Dear friends and colleagues,

It is my honour to invite you to the opening of the exhibition The Latvian Tragedy-1941, a joint exhibition compiled bythe Museum of the Occupation of Latvia and The Museum “Jews in Latvia” and co-sponsored by the Latvian Council of Jewish Communities. The opening ceremony will take place on May 7th at 18:30 in the exhibition space ‘Gallery Cafeteria’, on the ground floor of the ASP building.

The Latvian Tragedy-1941 shows the grave atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union through the events which occurred in Latvia in the year 1941. Latvia, along with the other Baltic Countries, had the terrible misfortune of experiencing two occupations in one year. Each regime, while their ideological facades may have differed, committed political repressions, grave acts of persecution, and genocidal atrocities. Set in the frame of a single terrible year suffered by Latvia, this exhibition gives the viewer a unique chance to compare the two totalitarian regimes and learn the fate of those Jewish and non-Jewish Latvians persecuted.

If you or someone you know would like to attend this event and does not have a pass to enter the EP, please fill out THIS FORM and return it to oskars.gruzins@europarl.europa.eu prior to the event (those needing passes are asked to arrive at the Place Luxembourg entrance at least 30 minutes prior to the event).

I look forward to welcoming you all on May 7th at 18:30 in the exhibition space ‘Gallery Cafeteria’, on the ground floor of the ASP building.

Sincerely,

Sandra Kalniete,
MEP Latvia

A former interior minister of Hungary, Bela Biszku, who oversaw the crushing of the 1956 revolution, has been arrested on suspicion of war crimes.

Mr Biszku, 90, is accused of failing to protect civilians in wartime, and of responsibility for ordering security forces to open fire on crowds.

He denies the charges, for which he could face a life sentence.

Budapest’s acting chief prosecutor, Tibor Ibolya, said he wanted Mr Biszku put under house arrest.

“Today…prosecutors have detained and heard as a suspect Bela Biszku, one of the key designers and one of those responsible for the reprisals that followed the 1956 revolution and uprising,” he said.

It is the first time any leader of the 1956 crackdown has been pursued in law. Mr Biszku is the only surviving member of the Communist Party’s interim executive committee.

The uprising in 1956 against Hungary’s communist dictatorship and its submission to the Soviet Union began in October and toppled the government. But within three weeks it was crushed by a Soviet invasion.

‘Good shape’

Mr Biszku is accused of responsibility for ordering the security forces to open fire on crowds in Budapest and Salgotarjan in November and December 1956. About 50 people were killed in those two incidents alone.

Further charges, relating to his role in allegedly interfering with the courts to ensure heavy sentences, including the death sentence for the revolutionaries, may be added. At least 226 people were executed.

Two days before his 91st birthday, Bela Biszku went quietly when police officers came to his home on Monday morning.

Mr Ibolya said he was in good physical shape, but he had refused to make a statement to prosecutors.

One of the mysteries of the case is exactly why it has taken so long. It is 22 years since the fall of communism, and 44 years since Hungary signed the 1968 New York Convention on bringing those responsible for war crimes to justice.

In 2011 the so-called Biszku Law was drawn up, allowing for the 1968 New York Convention to be incorporated into Hungarian law.

In February this year, the Budapest Prosecution Service began an investigation, in reaction to an individual complaint against him.

Asked by the BBC to explain the timing of Mr Biszku’s arrest, the chief prosecutor mentioned the change in the law.

The arrest comes soon after the detention, then release into house arrest, of 97-year-old Laszlo Csatary, the former police chief of the Jewish ghetto in Kosice, who oversaw both the ghetto and the deportations to Auschwitz in the spring of 1944.

Adam Gellert, an expert in international criminal law who helped draw up the new legislation, said: “What the two cases have in common is that in both there is evidence of state-organised terror, and state-organised crimes.

“These cases should be treated on an equal footing, and should be publicised as much possible.”

BBC World News, 11 July 2012

More than 500 newly identified victims of the Srebrenica massacre are to be reburied on the 17th anniversary of the tragedy in the Bosnian town.

Thousands of people – most of them relatives of the victims – have gathered ahead of the ceremony at the Potocari memorial centre.

Some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed after the town was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.

The massacre has been recognised as genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal.

It was the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II.

‘Measure of justice’

About 30,000 people are expected to attend the reburials in Potocari later on Wednesday.

“It is the pain, an endless pain, and when 11 July arrives, every year, this pain becomes unbearable,” Sevdija Halilovic, whose father’s remains will be laid to rest, told the AFP news agency.

