The Ambassador of Israel in Russia, Natan Meron, expressed his gratitude to all the deputies of the State Duma of the RF who respected the memory of the victims of Holocaust with a minute of silence at the meeting of the lower chamber of the Russian parliament on April 19, 2001.

On Monday April 24, 2001, Natan Meron in a letter addressed to the Deputy Head of the Yabloko faction Sergei Ivanenko (who had submitted a corresponding proposal to the Duma) asked him to express his gratitude to the deputies of the Duma. In his letter the Ambassador stressed that Israel “is extremely appreciative of the support of the deputies of the Russian parliament for this proposal and for the fact that like millions of people all over the world, it did not forget any of the tragic pages of the history of the Jewish nation and the whole of mankind.” Meron asked Sergei Ivanenko to transmit his words of gratitude to the First Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Lyubov Sliska, head of theYabloko faction Grigory Yavlinsky and all other “deputies of the assembly who expressed understanding and solidarity”. The letter states: “Unfortunately such terrible phenomena as fascism still exist in the modern world, and this is the reason why the problem of learning the lessons of history is of great importance nowadays. Only loyalty to historical memory will help mankind avoid repeating themistakes of the past."

On Thursday, April 19, 2001, after Ivanenko proposed honouring the memory of the victims of Holocaust , Deputy Speaker of the Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky said that “this is inadmissible”, as “there are many holidays”, and if all of them were observed, “the Russian parliament would have to stand every day”. In response, the Chairperson of the meeting Sliska (Unity faction) said that each individual can independently decide whether he should honour the memory of the Holocaust victims by standing up or not.

Based on Interfax reports