Auschwitz and Russia's selective memory of the Second World War

National Post, 24 January 2020

Putin presents himself as the heir of Russia’s purported glory. That explains his efforts to remember the war as a time of Russian sacrifice and triumph, including at Auschwitz.

On Wednesday and Thursday in Jerusalem, one of the largest gatherings of world leaders in the history of Israel marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Russian and French presidents Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence and Prince Charles spoke at Yad Vashem, as did German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Monday will mark the entry to Auschwitz by the Soviet Red Army. The Jerusalem commemoration is the first of many this year marking the end of the Second World War.

The liberation of Auschwitz invites us to consider how Russia looks back at those 75 years. It is not an invitation to agree with but to understand the Russian view of recent history as the country plays an increasingly prominent role in global affairs, whether in Ukraine or Syria or Venezuela.

Only visitors to Auschwitz who have been there many times tend to visit the secondary exhibitions, the national pavilions that are housed on the site. The primary exhibitions, detailing the Shoah, are overwhelming in their own right, and so very few visit the pavilions showing how what ended at Auschwitz played out in other countries. The pavilions are curated by the various countries in consultation with the Auschwitz museum authorities, so they reflect how different countries view their own role in the war and in the Holocaust.

For example, the Polish pavilion is organized around the theme “The Struggle and Martyrdom of the Polish Nation 1939-1945.” The idea is clear; Poland was the first victim of the Nazi war machine and struggled mightily against it. The rebuke to those who consider occupied Poland an ally of Nazi Germany is intended and explicit.

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