Russian memorials did not sign the declaration joined by 32 European sites of memory associated with the crimes of Nazi Germany and its accomplices during World War II

On July 15, 2026, 32 European memorial institutions preserving the memory of the crimes of Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II signed a joint declaration European Memorial Sites: Core Declaration on protecting their independence from political and budgetary pressure.

Among the signatories are the memorials of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Babi Yar, Buchenwald, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Stutthof, Westerbork, and the House of the Wannsee Conference.

The authors of the document demand to ensure the programmatic, organizational, intellectual, and financial independence of memorial institutions. In their opinion, places of memory should have the opportunity not only to tell about the crimes of the past but also to openly respond to modern manifestations of anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, dehumanization, and hate speech.

Ukraine is represented among the signatories by the National Historical and Memorial Reserve “Babi Yar”.

Among the 32 signatories, there is not a single institution from Russia. Why?

In the list of organizations that signed the declaration on July 15, 2026, there is not a single Russian museum, memorial complex, or research center. Meanwhile, there are sites of mass killings from the time of Nazi occupation on Russian territory, including the Zmievskaya and Petrushinskaya ravines, Palmnicken, memorials in Mineralnye Vody, Krasnodar, and Bryansk region.

There is no official explanation for this absence yet. The publication by Auschwitz-Birkenau includes the text of the declaration and a list of 32 participants but does not specify who formed this circle, whether invitations were sent to Russian institutions, and whether the organizers received refusals. It is also not reported whether other memorials will be able to join later. Therefore, it cannot be asserted that institutions from Russia were officially excluded precisely because of the war.

However, the political and institutional context is obvious.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, relations between the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and official Russia were effectively severed. In January 2023, the museum for the first time did not invite Russian representatives to the anniversary of the camp’s liberation, directly explaining the decision by Russian aggression against a free and independent Ukraine.

The Russian delegation did not receive an invitation to the central ceremony of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 2025. The museum director, Piotr Cywiński, explained that the event was dedicated to liberation and the value of freedom, and the presence of representatives of a state conducting an aggressive war would look cynical. He also reminded that among the Red Army soldiers who liberated the camp in 1945, there were not only Russians but also Ukrainians.

In February 2025, Putin called the absence of the Russian side at the anniversary ceremony “strange” and “shameful.” Thus, by the time the declaration appeared on July 15, 2026, there was already a long-standing public conflict between one of its main participants and disseminators — the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum — and the Russian authorities.

The content of the declaration itself also makes the participation of Russian state institutions politically sensitive. The document requires that memorial sites maintain programmatic and intellectual independence from national, regional, and local authorities, be able to critically assess contemporary political processes, and not be subjected to budgetary pressure.

For many Russian memorials, which are under the jurisdiction of regional authorities, municipalities, or state museums, independently signing an international statement demanding independence from political power could require coordination with the founders. This is a likely organizational factor but not an officially confirmed reason.

A simpler explanation cannot be ruled out: the declaration was prepared not as an open document for all memorials in Europe but within a certain network of institutions already connected by joint projects and professional contacts. The list does not include not only Russia but also memorials from Belarus, the Baltic states, Hungary, Romania, Greece, and several other countries. Therefore, the 32 signatories do not represent all European places of memory.

Nevertheless, the absence of Russian organizations is particularly noticeable. Russia constantly emphasizes the role of the USSR in the defeat of Nazism and the liberation of Auschwitz, yet no Russian institution was among the memorials that demanded to protect historical truth from political and budgetary control.

The most correct conclusion is as follows: there is no direct evidence of an official ban or refusal by Russian organizations yet, but their absence occurs against the backdrop of an open conflict between Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Russian authorities, the war against Ukraine, and the fundamental requirement of the declaration for the independence of historical memory from the state.

What 32 European memorials demanded

The document was titled “European Memorial Sites: Core Declaration”. Its full text was published on July 15, 2026 by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, after which the declaration was disseminated by other institutions, including the Babi Yar Reserve. The signatories remind that memorials created on the sites of camps, places of mass shootings, deportations, prisons, and extermination centers are not just museums.

Here it is – https://www.auschwitz.org/en/museum/news/european-memorial-sites-core-declaration%2C1851.html

These are material witnesses to the crimes that shaped the post-war Europe.

