‘Nothing can justify the crimes of Nazism’: Russian parliamentary speaker accuses West of ‘redefining’ causes of WWII

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 criticized“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 introduced by the country’s right-wing government in 2018, that they claimed would criminalize 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 countries were “growing stronger” and praised efforts to ensure Holocaust remembrance in Russia.

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