An interview given by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the Italian television company Mediaset turned into a diplomatic scandal. In response to a question about how Ukraine can be accused of “Nazification” if its President Vladimir Zelensky is a Jew, the Russian minister said that Adolf Hitler also had “Jewish blood” and – moreover – “the most ardent anti-Semites”, said Lavrov, as a rule, Jews.

Lavrov’s statements caused a wave of indignation – both in Jewish organizations around the world and among representatives of the Israeli government.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet accused the Russian Foreign Minister of lying, stating the inadmissibility of using the tragedy of the Holocaust for political purposes.

The Russian ambassador was summoned to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, whose head, Yair Lapid, called Lavrov’s remarks unforgivable.

The words of the Russian minister can become a kind of strength test for relations between Israel and Russia, the BBC correspondent in Jerusalem notes.

The interview given by Sergei Lavrov to Mediaset (the largest private media conglomerate in Italy, founded by Silvio Berlusconi) was released on the evening of May 1 – its full transcript is available on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

As follows from it, in response to one of the questions, the minister said that “militarists and Nazis” “flourished” on the territory of Ukraine.

This rhetoric is not new to the Russian leadership – Russian President Vladimir Putin called the “denazification” of Ukraine one of the reasons for the invasion of Russian troops into this country.

A Mediaset journalist who interviewed Lavrov argued with this assessment. “This is your vision, but Vladimir Zelensky says something completely different. He believes that denazification is pointless. He is also a Jew. Nazis, Azov are few of them,” he told Lavrov.

What was the response of the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry? Firstly, in his opinion, the existence of Nazism in Ukraine is indicated by the fact that the captured soldiers from such units as Azov and Aidar have tattoos in the form of a swastika and symbols of Nazi battalions, and they themselves allegedly propagandize “Mein Kampf” (“My Struggle” is the name of Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical book).

The argument that Zelensky is a Jew, Larov did not consider convincing.

“I could be wrong, but Adolf Hitler also had Jewish blood. It means absolutely nothing. The wise Jewish people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews. “There are black sheep in the family,” as we say, “said is he.

Lavrov’s claim that Hitler could have been Jewish provoked a scandal. Israel reacted most acutely to his words.

“I take the statement of the Russian Foreign Minister with particular seriousness,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said. “His words are not true, and their message is erroneous. The purpose of such a lie is to blame the Jews themselves for the most terrible crimes in history, that were committed against them, and thereby relieve Israel’s enemies of responsibility.”

“The use of the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a political tool must be stopped immediately,” the Prime Minister stressed.

“The statements of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov are not only unforgivable and outrageous – they are also a terrible historical mistake,” Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said on the morning of May 2. “Jews did not kill themselves during the Holocaust. Accusing the Jews themselves of anti-Semitism is the lowest level racism against the Jews.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov for an “explanatory conversation.” According to Lapid, it will be a “difficult conversation.”

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll on Twitter called Lavrov’s words outrageous and inadequate. “This is part of a very disturbing trend of disregard for the Holocaust by the Russian leadership since the beginning of the war,” he added.

Israeli Minister of Communications Yoaz Hendel, in an interview with the nationwide radio station of the Israel Defense Forces, also called Lavrov’s words inadequate: “And just for historical accuracy: Hitler did not have Jewish blood – and what is happening in Ukraine is outrageous.”

Hendel recalled that Israel only celebrated Holocaust Remembrance Day last week. During the Holocaust, the Nazis and their accomplices killed about 6 million Jews in the territories under their control.

Diaspora Minister Nahman Shai urged Lavrov to immediately retract his words. “Hitler had no Jewish blood, repeating this disgusting lie puts the blame for the worst anti-Semitic crime in history on the Jews,” he said. “Blaming Jews for crimes against Jews is inherently anti-Semitism.”

Public Security Minister Omer Barlev said Lavrov’s comments “damage the memory” of those killed by the Nazis and also create a “dangerous false equivalence” based on anti-Semitic lies”, which could lead to a surge of anti-Semitism around the world, including in Russia.

