Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this Sunday commemorated the 83rd anniversary of the massacres at Babi Yar, a ravine near kyiv, where the Nazis executed more than 30,000 Jews in 1941.
Volodymyr Zelensky, himself of Jewish origin, spoke on social networks to discuss what was the largest shooting massacre of Jews in Ukraine perpetrated by the Nazis and their local collaborators. “Babi Yar is a terrifying symbol, which shows that the most heinous crimes are committed when the world chooses to ignore, remain silent, remain indifferent and lacks the determination to oppose Evil”underlined the Ukrainian president in his message.
“Defend ourselves against Evil”
According to official figures, between 100 and 150,000 people – Jews, but also Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and Ukrainians – were killed in total in Babi Yar between 1941 and 1942, during the country’s occupation by the Nazis. . “Bai Yar is vivid proof of the atrocities that regimes are capable of when led by leaders who rely on intimidation and violence”he continued, in a barely veiled allusion to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We must defend ourselves against Evil”continued the Ukrainian leader, while his country has been fighting the large-scale Russian invasion since February 2022, a conflict which has led to the death of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians and the departure abroad of several million ‘others.
In Ukraine, whose history is marked by numerous pogroms and anti-Semitic massacres, the Shoah, organized by Nazi Germany with the participation of Ukrainian collaborators, decimated the Jewish community of the country, which was then part of the USSR.
Currently, the Babi Yar site houses a monument built by the Soviet authorities in 1976 but dedicated to “Soviet citizens and prisoners of war”without any mention of the Jewish victims. In 1991, a month after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Jewish community erected not far away an imposing sculpture in the shape of a menorah, the seven-branched candlestick symbol of Judaism.
