Rabbi Lazar Meets With Russian President On Holocaust Remembrance Day

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the country’s chief rabbi, Rabbi Berel Lazar Shlita at the Kremlin in central Moscow on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, January 27. This observes the day the Auschwitz extermination camp was liberated. At the meeting, they discussed a variety of issues, including important humanitarian activities.

In the opening remarks made in the presence of many media outlets, Putin said: “Of all the Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis, most of them were citizens of the Soviet Union, the pain is shared by us. You know our position even today, that we are absolutely opposed to the denial of the Holocaust and that there is no statute of limitations for the crimes committed by the Nazis. We make and manage such a policy so that nothing like this happens again.”

Later in the meeting, in which the president of the Union of Jewish Communities in Russia, Rabbi Alexander Baroda, also participated, Putin continued and said: “The authorities here of the Russian Federation and the prosecutor’s office are doing an intensive job to prevent any sign of anti-Semitism.”

At the end of the meeting, which lasted for a long time, Putin mentioned the big annual ceremony held at the Jewish Museum on the occasion of International Holocaust Day, which will be attended by many ambassadors and various public figures.

Photo: Kremlin spokesmen