“My two brothers were also killed in the massacre but have not been found yet,” she added.

Among those to be reburied are said to be 48 teenagers.

Nearly 7,000 victims have been identified, but the search goes on.

Flags are flying at half-mast on government buildings on Wednesday as a day of national mourning has been declared in Bosnia.

Two former Bosnian Serb leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, are currently on trial in at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague over the 1995 massacre and other war crimes charges. They both deny the charges.

“A measure of justice is finally being served for the victims in courts in The Hague and Bosnia-Hercegovina, as the perpetrators of this atrocity, including Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, are now being called to account for their actions,” US President Barack Obama has said in a statement.

However, some relatives and friends of the victims have voiced anger over the delays of the trials in The Hague.

Link to original article

BBC World News, 27 June 2012

For the first time, Russians have the chance to examine the evidence surrounding the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family following the Russian Revolution almost 100 years ago.

An exhibition on their detention, killings and the subsequent investigations into them has opened at the Russian State Archives in Moscow.

It comes as Russians continue to reassess the reputation of their last tsar.

He and his family and four members of staff were killed without trial by Bolsheviks in the early hours of 17 July 1918, in the cellar of a house in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

The Soviet authorities drew a veil over what had happened.

The exhibition’s curator, Marina Siderova, says Russians now want to know more about the subject.

‘Great interest’

“No one was talking about this before,” she says.

“In Soviet times it was taboo, a closed subject and probably now we are only just starting to talk about this tragedy.

“The number of people visiting the exhibition shows there is great interest in this topic.”

Visitors can see material gathered by investigators shortly after the killings and in post-Soviet times, as well as objects and clothing that belonged to the family.

Tsar Nicholas II’s hand-written letter of abdication is on display next to his personal diary.

The Mauser pistol and a long knife belonging to the head of the execution squad, Yakov Yurovsky, can be seen.

Some of the bullets used in the killings are on show, alongside photos and diagrams of where the Romanovs and their executioners were positioned.

An unfinished embroidery by Nicholas’s wife, Alexandra, is displayed, as well as uniforms worn by the tsar and his heir, Alexei, while photographs show the family doing mundane tasks, such as gardening, during their detention by the Bolsheviks.

The remains of Nicholas, Alexandra and three of their five children were found in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The bodies of Alexei and the fourth daughter were not found until 2007, fuelling rumours in the meantime that they had survived.

As part of the official identification process DNA tests were carried out and lifelike models of their heads, based on the remains found in 1991, were made and are on display.

‘In perspective’

A 16-year-old visitor, Alexandra, said she had not learnt enough about the period at school. “I think this is a very interesting topic and every Russian person should know their history and that’s why I’m here.”

Her friend Vladimir, 18, added: “I’m interested in why the emperor’s family were killed. I think it was unfair. I’m interested in how it happened and why people did it.”

In Soviet times Nicholas was portrayed as a weak and incompetent leader, whose decisions had led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects.

In 1998, the then president, Boris Yeltsin, attended the reburial in St Petersburg of the remains found in 1991 and described the killings as one of the most shameful pages in Russian history.

Despite doubts among some members of the Russian Orthodox Church that the remains of Nicholas and his family have ever been found, it bestowed sainthood on the Romanovs in 2000.

Anglo-Russian historian Nikolai Tolstoy, who is also chancellor of the International Monarchist League, sees the exhibition as part of the reassessment of the tsar’s reign.

“There were many bad things about the tsar’s regime, but he inherited an autocracy and his acts are now being seen in perspective and in comparison to the terrible crimes committed by the Soviets,” he says.

“His regime had the possibility for reform.”

There are, he adds, growing numbers of books on the tsarist era, while imperial icons are increasingly seen in Russian churches.

Pro-monarchist groups have taken part in the recent wave of anti-Putin protests in Russia and Mr Tolstoy says they see the restoration of the monarchy as a way of reining in an “increasingly autocratic” president.

“They want a constitutional monarchy, which would help diffuse power at the top,” he says.

In 2008 Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that Nicholas and his family were the victims of political repression and should be rehabilitated. Now Russians have a chance to make up their own minds.

Link to original article

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience is calling for the creation of a supranational judicial body for the gravest crimes committed by the Communist dictatorships. The call was announced at the conclusion of the international conference “Legal Settlement of Communist Crimes“ held on 5 June, 2012 in the European Parliament in Brussels under the auspices of a number of Members of the European Parliament, including its two former Presidents, Mr Jerzy Buzek and Mr HansGert Pöttering.

