Politicians

1 December 2020

By Boris Vishnevsky, member of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, winner of the Moscow Helsinki Group Prize

Source: Moscow Helsinki Group v [original source: Эхо Москвы]

Most people will be absolutely appalled by the news that the Investigative Committee is summoning veterans, well into their nineties, to questioning in connection with the investigation into the crimes committed by Nazi Germany and its allies during the Second World War.

As a last resort, if you wanted to find out something previously unknown, you might politely ask if you could invite the veterans to come for a chat, or if you could maybe visit them for a chat.

And I would like to ask: if the Investigative  Committee is so concerned about the implementation of the amendment to the Constitution on “the assurance of historical truth” – why does he not want to investigate Stalin’s crimes?

His victims numbered tens of millions of people but most of the perpetrators, including those who prosecuted, investigated, accused, tried and executed, escaped punishment,  in contrast to those  Nazi criminals who were  convicted in Nuremberg and other courts.

Such an investigation would be no less relevant than the investigations into the crimes of the Nazis.

And it would not be  so difficult to investigate: there is no need even for witnesses to be interrogated as  all the materials on these issues are available in the archives of the Russian VChK-OGPU-NKVD-KGB. True, for the most part, these resources are not available to private citizens, but they are fully accessible to the Investigative Committee.

And, if you don’t have enough information, you can go to Memorial, instead of branding it as a “foreign agent”.

Translated by Graham Jones