A procession of about two thousand people moves along a traffic artery through Kiev. Men with yarmulkes walk along, teachers with a children’s class, a rabbi and many young people. They are on their way to Babyn Jar – also known by the Russian name Babi Jar – following the same ‘Way of Death’ as thousands of Jewish men, women and children eighty years ago. They pass the place where the Jews had to leave their suitcases at the time and discovered that they were not being put on transport. Shots rang out in the distance. At that moment it could not escape their notice: they were walking towards their deaths.
Joshua Bernstein (56) is also in the march. He came from the United States especially for the 80th anniversary, for the first time since his emigration in 1982. He has a paper Star of David on his jacket: a “tribute to my murdered family”. Only his father survived the massacre, because at that time he was serving in the Red Army and was not in Kiev.
Babyn Jar was a ravine on the outskirts of town at the time. On September 29 and 30, 1941, SS-Einsatzgruppen and German police battalions executed 33,771 Jews there, having first been robbed of their belongings and clothing. Half-naked they had to lie face down in the ravine, on the warm bodies of fellow sufferers who had been shot in front of them. Then the Germans blew up the walls of the ravine, so that all the corpses disappeared in a mass grave.
Also read this profile: Jacques Grishaver fought for 15 years for the Holocaust memorial
The killing continued for another two years, killing the mentally handicapped, prisoners of war, Roma and Ukrainian nationalists in addition to other Ukrainian Jews.
Now Kiev reflects on the fate of the Jews. In the metro, posters are called on to participate in an online commemoration and to burn a digital candle. Posters with information and photo material of the atrocities hang on Maidan Square.
Wednesday, October 6, is also the official memorial ceremony at Babyn Jar. Among the guests are the presidents of Israel, Germany and Albania. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will Crystal Wall of Crying reveal, designed by conceptual artist Marina Abramovic. It is part of the Babyn Jar Holocaust Remembrance Center being built on the site and dedicated to all one and a half million murdered Ukrainian Jews – a quarter of all Holocaust victims.
Just like with it Monument of names in Amsterdam it took a long time before the monument was built. It provokes resistance for several reasons. Two of the four oligarchs funding the project are from Moscow, while Ukraine is embroiled in conflict with Russia over the occupation of Crimea and President Putin’s support for the rebels in the east. Mikhail Fridman, the biggest financier whose grandparents and many other relatives were murdered by the Nazis, is being labeled as Putin’s agent in the media. In addition, Putin likes to dismiss the Ukrainians as collaborators.
The Holocaust as an experience
A team of experts was set up, led by the Dutch historian Karel Berkhoff, a Holocaust expert from the NIOD who specializes in Ukraine. These experts developed a historical narrative that was to serve as the basis for a Holocaust museum and memorial on the site. In doing so, they encountered a lot of mistrust in Kiev. “There is always the fear of an anti-Ukrainian story,” Berkhoff says via Zoom.
When the Germans invaded Ukraine, many were happy to be freed from the communist yoke, also because in the early 1930s Stalin committed a genocide of the Ukrainians – the Holodomor – through a created famine. In addition, there were Ukrainian nationalists who aided the Nazis in their murderous lust for the Jews. The most famous name is Ukrainian camp guard Iwan Demjanjuk, who moved to the US after the war and was extradited to Germany in 2011 – he died before his conviction to five years in prison could be heard on appeal.
In 2019, the plans for the museum and the monument were presented, but the oligarchs did not like them. “Too ordinary,” Fridman judged. He put forward his friend Ilya Khzhanovsky, a Russian director who had caused a lot of commotion and uproar with a film series about the paranoia under Stalin.
Also read this interview with writer Guida Joseph: ‘You always get your parents’ luggage’
His plan for a monument involved a kind of laboratory with the visitors as test subjects: they are assigned the role of victim, perpetrator or helper using algorithms and are confronted with the horrific dilemmas of the time, in order to experience what it really was like. The Holocaust as an experience – the next riot was born. Berkhoff and other historians resigned. Khzhanovsky was accused of making a ‘Holocaust Disney’ by Babyn Jar. The plan was withdrawn again.
