Speaking about Zelenskyy, Russian foreign minister says Hitler also had Jewish ancestry
“Jewish wise people said already a long time ago that the biggest antisemites are Jewish themselves,” said Sergei Lavrov.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, right, shakes hands with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, May 21, 2015. (Kremlin media center)
(JTA) — The fact that Ukraine’s president is Jewish has hurt the credibility of Russia’s claims that it invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 to “de-Nazify” it.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to boost his country’s argument during an interview with an Italian television channel on Sunday, by saying he said he believed Adolf Hitler also had Jewish origins and that Jewish sages say the biggest antisemites are Jewish themselves.
Lavrov said this during an interview with Italy’s Channel 4, a commercial broadcaster, according to the simultaneous translation to Italian of remarks he made in Russian.
Asked whether he regards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “an obstacle to peace,” Lavrov spoke about the prevalence of pro-Nazi ideologies in the ranks of some Ukrainian military units and then broached the subject of Zelensky’s Jewish identity without being asked to comment on it.
“When they say that Nazification cannot exist if there are Jews [in charge]: In my opinion even Hitler had Jewish origins so it means absolutely nothing,” Lavrov said. “Jewish wise people said already a long time ago that the biggest antisemites are Jewish themselves.”
Multiple journalists and journalists have claimed that Hitler may have had Jewish ancestry. According to one unconfirmed theory, Hitler’s paternal grandmother, Maria Schickelgruber, became pregnant with Hitler’s father, Alois, with a Jewish man named Leopold Frankenberger in whose house she allegedly had worked as a maid.
Lavrov’s remark prompted multiple condemnations by Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
“Lavrov’s remarks are both inexcusable and scandalous and also a terrible historical error,” Lapid said in a statement on Monday. “The Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest form of anti-Jewish racism is to blame Jews of antisemitism.”
This story originally appeared on JTA.org.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
