Posted on 12/26/2008 3:37:02 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Stalin-era files raided
By Charles Clover in Moscow
Published: December 26 2008 19:36 | Last updated: December 26 2008 19:36
One hundred thousand witnesses to the terror of Joseph Stalin’s rule are stored on 12 computer hard disks compiled by Memorial, a Russian human rights group based in St Petersburg. Several terabytes of data include thousands of hours of audio histories, digital versions of faded photographs, video evidence of mass graves. With a few computer keystrokes, one could retrieve a faded denunciation written by a son against a father, or hear a ghostly voice reciting a forced confession or naming her “co-conspirators”.
It is the most complete public record of one of the most terrifying periods of modern human history, and mysteriously, it was also the target of a raid by Russian police on Memorial’s headquarters on December 4.
Irina Flige, director of Memorial’s office, says the police raid was not an accident or a case of mistaken identity. She believes that the work of her organisation in exposing and publicising Stalin’s crimes has become the target of a government effort to whitewash the past and justify in theoretical terms the continued existence of a strong authoritarian state. “It is a war over memory,” she says.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Ping!
My guess is that the NYT won't carry this story.
Unless they had backup copies everywhere, including out of Russia, they were foolish. Secret policemen have always been aware that someday, somehow, they could get fingered for their crimes.
There’s NKVD walking the streets of America not just Russia.
And Putin is going to do his best to protect and give them a future.
Putin’s father was in the NKVD. Putin is an unrepentant Chekist.
Can you say:
“Offsite Backup”?
I knew you could.
“My guess is that the NYT won’t carry this story.”
Not only will they not carry it, but they’ll dig up the body of William Duranty to denounce the stories as lies, all lies. After all he was an eyewitness and saw none of this. None of it at all.
Apologies, I believe that should be “Walter” Duranty. Either way he was and is a major POS and the NYT should be ashamed to have his Pulitzer on its wall.
If a foreign billionaire sponsored a left wing political agitation group in the United States would you want the authorities to investigate it?
It is not as if those pinkos were ramming gay agenda down to Mother Russia's throat.
Do you generally favor political memory projects sponsored by foreigners?
Do political groups like La Raza and C.A.I.R. which operate in the United States with foreign assistance deserve our government's scrutiny or not?
Was the 2001 raid on the Holy Land Foundation in Texas necessary or unjustified?
You don't like those evidence of Stalin's brutality, do you?
How many degrees of seperation does Irina Flige and the Memorial Research and Information Center of St. Petersburg have from the Open Society Institute?
Putin and KGB buddies obviously do not like the truth on Stalin, while they embrace the full truth about Hitler's genocide.
What a gobshite. You should work directly for Media Matters rather than just shilling for them here.
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