In his disparaging and vilifying piece on the March 16 demonstrators in Riga, Latvia ("Latvia's second coming," March 23), Richard Brodsky claims that the Latvian marchers and their sympathizers are simply nothing else but old Waffen-SS killers and their neo-Nazi friends. Similar denunciations have emanated from Moscow and Moscow's sympathizers for years.
The defamation and vilification has served the purpose to discredit the Baltic nation in the eyes of the world. The relentless accusations have kept appearing in the Russian media and often repeated in the West.
Finnish journalist and author Jukka Rislakio has examined the charges and in a book, "The Case for Latvia: Disinformation Campaign Against a Small Nation," separates documented historical fact from lies, misinformation and half-truths. His analysis helps to explain why Latvia unjustifiably but consistently tops the enemy list in public opinion polls in Russia. Latvian Holocaust scholar Andrew Ezergailis documented the origins of the falsifications in another book, "Nazi-Soviet Disinformation about the Holocaust in Nazi Occupied Latvia."
These books by no means dispute the Holocaust nor the Latvian participation in it.
I'm sure Mr. Brodsky is a well-meaning American carried away by a compelling cause. He is a member of a group called World Without Nazism, began in 2010 in Russia by Boris Shpigel, a member of the Russian Federation Council and the head of the World Congress of Russian Jewry. In the future, I hope Mr. Brodsky is more careful about what he says and does not parrot the line begun by Stalin and repeated by Moscow today.
Maris Mantenieks
Medina, Ohio