- MOSCOW - The EU newcomer
Estonia was accused of amorality and gross historical insensitivity yesterday
after it allowed veterans of the Nazi Waffen-SS to parade through its capital
Tallinn.
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- The event saw veterans of the 20th Estonian SS division
attend a church service, lay flowers at a war memorial and attend a celebratory
concert.
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- The planned unveiling of a memorial to Estonian SS troops
was cancelled at the last minute, however, and is not now expected to take
place until the autumn.
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- Jewish groups pointed out that Estonian volunteers in
the SS were responsible for the almost complete annihilation of the country's
Jewish population during the Second World War.
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- Tallinn City Council gave yesterday's event its blessing.
It said that it was a "political matter" but, despite promises
to the contrary, failed to provide an explanation of why it had agreed
to the commemoration.
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- When asked to comment, Estonia's Ministry of Foreign
Affairs said the matter was not within its competence, while a government
spokesman who apparently specialises in the subject did not respond to
inquiries. Officials said that anything concerning Estonia's SS fighters
was "highly sensitive". Estonian SS units were formed in 1942
on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler, whose troops then occupied the
tiny country. Their fighting prowess was said to have impressed the German
Wehrmacht.
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- Organisers said the celebration was held to mark the
60th anniversary of battles fought by the Estonian SS against the Soviet
army and to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the withdrawal of Russian
troops from the country.
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- Many Estonians regard the SS veterans as freedom fighters
who fought alongside the Germans to stave off Soviet occupation - the country
was occupied by the Soviets before and after the war - and argue that they
are military men rather than fascists. They see nothing shameful or controversial
in such events and view external criticism as an attempt to blacken Estonia's
name.
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- Government sources say that Estonia is a free country
that respects freedom of assembly and that the country's history is not
as black and white as it is often made out to be. Jewish groups strongly
disagree.
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- Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Russian Jewish Congress,
said: "The problem is that the SS is the same institution which had
death squads. This meeting is absolutely amoral. They were members of a
structure which was a structure of blood and death. Let their children
look at their faces and see that there were rivers of [Jewish] blood in
Estonia because of them."
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- Mr Satanovsky suggested that the country's apparently
benign attitude towards SS veterans reflected ordinary Estonians' general
indifference to the plight of the country's Jews. "Much of the population
was absolutely neutral. They were not interested in the rivers of blood,
in the extermination of their neighbours who they had lived with peacefully
for hundreds of years or in the assassination of women and children.
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- "Very few of them hid Jewish children. [But] they
were interested in getting new property."
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- Yesterday's event, organised by a group called the Union
of Freedom Fighters which claims 3,000 members, is not unprecedented; similar
events have been held 11 times since the country won its independence from
the Soviet Union in 1991.
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- Earlier this year Jewish groups were similarly outraged
when a statue to a colonel in the SS alleged to have the blood of thousands
of Jews and Russians on his hands was erected in the north of the country.
The unveiling of the statue - to Colonel Alfons Rebane - was attended by
a member of the Estonian parliament and the government itself refused to
condemn it, let alone insist on its destruction.
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- The way in which the Estonian SS veterans are treated
by the authorities generates particular anger in the country's former imperial
master Russia, which regards the elderly fighters as beyond the pale.
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- "Today Estonian fascists represent themselves as
'the noble fighters for the freedom of Estonia'. But the words 'the struggle
for freedom' cannot stand near the swastika and the two horrible letters
SS," said the Interfax news agency, which is closely connected to
the Russian government.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=538802
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