Russia will be barred from next year’s ceremony commemorating 80 years since the Red Army liberated the Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the museum said Monday.
The museum, located in the southern Polish city of Oswiecim, decided to exclude Moscow for a third time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. NATO and EU member Poland has been a staunch supporter of Kyiv since the invasion.
“It’s the anniversary of the liberation [of the camp]. We remember the victims, but we also celebrate liberty there,” museum director Piotr Cywinski said in a statement. “It’s difficult to imagine the presence of Russia, which clearly does not understand the value of liberty.”
Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia had always attended the liberation ceremony, which takes place every year on Jan. 27. But the museum denounced Moscow’s attack on its neighbor as a “barbaric act.”
Nazi Germany built the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp after it invaded Poland in World War II.
The camp has become a symbol of Nazi Germany’s genocide of six million European Jews, one million of whom died at the site between 1940 and 1945 along with more than 100,000 non-Jews.
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