FORGOTTEN TRANSPORTS TO LATVIA by Lukas Pribyl

It will be a very sad day when one becomes so completely desensitised to the brutal events of the experience of the ordinary victims of the Holocaust that it does not raise any harrowing emotions.When that happens the countdown to the next Holocaust has already begun.It will happen in its subtle , imperceptible slow manner.First we will get extreme race and ethnic based right wing views becoming fashionable in the mainstream , then we will get these views being expressed as free expression and the right to articulate ideas in an open society , then we will get extreme parties winning sizable votes and seats in local and national elections and then , well , we have a track record in Europe.

Then again , watching a documentary about the Holocaust is never any fun.But it is something that has to be watched or we will fail to learn the lessons of the past and walk into a future that has already brought us , in Europe , a rise in the right , especially in countries that never went into a process of de-nazification and Atonement like Germany.

This film draws of the testimony of victims drawn from all over the world talking about their experience from being collected and hounded out of their ghetto in Czechoslovakia and sent to Latvia.The disconcerting aspect is the tacit meek approval as well as full blown participation of the neighbours of the Jewish population and the enthusiastic participation of the Latvians in the extermination process at the other end.The Germans may have been the facilitators , like the British in International slavery , but the Holocaust was a pan-European extermination in which many communities and nations were willing and pro-active enthusiastic participants.

History is not static , supporters of Justice need to be alert and this film is a timely reminder telling us we all have responsibilities , if we dont defend lessons learned from it then others will take advantage of it to bring back times we thought we had moved on from for ever..

One has to be careful in this and age , and take the advice carried in this song: