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    Categories: 2021

TURKISH press: Turkey, Azerbaijan have zero Nazi monuments: Report

Beyza Binnur Dönmez   |28.01.2021

ANKARA 

Turkey and Azerbaijan have zero monuments of Holocaust perpetrators but many countries, including the US, still erect statues, according to an American Jewish website.

The Forward's article was written one day before Germany marked Holocaust Remembrance Day and sought the same sensitivity shown to racist and colonist statues in 2020.

Monuments symbolizing racism and colonialism began to be questioned and toppled across the US in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in police custody last May.

The news site listed 320 monuments and street names in 16 countries that honor those who abetted or took part in the murder of Jews and others during the Holocaust.

They include Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine and the US.

The US has one plaque of Pierre Laval, pro-Nazi French prime minister, Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain on Broadway Canyon of Heroes in New York and 12 monuments of Nazi-related individuals across the country.

It also has 11 streets named after Petain: Hartselle, Alabama; Prichard, Alabama; Yuma, Colorado; Abbeville, Louisiana; Monroe, Louisiana; Goffstown, New Hampshire; Milltown, New Jersey; Defiance, Ohio; Ellwood City, Pennsylvania; Nemacolin, Pennsylvania; and Dallas, Texas, according to the report.

In the report, Armenia stood out as one of the most Nazi-friendly countries with dozens of monuments honoring those who had helped Adolf Hitler's deadly cause.

Armenian nationalist Garegin Nzhdeh ((1886–1955), the report said, placed the Armenian Legion at the disposal of the Nazis, serving the Third Reich in the Caucasus, Crimea, and France. A giant monument in his memory was erected in Armenian capital Yerevan in 2016, making international headlines.

Jan. 27 is designated by the UN as Holocaust Remembrance Day and Germany remembered victims with a ceremony in parliament attended by representatives of the Jewish community and political leaders.

Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS