Постоянное представительство Российской Федерации при Организации Объединённых Наций

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations 136E 67th Street New York, NY 10065

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PRESS RELEASE

STATEMENT

by Ilya Rogachev,

Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN,

at the opening of the exhibition “Memorial Drawings:

Remembering the Holocaust Victims and Their Liberators”

by Gennady Dobrov, an Honored Artist of Russia,

at the UN Headquarters on 17 January 2008

Dear World War II veterans,

Colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Today I am honoured to open at the UN Headquarters an exhibition of artworks by Gennady Dobrov, an Honoured Artist of Russia, an Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of Arts.

The exhibition has been organized by the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN in cooperation with the UN Information Centre in Moscow and the Department of Public Information of the Secretariat. It begins a series of events held by the UN in observance of United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Week. This exhibition aims at commemorating victims of the Holocaust and all those who liberated the survivors and at highlighting the need for the true and undistorted comprehension of the outcome of World War II.

As you are all aware, Holocaust Remembrance Day established by UN General Assembly is observed on January 27, the date when in 1945 the Soviet troops liberated prisoners of the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz. Last year on January 26, the UN General Assembly adopted without a vote an important resolution on “The Denial of Holocaust” cosponsored by 104 states, including Russia. One of the key provisions of this document is an appeal to all Member States to condemn not only the denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, but also any activities toward that end. We can justifiably categorize as such activities attempts to review the history of World War II and the role and contribution of those who fought fascism and liberated Europe from it.

Any state that posits itself as a civilized and humanist one should discard as inadmissible attempts at glorifying Nazi accomplices, be it former members of Waffen-SS units or other collaborationists and Nazi henchmen that murdered many thousands of civilians, POWs and prisoners of concentration camps. And such attempts are becoming increasingly numerous and go as far as to proclaim the day of liberation from Nazism in some countries as the day of mourning, or to demolish monuments to those who fought Nazism while erecting monuments to those who fought on the side of fascists, or to award them posthumously honorary titles of heroes of these states or naming streets after them.

We are convinced that the theme of today’s exhibition and the works on display are in line with another important UN General Assembly Resolution annually adopted at the initiative of the Russian Federation on “Inadmissibility of Certain Practices That Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” The memory of Nazi crimes and unconditional and unreserved condemnation of these crimes is a guarantee that the horrors of National-Socialism will be consigned to history and will never be repeated in the future.