Speaker by speaker, world leaders on Thursday denounced the rising threat of anti-Semitism and vowed never to forget the lessons of the Holocaust, at a solemn ceremony in Jerusalem marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.
However, the high-powered dignitaries also tinged their speeches with competing interpretations of World War II and its relevance today, giving a politically charged feeling to the gathering.
The World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem, the largest-ever summit of its kind, drew more than 45 world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Prince Charles, US Vice President Mike Pence and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Photo: Reuters
The three-hour event at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial sought to project a united front in commemorating the destruction of European Jewry amid a global spike in anti-Jewish violence.
However, from the start, it was clouded by rival national narratives of World War II’s major players.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, who has been criticized for his own wartime revisionism, boycotted the gathering even before it began since he was not invited to speak.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, whose country is seeking to diminish its own culpability while making heroes out of anti-Soviet nationalists involved in the mass killing of Jews, abruptly canceled his participation days before the event.
And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mysteriously backed out while in Israel shortly before the ceremony began.
Putin was granted a central role even as he leads a campaign to play down the Soviet Union’s prewar pact with the Nazis and shift responsibility for the war’s outbreak on Poland, which was invaded in 1939.
In his address, Putin highlighted the role of the Red Army in liberating Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945, while singling out the collaboration by regional foes Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia.
He called them “bandits” who “often surpassed their masters in cruelty.”
In a nod toward Poland and others, he said the Holocaust would only serve as a warning to future generations if told in full, “without exemptions and omissions.”
On the eve of the gathering, host Israeli President Reuven Rivlin implored visiting dignitaries to “leave history for the historians,” saying it was the role of political leaders to “shape the future.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who seeks Putin’s support in holding off Iranian forces in Syria and in securing the release of a young Israeli woman imprisoned on drug charges in Russia, gave the Russian leader a warm welcome.
He hosted Putin for the dedication of an imposing monument honoring the nearly 900-day Nazi siege of Leningrad. The city, now known as St Petersburg, is Putin’s hometown.
“We mustn’t for even one second blur the sacrifice and the contribution of the former Soviet Union,” Netanyahu said.
Addressing the forum, Netanyahu reiterated his long-held conviction that the primary lesson of the Holocaust is that Jews had to defend themselves in the face of annihilation, pointing toward his standoff with Iran as an example.
“I am concerned that we have yet to see a unified and resolute stance against the most anti-Semitic regime on the planet, a regime that openly seeks to develop nuclear weapons, and annihilate the one and only Jewish state,” he said.
Pence also invoked Iran, calling on the world to stand strong against “the one government in the world that denies the Holocaust as a matter of state policy and threatens to wipe Israel off the map.”
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