In Ukraine, the memory of the victims of Babyny Yar is commemorated
On September 29, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi commemorated the victims of mass Nazi executions during the occupation of Kyiv in 1941–1943. According to the presidential website, Ukrainian high-ranking officials, rabbis and ambassadors also took part in the commemoration ceremony for the executed Jews and other victims of the Nazis, which took place on the territory of the Babyn Yar National Historical and Memorial Reserve.
“We cannot forget such terrible times – fascism, Nazism. We must remind everyone about this. Not only in Ukraine, but also to remind everyone outside the borders of our country that such terrible times cannot return again,” he emphasized. .
Leaders of Jewish communities and members of the diplomatic corps took part in the ceremony with Zelenskyi.
“We will not forget this,” US Ambassador Bridget Brink tweeted about the mass murders in Babi Yar.
On the day of remembrance of the victims of Babi Yar, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal compared the actions of the Nazis with the current actions of the Russian army.
“It seemed that this horror remained forever in the past. But after 81 years in Ukraine, in the center of Europe, it happened again. Executions, mass burials. Those who organized genocide in 1941 and those who will organize genocide in 2022 , are the same criminals who only want to go to the international tribunal,” he emphasized.
During the German occupation of Kyiv, the Babyn Yar tract became the site of mass executions. At the end of September 1941, the Nazis shot more than 33,000 Jews in two days. Babin Yar is one of the symbols of the Holocaust.
During the occupation, the Nazis killed about 100,000 people in Babi Yar. Almost the entire Jewish population of the Ukrainian capital was killed. Only during September 29-30, 1941, they shot more than 30 thousand Kyivans – children, women, and elderly people. The road on which local residents were driven to Babyny Yar was called the “Death Road”.
On March 1, 2022, Russian troops shelled the television tower in Kyiv, during which the Babyn Yar area was also damaged. As a result, 5 people died, 5 more were injured.
