"Does that order include the 60,000 American soldiers buried in France in World War I and World War II?"
Posted on 02/02/2025 6:19:56 AM PST by marcusmaximus
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday not inviting Russia to events marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp was “shameful.”
“As for the invitation and non-invitation to events related to the liberation of Auschwitz, this is, of course, such a strange, shameful thing,” Putin said in an interview with Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin, an excerpt of which was shared on his Telegram account.
“You can have any attitude toward Russia’s policy, toward the head of the Russian state, toward me; no one is begging for any invitation. But if you think about it, you could have acted much more subtly,” Putin further said.
The Russian president argued that if it was no longer possible to invite Soviet soldiers who liberated the camp because of their health or age, their relatives could have at least been invited.
-snip-
Russia has not been invited to take part in the annual events commemorating Auschwitz’s liberation since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.
(Excerpt) Read more at turkiyetoday.com ...
Most likely those were Communists.
Yep. Paid by Russia.
And now the invaders and their allies of the illegal invasion of Iraq that killed 500,000 children helps ban Russia (who are no longer communist) from commemorating their liberation of Auschwitz. Got it.
Well, it was the Red Army’s 322nd. Rifle Regiment that liberated the place.
Soviets converted many of the Nazi Concentration camps into NKVD Camps after the war.
Yeah, right?
Why build new camps when the old ones will do.
The Soviets murdered this man who escaped Auschwitz
Witold Pilecki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki
Whether anyone likes Putin and his policies or not, it is an undisputed historical fact that Soviet/Russian troops liberated Auschwitz. To not invite them (and particularly any of the soldiers who did the liberating or their relatives) is an historic injustice. Sometimes, you have to put different ideas in different boxes. However much people may be upset with Putin for starting the war in Ukraine (and there’s plenty of blame to pass around on that one), it has absolutely nothing to do with the liberation of Auschwitz some 77 years earlier than the beginning of this war.
FWIW, I am Jewish, and roughly 75 people in my extended family were murdered by the Nazis, mainly in Poland (where Auschwitz is located). Note that both sides of my father’s family also came from what is today Ukraine. Further, one of my great grandfather’s was murdered by the NKVD in 1937, and the KGB (of which Putin was a high-ranking officer) was its successor. I therefore associate Putin with the actions of the NKVD. Though I did not have any blood relatives who survived Auschwitz (though one of my wife’s uncles was liberated from Birkenau, a work camp attached to Auschwitz), and while the Soviet Union did not defeat Germany just to stop the Holocaust/Shoah, it is my firm belief that anybody who assisted in the defeat of the Nazis should be commensurately honored, or at least acknowledged. The past three years of not inviting the Russians to these ceremonies is a big mistake.
“And the reason the Soviets refused to form an alliance with Britain and France before they signed with Hitler, was that Britain and France would not give them Poland.”
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That is only the smallest part of the reason. First of all, you are factually incorrect, in that the pact between the Nazis and Communists only gave the Soviet Union *part* of Poland. However, you are missing the big picture. The Soviets simply did not trust Britain and France, for a number of reasons. Chief among those reasons is that Britain and France had, over the last several years, basically done nothing but appease Hitler. They showed how weak-willed they were, and no sane country would make an alliance with such countries (and, by the way, Poland did, and we all know how that worked out). Second, and no less important, both Britain and France participated in the immediate aftermath of World War I in sending expeditionary forces to Russia to help defeat the Communists. Obviously they, the Japanese and United States all (regrettably) failed in that mission, but if you think that Stalin and his leadership forgot about that only 20 years later, you are sadly mistaken.
So, don’t think it was simply greed for a few thousand extra square miles of territory that drove the Soviet Union to make a pact with Hitler. More than anything else, it was about a lack of trust in the West.
in that the pact between the Nazis and Communists only gave the Soviet Union *part* of Poland.
Riiight, just as the Nazis got a ‘part’ of Czechoslovakia. Six months later they got the rest of the country.
It was also personal for Stalin, it was Stalin who was blamed for the loss in 1920 in the ‘Miracle on The Vistula’.
I didn’t notice in the article what person/organization does the inviting. Who did the snubbing?
And the bottom line is when the tanks were rolling in France and the Blitz was on, who was Nazi Germany’s largest trading partner? The Soviet Union!
If Russia helped the liberation, Russia should be invited. Putin and Zelensky might be skunks, but this has nothing to do with them. It’s history.
I think it could have had more to do with security concerns.
“Riiight, just as the Nazis got a ‘part’ of Czechoslovakia. Six months later they got the rest of the country.”
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The Nazi-Soviet pact gave the Soviet Union approximately half of Poland, among other things. The Germans had a very tight grip on the rest of Poland. Had the Germans not attacked the Soviet Union nearly 2 years later, that would have stayed that way for quite a while. As it is, neither side had any intention of abiding by the terms of that pact forever, it was just a convenience that suited both of them at the moment.
History doesn’t care whether you like it or not, it just is. Facts are facts, and despite the fact that you despise the Soviet Union, it did help to destroy roughly 3/4 of the German army during World War II. Also, factually, the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, not the other way around. Believe me, I despise the Soviet Union and all leftist ideologies, as my grandfather‘s family was destroyed by Communism. But facts remain facts, whether you or I or anyone else likes those facts or not.
“It was also personal for Stalin, it was Stalin who was blamed for the loss in 1920 in the ‘Miracle on The Vistula’.”
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Regardless of the underlying reasons why, the simple fact is that Stalin did not trust the West, and that is likely why he did not agree to any kind of an alliance with Britain and France prior to the beginning of World War II. He clearly thought it was more in his interest and that of his country to enter into a temporary alliance with the Nazis. As I mentioned, Poland had a pact with the British and French, and that didn’t exactly work out well for them.
It should also be noted that Stalin was not in a very enviable geopolitical situation. Believe me, I despise him with every fiber of my being, because his NKVD murdered one of my great grandfathers, but facts are facts. The Soviet Union was, at the time, completely unable to prosecute any kind of war against the Germans, and the pact brought him extra buffer territories and time. Even with those, the Germans very nearly defeated the Soviets in 1941, kind of proving my point that Stalin was in a very bad geopolitical situation and probably didn’t have that much choice as to signing an agreement. Again, I despise the SOB, and hope he will burn in hell for the rest of eternity, because he deserves it for the tens of millions that he butchered. But facts are facts.
Security. Yes, maybe that.
"Does that order include the 60,000 American soldiers buried in France in World War I and World War II?"
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