JEWISH GROUPS WARN ABOUT NAZI GLORIFICATION
EASTERN EUROPEAN NATIONS EXTOL FIGHTING SOVIETS, BUT WHITEWASH HOLOCAUST
As Holocaust survivors gather to commemorate the 75th anniversary of their rescue from the Auschwitz death camp, a wave of glorification of Nazi collaborators and some of the perpetrators of the Holocaust is gaining momentum.
Countries throughout Eastern Europe are now celebrating as national heroes their citizens who collaborated with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich and participated in the roundup and murder of Jews.
“This is like a nightmare,” said Bernie Farber, the former chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress, whose father survived the Holocaust after all his fellow Jews in a village in Poland were murdered. “This is all happening once again in the lifetime of survivors. It has to be tearing their hearts out.”
In early January torchlight parades were held in a number of cities in Ukraine to honour Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist and Nazi collaborator whose organization, say Holocaust scholars, was involved in the killing of thousands of Jews and Poles. Ukraine’s sponsoring of events to honour such leaders and other nationalist Nazi collaborators linked to the Holocaust prompted official protests from the Israeli and Polish governments.
In Lithuania, a school has been named for Jonas Noreika, a nationalist leader whose family acknowledges was involved in the killing of Jews. In December a Ukrainian diplomat who blamed Jews for the Second World War, talked about punishing “kikes” and posed for photographs with a cake baked in the shape of Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf was reinstated, despite protests from Jewish groups.
Parades have been held in Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine to honour individuals who fought in SS units. In September Latvian Defence Minister Artis Pabriks praised the Latvian SS units who fought for the Nazis in the Second World War, calling them “the pride of the Latvian people and of the state.” A number of those Latvian SS members had been involved in Holocaust crimes including one of its officers, Viktors Arajs, whose organization participated in the murder of 26,000 Jews. Arajs once regaled guests at a dinner party in Riga with his views on the best method to kill Jewish babies, according to the book The Holocaust in Latvia. Arajs told his dinner party guests he would throw the children into the air and then shoot them. That way he avoided any ricochets that might happen if he murdered the babies on the ground.
Holocaust researcher and professor Per Anders Rudling said Eastern European nations, such as Latvia, Ukraine and Lithuania, are involved in efforts to rebuild their national identities and are “rediscovering” individuals from the 1940s to elevate to national hero status. Such individuals fought against the Russians for independence, he noted. But some of these nationalist leaders also joined forces with the Nazis and murdered Jews.
The veneration of such individuals has gathered momentum in the last decade.
In 2014 the Israeli government raised concerns about a musical being performed in Latvia that celebrated the life of Nazi war criminal Herbert Cukurs. Cukurs was a key member in the Arajs Kommando and was known as the “Butcher of Riga.” A number of Holocaust survivors have directly linked Cukurs to the murder of Jews.
In April 2018 more than 50 members of the U. S. Congress condemned what they called Ukraine’s ongoing efforts to glorify leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army as well as 14th SS Galizien Division made up of Ukrainian volunteers. “It’s particularly troubling that much of the Nazi glorification in Ukraine is government- supported,” the members of Congress wrote in their letter.
But the Eastern European nations and their supporters have pushed back against Jewish groups and Holocaust researchers. Poland has passed legislation making it illegal to accuse Poles of complicity in the Holocaust.
A new law is being considered in Lithuania that would declare neither Lithuania nor its leaders participated in the Holocaust. This is despite the fact that Lithuania’s short- lived pro- Nazi government was involved in the roundup and murder of Jews, Holocaust researchers point out.
In response to concerns about the honouring of Bandera and other Nazi collaborators, Ukrainian government officials told Israel and Poland to mind their own business. Gennady Nadolenko, head of Ukraine’s diplomatic mission to Israel, said such events are “internal issues of Ukrainian politics.” The decision by Israel to condemn such parades was “counterproductive,” he added.
Ukrainians argue t hat Bandera never supported the Nazis. The Latvian government says the Latvian SS units didn’t fight to support Hitler, but instead battled the Soviets. ( The Soviet Union, at the time, was allied with the U. S., Britain, Canada and other nations who formed an alliance to defeat Nazi Germany and the nations that supported Hitler.)
Officials in Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and Lithuania have dismissed news articles and research about Nazi collaborators as the product of Russian disinformation campaigns designed to show their countries in a bad light. They have labelled such information as “fake news.”
The report last year from the right- wing Macdonald- Laurier Institute, which has received funding from Latvia, denounced Ottawa Citizen articles on Holocaust killers Viktors Arajs and Herberts Cukurs as having “essentially parroted the Kremlin’s tailored narratives.”
The Canadian government has had a mixed response to the concerns raised by Jewish groups and the U.S. Congress about Nazi glorification in Eastern Europe.
Last year Global Affairs Canada condemned the annual parade in Latvia to honour the Latvian SS. Around 1,000 people marched in the parade in 2019, with some wearing swastikas and other Nazi insignias.
But Canadian officials didn’t join Jewish groups in condemning Latvian Defence Minister’s Pabriks praise of the Latvian SS. Two months after Pabriks made his comments he met with Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and in March he is expected back in Ottawa to take part in a defence conference.
B’nai Brith Canada’s chief executive officer Michael Mostyn has called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to do more in speaking out against glorification of Nazi collaborators.
In 2018 he sent Trudeau a letter warning about the growing trend of Holocaust distortion.
“We must challenge all those who distort the historical record on governments, military units or organizations that fought with, supported or sympathized with the Nazis during World War II,” Mostyn wrote. “This includes government leaders who acquiesce in, or fail to condemn, a process of Nazi glorification that amounts to Holocaust distortion.”
Mostyn said the Eastern European nations are heralding groups and individuals for fighting against the Soviet army but those same organizations and leaders were also involved in atrocities against Jews and were deeply anti-semitic. “Those who glorify the record of such organizations or units cannot dismiss criticism as ‘ fake news,’ ” Mostyn warned.
HAPPENING ONCE AGAIN IN THE LIFETIME OF SURVIVORS. IT HAS TO BE TEARING THEIR HEARTS.