Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pushed back Saturday against Israeli anger over a bill that would outlaw blaming Poles for Holocaust crimes committed on Polish soil, saying that the name Auschwitz and the phrase “Arbeit macht frei,” two of the Shoah’s most potent symbols, were not Polish.
The comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for an urgent meeting between Israeli diplomats in Poland and Morawiecki to express his “strong opposition” to the bill passed on Friday by the lower house of the Polish parliament criminalizing statements suggesting Polish responsibility for atrocities committed on its soil during the Holocaust.
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“Auschwitz is the most bitter lesson on how evil ideologies can lead to hell on earth. Jews, Poles, and all victims should be guardians of the memory of all who were murdered by German Nazis,” Morawiecki wrote on Twitter late Saturday. “Auschwitz-Birkenau is not a Polish name, and Arbeit Macht Frei is not a Polish phrase.”
Auschwitz was the name of the most notorious Nazi death camp on Polish soil, where over 1 million people were killed, most of them Jews. A gate on the front read “Arbeit Macht Frei,” German for “Work makes you free.”
Morawiecki also noted on Twitter that Israel and Poland signed a joint statement in 2016 opposing use of the term “Polish death camps.”
The new bill prescribes criminal proceedings for individuals or organizations who al-legedly defame the “Polish nation” by assigning guilt or complicity to Poles for crimes committed on Polish soil during the Holocaust. Phrases such as “Polish death camps” to refer to the killing sites Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland during World War II may be punishable by three years in prison or a fine, according to the law. The bill is partly a response to cases in recent years of foreign media using “Polish death camps” to describe Auschwitz and other Nazi-run camps.
The bill also makes it illegal to “deliberately reduce the responsibility of the ‘true cul-prits’ of these crimes,” in reference to the murder of around 100,000 Poles by units in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the World War II.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland speaks in Budapest on January 26, 2018 (AFP /Attila KISBENEDEK)
At a speech earlier in the day marking the 73rd anniversary of the camp, Morawiecki emphasized German culpability for the atrocities and listed the Poles as among the victims, according to a statement from his office.
“A crushing, brutal force destroyed the Jewish nation and part of the Polish nation. It was a German force,and we must call the truth by what it is: yes is yes and no is no,
” he said.
The comments came as Israel raged against the Polish law, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
In a statement Saturday evening, Netanyahu called the Polish bill “baseless” and said “history cannot be re-written.”
“The Holocaust cannot be denied,” Netanyahu wrote, adding that he instructed the Israeli embassy in Poland to “meet tonight with the Polish prime minister to relay my firm stance against this bill.”
The deputy Polish ambassador to Israel was summoned to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs for talks on Sunday, the ministry said. The Polish ambassador is currently not in the country.
A foreign ministry official told AFP the Polish bill was “an attempt to rewrite and falsify history, something that the Jewish people and Israel will never accept.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said that a possible recall of the Israeli ambassador to Poland for consultations was “not off the table.”
Netanyahu’s statement came on the heels of a heated exchange over the bill between Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid, a member of the Israeli opposition, and the Polish embassy in Israel.
Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, in his office at the Knesset (AP Photo / Sebastian Scheiner)
Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor, took to Twitter on Saturday to slam the bill, characterizing it as an effort to rewrite history.
“I strongly condemn the new law that was passed in Poland, which attempts to deny the involvement of many Polish citizens in the Holocaust,” Lapid wrote in a tweet in Hebrew on Saturday.
“No Polish law will change history, Poland was complicit in the Holocaust. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered on its soil without them having met any German officer.”
He also tweeted in English.
Poland’s embassy in Israel hit back at Lapid, tweeting that his “unsupportable claims show how badly Holocaust education is needed, even here in Israel.” The intent of the Polish legislation, it said, “is not to ‘whitewash’ the past, but to protect the truth against such slander.”
To which Lapid retorted with outrage and a demand for an apology: “I am a son of a Holocaust survivor. My grandmother was murdered in Poland by Germans and Poles. I don’t need Holocaust education from you. We live with the consequences every day in our collective memory.Your embassy should offer an immediate apology.”
