May 9 this year will be the 80th anniversary of the great victory in World War II, a day that has become the heritage of all mankind, is approaching. It is the celebration of those who crushed Nazism, as well as of Veterans’ Day in Russia, and it commemorates all those who survived the Holocaust and withstood the siege of Leningrad.
It would be hard to find a similar date on the common calendar that combines the depth of patriotism and sincere pride in the heroism of one’s ancestors with the immense sadness and bitterness of irreparable losses. It is truly, as we say in Russia, “a holiday with tears in its eyes.”
Since the time of that great victory’s 50th anniversary, holiday parades on May 9 have become a tradition in Russia, indicating the continuity and inviolability of the memory of the feat of the Soviet people and their victorious Red Army.
Official date in Israel, too
In Israel, this day has been established as the official date of the victory over Nazi Germany, enshrined in law since 2017. For me, as well as for many representatives of the first post-war generation, and all those affected by war, this is especially valuable.
The horrors experienced during the troubled years of war have become lessons for the world for all times and must never be repeated. It is our sacred duty to do everything in our power so that our descendants firmly remember: Never again! This is both a covenant and a crucial moral guideline.
The scale and consequences of that terrible war for the former USSR were so significant that the conflict has been burned into our national consciousness as the “great war.” Ever since that first celebration of victory, the date has acquired the character of a patriotic anniversary. It also became the most important and decisive part of WWII.
Even years later, the strength of the spirit of the overwhelming unity of the multinational Soviet people in their struggle for a common victory has not waned. It has become the quintessence of the holiday we celebrate.
All nationalities
During that difficult time, people of all nationalities and religions fought side by side: Russians and Belarusians, Ukrainians and Jews, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, Azerbaijanis and Armenians, followers of Christianity and Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, and many others. All of them, like those heroes who liberated Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps, called themselves simply “Red Army soldiers.”
The war claimed the lives of approximately 27 million Soviet citizens, including 18 million civilians. Almost half of the six million who perished in the flames of the Holocaust were citizens of the USSR.
Around 10 million fell on the battlefields, including 200,000 Jewish Red Army soldiers, or nearly 80 percent of all fallen Jewish soldiers of the allied armies.
Silent archival figures conceal the screaming torments of those barbarously murdered in the dungeons of concentration camps; the inhumanely starved residents of besieged Leningrad; the residents of the Belarusian Khatyn mercilessly burned alive by Hitler’s henchmen; the Jews of Lvov massacred by Banderites. The list of human suffering is endless.
The genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union committed by the Nazis can neither be justified nor forgotten.
Russia opposed to revisionism
Among those who did not live to greet the day of the great victory, every second victim was a citizen of the USSR. That is one of the reasons that today’s Russia is so sensitive to – and resolutely opposes – any attempts to falsify history and glorify Nazi criminals and their accomplices. For our part, we are confident that any headway, all state security, and the unity of society largely depend on preserving the national memory and educating young people in the high standards of patriotism.
On Victory Day over Nazism, both in Russia and in Israel, we honor the memory of all those killed by the Nazis and their accomplices in the bloodiest conflict. At the same time, it is important to pay tribute to those who allowed us to live. We bow our heads before the feats of soldiers and officers of the entire anti-Nazi coalition and especially the Red Army fighters, who made a decisive contribution to the defeat of Hitler’s Germany, liberated European countries from Nazism, and put an end to the extermination of European Jewry.
Today, for Russia and Israel, common historical memory is not just words. It is a common value and a system of coordinates determined by the fates of our heroic ancestors.
Fighting moral decadence
Back in 1943, the future first president of the State of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, noted: “Our sons, like the Russians, who have gone forth on the field of battle, know that they are fighting against the ways of physical enslavement and moral decadence... I take pride in the fact that 600,000 Jews are serving in the Soviet Army and countless others are braving danger in the guerrilla units that attack the Germans behind the lines.”
We have remembered and will remember those brave people who wrote glorious pages in the chronicle of the common struggle against an enemy driven by a misanthropic ideology. For their heroism during the great patriotic war, more than 32,000 Jews received state awards, and some 160 of them were awarded the highest degree of distinction – the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The victory over Nazism was of fateful importance for both our countries. It became part of the historical process that led to the establishment of the United Nations and the State of Israel.
As the son of a Red Army soldier who celebrated May 9, 1945 in defeated Berlin, and as a Russian diplomat, I am pleased that our countries view both the events of the past and the affairs of the future from a common standpoint.
This is especially important when most of the unparalleled heroes, including those who lived in Israel, have already passed away, forever bequeathing their high ideals. We proudly remember them and fully understand the need to do everything possible to ensure that neo-Nazism, antisemitism, and xenophobia in any of their manifestations can never again raise their heads and bring the world to the brink of a new global catastrophe.
For our part, we will be loyal to all the goals of that special military operation in order to reconstruct and strengthen the security system in Europe – where a threat to international peace originated twice in the last century.
The writer is Russia’s ambassador to Israel.