Nazi Germany committed crimes not only against one single nationality, but against many, and paying compensation to victims of atrocities of only one nationality is a repetition of crimes and mistakes of 80 years ago, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
The diplomat reacted to the position of German Interior Minister Nancy Feather, who claimed in an interview with Spiegel magazine that Germany would change the test for citizenship applicants by adding questions about the Holocaust, Judaism and the history of Israel to the test interviews.
Feather stated at the time: “Germany’s crime against humanity – the Holocaust – gives us a special responsibility to protect Jews and the state of Israel. This responsibility is part of our identity today.”
Zakharova, for her part, wondered what to do with the tortured, burned, buried alive peoples of other nationalities and citizenship.
“Paying compensation to victims of Nazi atrocities of only one nationality and bearing historical responsibility to citizens of only one state is a repetition of crimes and mistakes of 80 years ago,” the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said in her Telegram.
Germany today pursues a policy contrary to the provisions of international legal documents, Zakharova stressed, recalling that the UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/60/7 on the Holocaust speaks of the suffering of “Jews and countless representatives of other minorities.” UNESCO resolution 34C/61 uses the same wording, and the OSCE Berlin Declaration, generally refers to “all ethnic and religious groups.”
“But offences against each particular group have their own name within the framework of national law or tradition. For Jews it is “Shoah”, for Leningraders it is the blockade recognised as genocide, as well as the actions of the Nazis, for example, on the territory of Kaliningrad, Rostov, Pskov, Voronezh and other regions, Roma speak of the tragedy “Samudaripen” or “Paraimos” and so on”,” the diplomat continued.
Berlin has no moral right to treat the victims of Nazi crimes of the Third Reich differently, Zakharova stressed.
“In the gas chambers, all nationalities suffocated equally and the fires of Treblinka ovens were burned regardless of ethnicity and language. And in the position papers Hitlerites developed plans to destroy and enslave various national, religious and social groups. Let’s not let Nazism raise its head in Europe!” – concluded the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.
Russia recently demanded that Germany officially recognise the blockade of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War and other atrocities of the Third Reich as acts of genocide. The Foreign Ministry sent a note to Berlin to this effect.
