March 16, 2015 11:47 a.m. ET wsj.com
Latvian March Remembers Veterans Who Fought Alongside Nazis
Annual rally attracts hundreds despite concern over heightened tensions in relationship with Russia
By Juris Kaža

RIGA, Latvia—Some 1,500 people marched in Riga Monday to commemorate Latvians who fought in Germany’s Waffen-SS divisions against the Soviet Union during World War II.

The annual march, held since 1990, has become an image nightmare for leaders in Latvia, the current European Union president, in recent years—fueling concerns that it could exacerbate already high tensions between the small Baltic country and its former Soviet ruler Russia.

During the march, counter-demonstrators—mainly comprising Latvia’s large Russian-speaking minority and Jewish Latvians—accused the organizers of glorifying Nazism and held up graphic photos of people killed by Nazis during the war.

The largely peaceful parade was led by aging war veterans and included many younger supporters who walked through an alley of Latvian flags to lay flowers at the base of the capital’s Freedom Monument. Participants said the soldiers, mainly draftees, weren’t members of any Nazi movement and fought to prevent a Soviet re-occupation of Latvia and to regain Latvian independence.

Hundreds of police officers, some in riot gear, lined the streets of the procession to deter any confrontations between the marchers, protesters and onlookers.

Marches in previous years have been marred by scuffles between participants and protesters. Concerned about potential clashes, the Latvian government temporarily barred dozens of foreigners with alleged links to left- and right-wing extremist groups from entering Latvia for this year’s parade, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Daiga Holma said.

Latvian Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma told members of her center-right government to stay away from this year’s event. Last year, Ms. Straujuma forced then-Minister for Environmental Protection and Regional Development, Einars Cilinskis, a member of the government’s junior partner, the National Alliance, to resign after he insisted on joining the march. No ministers were seen participating in Monday’s march, but several members of parliament representing the National Alliance walked in the procession.

Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, stood on the sidelines of the procession. He said the march was inappropriate.

“Anyone who fought for a Nazi victory should not be honored in the center of a European capital,” Mr. Zuroff said.

The event commemorates the day in 1944 when two Latvian Waffen-SS units fought side by side on the Eastern front. The largely conscripted force of some 100,000 young Latvians was formed starting in 1943 after Nazi Germany’s defeat in the battle of Stalingrad.

 

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