The Polish bill was blasted by a host of Israeli politicians including Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan, Minister of Intelligence Yisrael Katz, and the head of the Joint (Arab) List MK Ayman Odeh who said the legislation was “embarrassing and dangerous.”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, noting that exactly 73 years had passed since the Auschwitz death camp on Polish soil was liberated,cited the words of a former Polish president about how history could not be faked and the truth could not be hidden.
“The Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the entire world must ensure that the Holocaust is recognized for its horrors and atrocities",Rivlin said.“Also among the Polish people, there were those who aided the Nazis in their crimes. Every crime, every offense, must be condemned. They must be examined and revealed.”
Some major news organizations have banned language referring to Polish death camps.
Former US President Barack Obama used it in 2012, prompting outrage in Poland. Obama made the comment while awarding the Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II. Karski died in 2000.
During an East Room ceremony honoring 13 Medal of Freedom recipients, Obama said that Karski “served as a courier for the Polish resistance during the darkest days of World War II. Before one trip across enemy lines, resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale and smuggled him into the War-saw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself. Jan took that information to President Franklin Roosevelt, giving one of the first accounts of the Holocaust and imploring to the world to take action.”
After complaints, the White House said Obama misspoke.
The main gate of the former Auschwitz extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland, with the infamous sign reading ‘Work sets you free.’ (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images/via JTA)
Poland’s deputy justice minister Patryk Jaki said in a speech before the lower house on Friday “Non-governmental organizations indicate that every other day the phrase ‘Polish death camps’ is used around the world. In other words, German Nazi crimes are attributed to Poles.”
“And so far the Polish state has not been able to effectively fight these types of insults to the Polish nation,” he added, supporting the bill.
Jaki likened the move to Israel’s passage in 2016 of the controversial “NGOs bill” which requires more transparency by foreign-funded NGOs, a majority of them criti-cal of Israel. Critics had called the law undemocratic and an assault on free speech.
“I don’t know why Poland would have more difficulty acting in an efficient manner like Israel does, why it should have less effective tools than Israel,” he told parliament.
Critics say enforcing the law would be impossible outside Poland, and that within the country it would have a chilling effect on debating history, harming freedom of expression.
While the law contains a provision excluding scholarly or academic works, opponents still see a danger.
They especially worry it could be used to stifle research and debate on topics that are anathema to Poland’s nationalistic authorities, particularly the painful issue of Poles who blackmailed Jews or denounced them to the Nazis during the war.
Today’s Poles have been raised on stories of their people’s wartime suffering and heroism. Many react viscerally when confronted with the growing body of scholarship about Polish involvement in the killing of Jews.
For decades, Polish society avoided discussing the killing of Jews by civilians or de-nied that anti-Semitism motivated the slayings,blaming all atrocities on the Germans.
Jews from Poland and abroad gather for commemorations marking the 75th anniver-sary of a massacre of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland, on Sunday, July 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Michal Kosc)
A turning point was the publication in 2000 of a book, “Neighbors", by Polish-Ameri-can sociologist Jan Tomasz Gross,which explored the murder of Jews by their Polish neighbors in the village of Jedwabne. The book resulted in widespread soul-searching and official state apologies.
But since the conservative and nationalistic Law and Justice party consolidated power in 2015, it has sought to stamp out discussions and research on the topic. It demonized Gross and investigated whether he had slandered Poland by asserting that Poles killed more Jews than they killed Germans during the war.
Holocaust researchers have collected ample evidence of Polish villagers who mur-dered Jews fleeing the Nazis.According to one scholar at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holo- caust memorial, of the 160,000-250,000 Jews who escaped and sought help from fellow Poles, about 10 percent to 20 percent survived. The rest were rejected, infor-med upon or killed by rural Poles, according to the Tel Aviv University scholar, Havi Dreifuss.
The memorial issued a statement Saturday night opposing the Polish legislation and trying to put into historical context the “complex truth” regarding the Polish population’s attitude toward its Jews.
“There is no doubt that the term ‘Polish death camps’ is a historical misrepresenta-tion, ” the Yad Vashem memorial said. “However, restrictions on statements by scho-lars and others regarding the Polish people’s direct or indirect complicity with the crimes committed on their land during the Holocaust are a serious distortion.”
