On 23 June 2017 in the Parliament Square of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, an official celebration of the uprising of 23 June 1943 against Soviet rule took place. The event was orchestrated mainly by veterans of the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Association, a far-right militia group. During these celebrations an exhibit of more than 12 posters were hung which presented the anti-Soviet insurrection one that “drove terror into the Bolshevik occupying army and the lackeys of the occupation forces.”
Some historical context is needed here.
In June 1941, Hitler had launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union, overrunning the Baltics in a few weeks. As documented by eyewitness testimony, photographs, and Nazi records, the Christian majority welcomed the Germans as liberators and right-wing paramilitary groups began massacring their Jewish neighbours before German rule had even been firmly established. Over the next three years of German occupation, around 200,000 Jews, more than 95 percent of Lithuania’s Jewish population, were murdered—a more complete destruction than befell any other European country. In an of inversion of Denmark, the nation where massive local resistance to the Nazi occupiers saved the lives of most Danish Jews, in Lithuania, zealous local collaboration ensured near-complete extermination. One of the only ways for a Jew to survive the Holocaust in Lithuania—the deadliest place on a deadly continent—was the way Yitzhak Arad, a Jewish anti-fascist did: as a partisan fighting the Nazis and their collaborators in the forests.
Thus the ‘lackeys’ (as referred to above) comprised the usual target for Nazi extermination policy: Jews, Russians, Communists, Gypsies or anybody who didn’t co-operate with the collaborationist Latvian pro-Nazi forces or the German Einsatzgruppen, Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads, both of whom were responsible for mass killings. In one incident thousands of Jewish families desperate to avoid capture were forced back by the Lithuanian partisans, arrested by the Lithuanian Activist Front, held in concentration camps until were executed without trial at Kaunas VII Fort during June/July 1941
Episodes such as this represent a little cameo forming part of the history of Lithuania during WW2– a history is generally unknown outside of the West. Sadly, such events were not restricted to Lithuania, but were also a similarly squalid human rights record in Latvia and Estonia. Like the western Ukraine these were collaborationist states who were only too eager to welcome their German Nazi brethren.
The situation in Latvia also followed the same pattern. Estimates suggest that approx. 75,000 Latvian Jews fell into Nazi hands. Moreover, even prior to the persecution of Latvian Jews by the German Nazi authorities, they had suffered anti-Semitic excesses at the hands of the Latvian militias. Chief among these were members of the Azsgargi para-military group and the fascist anti-Semitic organization – Perkonkrusts – which later collaborated with the Nazis in their annihilation of the Jewish community. During the October pogrom in Riga the Latvian Auxiliary Police, all the cities synagogues were destroyed, and 400 Jews were killed. According to German SS records some 38,000 Jews had been murdered by the end of December 1941.
By the beginning of 1942 Jews were imported from German home and militarily occupied territories and incarcerated in various concentration camps – the most notorious being Salaspils and Kaiswerwald. Conditions were so bad that many died of disease and hunger.
It could be said that the German SS authorities to a large extent outsourced their Baltic holocaust to local collaborationist Latvian nationalists who undertook their allotted role with considerable alacrity.
Not to be outdone Estonia had its own mini-holocaust. Given that the original Jewish population of Estonia was much smaller than either Lithuania or Latvia the numbers of Jews murdered was correspondingly reduced. Nonetheless Units of the Eesti Omakaitse (Estonian Home Guard; approximately 1000 to 1200 men) were directly involved in criminal acts, taking part in the round-up of 200 Roma people and 950 Jews. Units of Estonian Auxiliary Police participated in the extermination of Jews in the Pskov region of Russia and provided guards for concentration camps for Jews and Soviet POWs.
