Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: sul neonazismo nei Paesi Baltici

sul neonazismo nei Paesi Baltici
Resurgence of fascism in the former Soviet Baltic republics of Latvia,
Lithuania and Estonia has been growing over the past decade. Regretfully,
these deplorable actions by the governments and local authorities of the
three Baltic States attracted little attention from the international
community.
In September of 2003 a number of Latvians and foreign visitors attended
the memorial ceremony for the Jewish-Latvian Holocaust victims in the
Rumbula forest, where 25,000 Jews were massacred in late 1941 mostly by
Latvian police and guards. Just a week later Latvian government unveiled
another memorial ? this one was dedicated to the memory of Latvian Waffen
SS members.
During the same month Latvia managed to pacify its small remaining Jewish
population while at the same time making itself feel better about its
history of collaborating with Nazi Germany. Two weeks - two memorials: one
is to the Holocaust victims and the other one to the Holocaust makers. 
The SS memorial was unveiled in the Latvian town of Lestene. The event was
attended by the country?s government, religious and military officials.
Three military orchestras of the Latvian Defense Ministry provided musical
background for commemorating 'accomplishments and sacrifices' of the SS
and its Latvian division in the name of Führer and Fatherland.
With the exception of a few Russian and Israeli newspapers the world media
remained oblivious to these events and silent.
Surviving members of the Latvian SS legion marched proudly in Lestene,
their 'accomplishments' appreciated by their new government. Latvian SS
exterminated tens of thousands of Jews, Slavs and fellow Latvians sixty
years ago and today Latvian government considers the SS men war veterans,
pays them military pensions, erects monuments in their name and celebrates
their cause and bloody deeds with state-sponsored parades.
Schoolchildren in Latvia learn that the SS heroically defended their
country against Bolshevik hordes and sought an appropriate place for the
Latvian uberman in the bright future of the Thousand Year Reich.
Unable to accept the responsibility for its Nazi past Latvia is seeking to
rewrite the bloody pages of its history. This is done quietly and
gradually. The three military orchestras playing at the SS memorial
ceremony in Latvia this September had to keep down their fortissimo so not
to disturb the sleeping public opinion of the nations that sacrificed
millions of lives to defeat the monster of fascism.
Today Latvia is not just rewriting its own history but ours as well. We
make this possible by ignoring the SS marching in Lestene; by trying hard
not to notice the memorials to Nazi murderers popping up here and there in
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia; by closing our ears so not to hear the SS
legions marching in Riga and Tallinn.
In 1946 the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg adjudged Waffen
SS to be a criminal organization. Since 1997 thousands SS criminals living
in the US, UK, Latvia and other countries collected a monthly military
pension paid by Germany and by national governments, as is the case with
Latvia.
This revolting historical revisionism rearing its ugly head with our
silent approval is an insult to the memories of millions who gave their
lives to save ours.
 Latvia?s attempts at rewriting the history of the Second World War have
been a subject of hundreds of news articles, books and public discussions.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs called Latvia?s revisionist
policies in regard to its wartime collaboration with Nazi Germany ?one of
the worst cases of falsification of history.?  1 A number of countries
have to deal with the problem of resurging fascism. What makes Latvian
neo-nazism more frightening is the open official support it gets from the
Latvian government.
During the war Waffen Schutzstaffel (Waffen SS) formed two divisions
consisting of Latvian volunteers ? the 15th and 19th Waffen Grenadier
Divisions. At the peak of its power the SS grew from four all-German
divisions to 41 divisions numbering 900,000 members from all occupied
countries, including more than 150,000 volunteers from Latvia - the
biggest contribution of SS volunteers of any nation occupied by Germany.
Unlike other volunteer Waffen SS divisions created during the war the
Latvian divisions were known for their proficiency in combat and
commitment to the standards of Nazism. The 15th SS Latvian Division was
the most decorated foreign volunteer division of the SS winning 13 Knight
Crosses - more than any non-German Legion. In 1945, after being decimated
by the advancing Soviet army, the remaining elements of the two Latvian SS
divisions regrouped under the command of Waffen-Standartenführer Villus
Janums for the defense of Berlin. They later surrendered to the Americans
at Güterglück near the Elbe River.
In the Spring of 1998 the remainder of this force paraded through the
streets of Latvia?s capital carrying banners with swastika and SS
insignia. The march was authorized by the Latvian government and attended
by the Chief of Staff of the Latvian Armed Forces despite protests from
Russia, France and Israel.2 
Only two weeks before the Nazi parade in Riga Latvian police brutally
dispersed a peaceful demonstration by Russian war veterans. A few days
after the Nazi parade in Riga two bombs damaged a synagogue and the
Russian embassy in Latvia's capital.
Later same year Russia threatened economic sanctions against Latvia in
response to the country?s official support for surging neo-nazism but this
threat never materialized.3 Regretfully, Latvia?s official way of dealing
with Nazi past remains to be through denial and historical revisionism.
