The chief Nazi hunter of the Los Angeles-based
Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday blasted an annual Latvian
march to honor countrymen who fought in a German combat unit
during World War II, calling it part of Latvian efforts to
equate Nazi and Soviet crimes.
The annual march, which was held through
the streets of downtown Riga on Sunday, is a misguided attempt
to create a false symmetry between Nazi and Communist crimes
that will help minimize Latvians' guilt in the crimes of
the Holocaust, said Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the organization's
Israel Director.
"By permitting a march
to honor those who fought alongside the Nazis for a victory
of the Third Reich during World War II, the Latvian authorities
are sending a deeply flawed message which distorts the historical
events," Zuroff said.
"By honoring all the Latvian
SS Legion veterans, even though among them are many who were
active participants in the mass murder of Jews in Latvia
and Belarus, the organizers of the march are insulting the
victims of these murderers and reinforcing the myth that
Latvians bear no responsibility whatsoever for the annihilation
of Latvian Jewry, a fabrication which has no connection to
reality," he said.
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic
states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in June 1940, but
were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army
retook the Baltics in 1944, and reincorporated them into
the Soviet Union.
About 250,000 Latvians ended up fighting
alongside either the Germans or the Soviets in World War
II - and some 150,000 Latvians died in the fighting.
Nearly 80,000 Jews in Latvia - 90
percent of the prewar Jewish population - were killed during
the Nazi occupation.
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