Soviet Russia

On the anti-Nazi banners waved in their faces were smiling skulls in SS helmets with the words : ‘Remember the 46,500′ – a reference to the amount of Jews they are saying Latvian Legion members helped slaughter.

2,000 armed police lined the route from the city’s German built cathedral where the local bishop had given a sermon detailing the evils of Stalinism and Communism. Junis Dogeds, 88, was one of those individuals who fought for Hitler.

He doesn’t have any regrets ; ‘The Russians were the b******s in this country. So I march with pride and I mostly will as long as I draw breath. ‘The Nazis are guestimated to have snuffed out around eighteen thousand of us. So I ask you ; who were the bad fellows here?’. Nils Usakovs, the ethnic Russian statesman who is the mayor of Riga and who looked to have the events called off, announced the yearly showdown was ‘disastrous’ for Latvia’s global reputation. A half will always believe the other half wrong. The old Fascists just happen to be part of it and it’s the part the world, and opponents, focuses on.’. She highlighted the occupation museum in the town is divided fifty / fifty with exhibits that detail Fascist occupation and Soviet rule. Aivars Ozols, 85, another marcher who dumped a boquet of white roses at the foot of the monument, expounded he’d been conscripted by the Germans back in 1943 and had no option but to fight. ‘I paid my dues and I come here to honour old comrades, nothing more.’. Standing among the protesters was Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem, who had made a call on the authorities to prohibit the parade.

Housewife Irina Brodek, a Russian, spat at the foot of a demonstrator who attempted to debate that Stalin was a worse mass killer than Hitler. You are endeavoring to rewrite history and it won’t work.’.