Abjuring Holocaust study in Russia

Published: 02/01/2008

A leader in the Russian Orthodox Church said Russian students should not study the Holocaust.

Evgeny Nikiforov, chairman of the Radonezh Orthodox Society, said it's absurd that Russian students should learn tolerance by studying the murder of Jews during World War II rather than the Russian tragedies of the 20th century, according to the Interfax news agency.

“The history of Russian tragedy -- the Russian Holocaust -- has not been written down yet and it is absolutely absurd to study the history of Jewish, Hungarian, Cambodian or other people's tragedies while our own history has not been studied,” he said.

Nikiforov addedthat he found it “strange that we Russians should learn tolerance from the Jewish nation's history,” when “the richest Russian history, especially in the 20th century, gives a lot of positive and negative examples for tolerance study.”

SOURCE: