Talk:Liepāja

The following article is the biggest crap that I have read about Liepaja. When Liepaja became cultural and industrial center of the region name of the city was Libava.

There is no information about Jews being murdered during WW2 by Latvian Waffen SS troops. There is no information about port, factories infrastructure that’s built by so called occupants.

During Soviet time city wasn’t close, all people needed was passport to enter the city.

This is another pathetic method to rewrite history by Latvian nationalists.

If you have any questions in regards of my remarks, please contact me on atorgash@gmail.com

• Or, you could write it yourself instead of whining about it. Chris 02:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Latvian nationalists or Russian nationalists/Soviet apologists?

The following article is the biggest crap that I have read about Liepaja. When Liepaja became cultural and industrial center of the region name of the city was Libava. There is no information about Jews being murdered during WW2 by Latvian Waffen SS troops. There is no information about port, factories infrastructure that’s built by so called occupants. During Soviet time city wasn’t close, all people needed was passport to enter the city. This is another pathetic method to rewrite history by Latvian nationalists. If you have any questions in regards of my remarks, please contact me on atorgash@gmail.com Or, you could write it yourself instead of whining about it. Chris 02:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Nice try - changed everything into its exact opposite. Your Comment and your manipulation of the article is the biggest crap that I have ever read about Liepaja! It is possible that during the so called "Russification" period, starting from the second half of the 19th century and lasting until 1917, "Libava" was the russificized version (or better: Russian "malapropism") of the German denomination "Libau" for the city. If someone made Liepaja a cultural and industrial center during that period, it's still the Baltic Germans of Courland and Liepaja that would have to be mentioned in first place. But I have read absolutely nothing about them in the current version of the article. Seems like Luthuanian and Russian nationalists and Soviet apologists go hand in hand in erasing the remembrance of the Baltic Germans' 800-years-long regency of Courland and their primary contribution to the developement of the country until World War I. Their regency and benefit is a historic fact, no matter if the Baltic Germans had to recognize the King of Sweden, the King of Poland-Lithuania or the Russian Tsar as their highest sovereign. The baltic provinces were never under direct control of one of those latter powers. Things did not change until the already mentioned Russification period, which weakened the position of the Baltic Germans.

Regarding the Soviet Occupation of Lithuania in 1939 (or 1940) and its German "Liberation" in 1941, the following has to be stated: There is no information in the article of the wide-spread collaboration of Jews with the Soviet occupants' regime (according to Baltic and Polish sources). Immediately after or even simultaniously to advances of German forces into Soviet territory, outrages and massacres by local population against Jews or by Ukrainians against Poles etc. took place all along the Soviet western border. The Jews as a whole were regarded as Soviet collaborators and those feelings eventually mixed with older antisemitism. I don't want to justify these actions, but it needs to be stated that in other contexts of the 20th century, "retaliation" against accused collaborators, which can mean individuals, groups of people or complete tribes and peoples, had even been praised by the Soviet regime and its western allies! No matter what's your point of view about this issue, if you want to blame someone for these massacres, you have to blame the local population and not the Germans or some ominous "Nazis" and their ominous-as-well "collaborators". The often heard claim that the SS organisation was instigating local population to kill Jews is discussed very controversial among serious historians and a final answer has still not been achieved. Even if it proved true, the question remains what effect such a instigation could have had on the locals, since they took action within shortest time after their "liberation" and therefore apparently didn't need to be instigated ...

A completely different subject is the case of the Waffen-SS. This elite combat troop was also recruiting Lithuanians and members of many other nations from all over Europe to fight aga