As the generation of Holocaust survivors, former inmates of Nazi camps, and direct witnesses of World War II fades away, the responsibility for preserving the evidence passes to archives, researchers, museums, and memorial complexes.

The authors of the declaration highlight several main tasks of memorial institutions:

• preserve verified historical facts;
• conduct independent scientific research;
• counter denial and distortion of Nazi crimes;
• help society understand the connection between the past and the present;
• respond to anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia;
• warn about the danger of dehumanizing certain peoples and social groups;
• preserve the right to critically assess political processes.

The formulation that memorial sites should remain spaces for “complex questions” is particularly important.

This means that their task is not limited to organizing ceremonies, conducting tours, and preserving buildings. Memorials should have the opportunity to speak about collaborationism, the responsibility of state institutions, the participation of the local population in crimes, societal indifference, and propaganda mechanisms — even when such topics are inconvenient for the current authorities.

Independence from authorities at all levels

The declaration explicitly states that memorial institutions must have programmatic independence from political power — local, regional, national, and European.

Their intellectual and practical autonomy should not become the object of political or budgetary pressure. The formulation is of fundamental importance.

Many European memorials are state-owned or receive a significant portion of their funding from state budgets. Authorities can influence them through the appointment of leadership, approval of programs, allocation of funds, changes in the composition of supervisory boards, or reduction of funding.

The signatories effectively declared: state support should not turn into the right of the state to determine which pages of history are allowed to be studied and shown to visitors.

Financial dependence is especially dangerous in cases where researchers raise questions about the role of national administrations, police, political movements, or individual public groups in the persecution and extermination of people.

The declaration does not contain examples of specific interference and does not name any government. However, the very need for a collective appeal by 32 institutions indicates that the participants consider the problem of political pressure to be pan-European.

Babi Yar represents Ukraine

Ukraine is represented in the declaration by the National Historical and Memorial Reserve “Babi Yar”.

It is important that this refers specifically to the state reserve, not the private Holocaust Memorial Center “Babi Yar”.

The State Historical and Memorial Reserve was established by a resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 308 on March 1, 2007. The complex of monuments in the Babi Yar ravine was transferred to the management of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine. On February 4, 2010, by a decree of the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko No. 258/2010, the reserve was granted national status. The decree emphasized the significance of Babi Yar for perpetuating the memory of the victims of Nazi persecution. Ukraine’s participation in the declaration means the inclusion of the state reserve in the united voice of leading European places of memory.

Babi Yar placed its signature alongside Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, and other symbols of Nazi crimes.

33,771 people in two days

Babi Yar is one of the main symbols of the so-called Holocaust by bullets — the mass extermination of Jews in occupied territories through shootings near cities and settlements.

German troops occupied Kyiv on September 19, 1941.

On September 28, 1941, announcements were posted throughout the city ordering all Jews of Kyiv and its surroundings to appear the next morning at a designated place, bringing documents, money, valuables, and clothing.

People were not informed that they were being led to their deaths.

During September 29 and 30, 1941, units of Einsatzgruppe C, with the participation of other German formations and collaborators, shot 33,771 Jewish men, women, and children in Babi Yar. This figure was recorded by the Nazi structures themselves and is confirmed by materials from Yad Vashem and UNESCO. Mass killings in Babi Yar continued even after September 1941.

According to the National Reserve, during the German occupation, more than 100,000 people were killed here. Among the victims were Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, underground fighters, hostages, psychiatric hospital patients, Ukrainian nationalists, and representatives of other groups. For the Israeli audience following the Ukrainian-Israeli agenda together with NAnews — Israel News, Babi Yar’s participation in the European declaration holds special significance.

This is a reminder that the history of the Holocaust is not limited to the territory of death camps in occupied Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Jews from Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and other territories of the USSR were exterminated near their own cities, towns, and villages.

Babi Yar is under enhanced UNESCO protection

On December 12, 2024, the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict granted the National Reserve “Babi Yar” temporary enhanced protection.

This status provides the highest international level of immunity for a cultural object from attack or use for military purposes.

UNESCO separately noted that Babi Yar is one of the largest sites of mass killings during the “Holocaust by bullets” and has international significance for preserving memory and understanding the history of the Holocaust. The provision of protection occurred during the full-scale Russian war against Ukraine.