In its place came a range of other plans. The first parts have already been built, such as Abramovic’s wall and an impressive field of mirrored pillars, the whole pierced by bullets of the caliber that the Germans used in the war. From the bullet holes resound the names of victims and sacred Yiddish and religious music.
On the hill above is a fold-out synagogue. The rabbi from the procession says the kaddish, a Jewish prayer, to the crowd on the arrival of the memorial march. Afterwards, he says: “I don’t really want to make any announcements here, but the Holocaust Museum has to come.” Because that is the fear of the opponents: that because of all the wild plans of the museum, nothing will eventually come to fruition.
There is fear of an anti-Ukrainian story
Karel Berkhoff NIOD Holocaust expert on the Ukrainian monument
Taboo in Soviet times
For example, eighty years later, remembering Babyn Yar is still problematic. This started in Soviet times, when the Holocaust was taboo and the authorities filled the ravine with rubble from the local brick factory. A park was quickly created for neighbors to recreate, so that nothing reminded of the massacre. That was not in line with the Communist Party.
The emphasis was to be on the suffering of the Soviet population as a whole. It prompted Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 1961 to write his famous poem ‘There is no monument above Babi Jar’. The composer Shostakovich incorporated the text into his Thirteenth Symphony – also known as the Babi Jar Symphony. This Wednesday it will be performed by the German symphony orchestra during the official ceremony.
Even after Ukraine’s independence in 1991, commemoration remained difficult. Then the focus was on the suffering of the Ukrainians, especially the trauma of the Holodomor. There was a monument in the form of a menorah, but at the same time more than thirty other monuments appeared here and there, so that a clear link with the Holocaust was still missing.
It was not until 2015, by presidential decree, that a link between Babyn Jar and the Holocaust was officially established. In a speech to the Knesset, then-President Petro Poroshenko Babyn Jar referred to a shared open wound of Ukrainians and Jews. At that time the starting signal was given for the construction of the current memorial center.
Also read this review of the new Amsterdam Holocaust Memorial: Libeskind has performed a miracle with the Monument of Names
It is unclear what the other plans for the more than 150 hectares memorial center will bring. A correlation has not yet been discovered. Historian Berkhoff, who has decided to drop Wednesday’s ceremony, has little faith in it: “It doesn’t have to be a bad monument. But how can a film director lead scientific historical research? I fear that the memorial center will not become the intended authoritative research institute for the Holocaust in Ukraine.”
That would be a shame, because little research has been done in the years of silence. About 15,000 names of the victims have now been identified. There is still a wealth of information in the KGB archives in Kiev and Moscow: for example, employees of the NKVD (the predecessor of the KGB) interviewed many residents after the recapture of Kiev to find out exactly what had happened in Babyn Jar.
In any case, the silence around Babyn Jar has been broken. The fact that Shostakovich’s symphony blares across the ravine on Wednesday may be called a victory over silence.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of October 6, 2021
A procession of about two thousand people moves along a traffic artery through Kiev. Men with yarmulkes walk along, teachers with a children’s class, a rabbi and many young people. They are on their way to Babyn Jar – also known by the Russian name Babi Jar – following the same ‘Way of Death’ as thousands of Jewish men, women and children eighty years ago. They pass the place where the Jews had to leave their suitcases at the time and discovered that they were not being put on transport. Shots rang out in the distance. At that moment it could not escape their notice: they were walking towards their deaths.
Joshua Bernstein (56) is also in the march. He came from the United States especially for the 80th anniversary, for the first time since his emigration in 1982. He has a paper Star of David on his jacket: a “tribute to my murdered family”. Only his father survived the massacre, because at that time he was serving in the Red Army and was not in Kiev.
Babyn Jar was a ravine on the outskirts of town at the time. On September 29 and 30, 1941, SS-Einsatzgruppen and German police battalions executed 33,771 Jews there, having first been robbed of their belongings and clothing. Half-naked they had to lie face down in the ravine, on the warm bodies of fellow sufferers who had been shot in front of them. Then the Germans blew up the walls of the ravine, so that all the corpses disappeared in a mass grave.
