Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. Photo: Dazhi Image/Associated Press (file photo)
Russia launched aggression on February 24 under the pretext of “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine. Democracies condemned sanctions once morest Russia, while Israel tried to strike a balance between the two sides, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ( Sergei Lavrov angered Israel by speaking to Channel Italia, who claimed that Hitler might have “Jewish blood” in his body. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid today denounced “unforgivable and hateful” and called on the Russian ambassador to “clarify” the situation.
In an interview broadcast yesterday by Italian media outlet Mediaset, Lavrov said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “made an argument that if he himself was Jewish, how might they (Ukraine) have Nazism”. “I may be mistaken, but Hitler also had Jewish blood,” Lavrov continued, according to a transcript posted on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry. “The most zealous anti-Semites are usually Jews,” he said.
In a statement issued by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lapid condemned Lavrov’s comments that “Hitler also sheds Jewish blood”, saying bluntly: “Foreign Minister Lavrov’s statement is unforgivable and hateful, and also a terrible historical error. “The Jews did not kill each other during the Holocaust. The lowest level of racial discrimination once morest Jews is to accuse Jews of anti-Semitism.”
The statement added that Israel’s foreign ministry had “summoned the Russian ambassador to Israel to meet and clarify”. Dani Dayan, president of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, also criticized Lavrov’s statement labeling Ukrainians as Nazis, describing his claims as “unfounded, fanciful and dangerous comments that should be reprehensible”. Dai Yang angrily refuted: “This is a complete distortion of history and a serious insult to the victims of Nazism!”
It is understood that the claim that Hitler had Jewish ancestry came from Hitler’s lawyer, Hans Frank, who claimed in his 1953 memoir that Hitler had instructed him to investigate rumors that he had Jewish ancestry. Frank said he found evidence that Hitler’s grandfather was indeed Jewish, a claim that has been dismissed by mainstream historians, despite being widely circulated among conspiracy theorists.
