Moscow – The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter,
Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, today met in Moscow with Russian
political leader Mikhail Margelov, Chairman of the Committee for
Foreign Affairs of the Russian Senate and President of the “European
Democrat Group” in the Council of Europe to discuss practical
cooperation in combating recent phenomenon of Holocaust distortion
and the glorification of Nazi collaborators in post-Communist Eastern
Europe. The discussion focused primarily on the Baltic states and
the Ukraine, where such phenomenon have increased in recent months
and have included efforts to equalize the benefits of Ukrainians
who collaborated with the Nazis to those of Red Army veterans who
fought against the Germans, as well as the attempts by Lithuania
to prosecute Holocaust survivor and scholar and former Yad Vashem
Chairman Dr. Yitzchak Arad.
Zuroff presented a number of projects relating to the historical
events designed to help combat the wave of revisionism sweeping
post-Communist Europe and discussed the potential participation
of Russian and Council of Europe institutions in mounting a campaign
to achieve that goal. Margelov expressed his grave concern regarding
the recent phenomenon and promised his assistance in helping to
forge a working relationship between the Wiesenthal Center and
the pertinent bodies in Russia and in the Council of Europe to
launch the effort.
Zuroff, who was a guest of KEROOR, the organization of Russian
religious Jewish communities, also met with the local media and
presented an analysis of the problematic policies of post-Communist
countries to Holocaust-related issues such as the prosecution of
Nazi war criminals, Holocaust education, and documentation . In
his words, “the battle for the prosecution of Holocaust perpetrators
will soon end and we will then face a new and equally-important
struggle for truth in history.”
For more information call 00-972-50-721-4156 www.operationlastchance.org
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