Shameful! Barbaric! No, not a bit of it. Celebrations of indigenous neo-Nazi and SS reunions have been ongoing events in the Baltics since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Baltic states’ integration into the EU/NATO bloc. (Well how could we leave such decent chaps outside NATO’s warm and protective embrace!?) In addition to the celebrations in Lithuania, there was earlier in the year – 16 March 2017- a march through the Latvian capital, Riga, in honour of the Latvian Waffen-SS Volunteer Legion [1]. International protests failed to prevent this event from taking place just as they failed earlier. Marches honouring the Latvian SS-men have been a regular event in Riga since 1990. In 1998, the Latvian government even went so far as to make that date a national holiday.
Suffice it to say that Russophobia is akin to a state religion in the Baltics (as is also the case in Poland and Ukraine). This is evident in both theory and practise. In a February 2012 referendum, Latvians roundly rejected Russian as an official second language. It is analogous to what happened in Ukraine after Yanukovich fled the country: The parliament overturned a law that would have granted official status to the Russian language. It was one of the post-revolution developments that seemed to alarm Moscow.
In Estonia, things are if anything even worse. Ethnic Russians are somewhere between one-fifth and one-quarter of the population. And yet, after Estonian independence in 1991, they were not given citizenship, even if they were born there. Russians who weren’t living in Estonia before Soviet times are given a grey passport connoting their official status as “aliens.” They can’t vote in national elections and have trouble finding work. To get citizenship, they must pass an Estonian language exam. (Estonian, which is not an Indo-European language but an Ugro-Finnic one, is notoriously difficult, with 14 cases.) The Language Inspectorate, which Russia Today derisively labelled “the language police,” performs spot checks on bureaucrats and teachers to make sure they know Estonian. If they fail the test, they lose their jobs. This is little more than a system of apartheid as was once evident in South Africa and is still the case in Palestine.
In the world of pop music there are so-called Tribute bands. Musical acts who appropriate and perform songs and sport other trappings from world famous groups. Thus, we have a Beatles tribute band, an Elton John tribute band…and so forth. In the case of the Baltics we have Tribute Nazism complete with songs, flags, symbols and the rest of the fascist bric-a-brac.
This being the political situation it should come as no surprise that the ethnic Russian population has fallen from 1,726,000 in 1989 to 1,052,520 this was the figure in the last consensus which took place in 2011. This raises further issues. Namely, the record of the Baltics’ membership of the EU. Whatever happened to the golden land of EU milk and honey and the promises held out to the Baltic populations by the EU? In short, they were sold – I can’t put it politely – a crock of shit. Economic and social conditions in the Baltic nations are among the worse in the whole Eurozone.
The reality: The latest Eurostat report on the situation in Lithuania shows that up to 29% of the inhabitants are living on the verge of poverty, with the situation remaining unchanged for eight consecutive years. At the same time, Lithuania is among the top five states of the EU where people are being employed for meagre salaries.
The sad reality of this trend is evidenced by historical records showing an unprecedented drop in the population of Lithuania, that fell from the level of 3.7 million back in 1990 to 2.8 million in 2016, a drop of no less than 25%. Income inequality and the striking poverty of some Lithuanian residents is only getting worse over the years, putting Lithuania in the list of poorest EU states. The same inexorable population decline is also evident in Latvia. After obtaining independence from the Soviet bloc in 1991, the population of Latvia has been diminishing annually with the rate of 23,000 people a year. These frightening figures were unveiled last March by a professor of the University of Latvia, demographer Peteris Zvidriņš who would note that the sad reality is that Latvia loses some small town every two weeks.
In raw figures, that is 55 people a day, or 1,650 people a month. Another Latvian demographer, who heads a local office of the International Organization for Migration of the United Nations, Ilmar Mezhs, has recently told Skaties.lv that most of those who are leaving Latvia are not planning to go back. Referring to the forecasts of Eurostat, Mezhs suggested that in sixty years in the place of 2.7 million people who had previously resided in Latvia, one would find less than a million people still dwelling in this country. According to preliminary reports, the country’s population has already been reduced to 1.946 million people. Latvia has been plagued by high mortality rates along with the massive exodus of its people since 1991.
