MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Russia will not let the Holocaust be forgotten and will do everything possible to ensure that such horrific crimes never happen again, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"In 2005, Resolution No. A/RES/60/7 of the UN General Assembly established January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Russia was one of the initiators of the adoption of the document," Zakharova said in a statement. "It says: 'The Holocaust, which led to the extermination of one third of Jews and countless representatives of other minorities, will always serve as a warning to all people about the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.'"
Zakharova said that the date was not chosen by chance: on January 27, 1945, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army under the command of Ivan Konev liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (Auschwitz) and rescued the surviving prisoners.
According to her, the resolution also reflected the admiration of the international community for the courage and dedication of the soldiers who liberated the concentration camps.
"In 2025, Russia and all progressive humanity celebrated the 80th anniversary of Victory in World War II. Our country, all the peoples of the former USSR, at the cost of incredible sacrifices, enormous exertion of forces and resources, made a decisive contribution to the destruction of the Nazi war machine, the liberation of Europe and the world as a whole from the ‘brown plague,’’ she said. "The Holocaust, the mass extermination of Jews and representatives of other minorities, one of the most tragic events of the 20th century, will forever remain in the annals of mankind as an unprecedented attempt to put into practice the principles of misanthropic ideology. This was a terrible lesson from the past, a warning about the consequences of ideas of superiority and exclusivity, segregation by nationality, religion and other grounds."
History of the crime
The Holocaust tragedy was allowed by those who "watched what was happening indifferently, who, in fact, became complicit in those crimes, refusing to help the Jewish people and other peoples who found themselves under Nazi rule, and made a deal with Hitler. It is naive to think that it began with the appearance of gas chambers and concentration camps. It was caused by attempts to flirt with the Nazis," the diplomat said. "Thus, millions of representatives of the peoples whom the Nazis openly prepared for extermination - Slavs, Jews, Gypsies and others, as the criminals of the Third Reich arrogantly formulated, "Untermensch" were transferred into the hands of the executioners of the Third Reich as a payment for loyalty."
Russia "cherishes the memory of the multimillion victims of World War II, the Great Patriotic War for us, and the feat of the Soviet soldiers-liberators who stopped the fascists and extinguished the flames of the Holocaust."
"Our country has paid too great a price to allow anyone to question the Great Victory. We will do everything possible to ensure that such horrific crimes never happen again," Zakharova said. "Russia strongly and resolutely opposes the falsification of facts about the Second World War and the rehabilitation of Nazism." On Russia's initiative, the UN General Assembly annually adopts a resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to the escalation of modern forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.