2023-09-29T14:54:00+03:00 Politics 2024-09-15T05:03:37+03:00

Ukrainian news

Zelenskyy pays tribute to memory of Babyn Yar victims

Zelenskyy pays tribute to memory of Babyn Yar victims

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has honored the memory of the victims of the Babyn Yar in Kyiv. This is stated in the message of the Office of the President, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"On the 82nd anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy honored the memory of the victims of Nazi mass shootings of civilians in occupied Kyiv during World War II,” the report said.

Zelenskyy placed a lamp near the Menorah memorial sign on the territory of the National Historical Memorial Preserve Babyn Yar.

Head of the President's Office Andrii Yermak, Righteous Among the Nations Vasyl Nazarenko, relatives and descendants of the Babyn Yar victims, the Righteous Among the Nations, former ghetto prisoners, and survivors of Nazi concentration camps, as well as rabbis, also participated in paying tribute to the memory of the executed Jews and other victims of the Nazis.

Representatives of Jewish religious organizations recited a memorial prayer.

"Thank you for finding the opportunity to be here today, commemorating the memory of the victims of Babyn Yar, Nazi repression, and the Holocaust. I thank the Jewish religious representatives who prayed for the memory of the Babyn Yar victims," the President said during his interaction with the event participants.

Zelenskyy acknowledged the heroism of the Righteous Among the Nations.

"It is very important to always remember history, not to forget. Because 'Never again!' is not empty words," he emphasized.

On behalf of the President, flower baskets were also placed at the monument to citizens executed by the Nazis in the Babyn Yar, as well as at the monuments to Ukrainian writer Olena Teliha and the Roma people executed by the Nazis.

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine on Facebook said that at the request of Zelenskyy this time the ceremony was limited to a precise number of participants. Rabbis from Kyiv, Berdychiv, Zhytomyr, Bila Tserkva, and Cherkasy were present, headed by Rabbi Raphael Rutman, Deputy Chairman of the Council of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine.

According to the Federation, in his speech Zelenskyy noted that Judaism in Ukraine today is thriving and developing without discrimination. He expressed his greetings to the Jewish community, which will celebrate the holiday of Sukkot tonight.

Rabbi Raphael Rutman said the prayer "God is full of mercy", read the kaddish and told the President that today, 82 years after the massacre, the Jews of Ukraine will celebrate the holiday with pride in their roots and without any fear.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in 2022, Zelenskyy, honoring the memory of the victims of the Babyn Yar, noted that such crimes against humanity still take place today, in particular, in the Ukrainian land, and the criminals who cause such tragedies must be punished so that dictators and tyrants do not have the desire to repeat something similar in the future.

In the Babyn Yar in Kyiv on September 29, 1941, the Nazis began mass shootings of Jews. About 34,000 people were killed in a few days. In total, during the Nazi occupation in the Babyn Yar, about 100,000 people were killed - Jews, Roma, Ukrainians.