“War is war, this is history. We received a notice to go serve through the mail. According to martial law, if we don't serve, we are deserters. We had to go. You know there is an American saying, we fought on the wrong side, but our enemy was the right one,” former SS unit member Yuris Liepinsh said, summing up the event.

Numbers of controversy

Since 1998 some Latvians celebrate March 16 as Latvian Legion Day, marking the date of a battle that stalled Soviet forces’ pushing into Latvia in 1944.

AFP Photo / Ilmars Znotins

The event has drawn repeated protests from Moscow and members of Latvia's ethnic-Russian minority who see it as an affront to the memory of soldiers who fought the Nazis.

“According to the latest data, 73% of Latvian schoolchildren think that the former members of the SS unit are heroes and that this day should be commemorated. This means that 73% of schoolchildren are infected with fascism,” Gennady Kotov from the Anti-Fascism Committee notes.

Foreseeing riots, Riga’s authorities prohibited Legion marches in 2006.

But in the subsequent two years the march was allowed with a massive police presence near the Freedom Monument as police were able to keep the two sides from attacking each other.

According to various estimates, during World War II 80,000-146,000 Latvians were part of the Legions, including both volunteers (15-20%) and those drafted during the brief Nazi rule in Latvia (1941-1943).

This number is quite large for a country with a population of 1.5 million. However, it only slightly exceeds the number of Latvians that fought in the Red Army – 90,000-130,000. World War II casualties on both sides were also comparable: 52,000 in the Legions and 36,000 in the Red Army.

Of course, the number of Jews killed during the Nazi rule – 70,000 – exceeds both.