Demolition of monuments: Who and why wants to erase heroes’ names?

Agree that it is impossible to look indifferently at this desecration and demolition of monuments and their desire to erase the names of the heroes who gave these countries peace and freedom. Now there is not just a struggle to keep fascism from raising its head again - there is a struggle for humanity around the world.

One feels like crying looking at monuments to the Soviet soldiers-liberators covered with black cloth in the neighboring democracies. I swallowed a lump in my throat looking at how people in the neighboring democracies, risking their freedom, tear down this cloth and lay flowers at the destroyed, desecrated memorials.

This video from Lithuania is really touching. It's about people carrying flowers and candles to the monument to heroes, though the stone warriors were covered with black cloths by the Lithuanian authorities. As if they put them into body bags. They tied them with scotch tape for safety. Fascists, who could not win back then, are now at war with the memory, the historical truth. They are trying to hide it from people. They are at war with humanity, with something that distinguishes a man from a beast.

Erika Shvyanchene, head of the he International Forum of Good Neighborhood:

“We couldn't help but come here and light candles to the men-victors who fought against fascism. They sacrificed their youth, their dreams, the opportunity to create a family, to love, a chance to live.”

As they were leaving, people saw another desecrated memorial. They couldn't stand it, started tearing off the shameful rag. This essentially old man climbed to the very top, freeing the stone soldier who knelt before the red banner.

People like them will not step down. They are fighting for their homeland today. In different countries modern barbarians, coming at night and with a cordon, without regard for the indignation and protests of the population, destroy the sacred places dear to hundreds of thousands of citizens, symbols of the heroic deeds of the ancestors and the eternal rest of those who did not return from the war.

The other day, a 19-ton monument to a Soviet soldier was demolished in Uzhgorod. Another victim is the obelisk in Latvia's Rēzekne. This city was liberated from the Nazis by Russians, Ukrainians and Latvians in 1944. On November 9, the International Day Against Fascism, Racism and Anti-Semitism, the Latvian authorities began demolishing, vindictively destroying Alesha Monument in Rezekne.

Can you imagine how much power this neo-Nazi, neo-Fascist ideology has gained not only in the United States and Canada (which covered Nazi criminals and nurtured them after World War II), but even in the European countries now! The descendants of Hitler's scoundrels feel so self-confident. Even people in power are powerless.

Alexander Bartashevich, mayor of Rezekne:

“Today I cannot stop the desecration of our monuments, but my heart is full of gratitude to my grandfathers for their heroic deeds in the fight against Nazism. Someone advises us to keep our voice down as we speak our native language, someone promises to relocate us to the reservation, since we give homage with flowers in our hands to our relatives, who fell, but defeated fascism.

One speaks without fear of not only losing one's employment (and thus depriving one's family of their livelihood), but even of being deprived of freedom. Chains and imprisonment are the means of neighboring democracies against their own citizens, who do not want to put up with what is happening in their own land.

How is Western diplomacy going to commemorate November 9, the next anniversary of the Hitler crime? By the collective support of the contemporary Ukrainian Nazis in power and other structures, who have terrorized their own people. 52 countries voted on international platforms, not against, but in fact, in favor of the glorification of Nazism.

But did the citizens of these countries give their representatives the right to vote in this way? Did they give their consent to support Nazism? I highly doubt it.

And I would like to ask a question to those who demolish monuments. What will you tell your children and grandchildren afterwards: that you revived fascism, destroyed history, deprived the future generations of the truth, taught them to slander heroes and praise criminals?