Putin's rabbi Lazar has had 'long-standing, strong, friendly relations' with international Eurasian movement
Dugin's Eurasian Fascists and Holocaust Remembrance
A letter from Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar, dedicated to his visit to St. Petersburg, got into my mailbox. The rabbi reported that he took part in "solemn and mourning events dedicated to the liberation of Leningrad from the fascist blockade." The rabbi also reminded me that January 27 is World Holocaust Remembrance Day. The letter ended with the words: “Eternal memory to all those who died liberating Leningrad, eternal memory to all Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis. May their souls rest in peace."
 Meeting between Hitler and Antonescu October 1941. |
Berl Lazar is an official person and close to those in power. Probably, it is his duty to announce such statements. His duties also include maintaining relations with various political and public organizations. The rabbi likes his duties. He often meets with important and not so important people, and invites those who like him to his official residence - the synagogue in Maryina Roshcha.
Pavel Zarifullin, head of the Eurasian Youth Union (ESM), visited him there. With the Union and its parent organization - the International Eurasian Movement, which was founded by the famous Russian philosopher, political scientist and analyst Alexander Gelievich Dugin, Lazar has long-standing, strong, friendly relations. Once a representative of Lazar, another rabbi, by the name of Shmulevich, even sat on the board of Eurasia.
At a meeting with Zarifullin, Rabbi Lazar discussed an important topic: fascism in Eastern and Western Europe is raising its head. Here is how they write about the meeting on the ECM website:
“During the conversation, Rabbi Lazar expressed deep concern over the revival of Nazism in Ukraine and the Baltics. He spoke about the award of the Hero of Ukraine to the executioner of the SS Shukhevych. The Chief Rabbi stressed that Ukraine's accession to the EU and other international organizations should be prevented, he urged the guests to use their connections and their authority in the fight against the restoration of Nazism. Also, Mr. Lazar noted that the Eurasian Movement is on the right track - being one of the basic modules of intellectualism in Russia"[ 1 ].
 Antonescu and the head of the legionnaires, Hori Sima. |
Rabbi Lazar, obviously, is familiar firsthand with the ideas of "Eurasia" and the layer of the spiritual culture of mankind on which they are based. He also knows about the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Europe, Eastern and Western, in relation to the Jewish population.
Rabbi Lazar was born in Milan and studied in the USA. His family comes from the village of Brister in the district of Marmores. Before World War II, the region was ceded to the Hungarians. The Hungarians did not need the Jews of Marmoresh, and in August 1941 they tried to get rid of them by deporting them to Poland and Soviet Western Ukraine.
But the Germans had enough headaches with "their" Jews, so the Hungarians were forced to agree that they themselves would have to shoot the Hungarian Jews in Nazi-occupied territory. 23,600 Jews, most of them from the Hungarian part of Marmores, were shot in Kamenetz-Podolsk on August 27-28, 1941[ 2 ].
 Meeting between Berl Lazar and the head of the Eurasian Youth Union Zarfullin November 2008. |
It is not known whether Berl Lazar's relatives were among them, and it does not really matter. Berl Lazar wants to fight Nazism on the rise, and that is commendable. He hopes for the help of the Eurasians in this, blesses them for the fight against evil. This is already less clear, because Lazar has an idea with whom he is dealing (the above tirade about the “basic module of intellectualism”).
Professor Dugin is, or thinks he is, a representative of the "third way", "traditionalism" and "conservative revolution". In his abundant writings, he writes with inspiration about his predecessor teachers. It is worth dwelling on only one such movement - the "Iron Guard" of Cornelia Codreanu. It is very popular among the Russian far-right, who should still be called fascists, and is practically unknown to the general Russian public.
In Russian patriotic online publications, you can find the following enthusiastic panegyric to Codreanu. It starts like this:
"Five o'clock in the morning. November 30, 1939. A police truck moves slowly along the winding road to Bucharest. In its covered body are fourteen prisoners who were taken out of their cells in a suburban prison at ten o'clock in the evening and put into a truck for transport to the city fortress. Suddenly, the head of the convoy, Major Dinulescu, waves his flashlight, and at this signal, each gendarme quickly takes out a cord and throws it around the neck of the prisoner sitting in front of him. In a minute it's all over - fourteen corpses lie on the dirty floor of a police van ... Thus ended the life of one of the most amazing people of our century, the famous Captain Codreanu, the founder and undisputed leader of the Legion of Michael the Archangel and the Iron Guard "[3 ] .
 Destroyed Sephardic synagogue in Bucharest January 1941. |
A few paragraphs below you can read the following: “The murder of Codreanu and his associates did not remain unavenged - on September 21, 1939, eight legionnaires, led by Miti Dmitriesko, kill the Prime Minister of Romania, Calinesco.” That is, according to the author's logic, "revenge" happened two months before the "crime". For the author of the article, the dates, as well as the historical facts themselves, are of no particular importance.
