Yad Vashem has said in a statement that content displayed at the high-profile event on January 23 contained "inaccuracies" and a "partial presentation of facts" about World War II, which "created an unbalanced impression," Israel’s Haaretz newspaper has reported.
Video recordings shown at the forum, which was attended by dozens of international figures and broadcast live around the world, made no mention of the Soviet Union's crimes in World War II or its responsibility for the war breaking out, Haaretz said.
The video content "did not include any reference to the partition of Poland between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany in 1939," Yad Vashem said, as cited by Haaretz.
The 50th World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem was organised by a foundation led by Moscow-born philanthropist and Jewish activist Moshe Kantor, who is president of the European Jewish Congress and is considered to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to The Times of Israel daily.
The event was held in collaboration with Yad Vashem and the office of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, and Israel's foreign ministry was also involved in the production, according to Haaretz.
"We apologize for the very regrettable mishap that occurred… These videos do not represent the perspective of Yad Vashem's research on these issues," the statement by Yad Vashem said, as cited by Haaretz.
The maps presented in the videos erred in their depiction of the borders of Poland and its neighbours, and contained no reference to Ukraine, currently in the midst of an ongoing conflict with Putin's Russia, the Israeli newspaper reported.
Polish President Andrzej Duda snubbed the World Holocaust Forum because he said the organisers had not allowed him to speak at the event, alongside his counterparts from Russia, Israel, Germany and France.
Russia's Putin at the end of last year suggested that Poland was partly responsible for the outbreak of World War II, and claimed that the Soviet Union helped “save lives” after it invaded Poland in 1939 following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany.
The comments triggered anger in Warsaw. Poland’s Duda accused Putin of “post-Stalinist revisionism” and of trying to shift the blame for the outbreak of World War II onto Poland.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Putin “has lied about Poland on numerous occasions, and he has always done it deliberately.”
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk said in December that Putin was pursuing a "dangerous narrative campaign" against Poland.
The Polish prime minister said in an opinion piece published last month that Russia was trying to rewrite history and peddling "false narratives" about World War II.
(gs/pk)
Source: PAP, haaretz.com, The Times of Israel