If this downward, demographic trajectory continues there is no possible future for these states, at least on present policies, since these policies are the problem. Any coherent national strategy would have to involve a break with the West and NATO/EU, a normalization of diplomacy and the establishment of trade links with Russia. But of course, this is completely taboo; Russia is the eternal enemy; the pervasiveness of this a pernicious dogma is comparable to heroin addiction, and is just as destructive. Such is the poisoned chalice of Russophobia. Sup it up and enjoy. It couldn’t happen to nicer people.
Reference:
[1] During WW2 some 150,000 thousand Latvians served on the side of the III Reich. The served in the so-called Volunteer Legion of the SS consisting of the 15th and 19th Grenadier Divisions of the SS (or first and second Latvian Divisions), the Latvia Luftwaffe Legion German Divisions and Police battalions. They were responsible for many war crimes.
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/LegalStatement!
DonatetoSupportUs
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day: A state-sponsored institution in Vilnius rewrites history to the delight of Europe’s new ultranationalistsThis past winter here in Vilnius, the charming capital of Lithuania, was much like any other. During long solid weeks of subzero temperatures, as the flow of tourists and roots-seekers slowed to a trickle, I adjusted the route of my daily walk to pass by up to a dozen top tourist sights. Day after day, there was one constant: The most popular, winter-defying “must-visit” for foreigners is “The Museum of Genocide Victims.” Perhaps there is something grotesquely sexy about “genocide.” Maybe the promise ...
Ilan Pappé is a historian, socialist activist, professor at the University of Exeter, and supporter of the Campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). Of Israeli origin, he is a world-renowned scholar on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and has written numerous books on the subject, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge.Pappé was interviewed by Alejandra Ríos for Left Voice, where this article first appeared.Alejandra Ríos (AR): You’ve talked and written about the concept of homeland as justification for destroying the native population. What is the meaning of this concept and ...
15 June 2015 marks the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta by King John at Runnymede. Magna Carta notably gave English “free men” freedom from arbitrary, non-judicial imprisonment, dispossession, outlawing, banishment or destruction by the ruler, a freedom that was variously progressively extended to all citizens and subjects in the Anglosphere over the next 8 centuries. However the US, UK, Apartheid Israel, and Australia have continued to grossly violate this freedom in the 21st century.King John I of England reluctantly granted the Magna Carta ("the Great Charter") on 15 June 1215 after leading Barons had insisted on formal ...
In Kukavica village near Rogatica (nowadays Bosnia and Herzegovina), today was marked 27 years since crimes against Serbian civilians committed by Bosnian Muslims, members of the so-called Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina on August 27, 1992.In an attack on a column of Serbian civilians, involving about 1,000 elderly people, women and children on tractors and passenger vehicles, Bosnian Muslim extremists killed 26 and injured 80 Serbs.Rogatica Mayor Milorad Jagodic called this a monstrous crime as among the victims are a child of 11 and 82 years old man.“This was a column of innocent people who were looking for refuge and ...
History is in many ways a myth we create for ourselves. History is constantly falsified to justify wars and territorial claims. Albanian apologists have falsified the role Albania played in the Holocaust to justify an illegal US/NATO war against Serbia and to allow for the creation of a Greater Albania that would include the Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija.The Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Albania are estimated at 591 from 1941 to 1944, when a Greater Albania was sponsored by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. There were 33 known families of Albanian Jews living in pre-war Albania. The largest Jewish ...
Why is the biggest holocaust in all humanity being hidden from history? Is it because it lasted so long that it has become a habit? It’s been well documented that the killing of Indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere since the beginning of colonization has been estimated at 120 million. Yet nobody wants to speak about it.Today historians, anthropologists and archaeologists are revealing that information on this holocaust is being deliberately eliminated from the knowledge base and consciousness of North Americans and the world. A completely false picture is being painted of our people as suffering from social ills of ...
