Yoel Schvartz, expert on Holocausus: “Talking about the denazification of Ukraine is a historical mistake and an embezzlement of memory”

Historian Yoel Schvartz is one of the world's leading experts on the Holocaust and belongs to Yad Vashem, the World Shoah Memorial Centre, whose goal is to commemorate, document, research and educate about the Holocaust. In dialogue with Infobae he explains why Russian President Vladimir Putin's public argument for invading Ukraine is a lie. “The concept of denazification is totally taken out of context,” he said.

The Israeli historian disassembles the Russian narrative and details that the ultras do not have the power that Putin assigns to them in the Ukrainian government. “In no way can it be equated with the Nazi regime,” he says. He adds: “This is part of a process of revision and rewriting of historical memory in the post-Soviet world”

-Vladimir Putin talks about “denazification” to try to justify the invasion of Ukraine, what is the basis for his argument?

-First of all, it must be said that the concept of denazification is totally taken out of context. It was used in the late 1940s and early 1950s, in West Germany, for the entire process of judging and cleaning the various strata in German society from the presence of persons who had had ties or were hierarchs of the Nazi Party. But it has nothing to do with the reality of what is happening today in Ukraine. It has nothing to do with the reality of this military operation. His goals have nothing to do with this. I think Putin manipulates a real event, like a lot of manipulations, which is that there is an ultra-right presence inside Ukraine and in circles close to the Government, especially in the Army, but this presence does not mean that they are the ones who govern, nor that they have the power. In no way can it be equated with the Nazi regime

-President Volodymir Zlenenzky is also a Jew...

Not only is he a president of Jewish origin, but he was elected by 73% of the votes and at the time, when his campaign began, the pro-Russians accused him of being a puppet of the nationalists, but the nationalists also accused him of being the “Trojan Horse” of the pro-Russians. Zelenzy, in addition to the fact that his family suffered the holocausate and that his great-uncles were killed in concentration camps, is a man who grew up in a Russian environment, he speaks perfect Russian. It is known that he was comical, and his first performances were in Moscow. He could perfectly pass as both nationalist and pro-Russian, and he was accused of both positions. This proves that he tried to maintain moderate and distant positions from these groups. There are those who say, in fact, that the ultras are in decline in recent years. What Putin is clearly concerned about is not the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist minority, but the decisions and directions taken by the majority.

- Why resort to a narrative like this when it is easily removable?

-But where is it detachable... I think this narrative points to the internal front. Through this narrative Putin seeks to manufacture a consensus that gives legitimacy to this operation in Ukraine and associates it with the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is still called today. And this is part of a broader process, which is the process of revising and rewriting historical memory in the post-Soviet world. It happens in Poland, in Hungary and even in Ukraine itself. It is a process of revision and reconstruction of historical memory that has to do with the process of disarming the structure of the USSR and the countries behind the Iron Curtain. Each of them seeks to reposition their people and their State in terms of the past and in relation to the needs of the current situation and the present.

-Maintaining this narrative is easier for him with the control of the media and the management of the dissemination of internal information...

-As is. In fact, we see that the most dissenting media have been shut down. There is a whole filter of the information that arrives in Russia, of what is happening outside. The international media, without having direct knowledge of what is happening there, are being filtered. The protests are being pursued. Laws restricting social protest have been enacted. Journalists and protesters have been imprisoned... There is a return to a regime of curtailing individual freedoms and freedom of expression, which, precisely, from this operation in Ukraine is beginning to gain more and more strength.

- So, at this time, isn't it true that Ukraine is ruled by Nazis?

No, of course not. There are Nazis in Ukraine, of course. Let us be precise: in Ukrainian society and Ukrainian politics there are groups and currents that claim the collaboration of Ukrainian nationalism with Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s. Successive Ukrainian governments since 2013 have had a policy of turning a blind eye to Ukrainian nationalists with anti-Semitic attitudes, yes, but to say that Ukraine is ruled by Nazis or that Ukraine is going to denazify through this war is a historical mistake and an embezzlement of historical memory that, moreover, can lead to a the opposite result. If Ukraine survives this war, Ukrainian nationalism could be radicalized.

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