"We must not forget those who put an end to the genocide", the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar stated on the Genocide Convention Day, December 9.

      In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly established it as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime. The 9th of December is the anniversary of the adoption of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”).

      Berel Lazar reminded that the Russian army saved lots of Armenian victims of genocide in 1915 and thousands of prisoners of ghettos and concentration camps survived thanks to the Soviet troops during World War 2.

      Chief Rabbi expressed his confidence that the memory of the genocide is a guarantee that it will never happen again.

      Victory Day (May 9) is traditionally widely celebrated in Israel. In this country there is special attitude to this holiday and the Soviet soldiers, who broke open the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. More than one million Jews were murdered there during the war.