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience is founding an international legal expert group to work on a road map for establishing a supranational institution of justice. The Platform endorses the initiative of the Reconciliation of European Histories group in the European Parliament to give the national archives which harbour information on the crimes of totalitarianism a status of European importance and is calling upon institutions of the European Union and national governments worldwide to support this work.

For more information please contact:

Göran Lindblad
President
president@memoryandconscience.eu , tel.: +46 706710366

Dr. Neela Winkelmann
Managing Director
director@memoryandconscience.eu , tel.: +420 221 008 508

Background:

Over the past twenty years since the fall of Communism inEurope, national courts have been inefficient in prosecuting war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and torture committed during the dictatorship. Renowned legal experts, specialists and members of the European Parliament from about twenty countries who convened at the international conference “Legal Settlement of Communist Crimes“ 5 June, 2012 in Brussels agreed that an international effort is needed to achieve justice for the crimes of Communism, in order to uphold the universal human rights values which also lie at the foundation of the European Union.

Conference speakers included Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Albin Eser, Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg and former Judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, Prof. Egils Levits, Judge at the European Court of Justice and Dr. Łukasz Kamiński, President of the Institute of National Remembrance from Poland.

It was stressed at the conference that the prohibition of retroactivity does not apply to international crimes, as has been repeatedly ruled by the European Court of Human Rights. Although there are examples of successful prosecution of the crimes as e.g. inPoland, overall the national prosecuting authorities have produced very insufficient results so far. Therefore, while national law needs to be strengthened, international legal experts encourage the use of supranational law. Supporting approaches for reaching justice for the Communist crimes were discussed. The gap between policy and legislation on the issue of human rights in the European Union was also pointed out. Participating legal experts from Western European countries were not aware of the scope and gravity of the crimes committed behind the Iron Curtain. This demonstrates again that significantly more effort and resources need to be invested into coming to terms with the legacy of Communism on the European level. Achieving supranational justice for the Communist crimes is also important in the context of today’s economic crisis inEuropeand the threat of growing extremist movements.

At the opening of the event, former Parliament President Jerzy Buzek stressed the commitment to bring the perpetrators of Communist crimes to justice made by the justice ministers of the EU in the Warsaw Declaration of 23 August, 2011. Former President Hans Gert Pöttering concluded: “Let us never forget that our European Union is based on values. If we defend these values, our continent will have a good future.”

The conference was greeted by the Joint Baltic American National Committee from theUSA, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People from theUkraineand the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in exile which also endorses the establishment of the new international court.

Overview of the Event
 Agenda of the Event with audio recording of the sessions
Photos of the Event
Programme Booklet for the Event
Press release by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience
Press release by the EPP political group
New Tang Dynasty Television report on the Event

Agenda 
Speakers Bios
Summary of the Event
Audio Recording of the Entire Event
Photos of the Event
Speech of President Daul
Speech of MEP Vaidere
Speech of MEP Schopflin
Speech of MEP Landsbergis
Power Point of Mr. Mezmalis

At the end of 2011 Andrey Kovatchev, Vice-chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament and Member of the Reconciliation of European Histories Group, supported the distribution of the Bulgarian documentary “Goryani” (“mountain dwellers” in Eng.) directed by Mr Atanas Kirjakov. 

“Goryani” is devoted to one of the most traumatic, but also most remarkable moments of the new Bulgarian history – the resistance movement of the Goryani against the communist rule in the period between 1944 and 1956. The film is based on authentic archival and documental evidence, as well as the memories of living members of the movement and their successors. The film was first presented on 27 September 2011 and it was greeted with huge interest by the Bulgarian civil society.

The Goryani formed the biggest Bulgarian organised movement against the communist authority. At its peak, the resistance involved a few thousand people across the whole country. It was very active during the most oppressive years of the totalitarian rule – the repression during Stalinism and land collectivisation. Despite the existing documents and evidence, this movement remains largely unexplored outside the academic circle. 

In this sense, the information about the Goryani gives eloquent testimony against the widespread idea of a fairly peaceful transition to a communist dictatorship inBulgaria, as well as the foreign perception ofBulgariaas an obedient Soviet satellite. The authentic nature of the movement and its role for the age of totalitarianism have made the film “Goryani” an important evidence of the real Bulgarian stance to the communist rule. 

The film will be distributed among key academic and memorial centres acrossEurope. The film will also form part of the curiculum of several Bulgarian secondary schools, thus constituting a key basis for educating young Bulgarians in the spirit of democracy and freedom.