AP contributed to this report.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-blasts-poland-s-holocaust-bill-no-law-can-change-the-history-1.5767743
" Netanyahu Orders Embassy to Meet With Polish PM Over New Holocaust Law: 'We Cannot Allow Holocaust Denial'
Netanyahu calls Polish law 'baseless' ■ Israeli Arab lawmakers join their Jewish counterparts in calling out Poland ■ Rivlin emphasizes 'our duty to remember'
Noa Landau
Jan 27, 2018 6:45 PM
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks at Book of Names listing details at the opening of the Permanent Exhibition SHOAH at former Nazi death camp in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. APF
Polish embassy tries to school Israeli lawmaker on Holocaust, gets lesson in humility: 'My grandmother was murdered in Poland'
Polish parliament votes to criminalize any mention of Polish crimes during the Holocaust
Don't make the mistake of thinking Auschwitz is history
Prime Minister condemned Saturday new legislation in Poland which bars any mention of crimes by the "Polish nation" during the Holocaust, calling on Israel's ambassador in Warsaw to meet with the Polish prime minister on the contentious bill.
"The law is baseless. I strongly oppose it. History cannot be changed and it is forbid-den to deny the Holocaust. I ordered the Israeli embassy in Poland to meet with the Polish Prime Minister and express my firm stand against the law," Netanyahu said.
>> Haaretz's Special Coverage of Holocaust Remembrance Day <<
The deputy Polish ambassador in Israel has been called in for a reprimand at the Foreign Ministry. The Polish ambassador is currently abroad.
In a statement from the President's Office, President Reuven Rivlin also criti-cized the bill, saying that "on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, more than ever, and above all considerations, we are faced with our duty to remember our brothers and sisters who were murdered."
On Friday,the Polish parliament approved a controversial law forbidding any mention of participation of the "Polish nation" in crimes committed during the Holocaust. Yair Lapid, the head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, got into a Twitter feud with the Polish embassy in Israel on Saturday and even had to remind them not give him, the child of Holocaust survivors, a lesson on the subject, prompting them to label him "shameless."
Survivors and guests walk past the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz, during the ceremonies marking the 73rd anniversary of the liberati\ KACPER PEMPEL/REUTERS
"I utterly condemn the new Polish law which tries to deny Polish complicity in the Holocaust. It was conceived in Germany but hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered without ever meeting a German soldier," Lapid tweeted Saturday.
The law also forbids use of the term "Polish death camp" to describe the death camps where Jews and others were murdered in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. Anyone who violates the new law, including non-Polish citizens, will be liable to a fine or imprisonment for up to three years.
>> Polish parliament votes to criminalize any mention of Polish crimes during the Holocaust
Lapid "There were Polish death camps and no law can ever change that," Lapid wrote. However, the Polish embassy in Israel quickly responded, writing Lapid: "Your unsupportable claims show how badly Holocaust education is needed, even here in Israel."
The embassy also linked to a statement by the International Holocaust Rememb-rance Alliance,an international organization representing 27 nations and dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust, which supports the idea that it is "historically unsupportable to use the terms 'Polish death camps.'"
Polish embassy in Israel to Lapid: 'Shameless'
>> I am the Director of the Auschwitz Memorial. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's history | Opinion
"The intent of the Polish draft legislation is not to ‘whitewash’ the past, but to protect the truthagainst such slander," the embassy wrote.
Lapid fire back: "I am a son of a Holocaust survivor. My grandmother was mur-dered in Poland by Germans and Poles. I don’t need Holocaust education from you.
"We live with the consequences every day in our collective memory. Your embassy should offer an immediate apology," Lapid wrote.
The Polish embassy then responded again, asking Lapid: "How does that relate to the fact that WW2 death camps were German Nazi, not Polish (our thread)? Shameless."
Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz tweeted that it was "The Polish parliament's law is to deny Poland's part in and responsibility for the massacre that took place on its soil. We will not forgot or forgive."