Also read this profile: Jacques Grishaver fought for 15 years for the Holocaust memorial
The killing continued for another two years, killing the mentally handicapped, prisoners of war, Roma and Ukrainian nationalists in addition to other Ukrainian Jews.
Now Kiev reflects on the fate of the Jews. In the metro, posters are called on to participate in an online commemoration and to burn a digital candle. Posters with information and photo material of the atrocities hang on Maidan Square.
Wednesday, October 6, is also the official memorial ceremony at Babyn Jar. Among the guests are the presidents of Israel, Germany and Albania. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will Crystal Wall of Crying reveal, designed by conceptual artist Marina Abramovic. It is part of the Babyn Jar Holocaust Remembrance Center being built on the site and dedicated to all one and a half million murdered Ukrainian Jews – a quarter of all Holocaust victims.
Just like with it Monument of names in Amsterdam it took a long time before the monument was built. It provokes resistance for several reasons. Two of the four oligarchs funding the project are from Moscow, while Ukraine is embroiled in conflict with Russia over the occupation of Crimea and President Putin’s support for the rebels in the east. Mikhail Fridman, the biggest financier whose grandparents and many other relatives were murdered by the Nazis, is being labeled as Putin’s agent in the media. In addition, Putin likes to dismiss the Ukrainians as collaborators.
The Holocaust as an experience
A team of experts was set up, led by the Dutch historian Karel Berkhoff, a Holocaust expert from the NIOD who specializes in Ukraine. These experts developed a historical narrative that was to serve as the basis for a Holocaust museum and memorial on the site. In doing so, they encountered a lot of mistrust in Kiev. “There is always the fear of an anti-Ukrainian story,” Berkhoff says via Zoom.
When the Germans invaded Ukraine, many were happy to be freed from the communist yoke, also because in the early 1930s Stalin committed a genocide of the Ukrainians – the Holodomor – through a created famine. In addition, there were Ukrainian nationalists who aided the Nazis in their murderous lust for the Jews. The most famous name is Ukrainian camp guard Iwan Demjanjuk, who moved to the US after the war and was extradited to Germany in 2011 – he died before his conviction to five years in prison could be heard on appeal.
In 2019, the plans for the museum and the monument were presented, but the oligarchs did not like them. “Too ordinary,” Fridman judged. He put forward his friend Ilya Khzhanovsky, a Russian director who had caused a lot of commotion and uproar with a film series about the paranoia under Stalin.
Also read this interview with writer Guida Joseph: ‘You always get your parents’ luggage’
His plan for a monument involved a kind of laboratory with the visitors as test subjects: they are assigned the role of victim, perpetrator or helper using algorithms and are confronted with the horrific dilemmas of the time, in order to experience what it really was like. The Holocaust as an experience – the next riot was born. Berkhoff and other historians resigned. Khzhanovsky was accused of making a ‘Holocaust Disney’ by Babyn Jar. The plan was withdrawn again.
In its place came a range of other plans. The first parts have already been built, such as Abramovic’s wall and an impressive field of mirrored pillars, the whole pierced by bullets of the caliber that the Germans used in the war. From the bullet holes resound the names of victims and sacred Yiddish and religious music.
On the hill above is a fold-out synagogue. The rabbi from the procession says the kaddish, a Jewish prayer, to the crowd on the arrival of the memorial march. Afterwards, he says: “I don’t really want to make any announcements here, but the Holocaust Museum has to come.” Because that is the fear of the opponents: that because of all the wild plans of the museum, nothing will eventually come to fruition.
There is fear of an anti-Ukrainian story
Karel Berkhoff NIOD Holocaust expert on the Ukrainian monument
Taboo in Soviet times
For example, eighty years later, remembering Babyn Yar is still problematic. This started in Soviet times, when the Holocaust was taboo and the authorities filled the ravine with rubble from the local brick factory. A park was quickly created for neighbors to recreate, so that nothing reminded of the massacre. That was not in line with the Communist Party.
