"Lithuania has a long history of conflict with
its Russian neighbor. The Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius, which
until 2011 did not even mention the more than 200,000 Lithuanian Jews
who died in the Nazi Holocaust, was established in 1992 to memorialize
Lithuanians killed by the Nazi, but mostly Soviet, occupiers.
Lithuania is also one of the few countries
where neo-Nazis are free to brandish swastikas on the street. Its
northern neighbor, Latvia, is the only European country where veterans
of the Waffen SS are allowed each year to march on main streets and
commemorate their comrades, who are venerated as freedom fighters
against Russia.
Since 2008, Latvia and Lithuania have played
host to three neo-Nazi marches annually. A fourth event began last year
in the third Baltic nation, Estonia.
The Baltic nations, which have clashed
frequently with Slavic peoples, share bitter memories from Soviet
domination that have made them natural allies of Germany, according to
Efraim Zuroff, a Nazi hunter and director of the Simon Wiesenthal
Center’s Israel office. The historic conflict led thousands of
Lithuanians and Latvians to volunteer for armed Nazi groups. “Now, Russian expansionism under Vladimir Putin is serving as the
perfect pretext to push forward a false historical account that accuses
the Russians of genocide, and at the same time conveniently portrays the
local Baltic populations as victims instead of perpetrators (...)".
Tirado daqui.
Tirado daqui.
