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Nazi ‘Diet Pill Advert A Joke’, Estonian Weekly Insists
From Radio Netherlands Worldwide An Estonian magazine insisted Monday it had not meant to cause offence with a mock advertisement showing emaciated prisoners at a Nazi concentration camp, after sparking uproar from Jewish organisations. “It was published on our jokes page. I think people living in other cultural environments than ours just don’t understand it like we do,” Sulev Vedler, deputy editor of Eesti Ekspress, told AFP. He claimed the “Doctor Mengele weight-loss pill” ad was a swipe at national gas firm GasTerm Eesti, which last month posted a photo of the Auschwitz death camp’s notorious “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate more »
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Calls to Ban Baltic neo-Nazi Marches
From The Jewish Chronicle International petitions are being put together to urge the governments of Lithuania and Latvia to ban upcoming marches by neo-Nazis through their respective capitals. The “Legionnaires Day” march in Riga by Latvian war veterans who fought for the Nazis is due to take place on March 16. And on March 11, neo-Nazis will hold a parade in Vilnius on Lithuania’s independence day. Monica Lowenberg, whose uncle was sent to the Riga Ghetto concentration camp when he was 19, is behind the petition to persuade the Latvian government to stop the Riga march. Riga was the scene more »
Russian Angry over Estonian SS Bill
From The Voice of Russia Recognizing Waffen-SS soldiers as ‘freedom fighters’ will split Estonian society, said Vladimir Metelitsa, the head of the Tallinn Society of World War II Veterans. On Friday, February 24, when Estonia celebrates Independence Day, the country’s Sejm is voting on a controversial draft law. Estonia claims that the bill aims to define everyone who fought for the nation’s independence and that there is no intent to specifically honor those who fought in the 20th Estonian Waffen SS division. ‘But the bill glorifies those who fought in Hitler`s army”, Vladimir Metelitsa, head of the Tallinn Society of more »
Estonia Opens Memorial to Victims of the Holocaust
From the ITF Estonia opened a memorial dedicated to Estonian Jews who were victims of the Holocaust on 27 January in Tallinn. The names of 947 Estonian Jews that were murdered during the Holocaust in Estonia have been identified and will be recorded in the “Gallery of Memory” that was opened in the Center of Estonian Jewish Community on the Holocaust Memorial Day. The designers of the memorial are Vanessa Jaretski and Aleksei Nugis. The project was financed by private donations and supported by Estonian Government. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip delivered a speech at the opening of the memorial at more »
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Estonian Jewish Community Center Opens Holocaust Memorial Gallery
From Estonian Public Broadcasting A “Gallery of Memory” installation dedicated to 974 Jews killed in Estonia during the Holocaust was opened at the Jewish Center in Tallinn on January 27, the date that marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “The gallery consists of niches in which glass pieces are placed bearing the names of all the Jews we know to have been killed in Estonia up until January 20, 1942,” said the center’s executive director Vadim Ryvlin, referring to the time of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in which Estonia was declared “Judenfrei.” Continue Reading: SOURCE.
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Memorial of Estonian Jews Soon to be Opened
From the European Jewish Congress Click here for the original article: SOURCE. The names of about one thousand Estonian Jews that were murdered during the Holocaust in Estonia, are now recorded in the „Gallery of Memory“ that will be opened in the Center of Estonian Jewish Community on the Holocaust Memorial Day, on January 27th. In 2012 seventy years will have passed from Wannsee Conference, where the leading figures of Nazi-Germany adopted the plan for the total and final annihilation of the Jewish people. In a statistical overview that was prepared for the Conference, Estonia was declared „Judenfrei“– free of more »
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World War II: Push To Honor Estonian SS Nazi Unit Sparks Outrage
From Die Velt Though still vague on details, plans are once again afoot in Estonia to posthumously honor as “freedom fighters” those who served in Estonian units of the Waffen SS, an armed wing of the Schutzstaffel police squadrons. Similar past initiatives, which nationalists say are meant to pay tribute to those who pushed back the Soviet army, have failed. But new draft legislation to honor the Estonian SS members is being drawn up, and is expected to be introduced into the Estonian Parliament in March. In Germany, the project has been met with outrage. The Berlin Tageszeitung, a left-leaning more »
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Baltics Mark 70th Genocide Memorial Day
Yesterday, June 14th marked the Soviet Communist Genocide Victims’ Memorial Day – held annually in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The date acknowledges the beginning of a large series of deportations, of people labelled as ‘anti-Soviet elements’, to Siberian Gulags, a policy that impacted upon thousands of people (in a region recently labelled as the ‘Blood Lands’ by academic Timothy Snyder). Women and children were also relocated to remote regions of central Russia, for example to the Novosibirsk Oblast. In reading the tributes and media articles dedicated to those that died and suffered during this period, a more »
Posted in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
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Andrus Ansip: Estonia’s own Guardian of European Jewry?
The Estonian Prime Minister, Andrus Ansip, has been frequently mentioned in connection with Jewish CEE issues, over the past few weeks. Perhaps most famous in other European countries for his role in the infamous ‘Bronze Night’ affair (the 2007 relocation of the Soviet War Second World War Memorial the ‘Bronze Soldier of Tallinn’ – a pervasive image of Soviet occupation and oppression for native Estonians), Andrus Ansip, during a visit to Brussels in late May, answered a charge from European Jewish leaders – as well as representatives from California’s Wiesenthal Centre – that Estonia had done very little, since gaining more »
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Property Restitution in the Baltic States
The question of property restitution to Jewish communities of Central and East Europe is an ongoing legal process. In some countries, the issue is an abiding source of tension, a modern example of conflict that exists between majority and minority populations in Europe, especially within transition countries. Most recently, property restitution has featured prominently in Lithuanian politics. Legislation issued in 1995 controls those who are eligible to apply for the restitution of property. Only observant members of a religious group can apply for the restitution of certain properties. Resultantly, since 1995, only claims from Lithuania’s Orthodox Jewish community, a group more »
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