The emphasis was to be on the suffering of the Soviet population as a whole. It prompted Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 1961 to write his famous poem ‘There is no monument above Babi Jar’. The composer Shostakovich incorporated the text into his Thirteenth Symphony – also known as the Babi Jar Symphony. This Wednesday it will be performed by the German symphony orchestra during the official ceremony.
Even after Ukraine’s independence in 1991, commemoration remained difficult. Then the focus was on the suffering of the Ukrainians, especially the trauma of the Holodomor. There was a monument in the form of a menorah, but at the same time more than thirty other monuments appeared here and there, so that a clear link with the Holocaust was still missing.
It was not until 2015, by presidential decree, that a link between Babyn Jar and the Holocaust was officially established. In a speech to the Knesset, then-President Petro Poroshenko Babyn Jar referred to a shared open wound of Ukrainians and Jews. At that time the starting signal was given for the construction of the current memorial center.
Also read this review of the new Amsterdam Holocaust Memorial: Libeskind has performed a miracle with the Monument of Names
It is unclear what the other plans for the more than 150 hectares memorial center will bring. A correlation has not yet been discovered. Historian Berkhoff, who has decided to drop Wednesday’s ceremony, has little faith in it: “It doesn’t have to be a bad monument. But how can a film director lead scientific historical research? I fear that the memorial center will not become the intended authoritative research institute for the Holocaust in Ukraine.”
That would be a shame, because little research has been done in the years of silence. About 15,000 names of the victims have now been identified. There is still a wealth of information in the KGB archives in Kiev and Moscow: for example, employees of the NKVD (the predecessor of the KGB) interviewed many residents after the recapture of Kiev to find out exactly what had happened in Babyn Jar.
In any case, the silence around Babyn Jar has been broken. The fact that Shostakovich’s symphony blares across the ravine on Wednesday may be called a victory over silence.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of October 6, 2021
A procession of about two thousand people moves along a traffic artery through Kiev. Men with yarmulkes walk along, teachers with a children’s class, a rabbi and many young people. They are on their way to Babyn Jar – also known by the Russian name Babi Jar – following the same ‘Way of Death’ as thousands of Jewish men, women and children eighty years ago. They pass the place where the Jews had to leave their suitcases at the time and discovered that they were not being put on transport. Shots rang out in the distance. At that moment it could not escape their notice: they were walking towards their deaths.
Joshua Bernstein (56) is also in the march. He came from the United States especially for the 80th anniversary, for the first time since his emigration in 1982. He has a paper Star of David on his jacket: a “tribute to my murdered family”. Only his father survived the massacre, because at that time he was serving in the Red Army and was not in Kiev.
Babyn Jar was a ravine on the outskirts of town at the time. On September 29 and 30, 1941, SS-Einsatzgruppen and German police battalions executed 33,771 Jews there, having first been robbed of their belongings and clothing. Half-naked they had to lie face down in the ravine, on the warm bodies of fellow sufferers who had been shot in front of them. Then the Germans blew up the walls of the ravine, so that all the corpses disappeared in a mass grave.
Also read this profile: Jacques Grishaver fought for 15 years for the Holocaust memorial
The killing continued for another two years, killing the mentally handicapped, prisoners of war, Roma and Ukrainian nationalists in addition to other Ukrainian Jews.
Now Kiev reflects on the fate of the Jews. In the metro, posters are called on to participate in an online commemoration and to burn a digital candle. Posters with information and photo material of the atrocities hang on Maidan Square.
Wednesday, October 6, is also the official memorial ceremony at Babyn Jar. Among the guests are the presidents of Israel, Germany and Albania. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will Crystal Wall of Crying reveal, designed by conceptual artist Marina Abramovic. It is part of the Babyn Jar Holocaust Remembrance Center being built on the site and dedicated to all one and a half million murdered Ukrainian Jews – a quarter of all Holocaust victims.
