A possibly unpopular opinion, but if you are determined to fight off invasion by Communist Soviets and a powerful well-equipped army arrives that will help you achieve your goals, I’m sure it would be tempting to help them to help you.
Sure, it may not warrant a monument, but I think we should be careful of jumping to judgement based on hindsight, not empathy.
Good!
I read the actual report 4 links deep because the title smelled clickbaity. Not only is the title clickbait, the article is misleading.
TL;DR: 15 experts didn’t call this a monument to SS collaborators, one journalist (and an editor) decided to anyway because clicks.
From OP’s article:
>The experts concluded that the erection of the statue paid “homage to the Nazi regime, to justify certain war crimes or to deliberately hurt people,”
And here’s the original text which I got through Google because if I translated it myself my disgust that this passes for journalism might seep into my translation.
>As concluded by the experts, it was never the intention of the municipality with the creation of this work of art to pay tribute to the Nazi regime, to justify certain war crimes or to deliberately hurt people.
O-kay….
And then there’s this:
>the monument calls attention only to prisoners from Latvia who were Nazi collaborators serving in the Waffen-SS during World War II
Whoever wrote this is incompetent. That “only” should be nowhere near this sentence. Might make some sense if I translate it to Dutch (and even then…), but in English this is not at all representative of the facts.
15 experts concluded that this monument wasn’t appropriate partly because it didn’t provide enough context, didn’t do justice to the complex history of the association, and was in an environment not familiar enough with the nuances of what it honored (Belgium/Latvia). That’s it.
3 comments
A possibly unpopular opinion, but if you are determined to fight off invasion by Communist Soviets and a powerful well-equipped army arrives that will help you achieve your goals, I’m sure it would be tempting to help them to help you.
Sure, it may not warrant a monument, but I think we should be careful of jumping to judgement based on hindsight, not empathy.
Good!
I read the actual report 4 links deep because the title smelled clickbaity. Not only is the title clickbait, the article is misleading.
TL;DR: 15 experts didn’t call this a monument to SS collaborators, one journalist (and an editor) decided to anyway because clicks.
From OP’s article:
>The experts concluded that the erection of the statue paid “homage to the Nazi regime, to justify certain war crimes or to deliberately hurt people,”
And here’s the original text which I got through Google because if I translated it myself my disgust that this passes for journalism might seep into my translation.
>As concluded by the experts, it was never the intention of the municipality with the creation of this work of art to pay tribute to the Nazi regime, to justify certain war crimes or to deliberately hurt people.
O-kay….
And then there’s this:
>the monument calls attention only to prisoners from Latvia who were Nazi collaborators serving in the Waffen-SS during World War II
Whoever wrote this is incompetent. That “only” should be nowhere near this sentence. Might make some sense if I translate it to Dutch (and even then…), but in English this is not at all representative of the facts.
15 experts concluded that this monument wasn’t appropriate partly because it didn’t provide enough context, didn’t do justice to the complex history of the association, and was in an environment not familiar enough with the nuances of what it honored (Belgium/Latvia). That’s it.
Fuck the media.