Latvian Exhibit in Ottawa
Canadian War Museum Should Be
Condemned for Falsifying What Canadians Stand
For
Exhibition at Canadian War Museum (Embassy of Latvia)
The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa is featuring a
special exhibit titled "The Latvian Tragedy --
1941." The exhibit coincides with Latvia's use of
March 16, to hail Nazi collaborators in that
country as freedom fighters and to declare that in
1941 the Soviet Union, which was the first country
to seriously prepare to counter the Nazi assault
on itself and all of Europe, was the invader, not
Hitler's Germany. The exhibit runs from March
3-22, 2020.[1]
The exhibit, presented by the Embassy of Latvia,
is a joint venture of Latvia's Museum of the
Occupation and the Museum of Jews in Latvia. In
the promotional flyer, the Latvian historians who
authored the exhibit claim that the main
motivation for the exhibit is to declare that the
"Republic of Latvia, restored in 1991, condemns
all perpetrators of crimes against humanity in the
tragic year 1941." In fact, the exhibit is full of
gross distortions and falsifications of the
history of Latvia and the battles waged by the
Soviet Union and the peoples of Eastern Europe
against the German fascist aggressors. The
dishonesty can be seen in the opportunistic use of
the vicious persecution of Latvian Jews. More than
80 per cent of Latvian Jews were brutally murdered
during this period but the exhibit purposely
forgets to mention that as the German Nazis swept
into Latvia in June 1941 they found willing
accomplices in the rounding up and murdering of
Jews by a Latvian organization called Arajs
Kommando. This organization was led by Victor
Arajs, a rabid anti-communist and anti-Semite who
not only assisted the German fascists in the
extermination of Jews, but was also responsible
for the most brutal crimes against the Roma and
mentally ill people.
A panel in the exhibit depicts the story of Frida
Michelson, one of the a few survivors of the
infamous Rumbula massacre. The exhibit bemoans the
fact that more than 28,000 Jews were killed in the
Rumbula Forest near Riga from November 30 to
December 8, 1941, but it fails to explain that
this mass extermination of Jews from Riga was
carried out by members of the Arajs Kommando, in
collaboration with the German Nazis. In her
testimony as a witness in the trial of Karlis
Detlays in New York City in 1979, Mrs. Michelson
identified him as the Latvian and Nazi
collaborator who ordered her to remove her clothes
and valuables before she was driven to the ditch
where the mass executions took place. In addition
to the massacre at Rumbula Forest, the Arajs
Komando were responsible for mass killings in
Jelgava, Daugavpils, Liepaja, and Riga. None of
this is brought out in the exhibit, which portrays
Nazi collaborators as national heroes fighting for
Latvian freedom against alleged Soviet aggression.
Official Canadian liberal ideology is
anti-communist and also spreads the misconception
that Russia was an aggressor and collaborated with
Hitler based on the non-aggression pact it signed
with Germany in 1939, while remaining silent about
the Anglo-French collaboration at Munich which
betrayed the peoples of Europe and permitted the
Nazi aggressions, occupations and murders to take
place.
 
Latvian collaborators with the Nazis detain the
Jewish population of Riga,
before taking them to be executed and buried en
masse, 1941.
In 1943, Arajs Kommando was incorporated into the
Latvian Legion, which became known as the Latvian
Waffen SS Legion. In July 1943 the Latvian Legion,
in its mission "Winterzauber" (Wintercharm)
together with seven Latvian police battalions were
involved in destroying a swathe of countryside
some 40 kilometres wide alongside the Latvian
frontier. Several hundred villages were destroyed
with tens of thousands of inhabitants killed. This
was a crime of the Latvian Legion itself. For his
many war crimes Arajs was captured, tried and
sentenced to life imprisonment.[2] The exhibit at
the Canadian war museum fails to explain that this
is the same Latvian Waffen SS Legion which is
honoured every year on March 16 with a parade
through the streets of Riga. Last year, Latvia's
Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks drew international
scorn when he proclaimed the Latvian SS Legion to
be heroes. Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Head of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, spoke out against
the March 16 events in Riga. He said, "In reality
the ceremony was in certain respects only the tip
of a very dangerous iceberg that is attempting to
rewrite the history books and create a false
symmetry or equalization of communist and Nazi
crimes. While the march was not organized by the
government, it is obvious that there is a strong
support for its message among Latvian leaders."
Far from condemning these perpetrators of
murderous crimes, the Canadian War Museum, in
collaboration with the Latvian government, is
participating in the falsification of history to
cover up the crimes of Nazi collaborators, thus
preparing for new crimes under the guise of
defending the "independence of Latvia."
Attempts to equate German fascism with the Soviet
Union by accusing the Soviet Union of aggression
and occupation of Latvia or anywhere else during
World War II is to turn truth on its head. It was
German fascism's unbridled imperialism with the
aim of world domination which posed the greatest
threat to the peoples of Eastern Europe and it was
the actions taken by the Soviet Union at that time
which laid the foundation for defeating the Nazi
invaders. Far from being an aggressor, as the
exhibit falsely claims, the Soviet Union during
the period of the non-aggression pact with Germany
on September 3, 1939, moved Red Army troops into
Poland, Western Byelorussia and Western Ukraine
and established defences along this line. The
Soviet Union also signed pacts of mutual
assistance with the Baltic states and Soviet army
garrisons were established on the territory of
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
A pamphlet issued by the Soviet Information Bureau
in February 1948 called Falsificators of
History explained the importance of
establishing the "Eastern front:" "it was not hard
to see that the creation of an 'Eastern' front was
an important contribution not only to the
organization of the security of the USSR but to
the common cause of the peace-loving states that
were fighting against Hitler's aggression.
Nevertheless, the answer of Anglo-Franco-American
circles in their overwhelming majority was to
remain silent about their appeasement of Hitler in
Munich and start a malicious anti-Soviet campaign
describing the Soviet action as aggression."[3]
Anyone who visits the exhibition in the war museum
will see that the content is just the continuation
of this malicious anti-Soviet campaign. In fact,
the measures taken by the Soviet Union under the
leadership of J.V. Stalin and the enormous
sacrifices made by the Soviet Red Army -- at all
times facing 85 per cent of the elite German
Wehrmacht -- led to victory in liberating all of
Eastern Europe and changed the course of world
history. By hosting this exhibit and promoting the
lies of the Latvian government, the government of
Canada and the War Museum are openly promoting
Nazism in the name of defending freedom and human
rights. They condemn themselves as extremists and
hate-mongers despite claims that they oppose all
extremes. Theirs is a betrayal of all Canadians,
especially Canada's World War II anti-fascist
veterans, along with all the Allied Armed Forces
and resistance fighters who fought and died in the
battle to defeat fascism. Most importantly, this
is not about the past but the present. Today,
Canada has about 540 Canadian Army members in
Latvia as part of a NATO deployment who are made
to participate in ceremonies honouring Nazi
collaborators, with the claim that they were
freedom fighters or that these are official
duties. It must not pass!
The War Museum deserves to be condemned for this
exhibit, which falsifies what Canadians stand for.
Notes
1. The War Museum has
announced via its website, "Due to the COVID-19
virus, the national museums have made the decision
to close the museums across Canada to visitors and
all other groups, effective Saturday, March 14 and
until further notice. [...]"
2. "Riga,Viktor Arajs,
March 16, the Latvian Legion and the Holocaust" by
Clemens Heni, Wissenschaft und Publizistik als
Kritik, March 22, 2010.
3. Falsificators of History
-- text of a communique issued by the Soviet
Information Bureau, Moscow, February, 1948.
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