30 July 2009
estonianfreepress.com
Efraim Zuroff: “Nazism and Communism are Not the Same Thing”
by Marit Kelgo
The visit of Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center is destined to leave some polemics behind itself after some controversial declaration he made to the press.


According to Zurhoff, in fact, the current discussion for bringing Soviet crimes to the same level as Nazi ones is a mistake: “I find these attempts of equalizing quite unpleasant because, as historian I can easily understand that we are talking about two really different things” he said remarking that while the crimes committed by the Nazis can be considered a real genocide, the Communist ones cannot.

“Communists harassed people from different nationalities – and, let me be clear, by saying this I seriously do not want to diminish the suffering caused to all these people. It is true that aslo Jews have been heavily hit by Communism, however, I think that equalizing the crimes of the two regimes would mean altering history,” Zuroff said.

Zuroff added also that the Wiesenthal Center reproach Estonian authorities for not doing all they can for bringing to justice alleged Nazi criminals.

estonianfreepress.com