Alexander Pracht
Speaking to the French publication France 24 on February 13, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev compared the trial of former Nagorno-Karabakh officials, which concluded earlier this month, to the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after World War II. The comparison reflects rhetoric often promoted by Baku since the officials were captured in September 2023.
“These people committed serious crimes against humanity,” Aliyev said. “Their crime was even worse than what the Nazis did during World War II.”
Aliyev has for years invoked WWII–era imagery in his rhetoric, including baseless accusations that Armenians created “concentration camps” for Azerbaijanis during the First Karabakh war.
Similar language has been deployed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, portraying the country as governed by “neo-Nazis” and declaring its “denazification” as one of the war’s stated objectives.
However, Aliyev’s recent statement goes beyond ‘playing the Hitler card.’ After all, he has repeatedly referred to Armenia as a “fascist state” in the past. His remarks last week fall within what scholars and memorial institutions describe as Holocaust trivialization – comparisons that risk diminishing the scale and historical specificity of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany.
While the question of whether the Holocaust is entirely unique and incomparable is debated, there is little dispute that few atrocities approach its scope. The war crimes committed during the Karabakh conflict, which did occur on both sides, are not remotely comparable in scale or systematic nature. Even the Yugoslavian wars in the 1990s, often cited for mass atrocities on European soil after World War II, belong to an entirely different league.
Despite this, Aliyev’s remarks drew no public reaction from leading Jewish organizations. During his working trip to the United States last week, Aliyev met on Wednesday with Elliot Brandt, CEO of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). It was not publicly disclosed whether the issue was raised during the meeting.
CivilNet sent inquiries to six Jewish organizations, including AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, B’nai B’rith International, and the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial institution. None provided a comment or statement regarding Aliyev’s remarks.
The silence stands out, given that many of these same groups have previously responded forcefully to what they described as Holocaust distortion or trivialization.
In 2022, for example, several major Jewish organizations criticized Vladimir Putin for his “denazification” language, calling the rhetoric a manipulation of Holocaust memory. They have also condemned comparisons made by some U.S. lawmakers and public figures who likened COVID-era mask mandates and travel restrictions to Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews.
Other notable cases include sustained criticism of the so-called “double genocide” theory, promoted in parts of Eastern Europe, which argues that the Soviet Union’s crimes against local populations constituted a genocide equivalent in scale and nature to the Holocaust. Jewish organizations have repeatedly warned that such framing risks relativizing or diluting the specific historical character of Nazi extermination policies.
Israel and Azerbaijan maintain close diplomatic and economic ties. Israel is a major supplier of weapons to Baku, while Azerbaijan is an important energy partner and trading counterpart.
It remains unclear whether leading Jewish organizations stayed silent because Aliyev’s remarks went largely unnoticed outside the region, or whether they chose to avoid publicly confronting a leader whose country enjoys strong strategic ties with Israel.
Stories
