After Kiev was under Nazi occupation in 1941, around 34,000 Jews were killed within 48 hours in Babi Yar, a valley in the Ukrainian capital
Israel’s president arrived in Ukraine on October 5 to honor the victims of the Babi Yar massacre, eight decades after one of the most infamous Nazi mass killings of World War II.
In 1941, when Kiev was under Nazi occupation, about 34,000 Jews were killed within 48 hours in Babi Yar, a valley in the Ukrainian capital. SS soldiers had massacred local allies.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said before arriving on his first state visit to his presidency, “It is imperative to keep speaking up about this horrific incident and learn its lessons.”
“The only way to build a present and future in which atrocities and crimes against humanity can find no footing is to study the past, including the Holocaust and persecution of the Jewish people,” Mr. Herzog said.
“The memory of these victims is sacred to us, to every Ukrainian,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after meeting with Mr. Herzog.
Mr Zelensky, Mr Herzog and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier prepare to attend a ceremony to remember the victims of the massacre on 6 October.
The trio is also scheduled to inaugurate a memorial center, still under construction, dedicated to the stories of Eastern European Jews who were killed and buried in mass graves during the Holocaust. Of the 2.5 million Jews, 1.5 million were killed in Ukraine alone.
Speaking at a conference about the Babi Yar massacre in Kiev on 5 October, Dani Dayan, president of Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, noted the importance of “an unshakable look and complete acceptance of all the painful facts of the past”. Ukraine.
“It is extremely important to remember the Jewish victims of the Nazis,” he said. “Nevertheless, it is also necessary to recognize and teach the role of local allies during the Holocaust in Babi Yar as well as in other places.”
Yad Vashem marked the anniversary of the genocide by uploading a new online exhibition of photos of Jews killed in Babi Yar that the World Holocaust Remembrance Center has collected over the years.
“This moving exhibition serves as an eternal remembrance and silent testimony to the oppression of the Jewish people, and especially the Jewish community of Ukraine,” said Mr. Dayan. “During the horrific genocide that took place between 29-30 September 1941, 33,771 Jews were brutally murdered in Babi Yar, destroying entire families in hours or days, sometimes four generations. In many instances, all these images remain to commemorate their existence. “
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