MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th September, 2019) The world is celebrating International Remembrance Day for Victims of Fascism on Sunday.
The day has been marked annually on the second Sunday of September since 1962. This year, it is honored on September 8.
The date is observed in September because World War II (WWII) began with the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and ended with the capitulation of militaristic Japan on September 2, 1945.
WWII was the largest, deadliest and most expensive conflict in history. It involved 61 states and more than 80 percent of the world's population. Military operations occupied the territories of 40 states, as well as the vast basins of the Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. More than 55 million people died, with the Soviet Union sustaining the biggest losses � about 27 million people.
More than 70 years have passed since fascism, which resulted in unspeakable suffering and millions of victims, was defeated by a joint effort. However, a number of countries are trying to revise the results of WWII, distorting historical facts and imposing a blatantly false vision of them for the sake of selfish political and economic interests.
According to some experts, today, there is a gradual whitewashing and revival of Nazism in Europe.
The veterans' gatherings of one of Hitler's troops, the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, have been taking place in Estonia for several years now. In Latvia, marches of Waffen-SS legionnaires are organized annually on March 16. Kiev authorities recognized members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA, an extremist organization banned in Russia), which collaborated with Nazi Germany during WWII and was responsible for numerous massacres, as fighters for independence.
According to Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov, "neo-Nazi organizations" in the United States exploit the First Amendment to the US Constitution to freely operate, and even to erect monuments to perpetrators of "ethnic cleansing campaigns" and Nazi collaborators "involved in the Holocaust."
Starting from 2005, the UN General Assembly, upon Russia's initiative, annually adopts resolutions urging the end of the glorification of Nazism.
On November 22, 2014, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled "Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."
In it, members of the Assembly expressed "deep concern about the glorification of the Nazi movement and former members of the Waffen-SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials and holding public demonstrations that glorified the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism."
In addition, the resolution condemns the presentation of Nazi collaborators as participants in national liberation movements and Holocaust denial.
On May 5, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that introduced the punishment of up to five years in prison for rehabilitating Nazism, denying the facts established by the Nuremberg Tribunal and for disseminating false information about Soviet activities during WWII. The law also allows for fines to those desecrating the days of military glory and other memorable dates in Russia.
On November 4, 2014, Putin signed amendments to the law on the perpetuation of the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 and to the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation, extending the list of organizations whose public demonstrations, propaganda and symbols entail administrative responsibility.
The list was supplemented with organizations that collaborated with fascist groups and movements, as well as with international or foreign organizations, or their representatives, that deny the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal, the sentences of national, military or occupation tribunals based on the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal or imposed during the Great Patriotic War and WWII.
The main goal of International Remembrance Day for Victims of Fascism is to fight against the revival of fascist ideology. The slogan of this memorable day is "To unite in order to resist neo-fascism."
Traditionally, public events are held in Russia during International Remembrance Day for Victims of Fascism in memory of tens of millions of people who died during WWII.
