A teacher has started a campaign against an annual march honouring Latvians who fought on the side of Nazi Germany and assisted the mass murder of around 80,000 Jews.
Monica Lowenberg, who lives in Harrow, started a petition in January to fight against the Legions Day March, which will take place in Latvia's capital city, Riga, on Friday.
The cause is close to her heart, because her uncle, Paul Theodore Lowenberg, is thought to have died in the Riga Ghetto concentration camp when he was 19.
Ms Lowenberg, who is also a doctorate of Holocaust studies, said: “A number of these men are being publicly honoured with state official flowers and rewarded with the title hero, when in reality, a number of these men were involved in mass murders, but nobody is admitting to these tragic facts.
“If we endorse this behaviour, it’s as bad as saying it’s alright to commit genocide. To honour these men, who lined people up and shot them into mass burial graves, is a travesty of justice.”
She set up the petition on 20 January this year and said she had “goosebumps” when she found out it was the same date as her late uncle’s birthday.
It so far has just over 430 signatures, but needs 100,000 British signatures for the British embassy to take action.
She has also been receiving support from Bob Blackman, MP for Harrow East, who set up an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons, asking the Government to take "all possible action" to pressure the Latvian Government to ban the marches.
He said: “I’m very pleased that Monica has bought this to our attention, because we should not be honouring the deaths in the Second World War.
“It’s had such strong support in the House of Commons, so I’m delighted. We need to do all we can to combat these marches and do our upmost to ensure that Nazis are not commemorated in this way.
“The Latvian marches have a knock-on effect because they are part of the European union too, and that’s dangerous.”
To find out more about Monica’s campaign visit her blog at http://stop16marchinriga.blogspot.com/. To sign the UK petition, visit http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/27795
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