Just like with it Monument of names in Amsterdam it took a long time before the monument was built. It provokes resistance for several reasons. Two of the four oligarchs funding the project are from Moscow, while Ukraine is embroiled in conflict with Russia over the occupation of Crimea and President Putin’s support for the rebels in the east. Mikhail Fridman, the biggest financier whose grandparents and many other relatives were murdered by the Nazis, is being labeled as Putin’s agent in the media. In addition, Putin likes to dismiss the Ukrainians as collaborators.
The Holocaust as an experience
A team of experts was set up, led by the Dutch historian Karel Berkhoff, a Holocaust expert from the NIOD who specializes in Ukraine. These experts developed a historical narrative that was to serve as the basis for a Holocaust museum and memorial on the site. In doing so, they encountered a lot of mistrust in Kiev. “There is always the fear of an anti-Ukrainian story,” Berkhoff says via Zoom.
When the Germans invaded Ukraine, many were happy to be freed from the communist yoke, also because in the early 1930s Stalin committed a genocide of the Ukrainians – the Holodomor – through a created famine. In addition, there were Ukrainian nationalists who aided the Nazis in their murderous lust for the Jews. The most famous name is Ukrainian camp guard Iwan Demjanjuk, who moved to the US after the war and was extradited to Germany in 2011 – he died before his conviction to five years in prison could be heard on appeal.
In 2019, the plans for the museum and the monument were presented, but the oligarchs did not like them. “Too ordinary,” Fridman judged. He put forward his friend Ilya Khzhanovsky, a Russian director who had caused a lot of commotion and uproar with a film series about the paranoia under Stalin.
Also read this interview with writer Guida Joseph: ‘You always get your parents’ luggage’
His plan for a monument involved a kind of laboratory with the visitors as test subjects: they are assigned the role of victim, perpetrator or helper using algorithms and are confronted with the horrific dilemmas of the time, in order to experience what it really was like. The Holocaust as an experience – the next riot was born. Berkhoff and other historians resigned. Khzhanovsky was accused of making a ‘Holocaust Disney’ by Babyn Jar. The plan was withdrawn again.
In its place came a range of other plans. The first parts have already been built, such as Abramovic’s wall and an impressive field of mirrored pillars, the whole pierced by bullets of the caliber that the Germans used in the war. From the bullet holes resound the names of victims and sacred Yiddish and religious music.
On the hill above is a fold-out synagogue. The rabbi from the procession says the kaddish, a Jewish prayer, to the crowd on the arrival of the memorial march. Afterwards, he says: “I don’t really want to make any announcements here, but the Holocaust Museum has to come.” Because that is the fear of the opponents: that because of all the wild plans of the museum, nothing will eventually come to fruition.
There is fear of an anti-Ukrainian story
Karel Berkhoff NIOD Holocaust expert on the Ukrainian monument
Taboo in Soviet times
For example, eighty years later, remembering Babyn Yar is still problematic. This started in Soviet times, when the Holocaust was taboo and the authorities filled the ravine with rubble from the local brick factory. A park was quickly created for neighbors to recreate, so that nothing reminded of the massacre. That was not in line with the Communist Party.
The emphasis was to be on the suffering of the Soviet population as a whole. It prompted Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 1961 to write his famous poem ‘There is no monument above Babi Jar’. The composer Shostakovich incorporated the text into his Thirteenth Symphony – also known as the Babi Jar Symphony. This Wednesday it will be performed by the German symphony orchestra during the official ceremony.
Even after Ukraine’s independence in 1991, commemoration remained difficult. Then the focus was on the suffering of the Ukrainians, especially the trauma of the Holodomor. There was a monument in the form of a menorah, but at the same time more than thirty other monuments appeared here and there, so that a clear link with the Holocaust was still missing.
It was not until 2015, by presidential decree, that a link between Babyn Jar and the Holocaust was officially established. In a speech to the Knesset, then-President Petro Poroshenko Babyn Jar referred to a shared open wound of Ukrainians and Jews. At that time the starting signal was given for the construction of the current memorial center.
