“We turned the world upside down,” said Aelita Fitingoff, a Latvian-born Jew and Yiddish musician who now lives in the United States.
An annual march by local veterans of two SS divisions that made up the Latvian Legion during World War II.
Several hundred ultranationalists, including seven veterans of Nazi Germany’s Waffen SS, marched through Riga on the independence day of the Baltic nation of Latvia.
Decades after their destruction by the Nazis, Latvia’s lost synagogues have been recreated in detailed model form as part of efforts to recapture and document the once-rich Jewish life in the Baltic country.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry slammed the production in Latvia of a show celebrating the life of alleged Nazi war criminal Herbert Cukurs.
The entrance to a nursery school in Latvia owned by an traditionalist lawmaker featured a German-language sign that advertised the establishment as being “Jew-free.”
Latvians who fought in the local unit of Nazi Germany’s Waffen SS held their annual parade on Sunday, an event which the government feared could raise tensions with Russia as former Soviet states watch events in Ukraine with growing concern
Latvia’s prime minister said she would fire a cabinet minister planning to march with local SS veterans.
Latvia’s government warned people to avoid an annual march of World War Two Waffen SS veterans through its capital Riga on Sunday, citing tensions over Ukraine.
Latvian President Andris Berzins has yet to confirm his participation in a memorial ceremony for Jewish Holocaust victims during President Shimon Peres’ visit to Latvia next week.