The reasons for the popularity of the Iron Guard and its founder Cornelius Codreanu among Russian neo-fascists, right-wingers and patriots deserve to be the subject of a separate study. Before such a study is carried out, the Russian reader should be reminded of the glorious "exploits" of the legionnaires - quite a lot has been said about their ideology of the "third way" in the patriotic-Eurasian press, but the deeds of the Orthodox fascists are forgotten and the Russian reader is unknown. Codreanu himself is a kind of symbol of worship and a model for Russian "Eurasians"[ 4]. The tradition was laid, of course, by the spiritual father of the movement, Professor of Moscow State University and Doctor of Sciences Dugin. Here is how he talks about Codreanu in one of the popular philosophical broadcasts on radio Finis Mundi: “The only politician in Europe who, in the cynical 20th century, thought more about the language of angels and about the spiritual transformation of the community than about narrowly political problems »[ 5 ].
Below is a short account of one of the attempts at this very spiritual transformation, undertaken by Codreanu's closest associates two years after his death (Codreanu was strangled on November 30, 1938, not 1939, as the anonymous and illiterate author of the text cited above suggests).
On June 26, 1940, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov delivered an ultimatum to the Romanian government, in which the Soviet government demanded the withdrawal of Romanian troops and administration from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. The basis of this requirement was "the union of Bessarabia, populated mainly by Ukrainians, with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, cemented for centuries" [ 6 ].
On June 28, the Royal Council of Romania accepted an ultimatum, the Romanian army left, without a single shot fired, the defense lines, pillboxes, casemates, which had been built for 20 years to repel a possible Soviet attack. On the territory transferred to the USSR, 3,770 thousand people lived.
The dismemberment of the country caused a deep political crisis, culminating in the abdication of King Carol and the creation of the fascist government of "Conductator" Antonescu in alliance with the "Iron Guard". The “Iron Guard” intended to create in Romania a “National Legionnaire State”, the ghost of which haunts many to this day.
On June 30, units of the retreating Romanian army opened fire on a crowd of refugees in the city of Galati. About 300 people died, most of them Jews. On July 1, clashes between Soviet and Romanian troops took place in Dorohoi, as a result of which 2 Romanian officers were killed. A Jewish soldier was also killed while trying to protect the commander. His funeral was the prelude to the pogrom. 10 Jewish soldiers who came to the cemetery were accused of treason and killed on the spot by Romanian soldiers. After that, the army staged a pogrom in the city, as a result of which 53 people were killed[ 7 ].
 Victims of the Bucharest pogrom January 1941. |
The government, however, decided to scapegoat the large and defenseless Jewish population. The press, which was heavily censored by the government, launched an anti-Semitic campaign that blamed Jews for the attacks and killings of Romanian soldiers. The robbery and expropriation of the Jewish population during this period became the economic basis for the existence of the Legion.
Fascist allies in the Romanian government - the "Iron Guard" and Antonescu from the very beginning did not agree on one of the main issues - how to properly divide the property stolen from the Jews of the country. Antonescu believed that the confiscated property, or some part of it, should go to the state, while the legionnaires believed that all the loot should go to the robbers - that is, to them. At the same time, from the point of view of the legionnaires, the process of robbery should have taken place immediately, and without any restrictions, in the form most accessible to the understanding of the villains - that is, in the form of a pogrom. Antonescu, for his part, sharing the same ultimate goal, believed that it should be achieved gradually, through the adoption of a system of anti-Semitic legislation[ 8 ].
Antonescu did not feel strong enough to go into direct confrontation with the legionnaires. Therefore, a truly diabolical plan ripened in his head: having learned about the preparation of the latest rebellion, he decided to withdraw himself and give the legionnaires the opportunity to show and discredit themselves. The Legionnaires had exceeded his expectations.
On January 14, 1941, Antonescu met with Hitler. In exchange for the promise of the Romanian dictator to take part in the war with the USSR, Hitler tacitly approved the plan to remove the legionnaires from participating in the management of Romania.
A legionary mutiny broke out in Bucharest on January 20, 1941. The reason was the murder of the head of the German intelligence network in the Balkans, Major Doring, by a certain Greek. The reasons and circumstances of the murder have not been disclosed so far. In the week leading up to the assassination, Antonescu dissolved the "romanization committees" and removed from their posts the leaders of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the police associated with the "Legion". However, the new leaders he appointed could not occupy their offices, since their subordinates received orders directly from the head of the Iron Guard, Horia Sima.