MK Ayman Odeh wrote on Twitter: "The decision of the Polish government is shame-ful and dangerous. Holocaust denial links to the darkest moments in history. Only deep recognitions of the injustices in the past guarantee the sanctity of life in the future."
Arab lawmaker MK Ahmad Tibi responded: " I propose to the Polish government to quickly cancel its shameful decision. Rewriting history is never a worthy act. Never."
Labor Party Chairman Avi Gabbay also tweeted: "The decision will encourage Holo-caust deniers around the world to spread their lies. Ignoring history does not change it."
MK Isaac Herzog also responded to the news from Poland, writing that "The bill which had just passed in Poland is morally and factually wrong," saying it seemed to entail an "element of Holocaust denial. It should not have been legislated. I sincerely hope that it will be abolished soon by the Polish leadership and legislature."
According to the law, which was approved on Friday by the country's lower parlia-ment, anyone who publicly attributes guilt or complicity to the Polish state for crimes committed by Nazi Germany,war crimes or other crimes against humanity, will be liable to criminal proceedings. Punishment will also be imposed on those who are seen to "deliberately reduce the responsibility of the 'true culprits' of these crimes."
The new law will apply both to Polish citizens and to foreigners regardless which country the statement is supposed to have been made in.The impli-cation of the new law means that in theory, a Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland who lives in Israel, who may make a statement such as "the Polish people were involved in the murder of my grandfather in the Holocaust," or "my mother was murdered in a Polish death camp," would be liable for impri-sonment in Poland. Polish Deputy Justice Minister Patryk Jaki told parliament on Friday: "Every day, around the world, the term 'Polish death camps' is used - in other words, the crimes of Nazi Germany are attri-buted to the Poles. So far Poland has not been able to effectively combat this kind of insult against the Polish nation."
The law has yet to be passed by the Senate and the Polish president, however is considered to have passed its largest hurdle.
Noa Landau
***
Israelilainen kommentaattro Jakov Kedmi oikaisee Puolaa: "kuka pelasti, kuka ruokki?"
«Кто их спас, кто хлебом кормил?»: Кедми преподал Польше урок истории в ответ на критику России после Второй мировой
Израильский политолог Яков Кедми поделился мнением по поводу крити-ки Польши в адрес России о Второй мировой войне. По его мнению, пове-дение официальной Варшавы свидетельствует об «унижении истории».
В воскресенье,1 сентября,в МИД Польши заявили, что список гостей, пригла-шенных на памятные мероприятия по случаю годовщины начала Второй миро-вой войны, был составлен на основе «современного критерия», под который Россия якобы не попадает. Также глава оборонного ведомства страны Мариуш Блащак обвинил Москву в неполучении репараций от Германии. В эфире телеканала «Россия-1» израильский политолог по-делился мнением по поводу риторики поляков в адрес «восточного соседа» по случаю годовщины одного из важнейших исторических событий.
По словам эксперта, поведение представителей официальной Варшавы не яв-ляется оскорбительным лично для него, однако нежелание приглашать Россию на торжественные мероприятия «оскорбляет и унижает польскую историю». К слову, все это не помешало Польше пригласить политиков из Британии и Фран-ции, что свидетельствует о «полном отшибе памяти», поскольку данные страны не играли никакой роли для поляков во времена Второй мировой.
«Сегодняшняя Польша – это не та Польша, которая воевала против нацистов. Там воевала Армия Людова, больше и сильнее, чем (героизируемая сегодня Варшавой) Армия Крайова. Про нее забыли.Кто их спас от разрушения немца-ми? Советские офицеры. Не было бы Кракова. А кто восста-новил Польшу, кто ее хлебом кормил?» – преподал Кедми урок истории нынешней Варшаве.
При этом политолог раскритиковал «выпады» Польши о потерях 6 млн человек за годы войны, в чем глава государства Анджей Дуда уже успел обвинить Гер-манию. Дело в том,что почти половина жертв на территории республики в то время были евреями.Ответственность за их гибель лежит не только на немцах, но и украинцах,которые «обслуживали» 90% концлагерей вместе с прибалтами
Ранее официальный представитель российской дипломатии Мария Захарова иронично ответила на заявление замглавы МИД Польши, объяснив-шего нежелание Варшавы приглашать Москву на памятные мероприятия по случаю годовщины Второй мировой войны. Подробнее — в материале «ПолитПазл».