In 1997 Germany revealed that up to 50,000 former SS members worldwide are
receiving a monthly pension from the German government. This includes
3,377 Waffen SS men and their dependents in the US. Following this
revelation US Rep. Gary L. Ackerman requested a list of the US recipients
of these benefits. The list was sent by the German administration to the
US Department of Justice but it was not made public as was demanded by
various public and religious organizations.4
Among the people who received monthly benefits for SS veterans is the
widow of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich ? the architect of the
?Final Solution? - and the SS-Untersturmführer Heinz Barth, known in
France as l'assassin d'Oradour-sur-Glane and sentenced to life
imprisonment by an East German court for massacring hundreds of civilians
in the French town of Oradour, qualified to receive a military pension
following the reunification of Germany.5
 
Kazys Ciurinskas, a former member of the Lithuanian SS division accused of
killing Russian and Lithuanian Jews and POWs, lived in Indiana since the
end of the war. Ciurinskas collected a $540 monthly pension from the
German government since 1960  while living in the US and being a US
citizen. In a 1995-97  United States of America v. Kazys Ciurinskas case
the US District Court in Indiana stripped Ciurinskas of US citizenship.6 
In 1999 Kazys Ciurinskas was deported from the US after he admitted
participating in Nazi-sponsored persecution in Lithuania and Belarus in
1941, when Lithuanian SS killed more than 19,000 Jews in these two
countries.7 The case of Ciurinskas was one of several such cases in the US
involving former Lithuanian SS members, but the number of such cases is a
far cry from the number of these war criminals still living in the US.
A large number of former Waffen SS members also reside in the UK enjoying
full benefits of the British citizenship and German pension benefits. This
includes more than 1,500 members of the Ukrainian SS volunteer division
responsible for killing tens of thousands of civilians and POWs in the
former Soviet Union and Poland. The UK government has been struggling to
extradite suspected Nazis but a 2001 Home Office initiative promised to go
ahead with denaturalization and deportation of suspected Nazi war
criminals.8 A large number of Ukrainian SS members also escaped to Canada
following the end of the war to hide within the large Ukrainian community
in that country.
What makes the situation with pension benefits for the Waffen SS members
even more repulsive is the fact that the amount of the monthly payments
depends on the rank attained while serving in the SS.9 According to the
information made public by Germany in 1997, the war benefits for Nazi
soldiers totaled $8 billion in 1996 alone and were paid out to 1.1 million
veterans and dependents worldwide.10
Under mounting international pressure the German parliament amended the
1950 Federal Benefits Law to prohibit payment of benefits to suspected war
criminals. However, the law does not require German authorities to
investigate the recipients of these benefits and has no provision for
enforcement. This makes possible for thousands of suspected and known war
criminals, including those living in the US, UK and Latvia, to continue
receiving their SS pensions, even as hundreds of thousands of their
surviving victims received no compensation from Germany or received a
one-time check for a few hundred dollars for their troubles.
While attending a memorial ceremony for the Jewish-Latvian Holocaust
victims in Latvia this September Israel?s Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin
said: ?We will remember their murderers - each and every one of them... We
will remember, and we will continue to remind the world, of the greatest
crime against humanity; of the criminals who committed it; and of the
people who made it possible. We do not, and will not accept the attempt to
clear a nation's conscience, by blaming everything that happened here
entirely on the Nazi occupation. Latvia, as other young European
democracies, is yet to face its true past, the awful truth. The Latvian
people have much to answer for. Pardoning the worst of murderers, treating
them as heroes, or freedom fighters, allowing them to march proudly on the
streets - all that is spitting in the faces of the women, children and
babies massacred here.?
The Latvian Parliament Speaker Ingrida Udre responded with tears in her
eyes: ?We will remember this terrible crime so that it will not be able to
repeat itself. We must continue to investigate our role, and we will do
so, and emphasize who are the guilty and who were the innocent victims.?11
The next weekend Ingrida Udre spent celebrating the opening of the Latvian
Waffen SS cemetery. The ceremony was attended by Latvia?s Culture Minister
Inguna Ribena, members of the Parliament, representatives of the Church,
and Latvian military officials.12
ewriting of history and resurgence of fascism is only possible with our
silent approval. We don't know, we don't care, we are too busy. Some think
Nazism is about killing Jews and that the Second World War was a private
brawl between Hitler and Stalin. We like to simplify things.
Some six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis. More than thirty
million Soviets and twenty million Chinese were killed during the war.
Over a hundred million people died around the world as the result of
fighting, decease and hunger brought about by the Second World War.
Deaths per Country
Military
(in thousands)
Civilians
(in thousands)
Total
(in thousands)
Allies
Australia
37.6
2.5
40.1
Belgium Brazil
22.7 1.5
76.0 1.0
98.7 2.58
British Colonies
7
92.7
99.7b
Canada
42.7
1.0
43.7
China
1,400.0
20,000.0
21,400.0
Czechoslovakia
6.6
315.0
321.68
Denmark
6.4
1.0
7.4
France
245.0
350.0
595.0
Great Britain
403.0
92.7
495.7
Greece
88.3
325.0
413.3
India (Br.)
