[3] Others argue that no one has ever been convicted of committing war crimes as a member of the Legion and hold that it was a purely military unit fighting against the Soviet Union that had occupied Latvia in 1940.

[4][5][6][7] The idea of a Remembrance Day for the Latvian legionnaires was raised in exile by the Daugavas Vanagi [lv] veterans' organization in 1952.

[1] From 16 to 18 March 1944, heavy battles were fought on the eastern bank of the Velikaya River for "Hill 93.4", a strategically important height, defended by the 15th and the 19th Waffen-SS divisions.

On 18 March at 17:40, the reinforced and approximately 300-men-strong 15th Division, led by Colonel Artūrs Silgailis [lv], recaptured the hill in a counterattack with relatively small losses – seven non-commissioned officers and soldiers killed, 20 wounded and five missing.

[2] In 1998, the procession to lay flowers at the base of the Freedom Monument drew the attention of foreign media[9] and the following year the State Duma condemned the event as "a glorification of Nazism".

[12] In 2006, the Latvian government tried to bring the situation under control by fencing off the Freedom Monument, with Riga City Council claiming it required restoration.

[30] Protesters from the "Association Against Nazism" were moved to a fenced-in zone in adjacent Bastejkalns Park where they installed improvised gallows.

[40] As part of the Waffen-SS, the Latvian Legion is seen by some as being a Nazi unit, while others argue that it fought only the Soviet Union that had previously occupied and annexed Latvia, it is not responsible for the Holocaust (since it was founded more than a year after Latvian Jews were murdered or sent to concentration camps) or any other Nazi war crimes, and should be viewed as a separate entity,[41] being recognized as such by the US.

[43] The Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stressed that no Nazi uniforms, symbols, or slogans appear on this or other days in Latvia, as they are illegal.

Researcher Mārtiņš Kaprāns noted a "more pronounced tolerance" and that "a favourable attitude towards the Lestene memorial has grown both among Latvians and Russians".

As concerns the first incident, every year, on March 16, a gathering commemorating soldiers who fought in a Latvian unit of the Waffen SS is held in the centre of Riga.

In this connection, ECRI regrets that, in spring 2010, an administrative district court overruled a decision of the Riga City Council prohibiting this procession" and recommended "that the Latvian authorities condemn all attempts to commemorate persons who fought in the Waffen SS and collaborated with the Nazis.

People who fought for victory of Third Reich should not be glorified as heroes – such a victory would have meant the end of Western civilization.Leanid Kazyrytski has argued that, even though the Nuremberg Tribunal excluded Latvian Waffen SS units from the list of criminal organizations, the Latvian Legion possessed all the features attributed to a criminal organization by the Nuremberg Tribunal.

[56] Traditionally, a memorial service is held in Riga Cathedral, after which the participants go on a procession to the Freedom Monument where they lay flowers.