It Is Wrenching to Insert Babi Yar Into Any Good News Framework. Yet the Fact Is That The

30.09.2006

Babi Yar

It is wrenching to insert Babi Yar into any «good news» framework. Yet the fact is that the 65th anniversary of one of the first and bloodiest of World War II's Nazi massacres was commemorated last week as never before in a land which still bristles with anti-Semitism.

After decades of neglect, indeed for most of the time of willful obscuration, the commemoration was no longer a private Jewish affair but one in which the Ukrainian head of state and dignitaries from the world over - including Israel's president- attended. That perhaps can be seen as at least an incipiently hopeful sign in a world again given to Holocaust denial and delegitimization of Jewish self-determination.

Perhaps if anything demonstrates more poignantly the need for the Jews to take their fates into their own hands it is that incomprehensible slaughter on the eve of Yom Kippur, 1941.

Kiev's Jews were ordered to report for evacuation, with documents, valuables and even warm clothes and undergarments. The deception was perpetrated to the last, with small groupings led separately to the huge pit prepared in advance. Driven through a narrow corridor of Nazi Einsatzgruppen executioners with the assistance of local collaborators, they were brutally beaten, commanded to undress and then machine-gunned. In a mere two days of bestiality 33,771 Jews were murdered - more than all the casualties Israel has suffered in all its decades of struggle to survive.

To this day only 10% of Babi Yar's victims have been identified. Worse yet, Ukraine is scarred by many hundreds - perhaps thousands - of mass graves of Jews. Most such sites remain unidentified and unmarked. This August another mass grave - with the remains of some 2,000 Jews - was discovered near Lvov. Searches for mass graves are conducted privately and even at some risk, without cooperation from the Ukrainian population or authorities.

Babi Yar itself would have been just as forgotten were it not for Yevgeny Yevtushenko's 1961 epic poem. Yevtushenko shamed the Soviets into erecting a monument at the site, though it didn't mention Jews (a commemorative menorah was put up by Jewish groups in 1991). Previously the Soviets dammed and flooded the ravine with mud and runoffs from nearby quarries. Other eastern European killing fields remain largely out of mind because nobody immortalized them in verse.

Last week's memorial - though well attended by Ukrainian higher-ups - wasn't a local initiative. It was the brainchild of Russian Jewish businessman Moshe Kantor, who was appalled that so few of Babi Yar's neighbors admit to knowing what happened there, that youths play football over the mass grave, nowadays also a picnic ground.

Indeed no major government-sponsored commemoration took place there in the 15 years of Ukrainian independence. Responding to accusations about Ukrainian callousness, President Viktor Yuschenko announced that the massacre site would be turned into «a state historical and cultural reserve, which would include a museum dedicated to the Jewish victims.» This wasn't an easy announcement in a country where it is still de rigueur to equate (if not justify) the Jewish bloodletting with the Stalin-instigated 1932-33 Ukrainian famine.

Anti-Semitism remains ever-virulent in Ukraine. The number of physical attacks on Jews is on the rise, as are anti-Semitic publications. If in 2001 160 anti-Jewish articles saw print, last year's figure rose to 660.

The Holocaust, tragically, put Ukraine and Eastern Europe on the sidelines of existential Jewish concerns. Today Nazism's torchbearers reside closer to home - among them Iran's Mahmoud Ahmedinejad who denies the Holocaust, while in the same breath calling for its extension, i.e. wiping Israel off the map. He seeks nuclear firepower to enable him to implement genocidal schemes.

Nevertheless, again the world seems bent on appeasement and apathetic to the danger. Worse yet - Russia, heir to the USSR, now supplies Iran with nuclear reactors.

This is perhaps the time to reflect on what Kantor said moved him to organize the memorial: «The world's thundering silence in Babi Yar's wake crucially emboldened Nazi Germany to push ahead with more atrocities and industrialize mass-murder. The Holocaust was fueled by indifference to Jews.»

A man lays flowers at the monument to the victims of the Nazi massacre of Jews in Ukraine's capital Kiev. Ukraine commemorated the 65th anniversary of the Nazi massacre of Jews at the Babi Yar ravine where at least 33,771 Jews were killed over 48 hours on Sept. 29, 1941.

Photo: AP

By Vladimir Matveyev

29.09.2006

Babi Yar killings remembered

KIEV, Ukraine — Babi Yar, a ravine on the outskirts of Kiev, symbolizes one of the worst massacres to take place during World War II.

But some young Ukrainians have never heard about the tragedy.

“I know nothing about that ravine. Probably some people were killed there but I’m not sure who, by whom and when,” said Anna, 21, when asked this week near the site where some 33,000 were killed between Sept. 29-30, 1941 — and an estimated 100,000 were shot and their bodies burnt during the 1941-1943 Nazi occupation of Ukraine.

This week’s high-profile commemoration in Kiev, marking the 65th anniversary of the Babi Yar tragedy, was aimed at educating young Ukrainians like Anna.