The news of the murder of a German officer was used by the legionnaires as a pretext for a popular uprising "against the Jews and Freemasons." Very quickly, the legionnaires captured the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and police stations. Attempts by the armed forces to reassert government control over the captured buildings were repulsed.
A Jewish pogrom began in Bucharest, unprecedented in cruelty and madness, even in the context of the Holocaust. For several days, the city was flooded with crowds of peasants from the surrounding villages, gypsies and just rabble. In Bucharest, only Iron Legion newspapers were published - all under the same slogan: "You know who to shoot"[ 9 ].
Two Jewish quarters were set on fire. The legionnaires seized the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - in which, for their own safety, opponents of the Iron Guard were kept - the prefecture and police stations.
About 2,000 Jews aged 15-85 were detained and taken to the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Codreanu farm, the prefecture, a slaughterhouse and police stations - all of which were turned into torture centers.
Jews were tortured into signing suicide notes and waiving property rights. Women were raped. The men were thrown from the upper floors of the Ministry of the Interior.
Jews were tortured not only to find out the location of caches with hidden treasures, but also for sadistic pleasure. The torture continued day and night. Tired or bored executioners were replaced by new ones. The leader of the sadistic entertainment was Mircea Petrovecescu, the son of the Minister of the Interior, whom Antonescu fired. Jews were tied to targets and started shooting at them, trying to create a contour of bullets around the body. Jewish women were stripped naked and tied with their backs to targets. After the end of the shooting, they drilled through the chest with a drill. Only one woman remained alive after such treatment, but was later shot.
Not only men were engaged in torture, but also their fighting girlfriends - members of the "Legion". According to eyewitnesses, the women tore off the Jews' clothes and cut off their genitals.
On the last day of the pogrom, January 23, 15 Jews, including one five-year-old girl, were taken from the Legionnaires' headquarters in the prefecture to the Bucharest slaughterhouse. Five people were hung alive on hooks used for cows and skinned, their intestines wrapped around their necks. The words "Kosher" were burned on the bodies. Around the slaughterhouse, a crowd of legionnaires danced joyfully, imitating the Shabbat Jewish prayer.
Here is how Dugin writes about the participants in this movement:
“Can anything be more for a person who has set as his goal to contribute to the creation of a “new man”, a “new heroic humanism”, which includes not only high-browed academicians, but also ordinary people who, illuminated by the rays of the spirit, rise much higher than simple clerics or irresponsible intellectuals — to the heavenly regions of the Highest Spirit, flooded with the light of angels...”[ 10 ].
The famous Romanian writer Virgil Giorgiou described what he saw at the slaughterhouse:
“In the great hall of the slaughterhouse, where cow carcasses usually hang for butchering, there are now naked human bodies hanging ... Some of them have the inscription “Kosher”. This body of Jews. My soul was corrupted. I was ashamed of myself. I was ashamed to be a Romanian, like bandits from the Iron Guard”[ 11 ].
Legionnaires attacked numerous synagogues in Bucharest. They drove a fuel tanker to the largest of them, the Sephardic Synagogue, doused the walls of the building and set it on fire. Military prosecutor Antonescu describes what he saw as follows:
“The Spanish temple, like a huge torch, illuminated the sky of the capital. Legionnaires nearby performed a diabolical dance and sang: "Glory to the Aryan youth of the Legion." They pushed three naked women into the flames. The desperate cries of the unfortunate victims tore the heavens" [ 12 ].
In the words of Dugin: “But we know that history cannot be rewritten. And it is not necessary, and it is not necessary. It was so great…”; "Damn, victory was so close...";[ 13 ]
The city slaughterhouse of Bucharest could not be washed from blood and viscera for a week[ 14 ]...
One and a half hour Bovdunov's opus can be viewed on the Internet. The lecture is followed by a discussion. During the discussion, “listeners were surprised to find many similarities that unite the ideology of Eurasianism and Gardism. First of all, this is the perception of the people as an absolute, as a unity of the living, the dead and the unborn, as a single organism. In addition, the role that in both movements is given to the spiritual moment, the conscious struggle with the modern world and the theory of maximum humanism are also common things for both conservative-revolutionary currents "[ 15 ].
One can believe that Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar has no idea about the "ideology of maximum humanism" of his young friends from the Eurasian Youth Union. Perhaps it is convenient for him to fight “the Nazis of Ukraine and the Baltic states” together with them, provided that this coincides with the general line of the Kremlin. Perhaps he does not notice how the fascist contagion corrodes the soul of Russian youth with the connivance, if not open support, of the authorities. I would like to ask the rabbi for only one thing - not to send more letters with reminders of the Holocaust. There are people who remember. He is not.