Nazi-hunter calls for ban on Latvian SS commemoration - Summary

(WARNING): Article contains propaganda!

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Riga - As a representative of the world's leading Nazi hunter denounced a controversial commemoration of local Waffen-SS troops in Latvia, authorities on Monday lifted a ban on the parade. Authorities decided to allow both the parade by the Latvian Legion and a counter-demonstration by anti-fascist groups, saying that the two events, planned for Tuesday, did not represent threats to security.

Earlier Monday, Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced the commemoration.

"Ban the march, enforce the ban and explain to the people that maybe these people were thinking they were fighting for Latvia but the real beneficiary of their service and their bravery was Nazi Germany," Zuroff told the German Press Agency dpa.

Zuroff was speaking on the sidelines of a conference in the Latvian capital entitled "World War II and the Holocaust," sponsored by the World Congress of Russian Jewry.

Describing attempts by Central and Eastern European countries to equate the Holocaust and crimes committed by post-war Communist regimes as "total hogwash," Zuroff said the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in particular were guilty of an attempt to "rewrite history."

"With all my empathy for victims of Communism, the crimes of Communism simply are not the same as the Holocaust. Part of this is fueled by a desire to deflect attention for the extensive collaboration with the Nazis during World War II and their post- independence failure to bring these people to justice," Zuroff told...

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/314205,nazi-hunter-calls-for-ban-on-latvian-ss-commemoration--summary.html.