Latvian SS ceremony creates controversy…again
SS commemorations in Latvia
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Riga grappled with its annual public relations headache today as more than 1,000 Latvians paid tribute to the fallen soldiers of two Waffen SS divisions that fought with Nazi Germany. Dozens of demonstrators showed their disapproval by lining the street to protest the commemorations.
Among the commemorators were about 200 veterans of the two divisions, in their eighties and nineties, who braved the snow and frost in Riga as they marched, singing, to lay flowers at the foot of the Freedom monument in the city centre. Themselves and their fallen comrades joined forces with Nazi Germany to fight the advancing Soviet Red Army on 16 March 1944.
Hundreds of policemen protected them from a small counter-demonstration of ethnic Russians, who called the commemorations shameful.
The annual events, which began in 1998, always spark off a heated debate on the past. “I was 14 at that time and wanted to fight against the Soviets. I wasn’t a Nazi”, an SS veteran defended himself said. The veterans argue that the Soviet Union was a bigger evil than Nazi Germany at the time.
The mayor of Riga and ethnic Russian, Nils Usakovs, unsuccessfully tried banning the parade this year, which first happened in 1998. He argued it is difficult to be a hero if you were fighting for Nazi Germany.
Nazi-hunter and head of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Efrain Zuroff observed the events in Riga. He said it was a sad day for the memory of the Holocaust victims.
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by Gederts Skerstens
05.07.2010
Latvia