48.7
3,000.0
3,048.7
Indochina
0
2,000.0
2,000.0
Luxembourg
0.1
1.0
1.1
Malaysia (Br.)
0
50.0
50.0
Mexico
0.1
0
0.1
Netherlands
13.7
236.0
249.7
Netherlands East Indies
0
100.0
100.08
New Zealand
8.7
0
8.7
Norway
3.0
7.0
10.0
Philippines
40.0
100.0
140.08
Poland
597.3
5,675.0
6,272.3
South Africa
8.5
0
8.5
Soviet Union
12,000.0
17,000.0
29,000.0 d
United States
407.0
6.0
413.0
Yugoslavia
305.0
1,355.0
1,660.0
Allied Total
15,692.9
50,786.9
66,479.8
Axis
Bulgaria Finland
18.8 82.0
140.0 12.0
158.8 94.0
Germany
3,250.0
2,445.0
5,695.0
Hungary
200.0 600.0 800.08
Italy
380.0 152.9 532.9
Japan
2,565.9 672.0 3,237.9
Korea
10 250.0 260.0
Romania
450.0
465.0
915.0
Axis Total
6,956.7
4,736.9
11,693.6
Grand Total
22,649.6
55,523.8
78,173.4
(source: Dirty Little Secrets of World War II, by James F. Dunnigan and
Albert A. Nofi, p. 49)
The legacy of Nazism is not Holocaust; it's not extermination of Slavs,
Gypsies, Chinese, homosexuals, mentally ill; it's not the great battles in
Kursk, Stalingrad or Normandy. The legacy of Nazism is indiscriminate
extermination of human life.
Adopting this view of the Second World War is essential to all of us.
Every one of us has political views and personal agendas. We tend to look
at the history of the war and try to find some good points about it. Some
hate Jews, others hate Russians or Americans.
Look at the photos of executed Soviet POWs, look at the corpses of gassed
Jews and Gypsies, look at shots of dead Americans littering the shores of
Normandy, look at the gruesome photos of executed Ukrainian villagers.
This is indiscriminate extermination of human life and it makes you
realize one crucial thing when looking at these horrific images: it could
have been you independent of who or where you are and what you believe in.
Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined the SS believing the Nazis
would liberate them from the Soviet occupation; Finland offered itself as
the launching pad of the German invasion of northern USSR believing the
Nazis would protect it from its aggressive eastern neighbor; Iraqi
government aligned itself with Germany hoping the Nazis would rid Iraq of
British control; Ukrainians joined the SS in their hatred of Jews and
Bolsheviks.
Millions supported the cause of Nazism driven by their personal reasons,
failing to grasp the big picture. In the end millions of them died; but
they didn't die soon enough and took tens of millions with them.
We are not about to take on all of the distortions of history. We are here
to address one problem at a time and the problem for today is resurgence
of fascism in the Baltic States. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia look
forward to joining the European Union. They want to climb on the high
horse of EU's imaginary superior morality with which it judges Russians,
Americans and the rest of the world.
Governments, like people, join together for two reasons: to survive and to
absolve each other of individual responsibility. The EU is willing to take
the Baltic States aboard despite their heavy baggage of suppressed
problems and hastily rewritten history. Their governments hope that this
baggage gets lost in transit. We are here to make sure that it doesn't.
FOOTNOTES:
1 ?Europe's moral attitudes toward the Holocaust in light of the current
defamation of Israel?, by Manfred Gerstenfeld, Jerusalem Letter, No. 475,
April 2002
2 ?Wiesenthal Centre wants France to check ex-Nazis?, by Bernard Edinger,
Reuters, March 18, 1998; and ?Israel denounces Nazi SS reunion in Latvia?,
Reuters, March 19, 1998.
3 ?Latvia's Achilles Heel?, by Tomas Valasek, Weekly Defense Monitor,
April 9, 1998.
4 ?Germans Cooperate With Ackerman's Demand For Nazi Pension Records?, US
House of Representatives, press release, April 11, 1997
5 ?War criminals get pensions?, Associated Press, Feb. 7, 1997
6 United States of America vs. Kazys Ciurinskas, No. 2:93 CV 97JM, trial
transcript, Jun. 18, 1997.
7 ?Another member of Nazi's killing battalion deported?, Associated Press,
May 13, 1999.
8 ?Straw targets Nazi suspects?, BBC, Jan. 13, 2001
9 ?German Pensions To Waffen SS Veterans Unfathomable?, American Jewish
Committee, Feb. 4, 1997
10 ?Germany halts pension payments to ex-Nazi war criminals?, by Deidre
Berger, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Nov. 21, 1997
11 ?Knesset Speaker Speaks Harshly To Latvians?, Israel National News,
Sep. 18, 2003
12 ?Cemetery for former Latvian SS unit inaugurated Saturday?, Agence
France-Presse, Sep. 27, 2003
http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/wwii/baltic_nazis/latvia/index.htm
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YAWN! Come e' andato al Campo Antimperialista? Avete fatto il passo dell'oca?
Am.