Plunge. Since independence, however, Lithuania’s prosecutor general has restricted access to Noreika’s wartime files.

Meanwhile, the state body charged with investigating and memorializing Nazi- and Soviet-era atrocities, the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, turned the former guerrilla leader into a national hero. In 1997, Noreika was posthumously awarded one of the state’s highest honors, the Order of the Cross of Vytis, First Degree; in 2010, a primary school was named after him.

At the same time, the new authorities have denigrated the anti-Nazi partisans: the Partisans Memorial from Pylimo Street now sits in a countryside park where the despised Lenins and Stalins that once stood in every Lithuanian town are left to collect dust and bird droppings. Its Genocide Centre–provided plaque says that partisans committed atrocities and were “mostly of Jewish nationality [since] native people didn’t support Soviet partisans

Posted by Angaish Elmaing4471 2022-06-21 07:38|| 2022-06-21 07:38|| Front Page Top

#4 So what? How many veterans of those units are left, 72 years later? And as screwed up as celebrating Nazi collaborators sounds, it's much more about them being anti-Soviet.

If the Russians don't like seeing those who fought against their imperialism celebrated, maybe they should stop threatening everyone with reconquest for their new empire.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2022-06-21 07:48|| 2022-06-21 07:48|| Front Page Top

Posted by Angaish Elmaing4471 2022-06-21 08:26|| 2022-06-21 08:26|| Front Page Top

#6 The biggest problem is the word "Nazi" has been so overused that it lost meaning. Anyone using it in a modern context could be referring to anyone from actual national socialist tribal racists to someone who believes in the ideals of the American founding. You want people to take the accusation seriously, then you have to get its abuse stopped.

And it's especially null-value when it comes from the Russia controlled by a guy who came out of the KGB.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2022-06-21 09:16|| 2022-06-21 09:16|| Front Page Top

#7 ^ See: race card.

Posted by M. Murcek 2022-06-21 09:52|| 2022-06-21 09:52|| Front Page Top

#8 Never ceases to amaze how one word becomes a basic pejorative for anything you hate given that the international socialists, aka commies, killed far far more than the national socialists, aka Nazis.

Posted by Procopius2k 2022-06-21 10:28|| 2022-06-21 10:28|| Front Page Top

#9 ^ As soon as someone says "fascist" I start doubting the argument's logic

Posted by magpie 2022-06-21 11:03|| 2022-06-21 11:03|| Front Page Top

23:33 Spats White3102
23:16 Palmerston
23:00 Matt
22:59 trailing wife
22:49 DooDahMan
22:41 trailing wife
22:23 Sonny Shinegum6770
22:18 Spats White3102
22:13 Spats White3102
21:50 Silentbrick
21:10 Spats White3102
21:06 Spats White3102
20:52 KBK
20:46 Frank G
20:43 Frank G
20:41 Spats White3102
20:00 KBK
19:48 Moonbeam Mcswine
19:10 NoMoreBS
18:55 swksvolFF
18:52 Besoeker
18:44 Seeking Cure For Ignorance
18:18 trailing wife
17:59 Skidmark