Minsk – The authorities in Belarus have decided to appoint a holocaust denier and antisemite to the position of director of the National Library of Belarus.
The new director Vadim Gigin was introduced to the employees of the institution by the Minister of Culture of Belarus Anatoly Markevich.
Gigin (47) is considered a clear supporter of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is also frequently interviewed on the Kremlin’s propaganda programs on Russian television. Against this background, he presented quite a few arguments of an anti-Semitic nature in recent years. For example, the Belarusian official referred to the regime in Ukraine as “fascist” and expressed wonder how the “Jewish” President Zelensky could put up with that. In this context, Gigin said: “The question is how a Russian-speaking person from Krivoy Rog and the grandson of a war veteran (Zelensky) can put up with this. There is a simplistic explanation about money, but it is deeper.”
Regarding the opponents of the regime in Belarus, who have been persecuted since Lukashenko’s victory in the 2020 elections, Gigin states that some of them are Jews. To this he said: “About those who fled. What can be said. They are in Israel, they have property and relatives there. You don’t expect them to visit Israel, otherwise they will be thrown out of there.”
In the context of the Holocaust, Gigin often omits facts so that it does not emerge from his narrative that the Jews are victims. For example, Gigin referred to the visit of the thinker of the “Final Solution” Heinrich Himmler to Minsk and the fact that he felt bad when he watched the mass execution of Jews. Presenting the event, Gigin stated that Himmler watched the “execution of Soviet prisoners of war” without regard to their nationality.
Now this is the man who will head the National Library of Belarus and influence the content that will be widely distributed about the Holocaust among the people of Belarus in general and the younger generation in particular.
