28 January 2025, 23:17
In Volgograd, rally participants honour memory of Holocaust victims
In Volgograd, a rally, dedicated to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, was attended by members of the Jewish community, local officials, and guests of the city. Some participants of the rally have claimed that the tragedy of the Holocaust is not being sufficiently covered in educational institutions’ programmes.
The rally was organized by the Jewish community and the community centre of Volgograd. Yael Ioffe, the head of the Jewish community, reported that about 50 people came to the event. The rally was traditionally held at the memorial sign “To the Victims of the Holocaust on the Stalingrad Land”, opened at the initiative of the Jewish community on November 9, 2021.
A stone at the place where more than 600 Jews were shot and killed by Nazis in 1942-43 was installed in a Volgograd park back in 2007, but a monument to the victims of the Holocaust was opened there only on November 9, 2021. The mass Jewish grave in Volgograd, where the monument was erected, had not even marked on maps for a long time.
The participants of the memorial action shared their impressions of the event with a “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.
“In our family, we cherish the memory of my great-great-grandmother. During World War II, she was a nurse. And her parents went missing in Belarus. Their fate is unknown to us. The memory of those killed by the Nazis must be preserved forever, so that the tragedy does not happen again,” said student Alexei Berkovich.
Sarah Shechtman believes that educational institutions pay little attention to covering the tragedy of the Holocaust. When she studied at school, there were no lessons dedicated to the Holocaust. “Everything I know about this tragedy is only thanks to my personal efforts. Our family did not suffer during World War II. Although my grandfathers were fighting the Nazis. They had been awarded for their fight,” Sarah Shechtman said.
Pensioner Sergey also complained about the insufficient activities of schools in informing their students about the Holocaust and other crimes of fascism.
In October 2023, in Cherkessk, people went on a protest with a demand not to allow visitors from Israel enter the country, and a Jewish cultural centre under construction in Nalchik was set on fire. The largest action was the riots at an airport in Makhachkala provoked by a report that a plane from Israel had arrived there. More than twenty people were injured.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on January 28, 2025 at 01:00 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Source: СK correspondent
