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World War II Anniversary Prompts Tribute to Russian Dead

Russian newspapers Thursday unanimously paid tribute to the dead of World War II, known here as the Great Patriotic War, 65 years to the day after Nazi forces invaded the country.

The war, as Izvestia put it, echoing the sentiment of all the assorted papers, "trampled hopes, broke fates, doomed millions to death. But not to oblivion. Those who remain alive do not make their peace with death, they remember those they lost, and their children inherit this memory. And so the longest day in our history – 22 June 1941 – does not end."

The front page of Rossiskaya Gazeta, Russia's official state newspaper, showed a picture taken by a German photographer of a single dead Soviet soldier. The paper gestured to the photograph's symbolism: "The dead soldier is awkwardly curled up in a fetal position. His death resembles a birth. Had he not died in 1941, had death not stopped in 1945, had Victory not been born, our life would not have been."

Read entire article at NYT