The State Duma of the Russian Federation hosted a round table entitled "Holocaust Remembrance: Countering the Distortion of History," organized by the EAJC

On January 25, on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the State Duma of the Russian Federation hosted a gathering of leading experts, historians, educators, public figures, politicians, and students. The participants discussed the specifics of Holocaust representation and perception in Russia, Israel, and the Euro-Asian region, educational initiatives aimed at preserving the memory of the Holocaust, as well as the origins, prevention, and counteraction of genocide, racial, national, and ethnic intolerance.

The round table participants were welcomed by Oksana Bondar, Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, and Mariya Voropaeva, Chairperson of the Youth Parliament of the State Duma.

According to Lev Gudkov, Director of the Yuri Levada Analytical Center, the percentage of Russians aware of the systematic destruction of the Jewish people has increased from 60% to nearly 90% over the last 30 years. The ambiguous attitude toward the Holocaust characteristic of the Soviet era has virtually vanished, and the number of individuals denying the Holocaust has decreased to approximately 6%. Nevertheless, Gudkov cautioned against complacency. “Awareness of the Nazi extermination of the Jews remains ‘detached’; it fails to elicit empathy, solidarity, or compassion, being perceived merely as distant history.” According to Gudkov, racism and antisemitism in Russia remain dormant. “Existing stereotypes and biases persist in an inactive state and could easily be mobilized and reactivated in the event of interethnic friction. Public immunity to such phenomena remains weak,” Gudkov stated.

Alla Gerber, President of the Holocaust Foundation, argued that the concept of “historical distortion” is interpreted in various ways. In her view, distortion includes omitting the post-war repercussions of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union—such as the assassination of Solomon Mikhoels, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee affair, the Doctors' Plot, the campaign against “cosmopolitans,” and the refuseniks who sought to emigrate to Israel. “The younger generation will not trust our accounts of the Holocaust unless we present the complete truth,” Gerber emphasized.

Oleg Mortkovich, head of the Moscow Association of Former Juvenile Prisoners of Ghettos and Concentration Camps, noted that as the war, the Holocaust, and the victory over Nazism recede into history, fewer eyewitnesses remain. “Our responsibility is to bear witness to the historical reality,” Mortkovich stated. “Many teachers, let alone students, have never even heard of these events.” During the war, Mortkovich was saved by a Ukrainian woman who hid him in a pit for more than two years.

Boris Srebnik, an economist, has been a professor at the Moscow Institute of Finance and Economics (currently the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation) since 1975. His former students include First Deputy Prime Minister Anton Siluanov. Starting in July 1941, Srebnik spent over two years as a prisoner in the Minsk Ghetto—the largest ghetto in the occupied USSR, where 130,000 Jews were murdered. Srebnik emphasized that the primary challenge today is preserving the living memory of the Shoah. “When I recount what I witnessed, people are often incredulous, claiming such atrocities defy belief,” Srebnik remarked.

Dr. Aron Shneyer, a historian and researcher at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center, explained that Yad Vashem serves as the cornerstone of Israeli state policy regarding the memory of the Holocaust. “Visitors to Yad Vashem are certainly aware of the tragedy,” Dr. Shneyer said. “However, when this tragedy is presented in such a concentrated manner, conveyed through individual human destinies and the stories of specific prisoners, it reshapes perspectives. A person enters the museum one way and departs transformed.” Dr. Shneyer suggested that Russia could draw upon the Israeli experience to establish a dedicated memorial museum for the victims of Nazism during the Great Patriotic War.

Ilya Altman, Professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities and Co-Chairman of the Holocaust Center, reviewed the milestones achieved by non-governmental organizations dedicated to preserving Holocaust memory. The subject has been integrated into national educational standards and history curricula; January 27 has been officially included in the educational calendar for several years; and during the previous year, educational institutions in 67 regions held commemorative events, supplemented by the annual Moscow Memorial Week. “Nevertheless, the country still lacks a state-run Holocaust museum,” Altman pointed out, reminding the audience that “Russia contains 500 mass execution sites of Jews, yet has fewer than 100 corresponding memorials.”

Evgeny Gontmakher, an economist and member of both the Committee of Civil Initiatives and the European Dialogue expert group, pointed to rising social tensions globally, which frequently lead to simplistic explanations for wealth disparity. “In Venezuela, certain political forces blame the crisis on the Jewish population. Whenever socio-economic challenges arise, latent antisemitism is reawakened,” Gontmakher observed. He called attention to the widespread use of hate speech and urged State Duma deputies to subject all draft legislation to sociological and social-impact assessments.

Alexander Verkhovsky, Director of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, suggested that the persistence of antisemitism and neo-Nazism in post-Soviet Russia is partly due to Soviet educational policies, which failed to address the specific ideological evils of Nazism beyond the invasion of the USSR. Consequently, modern public displays of antisemitism or racism often fail to evoke an adequate public response. Verkhovsky added that the legacy of the Holocaust is not unique to Jewish persecution. “In Nazi Germany, Jehovah’s Witnesses were systematically sent to concentration camps. While we do not see mass internments here, 22 individuals currently remain in pre-trial detention solely because of their membership in the Jehovah's Witnesses organization, which has been banned in our country in a manner reminiscent of historical precedents,” Verkhovsky noted.

Alexander Drakhler, a history and social studies teacher at Moscow School No. 293, stated that institutional constraints prevent history instructors from dedicating more than a single lesson to the Holocaust. He urged public organizations to assist educators in developing instructional materials that bypass detached, statistical representations of the tragedy.

Roman Romanov, Director of the GULAG History State Museum, voiced support for the expansion of memorial and exhibition infrastructure dedicated to the Holocaust. However, he noted that the implementation of sensitive historical topics in schools is occasionally handled poorly. “Broadcasting the diaries of Holocaust victims over school PA systems during recess is highly counterproductive,” Romanov observed.

Leonid Terushkin, an expert at the Russkiy Uchebnik Corporation and head of the archives at the Holocaust Center, indicated that outright Holocaust denial is no longer a prominent issue. Rather, the challenge lies in historical revisionism and attempts to contrast the genocide of the Jewish people with the tragedy of the Russian, Belarusian, or Ukrainian populations. “We are witnessing a simplification and vulgarization of the Holocaust narrative,” Terushkin argued, though he emphasized that extensive online resources remain available for those seeking verified, document-based historical truth.

Mikhail Edelshtein, Director of Research at the Alexander Pechersky Foundation, argued that the history of World War II, despite varying national interpretations, serves as a unifying factor. He referenced Alexander Pechersky, who in recent years was posthumously decorated by three different states: Russia, Poland, and Ukraine. “While geopolitical relations within this triad are currently highly complex, the figure of this war hero remains a consensus figure for all three nations,” Edelshtein noted.

Concluding the round table, the moderator, Bella Waldberg, Executive Director of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress in Russia, announced that organizers would draft a formal resolution based on the proposals raised during the discussion. The document will be published on the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress website, eajc.org, and submitted to the state authorities of the Russian Federation.

The round table was organized by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress and the Youth Parliament of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, with support from the Holocaust Center and Foundation, as well as the Russian Association of Jewish Students.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day has been observed annually by UN member states on January 27 since 2006, pursuant to a UN General Assembly resolution.

The date marks the historic day in 1945 when the Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi extermination camp, where at least one million people lost their lives. The exact number of victims remains impossible to determine.