FIR protests against all forms of governmental historical revisionism
With great concern, the FIR pursues governmental forms of the history revision in different European countries. The delegates of the XVIII FIR Congress at the end of November had rejected the scandalous declaration of the European Parliament of 19 September 2019. At the same time the delegates called on defending against NS-Glorification, as it should take place by the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators in the Baltic republics, in Bulgaria, Hungary and in Bleiburg for the Croatian collaborators also in the coming year.
We were outraged to note that on 3 December the Ukrainian Parliament (Werchowna Rada) adopted a decree on commemoration days and anniversaries in 2020, which, among other things, provides for ceremonial events in memory of a number of Nazi collaborators whose anniversaries will fall in 2020. The government is to draw up a plan for the events and secure their financing. The Ministry of Education is responsible for the preparation of commemoration ceremonies in schools and universities. The National Bank of Ukraine will be commissioned to mint commemorative coins.
The FIR condemns such forms of governmental historical revision in all sharpness. It is a perverse signal, if in the 75th year of the victory of the peoples over fascism, the year of the liberation of many countries from the fascist occupation now NS collaborators and SS volunteers are to be honored and presented as an ideal for the coming generations. While the history of the anti-fascist struggle is falsified and the achievements of the women and men in the ranks of the anti-Hitler coalition in many countries in different European countries are questioned, such decisions give a European view of history, which ignores the truth about the liberators from the fascist barbarism and the anti-fascist resistance. We must not allow that to happen.
In addition, other social forces expressed their criticism of such falsification of history. The Israeli ambassador diplomatically called on the Ukrainian government to “rethink” the inclusion of such “questionable figures” in the list of officially celebrated persons in Ukraine. Eduard Dolinski, Chairman of the Jewish Committee of Ukraine, expressed himself more clearly: “To celebrate those who – for whatever reason – have decided to cooperate with the Nazi regime is, in our opinion, an affront to the memory of six million Jews killed by the Nazi regime”.
Together with its member-federations, the FIR will defend and preserve also in the year 2020 the historical truth about the Second World War and the achievements of the anti-fascist fight.