On November 21st, 2015 it was the 20th anniversary of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accord – a treaty signed by four Presidents (the USA, Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) that led to an end of the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a result of the Dayton Peace Accord a new “independent and internationally recognized state” emerged: Bosnia-Herzegovina as a confederation of two political entities (the Republic of Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation) but ethnically strictly divided into three segments composed by the Serb, Croat and Muslim (today Boshnjak) controlled territories. In contrast to the Republic of Srpska (49% of the territory ...
American capitalism is based on plunder. With the continental USA plundered, American capitalism hoped to continue enriching itself by plundering Russia as it did under Yeltsin, carefully including the Russian “Atlanticist Integrationists” in the spoils in order to have support from the liberal, progressive forces in Russia for stripping Russia of its assets. But Putin more or less put a halt to the American/Israeli rape of Russia, although it still continues through the neoliberal economics that Harvard brainwashed into the Russian central bank and economics profession. Brainwashed Russian economists are the main reason Washington is able to punish a powerful ...
Hardly any knowledgeable person doubts that Zionist ideology is the purest form of racism. Zionism is Jewish disguised racism as a raison d’etat. Israel comes right after the U. S., as far as racism is concerned. That is why the U. S. donates to this racist regime $ 3.8 bn per year in order to keep this occupation regime going. Should anybody doubt the racism of the Israeli leadership, read the following article.[1]Racism among the Israeli leadership is legendary. It started out with the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, saying: “Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it ...
The December 17 UN Security Council meeting, on the announced creation of a Kosovo armed forces, featured some noticeable contrasts.In accordance with Kosovo not being a UN member state and the Serb position on UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (recognizing Kosovo as a continued part of Serbia), the disputed former Yugoslav territory wasn't formally represented at the discussion as a nation. Kosovo's leader, Hashim Thaci, sat with a nameplate having his name, as opposed to Kosovo. Countries recognizing Kosovo's independence made it a point to state Thaci as the president of Kosovo and Aleksandar Vučić as president of Serbia. Nations not ...
Israel is concealing vital records to prevent darkest periods in its history from coming to light, academics sayAl-Jazeera – 9 June 2016Israel is locking away millions of official documents to prevent the darkest episodes in its history from coming to light, civil rights activists and academics have warned as the country’s state archives move online.They claim government officials are concealing vital records needed for historical research, often in violation of Israeli law, in an effort to avoid damaging Israel’s image.The Israeli army has long claimed to be the “most moral” in the world.Accusations of increased secrecy come as Israel marks ...
PrefaceIt is the 30th anniversary of the first post-WWII democratic elections in Serbia and the rest of the ex-Yugoslavia.My aim in this article is to elaborate on the feature of the multi-party elections in Serbia in 1990 and to give an answer to the crucial question why did Slobodan Miloshevic with his SPS party win? After the investigation of the case we found that critical reasons for Miloshevic’s/SPS absolute electoral parliamentary and presidential victory in 1990 have been: 1) The countryside and small urban settlements voted for SPS due to the informative blockade; 2) Old population voted for SPS; 3) ...
It’s all over but the postmortems. Trump and Clinton are their parties’ presumptive nominees. Choice for voters in November amounts to death by hanging or firing squad. Democracy is pure fantasy. None whatever exists. Trump was the last GOP aspirant left standing after all others dropped out, an unlikely choice, a surprise winner, prevailing despite party bosses opposing him.Democrat power brokers chose Clinton before primary/caucus season began. The race was over before it started.Voters in November get to choose between a dirty business as usual billionaire racist, demagogue and a recklessly dangerous neocon racketeer, war criminal, Wall Street tool she ...
As Europe’s longest ruler, it is a surprise that Milo Djukanovic is only 58. He has served as prime minister or president of various iterations of Montenegro since 1991 – spanning the collapse of Yugoslavia and across and beyond independence of the nation in 2006.What is the secret to Mr Djukanovic’s success? The answer is depressingly predictable: clientelism and the buying – or, depending on your perspective, stealing – of power.The beauty of Montenegro hides this ugly truth. Most know it as a tourist idyll with pristine beaches, crystal lakes and picturesque mountains. But holidaymakers rarely realize they enter less ...
