The memories of WWII and the fight against a common enemy underline the potential of the United States and Russia for joint actions today, Sen. Carl Levin (D.-MI), deputy chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), told RIA Novosti: "We worked together as allies, and this is what people want again."
Speaking during the opening of the exhibition, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Yuri Ushakov emphasized the historic fact that "the Soviet Union played the decisive role in defeating Nazism, but it is also true that it was our common victory".
Congress librarian James Billington noted the importance of commemorating the heroism of WWII veterans. The Wehrmacht was believed to be invincible but it was routed owing to the heroism of Soviet people, he said, emphasizing that the exhibition in the Senate would enable us to learn more of our own history and understand what WWII was to the United States and Russia, as well as understand how the joint military experience could be remembered by our two countries.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, RIA Novosti Deputy General Director Leonid Burmistrov said: "Today, just like 60 years ago, Russia and America are partners. We are partners in politics, economics, and the fight against international terrorism". The exhibition at the U.S. Senate is further evidence that "the two countries have not forgotten heroism displayed by our grandfathers in combat", he said.
As he told those present about how photographs had been selected for that exhibit entitled Brotherhood in Arms, Burmistrov said that an emphasis had been placed on wartime pictures that had never been displayed. "We decided that the exhibition should focus on real people, be it soldiers or civilians, on their joy and pain, sufferings and hope for the end of the horrible war. We tried to select pictures showing the truth no matter how cruel it was and the reality of those hard days," he said.
The pictures taken by Soviet and American military photographers show the liberation of Prague and Vienna, inmates of Nazi death camps, the Allied nations' leaders' meeting in Yalta, and a Nuremberg trial.
