Russia slams Poland for not inviting its envoy to commemoration events on Auschwitz liberation

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Thursday slammed Poland's decision to not invite the Russian ambassador to the events commemorating the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.

Maria Zakharova said on Telegram: "No matter how our European 'non-partners' contrived in their attempts to rewrite history in a new way, the memory of the Soviet heroes-liberators and horrors of Nazism cannot be erased."

"In January 2022, Russian diplomats were not given the floor for the first time. ... This year, representatives of the successor state of the USSR, whose soldiers saved the world from the fascist plague, on the anniversary of the liberation of the camp ... not invited at all," Zakharova said.

She stressed that Poland has been inventing pretexts against Moscow's participation in the Auschwitz museum since 2004, when Polish representatives refused to open an exposition prepared by Russian experts.

Polish representatives "were not satisfied because residents of the territories that became part of the Soviet Union in 1939-1941 were mentioned in the exposition (prepared by Russian experts) as citizens of the USSR (!)." Zakharova noted.

She added that the Russian museums prepared their own exhibitions with historical materials, including about the liberation of the concentration camps by the Soviet Red Army.

Auschwitz was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland.

The Red Army liberated the camp on Jan. 27, 1945, a day commemorated since 2005 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.