After 68 Years, Old Joe and the Fuhrer Still Going At It

Friday marked the 68th anniversary of Germany's official surrender to the Soviet Union. Because over half of the population of Riga is ethnic Russian, this anniversary is a big deal here. Much of the city's population wore orange and black ribbons on their person and covered their cars with flags of the same likeness. At night, there was a celebration in one of the parks with fireworks.

Naturally, it is really only the Russians who celebrate this. The actual Latvians are extremely indifferent on the matter in that May 9, 1945 only signifies the transfer of power from one oppressive regime to another.

After speaking with a few people concerning the matter, I learned that on the 16th of March, there are similar celebrations made in commemoration of a victory by Latvian SS troops over the Red Army with marches and the like.

So on one hand, we have old Soviet redliners celebrating the victory over Germany; on the other, Latvian SS vets celebrating a win over the Red Army; and in the middle are the rest of the people who really could not care less about either one. Does anyone else find this as interesting as I do?

In light of such interest, my day was spent at work and then jumping on a train heading to the town of Salaspills, upon which I got off at the dinkiest, most remote train stop I've seen. After wandering in the woods totally lost, I made a few phone calls and was able to find my destination: a Nazi concentration camp that now holds a memorial to those thousands who died there. It was a bit eerie, to say the least. A large plaque above the entrance reads, "Beyond this gate, the earth groans." They have constructed a nice memorial there, with statues and monuments that are covered in flowers placed there by local visitors.

It still is unfathomable to me how such atrocities occurred in the "modern" era. Just yesterday I finished reading Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. For those unfamiliar with the novel, it is the tale of King Richard and his return to England to reclaim the usurped throne from his brother Prince John with the help of one of his knights, Ivanhoe, and Robin Hood and his merry men (It really is a great read and its images have added to the mystic of all the forests and castles I've been frequenting). One of the main characters in the novel is a Jew and throughout the story we see how much persecution and revile the Jewish people felt in those dark times. Ironically, since then, time has not eradicated the prejudice and inhumanity towards them - and Salaspills is living proof that only 68 years ago, the situation had changed little.