***
https://rueconomics.ru/478380-kedmi-rossiya-nachala-otkryvat-pravdu-o-pozornoi-i-podloi-roli-polshi-v-voine
Кедми: Россия начала открывать правду о позорной роли Польши в войне
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11106624
Saksan liittokansleri Auschwitzin keskitysleirissä: Natsien tekemien rikosten muistaminen on vastuu, joka ei koskaan lopu
Natsi-Saksan perustamalla Auschwitz-Birkenaun leirillä murhattiin toisen maailmansodan aikana yli miljoona ihmistä.
Auschwitz
6.12.2019 klo 15.02
Liittokansleri Angela Merkel kävi perjantaina ensimmäistä kertaa Auschwitzin keskitysleirin alueelle perustetussa museossa.
Saksan liittokansleri Angela Merkel on vieraillut ensimmäisen kerran Auschwitzin keskitysleirialueella. Natsi-Saksan miehittämälle alueelle Puolassa toisen maailman-sodan aikana perustetussa Auschwitz-Birkenaussa murhattiin arviolta 1,1 miljoonaa ihmistä. Suurin osa murhatuista oli juutalaisia. Merkel käveli nykyään museona toimivaan Auschwitziin "Arbeit macht frei" -kyltin ali.
Toisin kuin kyltti kertoi, työ ei vapauttanut tuhoamisleirille suljettuja ihmisiä. Merkelin seurueessa olivat muun muassa keskitysleiriltä selvinnyt 87-vuotias Bogdan Stanisław Bartnikowski ja Puolan pääministeri Mateusz Morawiecki.
Leirialueella Merkel piti hiljaisen hetken kuolemanmuurilla eli paikalla, jossa vankeja teloitettiin ampumalla. Hän kävi myös paikalla, jossa vankeja murhattiin kaasulla se-kä krematorioalueella, jossa ruumiit poltettiin.Auschwitzin portilla on säilytetty vanha valheellinen teksti, jossa lukee "Arbeit macht frei" eli työ vapauttaa.Lukasz Gagulski / EPA
Merkel sanoi tuntevansa häpeää ja vakuutti Saksan hallituksen taistelevan antisemitismiä ja kaikenlaista vihaa vastaan.
– Näiden rikosten muistaminen on vastuu, joka ei koskaan lopu. Se on erottamaton osa maatamme. On osa kansallista identiteettiämme olla tietoinen tästä vastuusta, Merkel sanoi vierailun aikana.
Saksassa hyväksyttiin torstaina 60 miljoonan euron lahjoitus Auschwitz-Birkenaun museoalueesta huolehtivalle säätiölle.
Merkel on vasta kolmas Saksan liittokansleri,joka on vieraillut Auschwitzissa.Helmut Schmidt vieraili leirialueella vuonna 1977 ja Helmut Kohl vuosina 1989 ja 1995.
Neuvostoliiton joukot vapauttivat Auschwitzin viimeiset vangit 27. tammikuuta 1945.
Lähteet: AP, AFP
Saksan liittokansleri Angela Merkel ja Puolan pääministeri Mateusz Morawiecki las-kivat muistoseppeleet paikalle, jossa vankeja teloitettiin ampumalla. Lukasz Gagulski / EP
***
https://www.rt.com/russia/507412-mp-accuses-west-redefining-ww2/
‘Nothing can justify the crimes of Nazism’: Russian parliamentary speaker accuses West of ‘redefining’ causes of WWII
21 Nov, 2020 15:03
Main defendants as war criminals of the Nazi regime are surrounded by military policemen at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 © Global Look Press/dpa-Zentralbild / Agentur Voller Ernst
A leading Russian lawmaker has accused politicians in other countries of rewriting history over Hitler and the Holocaust on the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes.
In a statement on Friday, the Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin criti-cized“attempts by a number of Western politicians to reconsider the causes of World War II,” as well as to “question the decisive role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazism.”