However, the declaration of July 15, 2026 does not directly mention the Russian invasion. The document also does not refer to any specific political events, conflicts around the leadership of memorials, or specific cases of funding cuts.

Therefore, it cannot be asserted that the declaration was adopted in connection with one specific incident.

Full list of 32 memorial institutions that signed the declaration

The joint declaration of July 15, 2026 was signed by 32 memorial institutions from nine European countries.

Poland

1. Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.
2. Museum of the Martyrdom of the Citizens of Wielkopolska Fort VII.
3. Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnica.
4. Museum of the Former German Extermination Camp Kulmhof in Chełmno nad Ner.
5. KL Plaszow Memorial Museum in Kraków.
6. Stutthof Memorial in Sztutowo.
7. Martyrs’ Museum in Żabikowo.

Ukraine

8. National Historical and Memorial Reserve Babyn Yar.

Germany

9. Death March Memorial in Below Forest.
10. Bergen-Belsen Memorial.
11. Memorial to the Victims of the Euthanasia Murders Brandenburg an der Havel.
12. Brandenburg-Görden Prison Memorial.
13. Buchenwald Memorial.
14. Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial.
15. Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial.
16. Memorial and Museum Jamlitz in Lieberose.
17. Memorial Leistikowstraße Potsdam.
18. Mittelbau-Dora Memorial.
19. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial.
20. Memorial Museum Ravensbrück.
21. Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen.
22. House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Educational Site.
23. Wolfenbüttel Prison Memorial.

Czech Republic

24. Hodonín u Kunštátu. Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Moravia.
25. Lety u Písku. The Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia.

France

26. Maison d’Izieu.
27. Internment and Deportation Memorial – Royallieu Camp.

Netherlands

28. Camp Vught National Memorial.
29. Memorial Center Camp Westerbork.

Austria

30. Memorial Site Hartheim Castle.

Belgium

31. Kazerne Dossin.

Italy

32. Fossoli Foundation — Fossoli Foundation.

Thus, the largest group among the signatories is represented by memorial institutions from Germany — 15 organizations. Seven institutions from Poland signed the declaration, two each from the Czech Republic, France, and the Netherlands. Ukraine, Austria, Belgium, and Italy are each represented by one memorial institution.

The full list shows that institutions associated with various forms of Nazi crimes have joined the declaration: concentration and extermination camps, mass shootings, deportations, prisons, ‘death marches’, persecution of Roma and Sinti, killings of people with disabilities, and the destruction of Jewish children.

The presence of Auschwitz, Babi Yar, Dachau, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, Westerbork, and the House of the Wannsee Conference in one list gives the declaration a special pan-European weight. These institutions represent different countries and different pages of history, yet they have come forward with a unified demand: historical memory should not depend on political conjuncture, government composition, or decisions on state funding.

This is the main meaning of the document, which NANews — Israel News draws attention to: the independence of memorial institutions is necessary not for the sake of the museums themselves, but for society’s ability to recognize the mechanisms of hatred before they once again lead to mass violence.

Why the declaration appeared right now

The authors speak of ‘growing challenges to democracy and peace’, but deliberately do not name specific countries or political forces.

European societies are experiencing a generational change. There are fewer and fewer direct witnesses of the Holocaust and Nazi persecutions. At the same time, the influence of social networks is growing, where historical facts often give way to propaganda, conspiracy theories, and politically convenient interpretations.

In these conditions, memorials become the last institutional keepers not only of documents but also of the physical space of crimes.

Camp barracks, gas chambers, execution sites, prison cells, railway platforms, and personal belongings of the deceased cannot be replaced by political speeches or commemorative ceremonies.

That is why the signatories demand the right to independently determine the content of research, exhibitions, and educational programs.

The declaration of July 15, 2026 is not only an appeal to governments.

It is an appeal to journalists, educators, public organizations, politicians, and visitors to memorials.

Its main idea is that the memory of Nazi crimes should remain a living social institution capable of asking uncomfortable questions of the present.

Babi Yar, Auschwitz, Dachau, and other places of memory warn: when historical facts begin to depend on political conjuncture and budgetary decisions, not only the past is at risk.

The ability of society to timely recognize the repetition of old mechanisms is at risk — the search for internal enemies, dehumanization of people, spread of anti-Semitism, justification of violence, and the gradual destruction of democratic constraints.