A good tradition of the British and the West European colonialismOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Join the debate on our Twitter feed: @OvsishteRead our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Belgian Congo
On 10 August 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump accused president Barak Hussein Obama and Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton of co-founding the jihadist rebel organization ISIS (Islamic State) operating mainly in Syria and Iraq but with operative in many Middle Eastern countries and around the world. Trump used Obama’s full name to provoke a racist-xenophobic response from the public about the Arabic-sounding name rooted in East Africa. Immediately, critics insisted that Trump made outrageous and ignorant comments about complex foreign affairs matters he does not fully comprehend.The following day Trump clarified that he meant exactly what he said and ...
On March 29 Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia will celebrate 15 years of becoming NATO member states. The way to the alliance membership was not simple for newly born independent countries. They have reached great success in fulfilling many of NATO demands: they have considerably increased their defence expenditures, renewed armaments and increased the number of military personnel. In turn, they get used to rely on more powerful member states, their advice, help and even decision making. All these 15 years they felt more or less safe because of proclaimed European NATO allies’ capabilities.Unfortunately, now it is high time to doubt. The ...
For the second consecutive year in a row, Estonia once again rang in the New Year by having one of its senior officials bring up a debunked border scandal with Russia, which is nothing more than a desperate attempt to generate attention from its distracted American ally and promote ultra-nationalist narratives at home.The most senior official in Estonia's legislative assembly rang in the New Year by provocatively claiming that 1920 Treaty of Tartu between his nation and Russia “is still valid today, according to international law”, which echoed a statement almost exactly a year prior by its Foreign Minister who ...
QASEM SULEJMANI FOUGHT IN BIH AGAINST SERBS?! A Croatian journalist discovers who was killed by the Iranian general! It was important for James Bond the Middle East, turning the WAR on in SYRIA!Hasan Haidar Diab (56) is a prominent Croatian journalist and war reporter. However, his link to the Balkans is in the Eighties of the last century, when from native Beirut to study in the then SFR Yugoslavia, and that is due thanks to the character and part of Josip Broz Tito, or his role in the Non-Aligned MovementOver the years of the war, primarily because of the knowledge ...
I graduated from the exact same PHD Program at Harvard that produced Kissinger and Brzezinski before me. They gave me Kissinger’s old office at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. I also went through the exact same Soviet/Russian Studies Program at Harvard that produced Brzezinski before me, and passed my PHD Oral/General Examinations in Soviet Politics and Russian History under Adam Ulam and Ned Keenan, respectively. R.I.P. Obama was behind me at Harvard Law School.Brzezinski has been Obama’s mentor and foreign policy guru since Obama’s student days at Columbia. Zbig ran Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign on foreign affairs and defense, and ...
The magazine is covering the research gaps uncovered by global Western hoax mainstream media platforms and academic teaching & research institutions.
This is an alternative information & academic research digest platform with the purpose to offer an alternative “another side of the truth”.
The magazine is independent, private, and free of any influence by any institution, organization, government, or pressure group. URL: www.global-politics.eu
The situation in Latvia also followed the same pattern. Estimates suggest that approx. 75,000 Latvian Jews fell into Nazi hands. Moreover, even prior to the persecution of Latvian Jews by the German Nazi authorities, they had suffered anti-Semitic excesses at the hands of the Latvian militias. Chief among these were members of the Azsgargi para-military group and the fascist anti-Semitic organization – Perkonkrusts – which later collaborated with the Nazis in their annihilation of the Jewish community. During the October pogrom in Riga the Latvian Auxiliary Police, all the cities synagogues were destroyed, and 400 Jews were killed. According to German SS records some 38,000 Jews had been murdered by the end of December 1941.
The reality: The latest Eurostat report on the situation in Lithuania shows that up to 29% of the inhabitants are living on the verge of poverty, with the situation remaining unchanged for eight consecutive years. At the same time, Lithuania is among the top five states of the EU where people are being employed for meagre salaries.