At the invitation of Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, international leaders and Jewish officials and activists from 41 countries attended Tuesday and Wednesday’s events, which included an exhibition, a memorial ceremony at the site and a conference titled “Let My People Live.”

At these events, Yuschenko was joined by Israeli President Moshe Katsav and his Croatian and Montenegrin counterparts, as well as rabbis and Christian clerics, senior government delegations from Europe and North America, and members of the Ukrainian political elite.

Most speakers at the ceremony and the conference spoke about how to turn the memory of Babi Yar into an educational lesson.

“The Holocaust and Babi Yar killings wounded our nations. Babi Yar should be that injection preventing aggressive bloody xenophobia,” Yuschenko said Tuesday at the opening ceremony of the exhibition.

And speaking at the conference on Wednesday he added: “I clearly and straightforwardly promise that there will never be ethnic intolerance and religious hatred in Ukraine. Like all Ukrainians, I refuse to accept and tolerate the slightest manifestation of xenophobia and anti-Semitism.”

Moshe Katsav also said people must never forget the Holocaust.

“We must pass on the memory of the Holocaust to the young for the sake of posterity and to preserve kindness and human values,” said Katsav.

On Wednesday, Yuschenko, joined by Ukrainian officials and the leaders of foreign delegations, placed candles at the memorial. This was followed by prayers conducted by Christian clerics and Jewish rabbis.

Hundreds of mourners — many of them Jews from around the world — watched, some holding red and white carnations. Others carried small stones, which Jews traditionally leave at gravesites.

This week’s events in Kiev are the brainchild of Russian Jewish leader and business magnate Vyacheslav “Moshe” Kantor.

Kantor said the idea came to him a few years ago when on a visit to Kiev he noticed young boys playing soccer near the site of the Babi Yar massacre.

“Most people today simply don’t know what happened there,” said Kantor, who is the founder of the World Holocaust Forum, the president of the Russian Jewish Congress and the chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Jewish Congress.

Kantor and other organizers are hoping the widely covered events will help to overcome that ignorance, which is a legacy of the Soviet era, when any references to the specific Jewish tragedy of the Holocaust were avoided.

In the years since Ukrainian independence in 1991, no major government-sponsored events have ever taken place at Babi Yar — with the exception of a few state visits to Kiev by Israeli and U.S. leaders.

Even the main events this week took place at a monument to all of Babi Yar’s victims and not near the Jewish one — a 10-foot menorah that Jewish groups erected at Babi Yar in 1991.

Some Ukrainian officials who attended the ceremony said tributes to victims of Babi Yar should take place regularly to educate Ukrainians, especially the younger generation.

“We must regularly commemorate the Babi Yar victims because people must remember this tragedy,” Alexander Moroz, the speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, told JTA “This is a grave for the victims of different nationalities, but only Jews were killed only because they were Jews.”

Thousands of Soviet prisoners of war, members of the Ukrainian national resistance movement, Communists, gypsies and mentally disabled persons were also killed at Babi Yar.

Others said it was hard for Ukrainians to remember the killings apart from another catastrophe for Ukraine, a Soviet-induced famine, known as the Holodomor, that took millions of lives in 1932-1933.

Babi Yar “is our tribute to the tragedy suffered by people in Ukraine. I personally do not separate the Holocaust” from the famine. “It doesn’t matter how many people were killed because even one man is important for us,” Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s minister of interior affairs, told JTA.

Responding to the concern that after independence Ukraine failed to remember and teach about the tragedy, Yuschenko announced a decision to turn the area into a state historical and cultural reserve.

Some Jewish and non-Jewish activists have long pressed for the designation.

“Babi Yar will get the status of a reserve and a museum to the Babi Yar victims will be build there,” Yuschenko told JTA. “At the same time, a memorial to the Holodomor victims will be built at another place in Kiev.”

Four years ago, a protest staged by a group of Jewish and non-Jewish activists led the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to scrap its plan for a Jewish community center that was to be built near Babi Yar with funds raised with North American federations.

Those who objected to that plan have this year staged another protest campaign against a plan by a Ukrainian business magnate and Jewish leader, Vadim Rabinovich, to build a museum, a synagogue and a yeshiva at Babi Yar.

That group, known as the Babi Yar Public Committee, believes that perpetuating the memory of the victims should become a government concern and not a private or sectarian initiative that may undermine the importance of the tragedy for the entire nation.

“If Ukrainians are the united nation, they must have a common memory and a common memorial,” said Vitaly Nakhmanovich, secretary of the Babi Yar Public Committee.

Tatiana Zelenskaya, 24 agrees:

“Babi Yar is our one common pain,” she said. “This is a symbol of the tragedy of the whole Ukrainian people: Ukrainians, Jews, Russians and others.”

28.09.2006

Ukraine Remembers 34,000 Jews Mass-Murdered at Babi Yar

Some 1,000 religious and political leaders and others took part in an impressive memorial ceremony for the nearly 34,000 Jews massacred in just two days at Babi Yar 65 years ago.

