Ukraine marks 75 years since Babi Yar massacre
Ukrajina je obilježila 75 godišnjicu od masakra u Babi Yaru
The Ukrainian government on Thursday marked the 75th anniversary of the death of more than 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar, one of the single largest massacres of the Nazi Holocaust, one that for decades was papered over in Soviet accounts and remains a controversial chapter in Ukraine’s history.
Kiev has held a week of memorials, the largest commemoration of the atrocity in recent years, as it seeks to refocus attention on the country’s Jewish history and demonstrate to the West its adherence to European values.
Ukrajinska vlada je u četvrtak obilježila 75 godišnjicu smrti više od 33.000 Židova u Babi Yaru- što je bio najveći masakr u Holokaustu, koji je pripreman dekadama i ostao kontroverzno poglavlčje u Ukrajinskoj povijesti .
Prof. Yaroslav Hrytsak sa Ukrajinskog Katoličkog Univerziteta u Lvovu je kazao da je obilježavanje tog događaja politički i simbolično veoma značajno i može biti znak promjene u označavanju te tragedije kod Ukrajinaca. Najavljena je gradnja Memorijalnog centra za žrtve masakra, što izaziva i podjele u židovskoj zajenici koje se suprostavljaju tom planu iz straha za mjesta grobova
On Thursday morning, the mayor of Kiev and several Jewish leaders announced new plans to build a memorial centre to the victims of the massacre, an initiative that has stalled several times over the past 15 years. The issue has roiled the country’s fractious Jewish community because of opposing plans and concerns about desecrating the gravesite.
On Thursday evening, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko invoked the lessons of the Holocaust while discussing the country’s current conflict with Russia over the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and war in east Ukraine.
“The lesson of Babi Yar is a reminder of the frightening price of political and moral nearsightedness,” Poroshenko said in remarks to a largely Jewish audience held at a temporary stadium in Kiev’s Babi Yar park. The site encompasses a ravine on the city’s outskirts, where German SS troops systematically killed assembled Jews with machine guns on September 29 and 30, 1941. “It’s a reminder that indulging an aggressor simply builds his appetite,” the president said.
Poroshenko also highlighted Ukraine’s close relationship with Israel, calling for a moment of silence in memory of Shimon Peres, the former Israeli president who died Wednesday.
The first monument at Babi Yar was erected in 1974 and was dedicated to the 100,000 Soviet citizens murdered at the site during the course of the war years, without noting that the vast majority of them were Jewish. Jews who attempted to pray or lay flowers at the site were arrested. Ukraine’s government installed the first Jewish memorial, a brass sculpture of a menorah, in 1991 as the Soviet Union was collapsing.