According to Volodin, groups that have an “interest in the rehabilitation of Nazism and its ideologists are operating in the open.”
Nobody and nothing can justify the crimes of Nazism.
The comments came after the Russian parliament adopted a resolution earlier this week that marked the anniversary of the trials of Nazi leaders.The motion stated that it is unacceptable in Russia to “glorify Nazism in any way,” to desecrate monuments to Allied soldiers, or for countries to make those actions state policy. It also praised the wartime anti-Hitler coalition for “establishing an international security framework to save future generations from wars.”
Concerns have previously been raised over attempts of far-right political movements across a number of European countries to rewrite historic accounts of the era.
Poland, for example, attempted to distance itself from Nazi crimes that took place on its soil during the 1940s. Global leaders,historians and academics criticized a law in- troduced by the country’s right-wing government in 2018,that they claimed would cri- minalize references to the involvement of Poland or Polish people in the Holocaust. Camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor and Treblinka were established in what is now modern-day Poland, and only around one in ten of the country’s Jewish community survived the genocide.
Earlier this week at a virtual awards ceremony held by the Russian Jewish Congress Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that relations between the two coun-tries were “growing stronger” and praised efforts to ensure Holocaust remembrance in Russia.
https://www.rt.com/russia/504889-nazism-communism-history-rewrite/
Western attempts to rewrite history of WW2 & turn conflict into political football have incensed Russians, now Moscow strikes back
29 Oct, 2020 11:19 / Updated 23 days ago
The Russian President says he agrees with the suggestion that comparing the actions of the USSR and Nazi Germany should be banned, after the publication of books examining the historical leadership of both nations.
The suggestion was put to the President, on Tuesday, by MP Elena Yampolskaya, head of the Russian Parliament's committee on culture and a member of the gover-ning United Russia party. According to Yampolskaya, two foreign books recently released in Russia draw parallels between the USSR and Nazi Germany, with one saying that "the Soviets were worse than the Nazis." She did not name the books concerned.
“Unfortunately, we translate and publish such impudent, unsubstantiated, offensive dogs**t in our own country,” Yampolskaya explained. “The first book had 45,000 copies published, and the second 80,000. Both are popular with young people.”
In Yampolskaya's opinion, such moral assessments are “absolutely unacceptable” and should be made illegal. The suggestion was received positively by Putin, who explained that other countries have passed similar laws, such as criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide.
“I agree with your suggestions. We need to be careful, but of course, do it.” the President replied. “God himself probably told us to have appropriate mechanisms for protecting the truth about the very recent past.”
In recent years, President Putin has repeatedly stated his will to protect the legacy of the Soviet Union’s contribution to WWII, expressing his desire to fight attempts to “distort history.” On February 23 - a Russian holiday commemorating those who served in the country’s armed forces - the President noted that the Red Army helped liberate not only the USSR, but much of Europe.
“We will not allow this heroic page in history to be crossed out,” Putin said. “We will be exposing any attempts to distort history and to let the spirit of alliance and of combat brotherhood be consigned to oblivion.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/488453-propaganda-ussr-fascism-victory/
PROPAGANDA has diminished the Soviet Union’s role in victory over fascism – Russian foreign minister
12 May, 2020 15:19
© Sputnik / Leonid Korobov
The White House shocked the internet on May 8 when it posted a now-infamous tweet declaring the USA and the UK as the victors of World War II, omitting the USSR. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes propaganda is to blame. Speaking at a press conference, Lavrov recalled how, at the Holocaust Forum in January, US Vice President Mike Pence forgot that the Soviets liberated Auschwitz.
“To be frank, it doesn’t surprise me to hear such things,” he said, following an online meeting of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers. “It’s not because we suspect that any particular politician is deliberately obscuring history - it’s a result of the proces-sing of public consciousness, and that includes politicians, as it turns out. They didn’t develop immunity from what is spread by propaganda.”
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1258842411524132865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1258842411524132865%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Frussia%2F488453-propaganda-ussr-fascism-victory%2F
https://twitter.com/i/status/1258842411524132865
He also noted how some are trying to hold the Soviet Union equally responsible with Hitler’s Germany for unleashing the Second World War.
