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Latvia equates Stalinism and Nazism
Published: 22 August, 2009, 08:28
Edited: 24 June, 2010, 07:39
TAGS: Europe
Russian and Jewish groups have hit out at a new Latvian national holiday that commemorates the victims of Stalinism and Nazism on the same day.
The Museum of Occupation of Latvia complains it does not have enough space for all its exhibits. Especially now that the country's parliament has passed a new law to recognize the common legacy of Nazism and Stalinism and to commemorate their victims on the same day.
It's something the museum had long been calling for and now it feels officially justified in putting the portraits of Hitler and Stalin together.
“The countries at that time were both totalitarian, there was only one party ruling in each of the countries. There was no freedom of speech, nor freedom of thought. There were severe repressions,” explains Danute Dura from the Museum of Occupation of Latvia.
Anti-fascists in Latvia condemn the new law as outrageous, calling it a pure rewriting of history. They say it is part of a broader confusion over the legacy of World War Two.
RT caught up with Eduard Goncharov from the Latvian Anti-Fascist Committee at a military cemetery in Riga.
“European diplomats and the President of Latvia come to the cemetery on state holidays. The most dreadful thing about this place is that two central tombs belong to the chief of the SS-division, like that of colonel Weiss,” says Eduard pointing out at the place. “He was one of the organizers of the Holocaust and other mass murders. And now children in Latvia lay flowers on his tomb. We are fighting the idea, but we haven't succeeded yet.”
It's not only in Latvia where anti-fascists are losing ground. No one has been punished in independent Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia for Holocaust crimes.
Meanwhile veterans of the Waffen SS-division – a former organ of the Nazi party – feel quite free to hold public gatherings which are funded by the state.
Eduard told RT about one such meeting in neighboring Estonia. An event he couldn’t attend as he, along with other antifascists, is blacklisted.
And indeed, on arrival in Estonia RT found on the morning of a seemingly peaceful gathering, two Russians had been arrested.
To get through to an SS-gathering, the RT crew avoided speaking Russian. The language is not welcome in Estonia. Modern books and the media say that just like the USSR, today's Russia presents a threat to the Baltic nation and youngsters learn this lesson quickly.
Unlike Estonians, those living in Latvia say they are not obsessed with winning anything back from Russia.
But the 23rd of August will be the moment of truth. Many fear that the new date on the calendar will lead to fierce clashes between the two ethnic communities which so far have been living peacefully side by side.
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Nazi Germany: glorification of war, endless violence, genocide, death camps, invasion of countless countries, total and utter self-destruction in little over a decade after starting the worst war in human history.
USSR: full employment, free world-class education and healthcare to all citizens, multi-culturalism, committed anti-fascism, assistance to anti-colonial movements all over the world throughout the post-war period.
Someone care to explain how these two systems are "the same"?
Danute, I only came back to this thread by chance, but it was nice to find your comment and especially the statement "we do not equate them". Which gives me some hope. However, you need to explain in a little bit more detail what you mean by this fragment, to justify this hope. As you will see there are many who take your work and immediately use it to try to say Stalism or Communism, brought as much suffereing to this world as Nazism. I am sorry but I will never accept this view, it is even disproveable by simple mathematics. I don't know if you will ever return to this thread, but it would be nice to see you clarify the points if you ever do. I also would like your view, based on the reaction you see, as to whether you think your work is really making a positive contribution as it is. Not that I am questioning your daily work, but rather; are you completing that work well enough in terms of message, to get the real points over. For if you are not, maybe you are re-creating or at least supporting the very problem, that your work seeks to avoid. Remember, only fear a Russian if you come to him with a knife.
to KJ
You wouldn't care about the difference if both systems tried to kill you. As it was experienced by many people in the Baltic States.