TALLINN, Jul 27, BNS - Efraim Zuorff, director of the Jerusalem office of the Nazi-hunting Wiesenthal Center, reitrated his opposition to a common day of remembrance of Nazi and Communism victims.

Zuroff Monday told BNS that he was one hundred percent opposed any efforts to link Nazism with Communism. "We see this as a direct effort to change the status of Holocaust as a unique tragedy and to relativize Holocaust crimes," he said.
But he also underlined that this did not mean opposition to a day of remembrance of victims of Communism. "If Estonia wants to commemorate all the people who fell victim of the communist regime -- deportatuons, executions, other victims, -- that is another question," Zuroff said.
He pointed out that the Communist regime committed crimes also against Jews.
" No one has said that victims of Communist do not deserve to be remembered. That is bullshit," Zuroff said.
Zuroff said that the anniversary of the signing of the non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany "was a very good day for remembering victims of Communism."
" But we are against joining the two," Zuroff reiterated, pointing out that after the introduction of a common day of remembrance the next step would be cancellation of Holocaust Day. "They are no one and the same thing," he underlined. "What the Communists did was not genocide, but what the Nazis did was genocide," he said. "This is a very important difference."
Zuroff underlined that Jews from all over the world, the State of Israel and sever other world countries fought against the equalization of Nazism and Communism and would not let it happen. But he did not wish to mention countries that were against it. "I am not speaking on behalf of any country, I am not the president of Isreael, and not of the United States, England, Germany, Italy, Austria and so one," Zuroff said.
He once against critized the Baltic countries, using the phrase "typical Baltic demagogery", and the press of those countries. Zuroff reproached the Baltic media of systematic distortion of his words, pointing out that the same was taking place also on the level of governments.
On 23 September last year more than 400 members of the European Parliament signed a declaration that supported making August 23 the day of victims of Nazi and Communist victims. On April 2 this year the European Parliament with 533 votes in favor and 44 against passed the so-called Prague declaration.

Baltic News Service