On the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, celebrated this Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “indifference kills with hatred,” almost a year after the start of the Russian invasion, on February 24.
“Today, as always, Ukraine honors the memory of millions of victims of the Holocaust. We know and remember that indifference kills together with hatred,” Zelensky, of Jewish descent, said in a video released on social networks.
“Indifference and hatred are always capable of creating evil. That is why it is so important that everyone who values life shows determination when it comes to saving those whom hate seeks to destroy,” he said.
So he asked countries around the world to “overcome indifference so that there is less room for hate”.
“Eternal memory of all victims of the Holocaust,” he stressed.
However, in this video message, Zelensky made no mention of Russia’s or Moscow’s military offensive on Ukrainian territory.
The Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhnyi, commemorated the victims of the Nazi regime, noting that “history repeats itself through the genocide of the Ukrainian people”.
“We honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and share the pain of the Jewish people and all victims of Nazi terror during World War II (1939-1945),” Zaluzhnyi wrote via digital messaging system Telegram.
Remember, Russia is accusing Ukraine of being ruled by Nazis who are trying to exterminate the Russian-speaking inhabitants to justify the special military operation, as Moscow calls the invasion, that has been going on since February 24. And Russian President Vladimir Putin pushed the rhetoric this Friday.
“Forgetting the lessons of history leads to the repetition of terrible tragedies,” Vladimir Putin said in a statement released today.
“The evidence of this is crimes against civilians, ethnic cleansing (and) punitive actions organized by neo-Nazis in Ukraine,” he said, adding that “it is against this evil that soldiers [russos] fight bravely”.
The International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust is celebrated annually, following a 2005 United Nations resolution, which today marks the 78th year of the liberation of the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Several survivors will gather today to commemorate the last months of World War II at a time when war is once again in Europe.
The former concentration and extermination camp is located in the town of Oswiecim, in southern Poland, which was occupied by German forces during World War II and became a place where thousands of Jews, Poles, prisoners of war of the Soviet Union, Gypsies, and other targets of the Nazis.
In all, about 1.1 million people were killed in the sprawling complex before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945.
The location is just 300 kilometers from Ukraine, where the Russian aggression that began in February 2022 sparked a new war in Europe that haunts many of those who paid tribute to the victims eight decades ago.
Vladimir Putin attended the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the camp’s liberation in 2005, but he was not welcome several years ago and no Russian official was invited today because of the Russian attack on Ukraine, according to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum .
About six million European Jews were killed in the Holocaust and millions more were killed during the war, which lasted from 1939 to 1945.
Source: DN