Also read this review of the new Amsterdam Holocaust Memorial: Libeskind has performed a miracle with the Monument of Names
It is unclear what the other plans for the more than 150 hectares memorial center will bring. A correlation has not yet been discovered. Historian Berkhoff, who has decided to drop Wednesday’s ceremony, has little faith in it: “It doesn’t have to be a bad monument. But how can a film director lead scientific historical research? I fear that the memorial center will not become the intended authoritative research institute for the Holocaust in Ukraine.”
That would be a shame, because little research has been done in the years of silence. About 15,000 names of the victims have now been identified. There is still a wealth of information in the KGB archives in Kiev and Moscow: for example, employees of the NKVD (the predecessor of the KGB) interviewed many residents after the recapture of Kiev to find out exactly what had happened in Babyn Jar.
In any case, the silence around Babyn Jar has been broken. The fact that Shostakovich’s symphony blares across the ravine on Wednesday may be called a victory over silence.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of October 6, 2021
A procession of about two thousand people moves along a traffic artery through Kiev. Men with yarmulkes walk along, teachers with a children’s class, a rabbi and many young people. They are on their way to Babyn Jar – also known by the Russian name Babi Jar – following the same ‘Way of Death’ as thousands of Jewish men, women and children eighty years ago. They pass the place where the Jews had to leave their suitcases at the time and discovered that they were not being put on transport. Shots rang out in the distance. At that moment it could not escape their notice: they were walking towards their deaths.
Joshua Bernstein (56) is also in the march. He came from the United States especially for the 80th anniversary, for the first time since his emigration in 1982. He has a paper Star of David on his jacket: a “tribute to my murdered family”. Only his father survived the massacre, because at that time he was serving in the Red Army and was not in Kiev.
Babyn Jar was a ravine on the outskirts of town at the time. On September 29 and 30, 1941, SS-Einsatzgruppen and German police battalions executed 33,771 Jews there, having first been robbed of their belongings and clothing. Half-naked they had to lie face down in the ravine, on the warm bodies of fellow sufferers who had been shot in front of them. Then the Germans blew up the walls of the ravine, so that all the corpses disappeared in a mass grave.
Also read this profile: Jacques Grishaver fought for 15 years for the Holocaust memorial
The killing continued for another two years, killing the mentally handicapped, prisoners of war, Roma and Ukrainian nationalists in addition to other Ukrainian Jews.
Now Kiev reflects on the fate of the Jews. In the metro, posters are called on to participate in an online commemoration and to burn a digital candle. Posters with information and photo material of the atrocities hang on Maidan Square.
Wednesday, October 6, is also the official memorial ceremony at Babyn Jar. Among the guests are the presidents of Israel, Germany and Albania. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will Crystal Wall of Crying reveal, designed by conceptual artist Marina Abramovic. It is part of the Babyn Jar Holocaust Remembrance Center being built on the site and dedicated to all one and a half million murdered Ukrainian Jews – a quarter of all Holocaust victims.
Just like with it Monument of names in Amsterdam it took a long time before the monument was built. It provokes resistance for several reasons. Two of the four oligarchs funding the project are from Moscow, while Ukraine is embroiled in conflict with Russia over the occupation of Crimea and President Putin’s support for the rebels in the east. Mikhail Fridman, the biggest financier whose grandparents and many other relatives were murdered by the Nazis, is being labeled as Putin’s agent in the media. In addition, Putin likes to dismiss the Ukrainians as collaborators.
The Holocaust as an experience
A team of experts was set up, led by the Dutch historian Karel Berkhoff, a Holocaust expert from the NIOD who specializes in Ukraine. These experts developed a historical narrative that was to serve as the basis for a Holocaust museum and memorial on the site. In doing so, they encountered a lot of mistrust in Kiev. “There is always the fear of an anti-Ukrainian story,” Berkhoff says via Zoom.
