
On January 27, commemorative events were held in Poland to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. They were opened by President Andrzej Duda. Foreign guests, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Britain’s King Charles III, arrived for the ceremony, while Russia did not receive an invitation. This decision angered not only Russian but also some European politicians.
Delegations from abroad attended the commemorative ceremony. Among the honored guests were King Charles III of Great Britain, head of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. At the same time, the list of guests did not include the leaders of the Russian Federation and Israel. Prime Minister of the Jewish state Benjamin Netanyahu refused to visit Poland because of the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued in his name. Those who gathered at the camp museum that day did not recall the role of the USSR and the Red Army in the events of 80 years ago.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex was liberated by Soviet troops during the Vistula-Oder offensive operation of the Great Patriotic War on January 27, 1945. It is considered the largest of such facilities created by the Nazis. At the time of liberation, there were about 7,000 prisoners in it.

According to the Russian Military Historical Society, up to 1.4 million people died at Auschwitz between 1941 and 1945. More than a million men’s and women’s costumes, as well as personal belongings of prisoners who died in gas chambers and crematorium ovens were discovered on the camp’s territory. It was thanks to the soldiers of the Red Army that the “factory of death” stopped working forever.
The vast majority of Auschwitz victims were Jews. Also in the camp were held Soviet prisoners of war, Poles, Roma and representatives of other peoples who were persecuted by Germany. In 1947, a museum was established on the site of the former concentration camp, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Despite the fact that the camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers, Russia was not invited to events at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The true liberators of the camp were forgotten long before the current events, said the Chief Military Rabbi of Russia Aaron Gurevich. He recalled that the Russian Federation has not received invitations to commemorative events in Poland for not the first year, and several years ago the Russian museum exposition in the camp was closed. These actions of the Europeans contradict historical logic, he emphasized.
“The position of the country hosting the event is completely incomprehensible. Most of the death camps were located in Poland. The prisoners of the European Jewish ghettos, who were brought here for extermination, were also gathered here. The presence of the Allies is probably necessary. But neither American troops nor Anders’ Polish army liberated Auschwitz. This approach is the result of an active rewriting of history to suit changing Western perceptions of the Soviet Union’s role in World War II. So where Russia’s presence is simply necessary, it is not present,” Gurevich added.