Israel’s Yad Vashem recently commemorated the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Dozens of global leaders attended the emotional ceremony, which should have been a unifying moment for Europe and its neighbors. Instead it laid bare deep divisions over historical memory.
In the weeks before the ceremony, Russia made a concerted effort to recast the Soviet Union’s role in World War II as unambiguously righteous. Moscow played down the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Soviet invasion of Poland while blaming Poles for contributing to the outbreak of the war. Amid this historical scrimmage, President Vladimir Putin received a plum speaking spot in the Israeli-organized commemoration.