And his deputy, Yair Golan, considered that the statements of the Russian Foreign Minister were a reflection of what the Russian government really is – “a violent regime that does not hesitate to eliminate its rivals inside [Russia] and invades a foreign country …”

Lavrov’s interview was also commented on at the Yad Vashem Museum – a memorial complex for the history of the Holocaust, which is located in Jerusalem. The chairman of the memorial, Dani Dayan, described the words of the Russian minister as “erroneous, inadequate, dangerous and worthy of any condemnation.”

This is not the first time in the past two months that Yad Vashem has criticized Russia’s actions. In early March, the leadership of the memorial condemned the shelling of the environs of Babi Yar in Kyiv – the target then allegedly was a TV tower located on its territory.

It was in Babi Yar that the Nazis during the Second World War carried out mass executions of the civilian population – mostly Jews. In the last two days of August 1941 alone, over 33,000 people were killed there.

As the BBC has reported, leading historians and major Holocaust memorials have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling Moscow’s rhetoric about the need to “denazify” the country an insult to the memory of Nazi victims and fighters, including Red Army soldiers.

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet offered his services as an intermediary in resolving the military conflict. The Ukrainian authorities have said that they see Israel as one of the potential guarantors of Ukraine’s security – the signing of such guarantees was and is still being discussed after the meeting of the Russian and Ukrainian negotiating groups in Istanbul.

In addition, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in mid-March that he considered Jerusalem a place where he could have a personal meeting with Vladimir Putin.

As the BBC correspondent in Jerusalem, John Donnison, notes, the Israeli government has been repeatedly criticized for not being tough enough on Vladimir Putin. Sergey Lavrov’s statements can become a kind of strength test for relations between Israel and Russia.

Theories that Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, may have had Jewish roots have been discussed for decades. Their main source is unproven information that Hitler’s grandfather (who this man was is not known for certain) on the paternal side could be a Jew.

Information about this first appeared in the memoirs of Hans Frank, one of Hitler’s confidants, who was the governor-general of occupied Poland during World War II. His memoirs were published in 1953, seven years after Frank was executed by the Nuremberg Tribunal.

In his memoirs, Frank claimed to have discovered in 1930 that Hitler’s paternal grandfather was a Jew who lived in Graz, Austria. This was allegedly indicated by correspondence between Hitler’s grandmother, Maria Anna Schicklgruber, and a man of Jewish origin named Frankenberger, in whose house she worked. From the letter it followed that Schicklgruber could become pregnant from the 19-year-old son of the owner of the house.

Moreover, Frank wrote that Hitler’s nephew allegedly blackmailed the Fuhrer and threatened to disclose information that he had Jewish blood.

As Focus magazine detailed , historians who have studied Hitler’s biography have always questioned Frank’s claims. Firstly, the correspondence to which he referred was never found in the archives. Secondly, there were many other inaccurate data in his memoirs, which called into question the reliability of the entire work. And thirdly, it was believed that in 1836, which dated the correspondence of Hitler’s grandmother, there was a high probability that no Jews lived in Graz at all.

The last thesis was questioned by the American scientist, psychiatrist Leonard Sachs, who found references to the fact that by 1850 a small Jewish community had formed in Graz.

However, as the well-known researcher of Nazism, British historian Richard Evans, explained in an interview with The Times of Israel, even if there was a Jewish community in Graz already in the 30s of the XIX century, there is no evidence that Hitler was connected with it by blood ties.

According to the historian, there is no evidence even that a Jewish family named Frankenberger lived in Graz at all. “No fragments of the correspondence of Hitler’s father or his paternal grandmother were found. As well as evidence that Hitler’s nephew allegedly knew about his origin and blackmailed him,” Evans explained.

In the same interview, Evans suggested that the debate about Hitler’s origins is due to the fact that “to some it seems that the emergence of his deep and deadly anti-Semitic views is difficult to explain and may be caused by personal motives.”

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