Posted on March 16, 2010 - by Venik

Riga battle remembrance march sparks Nazi controversy

As veterans hope to pay tribute to fallen comrades, critics accuse Latvians of Nazi revivalism and David Miliband brands the event nauseating

The centre of Riga was blanketed in snow and security forces this morning as a dwindling band of second world war survivors prepared to remember fallen comrades on what is the most contested date in the Baltic political calendar.

The remembrance ceremonies at Riga’s Freedom Monument and the Lutheran cathedral are hugely divisive because they pay tribute to those who fought alongside the Nazis in a vain attempt to halt the Red Army’s re-conquest of the Baltic state in 1944.

While Russians accuse the Latvians of Nazi revivalism and Jewish leaders protest at attempts to “rewrite history” and belittle the Holocaust, the veterans, all pushing 90, and Latvian nationalists insist they are entitled to remember a famous 1944 battle in which the Latvian legion comprising two divisions conscripted into Hitler’s Waffen-SS linked up for the only time in the war to try to thwart Stalin.

The 16 March commemoration, briefly declared a national holiday in the 1990s by a nationalist government, was banned by the Riga city council on security grounds, but the courts overruled the ban on Monday, raising fears of ugly scenes, with clashes predicted between Latvian and Russian youths who regularly hijack the event.

This year the controversy has extended to Britain because David Cameron has allied the Conservatives in the European parliament with the small Fatherland and Freedom party in Latvia, which supports the commemoration. David Miliband, the foreign secretary who lost relatives in the Nazi Holocaust, called the event nauseating.

While the organisers called for “a quiet and dignified” tribute to the tens of thousands of dead, Jewish activists demanded the ban be upheld.

“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,” said Ephraim Zuroff, the Nazi-hunter and head of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre who was in Riga for the parades.

Nils Usakovs, the ethnic Russian politician who is the mayor of Riga and who sought to have the events called off, said the annual confrontation was disastrous for Latvia’s international reputation.

“It has nothing to do with commemorating those who were forced to fight. It is an event which is hijacked by small parties and politicians,” he said. “It’s pretty difficult to be a hero if you’re fighting for a German Nazi.”

Aivars Ozols angrily rejected arguments that he was fighting for the Germans. The 85-year-old was conscripted into the legion in 1944 and forced to don an SS uniform. He was captured by the Russians in 1945 and transported to Siberia where he spent nine years in the gulag.

“There was nothing voluntary about it. We had no choice. It was join the legion or go into the forests and join the partisans.”

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