‘A GLIMPSE into the Past’ monument, unveiled this year on International Holocaust Remembrance Day at Babyn Yar.
(photo credit: BYHMC)
Despite its notoriety, no museum or substantive memorial exists to mark Babyn Yar.
It is the site of one of the most infamous massacres of World War II, yet the precise location of the murders remained hidden until recently. Almost 80 years have passed since the sunny September day when thousands of Jews were ordered to a ravine near Kyiv with their belongings. Yet, despite its notoriety, no museum or substantive memorial exists to mark the scene. Its name is Babyn Yar, but soon, a vast museum complex will begin to rise in its place. The complex will include a dozen buildings in memory of the Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the massacre and the estimated 1.5 million Jews murdered in similar Nazi mass shootings across Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
On September 28, 1941, three days before Yom Kippur and nine days after the Germans occupied Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, the Nazis ordered all of the city’s Jews to gather on the following day, together with their money, documents, and valuables, near the city’s cemetery. The local police escorted the Jews to the Babyn Yar ravine, where they were machine-gunned to death over two days. In total, more than 100,000 people were murdered on the site during World War II, including thousands of Roma (Gypsies), Soviet prisoners of war and Soviet civilians, along with most of Kyiv’s Jewish community.
The Center will include a museum that will commemorate the Babyn Yar massacre; a museum to commemorate the Holocaust of Ukrainian and Eastern European Jewry as a whole; a structure depicting the names of the victims; a religious/spiritual center including a synagogue, church and mosque; an educational and scientific research center; a multimedia center; a learning and recreational space for children; an information and conference center and more.
From an article in The Jerusalem Post Read the rest of the article here
It is always important to remember and never forget the holocaust, and such museums will help humanity to always remember.
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