Judging by the coverage, the event was solemn and mournful in tone, in keeping with the gravity of the occasion. Speakers rightly stressed the imperative of preventing the recurrence of mass murder of people targeted for persecution on any grounds whatsoever, anywhere in the world. A well-founded parallel was drawn with another of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century: the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, in memory of which the memorial in the capital district of Gisozi was built.
The international community and all people of good will were urged to confront, consistently and uncompromisingly, the dehumanising ideology of racial, religious, or political-ideological intolerance â€" an ideology that carries within it the threat of new genocides.
And yet, not a single word was said about one circumstance that is fundamental for understanding the context of this commemoration â€" and, indeed, the Holocaust as a whole. Namely: who, precisely, liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau 81 years ago, bringing the extermination of its prisoners to an end?
Who made the decisive contribution to the defeat of Hitler's Germany, thereby stopping the monstrous crimes committed for years (from 1933 to 1945) not only against the Jews, whom the Nazis set out to exterminate entirely, but also against many other peoples who became victims of the Third Reich's aggression?
No mention was made of the Soviet Union â€" of which modern Russia is the legal and historical successor. Notably, no Russian representative was invited by the organisers to honour the memory of the Holocaust's victims and to recall the role of their liberators.
It is painful to realise that this 'forgetfulness' was hardly accidental. More likely, it reflects a trend of recent years: a 'war on historical memory' being waged against our country â€" one that seeks to silence its real role in the greatest conflict in human history (it is the Second World War, not the First, that rightly deserves to be called 'great') and its contribution to the victory over absolute evil embodied in the inhuman ideology and brutal deeds of Nazism.
Ask an average citizen of any Western country today, and, I fear, of most states of the 'Global South' as well, who won that war, and the answer will most probably be: of course, the United States.
The more historically literate may add: in alliance with the United Kingdom and with the support of other members of the anti-Hitler coalition. Only a handful will name the Soviet Union, as they will China (except the Chinese themselves). India will be remembered chiefly by Indians. And how many people on the continent know that many Africans fought in the ranks of the anti-Hitler coalition?
Why is this so? Because that very propaganda, whose existence my American and European colleagues may deny, nevertheless worked diligently to imprint such a picture on the minds of ordinary people around the world. It was continuously broadcast in the global media space in the post-war decades.
And in recent years, this narrative has been voiced with increasing frequency by political leaders themselves: some of whom, like President Trump, may do so out of genuine misunderstanding rooted in limited historical knowledge, while others advance it deliberately, in pursuit of narrowly defined political interests and with varying degrees of cynicism.
This narrative also has a reverse side. Russia (and before it, the Soviet Union) has long been portrayed by its adversaries as the embodiment of dark forces threatening civilisation: a source of destructive ideas and inhuman practices, manifested in alleged external aggression and the suppression of freedom and dissent at home. It is no coincidence that the term 'orcs' has gained currency.
Drawn from Tolkien's mythology to depict beings portrayed as simultaneously submissive and inherently violent. Yet this is nothing other than dehumanization, something Rwandans know all too well, having witnessed how it paved the way for genocide here. Such language, however, makes it easier to deny Russians the right to security, and to deny those who maintain a Russian cultural identity, now living across recently redrawn borders, the right to use their native language and observe their traditional faith.
I have no desire to pit Russia against the West, still less to portray those shaped by Western narratives, as the personifications, respectively, of good and evil. Reality is always more complex and does not fit into a black-and-white dichotomy, whether we speak of the past or the present. The purpose of this admittedly emotional appeal is to uphold the truth on a matter vital to national identity â€" one that speaks to our past, shapes our present, and will define our future.
It is also meant to reaffirm solidarity with the people of Rwanda, who rightly recognise the link between the Holocaust of the mid-twentieth century and the genocide at its end â€" a link consistently underscored by Russian officials, at commemorative events held annually in Moscow on 7 April.
Alexander Polyakov
