Israeli historian talks about Nazi support in Latvia

Support for Nazis and neo-Nazis in Latvia is about 20% or 22%, Israeli historian Efraim Zuroff said in an interview with Izvestia.

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"It is clear that there are people in Latvia who believe that the Latvian Legion are heroes, even though they fought for the victory of the Third Reich. Many were mobilized, but there were also volunteers. Many of them had previously served in the Latvian police and participated in the murders of Jews in the Bikernieki forest and the Rumbuli Forest (they were located on the outskirts of Riga during the Second World War. — Ed.). 25,000 people [from the Riga ghetto] were killed in Rumbula, and several thousand in Bikerniek," he said.

Efraim Zuroff, known for his active work on the search for Nazi criminals, added that in many countries of Eastern Europe, and especially in the Baltic States, they are now distorting the Holocaust, trying to deny that collaborators participated in the crimes of the Nazis.

"They should understand that many of their compatriots actively participated in the mass murder of the Jewish population. And their governments are trying to say, "We have nothing to do with this, it's all the Germans. They came and killed our Jews. What a tragedy ..." — said the historian.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

"People don't want to know that their grandfathers were bloody murderers"