OPINION | FILM | ARTS | GLORIFICATION OF COLLABORATORS | HISTORY
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FILM REVIEW
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by Roland Binet (De Panne, Belgium)
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No Secret Monuments. Silent Statues and the Distortion of Truth.
A documentary by Paula Kirman and Adam Bentley.
The film’s website. Trailer on youtube. Announced on Film Freeway.
Having previously produced two documentaries related to monuments in honor of Nazis and their collaborators, Paula Kirman and Adam Bentley journeyed to the three Baltic States and to Finland in order to track and unearth monuments to Nazi collaborators displaying a hero-worship in these countries, eighty years after the war. In their own words, the purpose of the documentary is ‘exposing monuments that commemorate Nazis and their local collaborators.’ In the documentary, of one hour and twelve minutes, Kirman is our guide and narrator.
Genuine heroes of this saga—both written out of the film
There is, however, disturbingly, quite a stupendous missing link in this abridged history of Lithuania in the twentieth century. Where had the quarter million Jews (the figure on the eve of the Holocaust) of the country disappeared to “overnight” (as centuries go), during that fateful century? Had there ever been a Jewish minority in Lithuania at all? When I looked at the author’s pedigree, I understood why the Jews had not played any role of significance in his biased dialectical discourse. Joren Vermeersch is a historian (of sorts) and an accomplished author. He is also a representative (stand-in, as we call it) for the Belgian House of Representatives, for the “N-VA.” This is the nationalist Flemish party that has its historical roots in the collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. The party that has systematically fought for an amnesty for Nazi collaborators. The party in which the grandparents or parents of some of the present actual leaders had been condemned by the Belgian State for collaboration with the enemy. Nobody is guilty of sins of their ancestors, but when there is a pattern of such pedigree being considered a great plus for current leadership, and that pedigree is subtly glorified rather than disowned, we have a current moral problem that merits discussion in the public square.
