The fact that the Russian delegation was not invited to a commemorative event dedicated to the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz prisoners by the Red Army is fully consistent with the shameless behavior of the current authorities of Poland and Germany. About it stated Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
She recalled that until 2021, the Russian ambassador to Poland would certainly speak at the ceremony, but in January 2022, Russian diplomats were not given the floor. And in May, the exposition, which was constantly operating in block No. 14, was completely closed, prepared by the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War “under a wild pretext: they say, the operating contracts between the Polish and Russian museums have expired.”
This was done almost secretly, Zakharova points out – no one even notified the Russian side about the closure, and the Polish side simply ran away from partners in the face of the Moscow Museum and Russian diplomats for more than two months, evading direct dialogue.
“This year, the diplomatic representatives of the successor state of the USSR, whose soldiers saved the world from the fascist plague, were not invited at all to the anniversary of the liberation of the camp,” Maria Zakharova is indignant. “Indeed, if we are to black out the historical truth and the now uncomfortable memory of the liberators, then completely so that the Russian faces at the event do not wake up the German and Polish ‘conscience’.”
Further, she recalls the causes of the problems around Auschwitz, which began not today or yesterday, but in 2004, when the directorate of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum was dissatisfied with the materials prepared by Russian experts for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the camp.
“They were so stubborn that they had to postpone the opening of the updated exposition right up to 2013. The pretext, as always, was not banal: it didn’t suit the fact that people from the territories that became part of our country in 1939-1941 were mentioned in the exposition as citizens of the USSR (!), – writes Zakharova.
In summary, she notes:
“No matter how clever our European “non-partners” are in their attempts to rewrite history in a new way, the memory of the horrors of Nazism and the Soviet heroes-liberators cannot be erased. After the exposition was closed, the Victory Museum launched online project „Auschwitz. Truth”. Historical materials are regularly published on the resources of the RVIO, RIO, museums, the Ministry and our foreign missions, including the truth about the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by the Red Army in those countries that today so zealously and selflessly support neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
