After an initial, somewhat subdued start, the head of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum Dani Dayan has become a full-throated excoriater of Russia’s ongoing invasion of neighboring Ukraine, calling its attacks “outrageous” and appalling, and utterly rejecting Moscow’s claims it launched the offensive to “denazify” the country.
“It is not based on fact, it distorts and trivializes the Holocaust, and we deplore it,” Dayan said, speaking to The Times of Israel in his office at the museum in Jerusalem.
Reflecting on the historical context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is the largest conventional military conflict in Europe since World War II, Dayan lamented that the continent, and the world, were returning to the prospects of massive nation state-versus-nation state wars.
“We have returned to an era in which, in Europe, they are trying to resolve conflicts by invasion instead of diplomatic talks. That is a lesson that we hoped Europe would have learned from World War II. And unfortunately, we see that some countries didn’t,” he said.
With a wry smile, he added that launching invasions of neighboring countries ultimately did not work out well for Germany. “I also would like to remind [Russia] that sometimes the one that starts belligerence pays a heavy price, as we learned in World War II,” he said.
“We are appalled by the loss of innocent civilian lives. And the immense, the huge, the giant stream of refugees reminds us of the fact that war causes tremendous...
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