Federation Council delegation visits Auschwitz –Birkenau concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland, to mark the anniversary of its liberation by the Red Army.
A Federation Council delegation has visited Oświęcim, Poland, where one of the largest World War II concentration camps was located.
The visit by Russian parliamentarians was timed to coincide with the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz–Birkenau prisoners by the Red Army. The delegation included Deputy Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Vladimir Lukin, Member of the Federation Council Committee on the Budget and Financial Markets Rostislav Goldshtein, and Member of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy Vladimir Krugly.
The senators visited the Auschwitz–Birkenau museum, laid flowers to the tombs of Soviet prisoners of war within the camp’s grounds, attended a ceremony near the monument to the victims and met with Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors.
“Auschwitz–Birkenau was one of the most horrible death camps of the Second World War, and visiting it was a very painful experience. Almost everything has been preserved here the way it looked in the early 1940s. The emotions that one feels when seeing these horrible barracks where prisoners were kept, the torture and gas chambers are impossible to describe,” Rostislav Goldshtein said.
The senator went on to say that no words could offer a better testimony to the unthinkable inhuman cruelty of the Nazi regime. Memories of concentration camp survivors bring home the message that nothing of this kind must ever be allowed to happen again.
“We must pay our duty to the past and future generations by preserving the memory of what happened during the Second World War, the horrors of the genocide against Jews and other peoples, and the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners by Soviet troops,” the senator pointed out.