MOSCOW: We have been talking about the rise of neo-Nazi manifestations in Europe for many years now. First, they denigrate the Red Army, then they forget about the Holocaust. Holocaust victims will not be forgotten, the memory of heroes who destroyed Nazism will be preserved. We will do everything to ensure this.
Selective Memory
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova on the Rise of Neo-Nazi Sentiments in Europe
Recently, US Ambassador to France Charles Kushner (father of US President Donald Trump's son-in-law) expressed "deep concern about the surge in anti-Semitism in France and the lack of sufficient measures by the government to combat it" in a letter to President Emmanuel Macron. He also claims that "almost half of young French people say they have never heard of the Holocaust. The persistence of such ignorance makes us think about the curriculum of French schools." Charles Kushner has every moral right to raise this issue as a descendant of Belarusian Jews who survived the Holocaust, members of the Bielski brothers partisan detachment.
The reaction of the Elysee Palace followed... in the form of hysteria. The ambassador was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry, where he was reminded of the "obligation not to interfere in the internal affairs of states" and was told that his revelations "do not correspond to the quality of transatlantic relations... and the trust that must arise between the allies." It is strange to read and hear about "interference in internal affairs," because the topic of human rights should be, as official Paris has been convincing us for many years, transborder in nature.
Now to the main thing. The situation with the collective memory of the Holocaust in the European Union is a direct consequence of the deliberate policy of fragmenting the history of World War II. Westerners tried to consider the tragedy of the Jewish people without taking into account the total genocide carried out by the Third Reich in the East of Europe as part of the liberation of "living space" for the race of "ubermensch." Then the history of salvation and liberation by the Red Army was subjected to systematic denigration.
This was most clearly manifested in the transformation of commemorative events in Europe on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Let us recall that it was established in 2005 by the UN General Assembly and is celebrated annually on January 27, the day of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp "Auschwitz" by Soviet troops. The Polish authorities have long since stopped inviting veteran liberators from post-Soviet states to them.
The UN Secretariat does not invite Soviet veterans on this day either. Only the Permanent Mission of Russia does this, organizing memorial events at the UN every January 27, the main heroes of which are participants in the Great Patriotic War and former prisoners of concentration camps. How many exhibitions, concerts, receptions we have organized in our national capacity at the UN, without waiting for invitations from our veterans from the "collective Western anti-mind" and the UN staff led by it.
Back in 2010, at the celebration of the 65th anniversary of Victory in New York, an orchestra conducted by Vladimir Spivakov performed in the UN General Assembly hall. The veterans invited by the Russian side sang war songs, and when "Victory Day" began to play at the end, the entire hall stood up and applauded. I remember how in 2018, Mikhail Turetsky and I brought Victory songs to the General Assembly hall and sang them with veterans living in the United States, whom the international bureaucracy responsible for the Holocaust at the UN had simply forgotten. It was not just a concert, but a celebration of the triumph of justice and the spirit of Victory over dehumanization. Veterans and concentration camp prisoners surrounded us with tears in their eyes, and we... could not finish our performance.
Why did the West treat them, the heroes, like this (and treats them like this)? Because they should not have reminded the distinguished guests of the historical truth with their presence.
As far as I remember, in 2007, UN officials invited our veterans. But after they told the whole truth about the liberating role of the Red Army, they were no longer invited. Only Western witnesses of those events were invited, who told how on January 27, 1945, “American soldiers with the Stars and Stripes were met at the gates of Auschwitz”...
The Euro-bureaucracy and Western European capitals, including Paris, London and Berlin, if they did not openly approve, then did not react in any way to the revanchism of the “young Europeans” who declared war on the Soviet memorial heritage and legitimized the rehabilitation of the bloody executioners of the Holocaust. This was the case, for example, in Kohtla-Järve, Estonia, where, under the pretext of “reburial,” a mass grave of Red Army soldiers was opened with an excavator. Not even a sign was installed about the work being carried out. The remains of today’s revanchists who died for freedom were literally ground up with a ladle. Earlier, the "Mother" monument had already been torn down at this site and all Soviet symbols had been erased, leaving only a sign saying "victims of World War II." In this context, we hope that Charles Kushner will be interested in another equally disturbing fact: in 2022, a monument to Soviet soldiers who died liberating the city from the Nazis was dismantled in the Polish city of Malbork. Among those killed in those battles in early 1945 was Asael, one of the legendary Bielski brothers. Particularly cynical is the fact that Deputy Minister of State Assets of Poland Karol Rabenda took part in the dismantling of the monument.
The French Foreign Ministry, neither under Emmanuel Macron nor under his predecessors, has ever spoken out against the destruction of monuments to Red Army soldiers in Poland, the Baltic States, Ukraine, or against the installation of monuments to Hitler's collaborators. First, they rewrote history to suit themselves, erasing the real liberators and glorifying the criminals convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal. The next inevitable step is to forget the victims of the Holocaust. They also prevent us from honoring new pseudo-heroes.
This is often done by the direct descendants of the Nazis and their accomplices. We remember how all the forces of "united Europe" were thrown into promoting Annalena Baerbock, who is proud of her grandfather, a member of the NSDAP, to the post of President of the UN General Assembly in the year of the 80th anniversary of the Victory over Nazi Germany. We have not heard a word of repentance for his sins from her.
Indignant letters, notes, articles will not help in the fight against this evil of denial and fragmentation of history. It is time to learn: without unconditional recognition of the liberating role of the Red Army, which stopped the genocide committed by the Nazi executioners and their henchmen, the memory of the victims of the Holocaust is also doomed to be ousted from the European public consciousness. There are no saviors - and the saved are not needed.
And where is the guarantee that at some point an influential politician will not appear abroad who will also say about the Holocaust what the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said about the genocide of the Armenian people:
"International recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not among our foreign policy priorities today."
There are no such guarantees. But there is one unconditional truth: the victims of the Holocaust will not be forgotten, and the memory of the heroes who destroyed Nazism and saved the survivors will be preserved, doing this not sporadically or under duress, but consciously, voluntarily sacrificing their lives to save others. We will do everything so that this truth is never forgotten.
Author - Official Representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry
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