A photo shows students in Lviv celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
No, this isn’t a picture of Ukrainian students celebrating Hitler’s birthday
If your time is short
- An image of Russians forming the number 55 to celebrate the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin rocketing into space has been mischaracterized to wrongly claim that it shows Ukrainian students celebrating Hitler’s birthday.
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, and amid misinformation connecting Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy to Nazi symbolism, and false claims that Ukraine is orchestrating a genocide against ethnic Russians, comes a rumor that students in Lviv were photographed celebrating the German dictator’s birthday.
“Just Lviv,” one April 20 tweet that has since been removed said. “Just schoolchildren. Just celebrated Hitler’s birthday. In Ukraine, in which, as you know, there is no Nazism.”
“#Ukraine #Lviv Hitler’s birthday celebration,” another tweet said.
Both tweets show an aerial photo of dozens of people holding balloons and forming the number 55.
A Russian TV station posted a news broadcast of the event on YouTube that year. An English translation of the title says, “On Cosmonautics Day, participants of the flash mob in Penza lined up in the number ‘55.’”
The “55” can be seen at the 47 mark, and it’s followed by an image of Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet pilot who became the first person to orbit the earth on April 12, 1961.
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Our Sources
Tweet, April 20, 2022
Tweet, April 20, 2022
Smithsonian, German Nazi Swastika Flag, visited April 20, 2022
Lenta.ru, Russian police mistook the number 55 for a swastika, Nov. 14, 2019
YouTube, В День космонавтики участники флешмоба в Пензе выстроились в число «55», April 12, 2016
Time, First Man in Space: Vintage Soviet Propaganda Glorifying Yuri Gagarin, April 12, 2011
