JEWISH COMMUNITY OUTRAGED AT "COLLECTION OF NATIONALISTS" IN ST. PETERSBURG
Interfax-Religiia, 23 March 2015
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia [FEOR] expressed concern over the conducting in St. Petersburg of a forum with the participation of ultranationalist forces of Europe.
"This event creates an extremely negative impression and seems like a real 'dancing on the bones' of victims of national socialism. This gathering seems especially cynical against the backdrop of large-scale events devoted to the 70th anniversary of victory over Nazism planned for 2015," a statement of FEOR provided by the press service of the organization says.
The statement notes that representatives from various ultranationalist parties of Europe gathered at the congress, including such parties as the Greek Golden Dawn, the National Democratic Party of Germany, the Austrian Party of Freedom, the Party of Swedes, the British National Party (whose former leader Nick Griffin, who also participated in the forum, denies the Holocaust), and the Italian New Force, whose leader Roberto Fiore calls himself a fascist.
"The greater part of these parties, from our point of view, can be safely included in a list of extremist movements whose activity should be prohibited on the territory of the Russian federation," the statement says.
The Federation of Jewish Communities thinks that organizing events with such participants "is absolutely unacceptable and blasphemous with respect to the memory of victims of the Great Patriotic War."
"Extreme surprise within the Jewish community of Russia is evoked by the fact that this collection of nationalists is being held in the city which is one of the cities that were most damaged by the actions of nazis on the territory of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War and in whose vicinity there is the northernmost of the places of mass shootings of Jews by nazis," the document says. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 March 2015)
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