In regards to the May 8 social media posts by the White House, Lavrov called the situation “unfortunate.”
“Of course,this is an unfortunate story,especially since just a couple of weeks ago, at the end of April, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the meeting on the Elbe, Presidents Putin and Trump adopted a joint statement giving a principled assess-ment of that victory, and the contribution this victory brought to the modern world order,” Lavrov said.
The meeting on the Elbe took place on April 25, 1945, when Soviet and American troops came into contact with each other on the Elbe River in East Germany.
Yesterday, the Russian Foreign Ministry posted a sharp rebuke on Facebook, explai-ning that “the topic of the saсred deeds of the older generation in that war must not turn into another problem in bilateral relations, which are going through hard times as it is.”
https://www.facebook.com/MIDRussia/posts/2453332588099501
Attempts to distort the results of the defeat of Nazism and the decisive contribution our country made, which are continuing in Washington even during these days of universal celebration of the 75th anniversary of Victory, cause utter indignation.
In this context we cannot neglect the commentary posted on the White House pages in social networks where the victory over Nazi Germany is credited exclusively to “America and Great Britain.” On the eve of this sacred holiday US officials could not garner the courage and will to even in passing pay tribute to the indisputable role and incomparable colossal losses suffered back then by the Red Army and the Soviet people for the sake of the humankind. Remarks by US official representatives turned out to be extremely restrained.
Regretfully,such an attitude is in apparent contrast with the statement made Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on April 25 on the occasion of the historic meeting of Soviet and US soldiers on the Elbe in 1945. The document stresses the joint efforts of our nations in the fight against a common enemy.
We proceed from the assumption that real historical facts may not be ignored, re-gardless of feelings towards both the Soviet Union,which liberated the world from the brown plague, and our country of today. This is evidenced not only by the numerous grounded responses to the White House tweets from Russians and also from Americans who know their history and people from around the world. It is indicative that their reasonable and fact-based comments are being regularly deleted. And this is being done in the “most democratic country", which tirelessly proclaims its “adherence to freedom of speech”!
The topic of the saсred deeds of the older generation in that war must not turn into another problem in bilateral relations, which are going through hard times as it is. Russia and the US, despite disagreements, can counter ever-increasing present-day challenges on the basis of trust, mutual respect and while taking into account each other’s interests.
We intend to have a serious conversation on this issue with US officials.
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Puolalaisen uuden Holocaust Memorial Museumin "tutkija" Marta Havryshko pitää holokaustia "seksisotana"...
https://www.ushmm.org/research/about-the-mandel-center/all-fellows-and-scholars/dr-marta-havryshko
Dr. Marta Havryshko
2019-2020 Diane and Howard Wohl Fellow
“Gender and the Holocaust: Sexual Violence against Jewish Women in Nazi-occupied Ukraine”
Professional Background
Dr. Marta Havryshko holds a PhD in History from the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (Ukraine). She is currently Research Associate at the Department of Contem-porary History of the I. Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Her research interests are primarily focused on se-xual violence during World War II and the Holocaust, women's history, feminism, and nationalism. Her recent publications include a book, Overcoming Silence: Women's War Stories (2018), as well as articles such as, "Women’s Bodies as Battlefield: Se-xual Violence during Soviet Counterinsurgency in Western Ukraine (1944-1953)” in Euxeinos. Governance and Culture in the Black Sea Region, 9 (2019); “Rape in Hi-ding: Sexual Violence during the Holocaust in Ukraine” in Holokost i Suchasnist, 17 (2019, In Ukrainian); and, “Love and Sex in Wartime: Controlling Women's Sexuality in the Ukrainian Nationalist Underground” in Aspasia, 12 (2018). Dr. Havryshko’s re-search has been supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD), Yahad-In Unum, Monash University, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, St. Gallen University, amongst others.
