Alexander Yakovenko, the Spokesman of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Answers a Media Question Regarding International Commemorations of the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Concentration Camp at Oswiecim

Unofficial translation from Russian

Question: The international commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau at Oswiecim are reportedly being held in Poland on January 27. Have you comment?

Answer: The government of Poland jointly with the European Jewish Congress are holding a Save My People's Life forum and a state ceremony at Oswiecim in honor of the liberation of this concentration camp by Soviet troops.

The participation of a Russian delegation in the Cracow-Oswiecim commemorations is called upon to underline the decisive contribution of our country to the victory over fascism, as a result of which the conditions were created for the free development of present-day civilization. This fact ought to serve as one more convincing reminder of the immutability of the results of the Second World War and of the complete groundlessness of the attempts being made by certain groups to review and revise them.

In the context of the Victory 60th anniversary celebrations the role of the Soviet liberator soldiers in rescuing the European states and peoples from nazi enslavement and in saving millions of inhabitants of the continent, whatever their citizenship and national identity, from physical destruction will be accentuated.

A separate aspect will be a reminder of the Soviet Union's decisive contribution to rescuing the Jewish people from the threat of total nazi genocide. Without belittling the memory of the other Oswiecim victims, many of whom were Soviet citizens of different nationalities, this fact cannot but be specially mentioned at the site, the very name of which became the symbol of the Holocaust.

January 21, 2005