ITAR-TASS: Russia against attempts to rewrite history

Russia condemns “any attempts to rewrite history, to depart from the clear historic and moral criteria in the assessment of Nazism, and, especially, present Nazis and their ilk as heroes”, Russian ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said addressing on Monday the special meeting of the United Nations General Assembly devoted to the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the inmates of Nazi death camps. “Those who fought on the side of the Hitler Germany in SS units now hold rallies in a number of European countries that suffered horribly from Nazi crimes”, the Russian ombudsman said. “The calls at these rallies for public and state recognition of the former accomplices of Nazism mean actually incitement to the revision of the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal that qualified all the participants in SS units as war criminals. Any other assessment of the crimes they committed during the Second World War would be an insult to the memory of ten of millions of victims of Nazism”. The ombudsman believes, “The task of protecting the monuments of world material and spiritual culture from the extremists’ actions is still relevant”. “Inaction in this matter, just as indifference while monuments to heroes and victims of the Second World War are desecrated can only encourage those who support extremist nationalist ideologies”, he said. Lukin expressed regret that anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia are still being manifested. He expressed special concern over wide currency of such views among the young generation of a number of countries. “It is no secret that many anti-Semitic actions, including the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues have been inspired by radical youth groups, among them ‘skinheads’”, the ombudsman said. He said courts in Russia, under the impact of the public and human rights supporters, “have passed of late a number of rigorous sentences on persons guilty of such actions”.