The memorial event took place yesterday (Wednesday) at the infamous ravine outside Kiev, Ukraine, where the myriads of Jews were systematically machine-gunned to death. The slaughter continued for 48 hours, on Sept. 29-30, 1941. The Nazis marched the Jews from Kiev in groups of ten, ordered them to strip naked, and then machine-gunned them to death, leaving them to fall dead into the pit.

Among those who took part in the ceremony were witnesses to and survivors of the Nazi massacres at Babi Yar and elsewhere, liberators of Kiev, and those recognized as Righteous Gentiles for their Holocaust-era heroism.

A conference entitled “Let My People Live!” - sponsored in part by the Government of Ukraine - was held at the memorial ceremony. The conference was also organized by the World Holocaust Forum Foundation and Yad Vashem. President Moshe Katzav and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yushchenko addressed the gathering.

The World Holocaust Forum stated that the goals of “Let My People Live!” include memorializing the victims of Babi Yar and other mass-murder sites, uniting world leaders in confronting manifestations of xenophobia and anti-Semitism, and more. A Pan-European Holocaust Educational Program for Teachers has been inaugurated as well.

Yad Vashem, which has collected the names of 3.5 million Holocaust victims thus far, has the names of only 3,000 Jews - less than 10% - known to have been killed at Babi Yar. Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev told Haaretz that more than 90% of Jewish victims killed in western and central Europe are known, 35-40% of those killed in Romania, Hungary and Poland - and only about 20% of those killed in the former Soviet Union.

The Simon Weil Holocaust Research Fund in France, the HolocaustMuseums in Paris and Washington, and the Zaka Organization are sponsoring a wide-ranging campaign to find other mass Jewish graves in eastern Europe.Last month, the remains of some 1,800 Jews murdered by Nazis in Ukraine were discovered in the pit that became their mass grave.

The memorial events in Kiev were the brainchild of Russian Jewish leader and business magnate Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor, JTA reports. Kantor said the idea came to him a few years ago when he noticed young boys playing soccer near the site of the Babi Yar massacre, oblivious to the travesties that occurred there decades before.

By MartinBarillas

28.09.2006

Ukraine memorial of Holocaust: Remember Babi Yar!

Religious and political leaders marked the 65th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre in Ukraine; Catholics and Jews cooperating to uncover over 500 mass graves of other Nazi victims.

Ukraine memorial service for the Holocaust: Remember Babi Yar!

Over 1,000 religious and political leaders, in addition to members of the public, marked the massacre of more than 34,000 Jews murdered by National Socialist forces in 1941 in just two days. The memorial took place on September 27 at a ravine near Babi Yar Ukraine where Jews were systematically shot to death by Nazi forces from September 29-30, 1941. In addition, a conference on the Holocaust was organized jointly by the Government of Ukraine, the Yad Vashem Memorial of Israel, and the World Holocaust Forum.

Survivors recall that Jews in Ukraine were told 65 years ago to gather warms clothes and belongings as if they were going on a journey in the custody of their Nazi captors. They were instead ordered to strip naked and then were machine-gunned in their thousands by Nazi guards and their bodies left in a pit prepared for them. Witnesses recall that Nazi soldiers laughed and taunted their victims before murdering them. Some observers claim that the world’s silence in the wake of Babi Yar served to embolden the Nazi’s “Final Solution” and carry out further massacres, atrocities, and mechanized death-camps.

At the memorial service, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, and Israeli President Moshe Katsav, solemnly processed behind an honour guard of Ukrainian soldiers bearing flowers to mark the place where the victims fell. Both of the dignitaries spoke to the assembly, while witnesses, liberators, and survivors – as well as some now recognized as Righteous Gentiles by the Israeli Government – were also on hand. Representatives from other countries were also present. The memorial was the brainchild of Russian Jewish businessman and founder of the World Holocaust Forum Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor. “Most people today simply don’t know what happened here”, said Kantor who added that the idea for the memorial came to him some years ago when he noticed children playing soccer at the site of the massacre. Some observers express misgivings that the site is now used as a park for picnickers and children’s sports. The September 27th memorial was held at a Soviet era monument, while a more private memorial service was held by Jews at another nearby monument in the form of a menorah.

Sixty-five years ago, Nazis murdered some 33,771 persons at the Babi Yar site, while during the balance of the Second World War, a total of perhaps 100,000 including many non-Jews were annihilated there. Before invading Russian liberators reached the Ukraine in 1943, Nazi captors ordered survivors to unearth and burn the remains of all those buried at the site. The total count of the murdered remains a mystery. The Soviets did not mark the site afterwards and were long apprehensive about marking the sites of murdered Jews, just as they were loathe to mark the burial site of Polish army officers the Soviet Union murdered at the KatynForest in Poland during the Second World War. It was not until 1961, after Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko published his poem “Babi Yar”, that the Soviet regime decides to erect a monument at the massacre site. Officials in Israel calculate that only 20 percent of the former Soviet Union’s victims during the Holocaust have been accounted for, while in Western Europe the figure stands at 90 percent. Soviet leader Josef Stalin, who died in the mid-1950s, was himself an anti-Semite.