Holocaust memories still rack Europe

PARIS - Europe this week kicks off a series of World War II commemorations clouded by still-painful memories of the conflict and concerns that race hatred is a lurking threat.

Around 40 heads of states and Government, including the presidents of France, Germany, Israel, Poland and Russia, along with the prime ministers of Belgium and Italy, are to attend ceremonies at Auschwitz on Thursday to recall the 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation.

In Britain, the Queen will meet Holocaust survivors. Jewish communities around the continent will stage vigils and acts of remembrance.

In April, there will be ceremonies for the Meeting on the Elbe, the historic moment when United States and Soviet forces, advancing from the West and from the East met up on the river of that name in Germany. Then in May comes the anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day, with the overthrow of the Third Reich.

But the runup to these events has shown that 60 years is still too short to heal some of the conflict's wounds.

European Union home affairs ministers, meeting in Luxembourg next weekend, are expected to discuss demands for a ban on Nazi insignia across the 25 EU nations after Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, was photographed at a fancy-dress party in a German World War II Army uniform, complete with swastika armband.

The call came from incensed German members of the European Parliament. "All of Europe suffered in the past because of the crimes of the Nazis. So it is logical for Nazi symbols to be banned all over Europe," said Silvana Koch-Merin, vice-president of the assembly's group of liberal deputies.

The European Commission, the EU's executive, has responded sympathetically but noted the risk that such a ban could pose to liberties.

"We should be very careful in this debate to make a distinction between the fight against discrimination and freedom of expression," said a spokesman for Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini.

"Sometimes it's a very thin line, and obviously we have to take that into consideration."

Other European legislators share those worries.

"Banning symbols cannot ban evil and risks playing into the hands of those who would seek to subvert the very liberties we most champion," said British liberal deputy Chris Davies.

In France, meanwhile, veteran ultra-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen unleashed nationwide opprobrium by declaring that the Nazis' occupation of France was "not especially inhumane".

LePen, 76, acknowledged "there had been a number of excesses", but "if the Germans had carried out mass executions across the country, as the received wisdom would have us believe, then there wouldn't have been any need for concentration camps and political deportees".

He said: "It's not just from the European Union and globalisation that we need to save our countries, but also from the lies about its history."

Le Pen's remarks stirred outrage. He has previously dismissed the Holocaust as a "detail".

The Paris prosecutor's office has said it will launch a preliminary inquiry to see if Le Pen had broken laws that criminalise "denial of crimes against humanity" or "apology for war crimes".

During the 1941-44 occupation, France was indeed more peaceful than in eastern Europe. But there were also terrible atrocities, including the deportation of 70,000 French Jews to death camps, which was done with the help of the Vichy government, a puppet regime installed by the Nazis, as well as military reprisals against civilian populations for attacks by the Resistance. In the most notorious incident, hundreds of civilians were murdered by the SS in June 1944 in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane.

In Italy, meanwhile, the captain of the football club Lazio, Paolo Di Canio, is to be investigated by the national football federation after he gave an alleged fascist salute during a match with AS Roma.

Underpinning these controversies is the concern that, as World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors die away, the lessons of the conflict will fade, too. Without the "living heritage" of history, Nazism may become dry and meaningless for future generations. That could open the door to trivialisation and revisionism.