Euroasian Jewish News

The memorial of black and white marble depicts hands forcing open the shutters of a door (Photo: Getty Images)

Vladimir Putin unveils Russia's first major memorial to Jewish resistance during the Holocaust

Vladimir Putin this week opened Russia’s first major monument dedicated to Jewish participants of the resistance in concentration camps during the Second World War.

The memorial of black and white marble, which depicts hands forcing open the shutters of a door, is located inside Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre.

It was unveiled by the Russian president on Tuesday, a little over a year after he inaugurated its construction in January 2018 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Members of the Jewish resistance “were victims, prisoners of concentration camps, but they are without a doubt also winners,” Mr Putin said, according to the Moscow Times.

He was pictured embracing Second World War veteran Aaron Belsky shortly after unveiling the memorial, which cost 18 million rubles (£218,000).

Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar and businessman Viktor Vekselberg, a member of the museum’s board, were among those joining the president for the ceremony.

Mr Vekselberg said the memorial held personal significance for him because 16 members of his family were among around 10,000 Jews held in the ghetto of Drohobych, in Ukraine, during the war.

He was quoted as saying: “The monument we’re opening today is an important symbol of an unforgettable and painful wound, a great memory and a symbol of the fact that we must do everything to prevent the slightest hint of a possible repeat.”

The Jewish Chromicle