We publish an open letter to Mr. Bernhard Schlink:
Dear Mr. Schlink,
Slovenian television broadcasted today an interview with you. I really appreciated your sincere presentation of your views on extremism and the need to protect democratic values.
Unfortunately, Slovenia is a country with many decades of communist rule after 1945; and even after 1990, the ex-communists have so strong and even decisive role in the country, that prevent us from full implementation of basic civilizational and european humanitarian rules, such as respect to the dead. Actually, the exiting left-wing government does not allow to bury the corpses of Roma families with their children, that were savagely killed by communist partisans during the WWII and thrown to provisionally excavated mass grave near to Ljubljana. They still have no right to be buried in a cemetery.
The Hitler’s threat has been an excuse for communist crimes and also for communist dictatorship for decades. It continues to be abused in Slovenia by contemporary extreme left politicians and groups in order to promote left dictatorship and socialism. Therefore, it is extremely important, that your point of view is presented in a correct perspective, i.e. as a sincere democratic, non violent battle for a general respect of human rights, rule of law and democracy. Today, they are seriously under threat both by the extreme right and by extreme left.
I can understand that you cannot influence the bad manipulation of your interview which was done by Slovenian national television. I only ask you to put the extreme right movements to the same level with the extreme left movements. They both already left behind millions of innocent victims and unnecesary suffering of several generations.
With best regards,
Peter Reberc
Slovenia