Official website of the President of Russia

Executive Office   /

Ms Fekter presented a gift edition of the Book of Memory to Russia. The work contains information on 60,000 Soviet citizens buried in Austria, among them fallen Red Army soldiers, concentration camp inmates, and forced labour victims. Most of this information was previously unknown.

Mr Naryshkin and Ms Fekter thanked Peter Sixl, an activist in the wartime memory preservation organisation Austrian Black Cross and enthusiastic participant in search work, who spent 15 years bit by bit gathering information on the Soviet citizens buried in Austria.

“We see the publication of this book in the year of the 65^th anniversary of Victory as a tribute to the memory of those who took part in liberating Europe, including Austria, from the Nazi yoke. Our duty is to preserve the memory of these terrifying pages in history for future generations, and preserve the truth about the causes, events and results of World War II”, Mr Naryshkin said.

On the President’s instruction, Mr Naryshkin presented Ms Fekter and Mr Sixl with the 65^th Anniversary of Victory in the 1941–1945 Great Patriotic War commemorative medals of the Pobeda (Victory) Steering Committee.