Sarmila Bose wrote the letter below as an apology to the victims of the Holocaust for the silence of her great-uncle Subhas Chandra Bose.
This letter was sent to:
1. The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, New York
2. The Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, Boston University
3. European Jewish Congress, Brussels
4. Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin (Jewish Community of Berlin)
I respectfully convey, to Jewish people, other victims of the Holocaust, and their loved ones, my sincere apology and profound remorse for the failure of my great-uncle, the Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose, to acknowledge and condemn the persecution and extermination of Jews, other minority groups, disabled people and political opponents, by Nazi Germany.
There is no evidence to date that my great-uncle, who allied with the Axis powers in his fight for India’s freedom, said anything, publicly or privately, while he was based in Berlin from 1941 to early 1943, or later between 1943 and 1945 when he was in Southeast Asia, even after the horrors of concentration camps became publicly known in the spring of 1945. For this unconscionable failing on his part, I am ashamed. My great-uncle died in an aircrash in August 1945, so it is not possible to know what he might have said or done had he lived longer. I do not want to be unfair to him – it is easy to criticise with hindsight and there is a chance that he condemned the Holocaust verbally in private and those with whom he spoke have not reported it. However, given the lack of such evidence to date and his failure to say anything in public, I feel it necessary to express my sorrow and remorse for this indefensible failing on his part.
A report which was released last year by Amnesty International was met with heavy criticism, with Zelensky accusing the organization of supporting terrorism in a video speech later that night.
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