Israel lambasted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday for claiming that Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins, saying it was an "unforgivable" falsehood that debased the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.
Highlights
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins.
- Israeli foreign ministry summons Russian ambassador and demands apology.
- Claims were made in a signal of sharply deteriorating relations with Moscow.
- Ukraine says Russia is “full of hatred” for other nations.
- Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust says the comments were “an insult and a severe blow to the victims of the real Nazism” The identity of one of Hitler’s grandfathers is not known but there has been some speculation, never backed up by any evidence, that he might have been a Jew, according to the memorial’s chairman, Dani Dayan.
- In March, Volodymyr Zelenskiy compared the Russian offensive in Ukraine to Nazi Germany’s plan