Latvian Defence Minister Artis Pabriks inspects Canadian Armed Forces personnel at NDHQ in May 2019. Pabriks says the Latvian SS is the pride of Latvia. (DND photo)
By David Pugliese
The Latvian government has upped the ante in its efforts to rewrite the history of the Second World War in that eastern European nation.
It may come as a surprise to the 500 Canadian Armed Forces members who are training Latvian troops but that country’s politicians have embraced as heroes those who supported and collaborated with the Third Reich.
Each March, despite condemnation from countries around the world including Canada, a parade is held in Riga to honour the members of the Latvian SS divisions which fought for the Nazis in the Second World War. Some in the parade this year – one of the largest in recent times – wore swastikas and other Nazi insignias.
But it was in September when the Latvian government further solidified its official support for Hitler’s loyal foot soldiers. “Latvian legionnaires are the pride of the Latvian people and of the state,” said the country’s Minister of Defence Artis Pabriks. “We will honor the memory of the fallen legionnaires, and we will not allow anyone to discredit their memory.”
“It is our duty to honour these Latvian patriots from the depths of our soul,” he added.
Pabriks’ comments drew immediate condemnation from Jewish groups.
So who are these patriots that the Latvians so eagerly embrace?
They were a combination of Nazi collaborators, killers of Jewish women and children, and conscripts. Adolf Hitler ordered the creation of the Latvian SS divisions in 1943, with the initial core of the force made up of members of Latvian police and militia units such as the Arajs Kommando, which participated in the murder of at least 26,000 Jews during the Holocaust. Large numbers of Latvians were also conscripted to join the new SS units.
Members of the Latvian SS Legion proudly on parade.
The members of the Latvian Legion swore allegiance to Hitler and while Latvian government officials claim their first loyalty was to Latvia, these soldiers were among the most loyal Nazis who made their last stand in Berlin against the Russian army as they defended SS leader Heinrich Himmler’s headquarters.
Among the Legion’s officers was Viktors Arajs, the anti-Semite who liked to refer himself as “Arajs, the Latvian Jew-killer.”
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 participants 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.
Arajs was found guilty by a German court for his role in the murder of 13,000 Jews. He died in prison.
On the lower end of the scale in the Latvian SS Legion ranks were individuals like Juris Sumskis. He joined the Arajs Kommando in April 1942 and took part in a number of Nazi-led executions of Jews and other innocents. Sumskis remembers taking part in the murder of several hundred mentally ill patients, personally carrying one of the victims over to the execution area because she couldn’t walk. From that first execution, Sumskis graduated to burning down villages and guarding Jews who were to be murdered. Later Sumskis transferred to the 15th Waffen SS Latvian Legion where he hunted down partisans – fellow Latvians – who were fighting against Hitler’s regime.
The Latvian government and its supporters have tried to counter Jewish groups and others who have condemned the Latvian SS and Latvians who took part in the Holocaust. One of their main claims is that the history and articles written about the Latvian SS is “fake news” or Russian “disinformation.”
The Latvian Embassy in Canada has made such claims about articles in the Hill Times, Halifax Chronicle Herald, National Post and the Ottawa Citizen newspapers. Karlis Eihenbaums, Latvia’s Ambassador to Canada, has been at the forefront of using the “fake news” claim despite the wealth of information from Holocaust researchers.
In addition, the right-wing Macdonald Laurier Institute in Ottawa published a report by activist Marcus Kolga claiming articles outlining Latvians participation in the Holocaust and support for Hitler’s regime “essentially parroted the Kremlin’s tailored narratives.” The Macdonald-Laurier Institute has received funding from the Latvian Ministry of Defence. In addition, the Embassy of Latvia in Canada has also provided sponsorship for the institute.
The Latvians have also found support among some Canadian Army officers and members of the Department of National Defence who claim there is a need for “context” to explain the “complicated histories” of countries such as Latvia who eagerly welcomed Germans due to the brutality of the Soviets.
The idea that “context” can explain executing woman and children or throwing Jewish babies up in the air to shoot them so as to avoid getting hit by a ricochet is both disgusting and immoral. There is no “complicated” history that can justify murder. And does the brutality of the Soviets towards the Latvian people justify the killing of as many as 60,000 Jews who had nothing to do with that?
Latvian Jews huddle together before they are executed by the SS and Latvian Nazi collaborators.
Or as Monica Lowenberg, a British woman who had many family members murdered by Latvian Nazi collaborators pointed out, honouring the Latvian Legion is akin to honouring those complicit in the killing of British, Canadian and U.S. troops during the Second World War. “When Latvian SS killed Soviet soldiers, they allowed Nazis on the western front to kill British and American soldiers in turn and thus made it possible for Auschwitz and other concentration camps to continue their heinous crimes against humanity,” wrote Lowenberg, who protested the parade in Riga honouring the Legion in 2012.
Various Jewish groups have started fighting against what they are calling Holocaust distortion and Nazi glorification. B’nai Brith Canada raised concerns about the SS parade and other events in Latvia. In the summer of 2018 B’nai Brith Canada’s chief executive officer Michael Mostyn called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to use his trip to Latvia that year to push back against that country’s glorification of Nazi collaborators as well as attempts to deny the nation’s role in the Holocaust. “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 to Trudeau. “This includes government leaders who acquiesce in, or fail to condemn, a process of Nazi glorification that amounts to Holocaust distortion.”
Dr. Efraim Zuroff , the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s East European affairs branch, cut to the heart of the matter by pointing out the obvious fact the Latvian government and some in the Canadian Forces don’t want to accept about Latvian defence minister’s comments. “Given the fact that the Legion fought for a victory of the Third Reich, the most genocidal regime in history, and that among those serving in it were active participants in the mass murder of Latvian Jewry, as well as of German and Austrian Jews deported by the Nazis to Riga, such comments are incomprehensible, let alone deeply offensive, coming from a senior minister of a country with full membership in the European Union and NATO,” Zuroff noted in a protest letter to the Latvian government Oct. 7.
