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Calls to ban Baltic neo-Nazi marches

March 8, 2012 13:24
The Latvian \"Legionnaires Day\" march in Riga, which honours those who fought on the side of Nazis

By

Emma Stock

1 min read

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 of one of the most numbing Holocaust atrocities in the region. In a period of about ten days, close to 30,000 Latvian Jews including women, children and the elderly were taken out of the city's ghetto and shot into mass graves.