“There are more than 9 thousand such (burned) villages in the database on Belarus. In Ukraine, this is a forgotten story, artificially erased from memory, although there are more than 400 villages documented there. In Russia, this is also a lost story. According to preliminary estimates, about 10 thousand villages were burned by the Nazis and their accomplices, ”said Fomin-Nilov during the panel discussion“ Nazi extermination policy: memory through decades ”, held within the university.
According to the historian, the Nazis and their henchmen destroyed 10% of the civilian population of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War.
“The population of the Soviet Union in 1939 amounted to 170.5 million people, and as a result, civilians were killed, starved to death, or otherwise killed almost 18 million by the Nazis and their accomplices, that is, almost every 10 people,” Fomin announced -Nilov.
The historian noted that the war led to the death of a huge number of civilians of various nationalities, among whom there were more than 2.5 million Jews.
“Of these 18 million, slightly more than 2.5 million people were just civilian Jewish civilians. The rest were other peoples who inhabited the RSFSR and our western regions - Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic countries, and Moldova. We need to understand the size and horror of the tragedy that our grandparents and great-grandfathers experienced, ”added Fomin-Nilov.
The event was dedicated to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is celebrated on January 27. During the discussion, historians from leading scientific centers of Russia and the world discussed aspects of Nazi policies for the extermination of peoples, falsification of history and the prospects of teaching World War II and World War II.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the unprecedented openness of the Russian side to the publication of archives on the history of World War II.