Fellowship Research
Dr. Havryshko was awarded a 2019-2020 Diane and Howard Wohl Fellowship at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies for her re-search project, “Gender and the Holocaust: Sexual Violence against Jewish Women in Nazi-occupied Ukraine".This project applies a feminist perspective, placing gender at the forefront of analysis,and aims to provide space for women’s voices about their sexual victimization and agency. During her tenure, Dr. Havryshko seeks to analyze the patterns, forms, topography, dynamics, functions and consequences of sexual violence against Jewish women and girls in times of Shoah. Furthermore, her project analyzes how cultures ideas about the body,sexuality, reproduction,as well an ethnic, racial, national, religious, political identity, combatant status, the position of power contributed to perpetrators' motivations and strategies for sexual violence, as well as victims' / survivors’ experiences of these processes.
Residency Period: February 1 through August 31, 2020
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" 'Nobody in Poland cares about WWII anymore': Warsaw ignores 75th anniversary of its liberation from fascism17 Jan, 2020 13:23Get short URL
The Polish people aren't interested in the events of the past, being fully consumed by their daily hassles, and the country's authorities are using this to their advantage, freely rewriting WWII history, academics told RT.
Warsaw was taken from the Nazis on January 17, 1945, after a large-scale offensive by the Red Army and the Polish forces. The 75th anniversary of the historic victory is marked on Friday, but the capital of Poland isn't preparing for any celebrations.
The fact that the USSR liberated Warsaw from the Nazis is "diminished" in schoolbooks and ignored by Polish media "because we live in country where Russophobia is one of the pillars," military historian Michal Glock said.
The capital's Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski and his liberal Civic Platform party are "responsible for destroying monuments dedicated to Polish and Soviet soldiers and partly [responsible] for erasing the information that Warsaw was liberated by the Red Army and its allies, such as the Polish 1st and 2nd Armies, from the memory of the residents," Glock added.
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Older people are aware [of] who liberated our capital city, but the younger generation lives in ignorance.
Q
Those who are interested in history only study the Warsaw Uprising, which was a massive –though failed– attempt by the Polish resistance to reclaim the capital from its Nazi invaders, the historian pointed out.
© RIA Novosti / Alexei Vetvitski
In the version of history that is promoted by the current Polish authorities, "the liberation of Warsaw (but also the whole of Poland) was part of a second occupation. The Nazi troops were replaced by the Red Army."
Glock considers this angle "dangerous" and "very confusing," especially considering the fact that the Nazis were planning a genocide of the Polish population.
"After Jews and gypsies [were sent] to gas chambers, the Poles were supposed to go there. The Red Army saved us from genocide, not only planned by the Germans, but also by the Ukrainian nationalists."
He said that the "saddest thing" is that his fellow historians do nothing to stop the rewriting of history "in fear of being accused of favoring Russia and President Putin."
'A key battle for the outcome of WWII'
Glock's evaluation of his colleagues appears to be quite accurate, as many other Polish historians approached by RT refused to discuss the matter. And the few who did respond asked that their
The Soviet offensive on the Polish capital "was brought forward… at the request of the Western allies and destroyed much of the German Army's capabilities." It was highly praised by British PM Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the iconic Yalta Conference in February 1945, the historian added.
Jones said he's confident that "it's always important that we keep debating the past," but it has nothing to do with "a tendency in recent times to simply blame the Soviet Union and now Russia for everything that goes wrong."
The fact is that during World War ll "we were all working together in common cause to defeat fascism," he said.
names be omitted, and simply relayed the stance of the country's authorities.
One of them said that the liberation of Warsaw isn't celebrated simply because nobody in Poland cares about World War II anymore. People are more interested in rising prices, the taxes they have to pay, and other daily concerns, he explained.
What the Polish authorities are trying to erase from history was actually an operation that was "enormously important" for the whole outcome of World War II, British historian Michael Jones told RT.
'Greatly shocked'
The liberation of Warsaw came shortly after the Battle of the Bulge, a successful counter-offensive that was launched by the Nazis in mid-December 1944. It saw four allied armies encircled and destroyed, leaving the anti-Hitler coalition (USSR, UK, US) "greatly shocked," he recalled.
https://archive.is/QZO8K
Alliance between Berlin & Warsaw? New docs reveal what pushed USSR towards Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
https://archive.is/o/Y2Ucy/https://www.rt.com/news/473169-netflix-poland-nazi-camps/
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