LATVIA: Veterans of the Latvian Waffen SS Legion hold their annual march amidst protest by group of Russians and Latvians who claim the event glorifies fascism

Record ID: 847025

  • Title: LATVIA: Veterans of the Latvian Waffen SS Legion hold their annual march amidst protest by group of Russians and Latvians who claim the event glorifies fascism
  • Date: 19th March 2012
  • Summary: PROTESTERS AND PHOTOS BEHIND BARRIER (SOUNDBITE) (Latvian) PROTESTER, JANIS KUZINS SAYING: "Real legionnaires remember this day in Lestene Warriors' Cemetery (the cemetery were Legionnaires are buried). The official Soldiers' Memorial Day is November 11, not March 16. I think that here, the name of Latvia is being discredited." PEOPLE LAYING FLOWERS SYMBOLIC GATE OF FLAGS, PEOPLE AT FREEDOM MONUMENT BARRIERS AND CHAIN OF POLICEMEN AT FREEDOM MONUMENT
  • Embargoed: 3rd April 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Latvia, Latvia
  • City:
  • Country: Latvia
  • Topics: Conflict,History,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA8WCW008CZGTCKVLCBGR3E73MQ
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: About 2,000 people paid tribute on Friday (March 16) to Latvians who fought on the side of Nazi Germany in Waffen SS detachments during World War II during a ceremony that has caused protests and strained relations with Russia.
    To avoid confrontation 1200 policemen formed a chain which separated marchers from the protesters, the area has been surrounded by metal barriers.
    The participants of the annual procession - former legionnaires and their supporters - laid flowers to the Freedom Monument in downtown Riga to honour the fighters from the Latvian SS legion, who are known as Legionnaires.
    "The entire world should understand that these Latvian boys were national freedom fighters, therefore they should be respected and honoured," says Gaida Cimmermane, a participant of the legionaries march. "I come every year and I will come as long as I am alive."
    Parliament members of the right-wing party 'All for Latvia' were among the marchers, but party members represented in the government did not take part.
    The march participants were heckled by several dozens protesters, dressed in striped concentration camps prisoners' clothes, who claim the commemoration glorifies fascism.
    "Real legionnaires remember this day in Lestene Warriors' Cemetery," said one of the protesters Janis Kuzins from the organisation 'Society against Nazism'. "The official Soldiers' Memorial Day is November 11, not March 16. I think that here, the name of Latvia is being discredited."
    Though the Legion was formed in February 1943, March 16 was chosen as commemoration date because in March 1944 two divisions of the Legion had been fiercely fighting Soviet troops at Velikaya river in northern Russia Protesters greeted the march with symbolic gallows and displayed photos showing Nazi's massacres.
    Police officials said the ceremony, which has become a public relations headache for Latvia, passed without incident, though three people have been detained.
    Both the march and the protest were initially banned by the Riga City Council but later this decision was overturned by the court.
    The March 16 event has caused tensions every year since the veterans began to mark it soon after Latvia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
    Russia calls it a glorification of fascism. Latvia says many of the 100,000 men who fought in the ranks of the Latvian Legion were conscripted by force and were not fighting for fascism. Many of those who volunteered saw it as the only way to take up arms against the Red Army after Moscow's annexation of Latvia before the war and deportation of 14,000 Latvians.
    Latvia says the men were combat troops and had nothing to do with SS atrocities. The International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg did not charge the Latvian Legion with crimes associated with the Holocaust.
    Latvia was forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, then invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941, and taken over again by the Red Army in 1944. The country remained a part of the Soviet Union until 1991, when it achieved independence.
    About 250,000 Latvians fought alongside either the Germans or the Soviets - and some 150,000 Latvians died in the fighting.
    Nearly 80,000 Jews, or 90 percent of Latvia's pre-war Jewish population, were killed in 1941-42, two years before the formation of the Latvian Waffen SS unit - which some Latvians claim shows the unit could not have played a role in the Holocaust.
    But the protesters claim that an unknown number of Latvian Waffen SS soldiers could have been involved in the murder of Jews as auxiliary police - years before they entered the front-line unit.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register