Hacker News Reader

Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

When I saw the memorial on the edge of town near Tallin in 2007 it wasn't in good shape. I think some resentment runs deep. The german graves are well tended. I don't think there is any deeper sub-text, its just one is a brutalist war memorial and the other is a more personal thing of headstones.

The collection of "we don't need a lenin statue" nearby was cool. Lots of standard-pose, lying on the ground. I think the estonians were careful to dismount these but not (if you will excuse the metaphor) 'desecrate' them because .. well.. there are sensitivities.

View on HN

Last time I visited the Occupation Museum in Tallinn, the old Lenin etc statues were stored inside - downstairs near the toilets, quite appropriately.

There is a German soldier's cemetery in Viljandi: https://www.visitestonia.com/en/german-soldiers-cemetery-in-... ... which, as I understand it, was developed and is maintained with funding from the German government. I wonder if 'Mother Russia' bothers to contribute similarly to Russian-soldier related memorials in Estonia?

I think there is a certain degree of symmetry breaking between Russians and Germans in WWII.

No historian I read draws this parallel even when they refer specifically to the Russian invasion and occupation of the Baltic. Germans actively recruited Baltic collaborators and ran over twenty concentration camps in Estonia killing Jews from the Baltic region.

Your statement is horrible and I totally reject it.

You may have read too hastily. The comment said there is "symmetry breaking" (i.e. "asymmetry"), not that there is "symmetry".

I think you're misunderstanding, perhaps I should have added /s. There is absolutely a lot of difference between russians and germans during wwii (thus there is symmetry breaking).

Thank you for the clarification. I read the sentence differently and I apologize.

I wonder what you mean. Of course there is symmetry between Russian and German invasions and occupations of Baltic (and other) countries. Both powers wanted to establish their spheres of influence over smaller countries, and eventually each other. They made the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact according to this plan, they had a common victory parade in Brest-Litovsk after they had together conquered Poland. Both powers liquidated their real and perceived enemies.

This doesn't mean they were entirely the same, but there is a lot of similarity.

I'm not sure who is saying what in this thread, but Russians had their share of atrocities. Note this is very graphic and haunting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

Russian government is more keen on exploiting the grievances around Russian graves for political purposes than actually caring for the graveyards abroad. The bronze warrior controversy was one big manufactured outrage.

At the same time, there are people who try to maintain a monument for the minorities and political opponents that were murdered during Stalin's Purges, and contemporary Russia rewrites history there, too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com