Yad Vashem is apologizing for “inaccuracies” and “partial” facts presented at last month’s World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem, after being criticized for overly emphasizing Russia’s role in ending the war and avoiding information Moscow finds unpalatable, Haaretz reports.
Videos presented at the ceremony attended by dozens of world leaders, among them Russian President Vladimir Putin, focused almost exclusively on the Soviet Union’s role in defeating the Nazis while downplaying the role of America, Britain and other countries, the report said.
They also failed to mention Joseph Stalin’s deal with Adolf Hitler in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact that preceded the war, Russia’s occupation of parts of Poland and other facts uncomfortable to Moscow.
Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin delivers a speech during the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem on January 23, 2020 (Abir SULTAN / POOL / AFP)
The events of the Forum have been widely criticized as overly fawning toward Putin.
“Sadly, videos at the event, and particularly the one intended to summarize key points of World War II and the Holocaust, included inaccuracies and a partial portrayal of historical facts that created an unbalanced impression,” the Holocaust memorial museum tells the paper. “The videos… do not portray the complicated picture.”
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