When the Germans invaded Ukraine, many were happy to be freed from the communist yoke, also because in the early 1930s Stalin committed a genocide of the Ukrainians – the Holodomor – through a created famine. In addition, there were Ukrainian nationalists who aided the Nazis in their murderous lust for the Jews. The most famous name is Ukrainian camp guard Iwan Demjanjuk, who moved to the US after the war and was extradited to Germany in 2011 – he died before his conviction to five years in prison could be heard on appeal.
In 2019, the plans for the museum and the monument were presented, but the oligarchs did not like them. “Too ordinary,” Fridman judged. He put forward his friend Ilya Khzhanovsky, a Russian director who had caused a lot of commotion and uproar with a film series about the paranoia under Stalin.
Also read this interview with writer Guida Joseph: ‘You always get your parents’ luggage’
His plan for a monument involved a kind of laboratory with the visitors as test subjects: they are assigned the role of victim, perpetrator or helper using algorithms and are confronted with the horrific dilemmas of the time, in order to experience what it really was like. The Holocaust as an experience – the next riot was born. Berkhoff and other historians resigned. Khzhanovsky was accused of making a ‘Holocaust Disney’ by Babyn Jar. The plan was withdrawn again.
In its place came a range of other plans. The first parts have already been built, such as Abramovic’s wall and an impressive field of mirrored pillars, the whole pierced by bullets of the caliber that the Germans used in the war. From the bullet holes resound the names of victims and sacred Yiddish and religious music.
On the hill above is a fold-out synagogue. The rabbi from the procession says the kaddish, a Jewish prayer, to the crowd on the arrival of the memorial march. Afterwards, he says: “I don’t really want to make any announcements here, but the Holocaust Museum has to come.” Because that is the fear of the opponents: that because of all the wild plans of the museum, nothing will eventually come to fruition.
There is fear of an anti-Ukrainian story
Karel Berkhoff NIOD Holocaust expert on the Ukrainian monument
Taboo in Soviet times
For example, eighty years later, remembering Babyn Yar is still problematic. This started in Soviet times, when the Holocaust was taboo and the authorities filled the ravine with rubble from the local brick factory. A park was quickly created for neighbors to recreate, so that nothing reminded of the massacre. That was not in line with the Communist Party.
The emphasis was to be on the suffering of the Soviet population as a whole. It prompted Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 1961 to write his famous poem ‘There is no monument above Babi Jar’. The composer Shostakovich incorporated the text into his Thirteenth Symphony – also known as the Babi Jar Symphony. This Wednesday it will be performed by the German symphony orchestra during the official ceremony.
Even after Ukraine’s independence in 1991, commemoration remained difficult. Then the focus was on the suffering of the Ukrainians, especially the trauma of the Holodomor. There was a monument in the form of a menorah, but at the same time more than thirty other monuments appeared here and there, so that a clear link with the Holocaust was still missing.
It was not until 2015, by presidential decree, that a link between Babyn Jar and the Holocaust was officially established. In a speech to the Knesset, then-President Petro Poroshenko Babyn Jar referred to a shared open wound of Ukrainians and Jews. At that time the starting signal was given for the construction of the current memorial center.
Also read this review of the new Amsterdam Holocaust Memorial: Libeskind has performed a miracle with the Monument of Names
It is unclear what the other plans for the more than 150 hectares memorial center will bring. A correlation has not yet been discovered. Historian Berkhoff, who has decided to drop Wednesday’s ceremony, has little faith in it: “It doesn’t have to be a bad monument. But how can a film director lead scientific historical research? I fear that the memorial center will not become the intended authoritative research institute for the Holocaust in Ukraine.”
That would be a shame, because little research has been done in the years of silence. About 15,000 names of the victims have now been identified. There is still a wealth of information in the KGB archives in Kiev and Moscow: for example, employees of the NKVD (the predecessor of the KGB) interviewed many residents after the recapture of Kiev to find out exactly what had happened in Babyn Jar.
In any case, the silence around Babyn Jar has been broken. The fact that Shostakovich’s symphony blares across the ravine on Wednesday may be called a victory over silence.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of October 6, 2021