Overview
- Russian representatives were not invited to the Bundestag’s January 28 remembrance session held around International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
- The Russian Embassy in Berlin criticized the decision, saying it should remain on the organizers’ conscience and warning against downplaying the Soviet role in 1945.
- The embassy asserted that at least 40% of Jews killed in Europe were Soviet citizens, highlighting Soviet victimhood in its statement.
- Citing contested figures, the embassy referenced 1.5–4 million deaths at Auschwitz, while the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum documents about 1.1–1.5 million victims, roughly 1 million of them Jews.
- Later the same day, President Vladimir Putin told Jewish community leaders that the coincidence with the lifting of the Leningrad blockade underscores Nazi crimes against civilians, with no German explanation reported in the coverage.