MOSCOW. On November 8, 2007, President of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) and the Russian Jewish Congress (RJC) Moshe Kantor participated in the meeting between Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov and the delegation from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) led by its Director Abraham Foxman during their trip to Moscow. The meeting discussed issues of Russian-U.S. relations, the fight against xenophobia and anti-Semitism, ways to resolve the Middle East crisis and develop the peace process in the region, and nuclear weapons non-proliferation.
During the meeting the Foreign Affairs Minister underscored the importance of the EJC’s and ADL’s efforts in an environment of extremism and nationalism escalating in Europe and throughout the world. Lavrov focused the attention of the organizations’ leaders on the alarming tendencies stemming from the policies of some European states to revise the history of World War II and glorify former Nazi supporters and war criminals guilty of mass killings of Jews and others.
The same issues were discussed at another meeting held the same day between EJC and ADL leadership, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the Council of Federation Mikhail Margelov and deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky.
The EJC and RJC leadership has been actively counteracting attempts of revising history and rehabilitating Nazi war criminals. As part of their action plan, the third International Holocaust Forum is scheduled for 2008 in Germany to commemorate 70 years since die Kristallnacht tragedy. The Forum is urged to remind the world how dangerous it is to forget the tragic lessons of history and doubt such key historical facts of the XX century as the decisive role of the Red Army in defeating the Nazis or the Holocaust.
