It’s the site of one of the largest massacres in the Holocaust: Babyn Yar, a ravine running throught Kyiv’s Dorohozhychi neighborhood.
Its name has become synonymous with the horrors perpetrated by Nazi Germany against the Jews of Eastern Europe during the Second World War.
In September 1941, just over a week after occupying Kyiv, the Nazis began posting notifications in the city ordering Jewish residents to gather near the military cemetery on Sept. 29. From there, the Jews were led into the nearby Babyn Yar ravine and shot with machine guns.
For two days, the Nazis massacred over 33,000 Jews. In the ensuing months, they would murder many more people: Ukrainians, ethnic Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war. In total, around 100,000 people were killed at Babyn Yar, the majority of whom were Jews.
Seventy-eight years later, on Aug. 19, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Babyn Yar to honor the victims of the massacre. They were joined by Israeli and Ukrainian officials and representatives of the Ukrainian Jewish community.
The timing was, in a way, also symbolic. Netanyahu leads a Jewish state that did not exist at the time of Babyn Yar. Zelensky is the first Ukrainian of Jewish ancestry to be elected president of Ukraine.
And the ceremony came as part of an official Israeli state visit aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries.
Return trip
It wasn’t Netanyahu’s first trip to Kyiv, nor was it his first visit to Babyn Yar. In March 1999, the Israeli leader — also prime minister at the time — paid an official visit to Ukraine.
At the time, Netanyahu stood before the monument to the victims, which is shaped like a menorah, and the snow-covered ravine and delivered an emotional speech.
“I swear here, on the earth of Babyn Yar, that our people shall never be defenseless again. The memory of the victims lives in Jerusalem forever,” he said.
Twenty years later, he has returned to Ukraine. It is the first visit by the Israeli head of state since 1999.
But, politically and economically, much has changed. Ukraine is now at war with Russia, and a growing number of Ukrainians view Israel’s success at developing while also defending itself from hostile neighbors as a model for their country.
In January, Israel and Ukraine signed a free trade agreement. The countries have growing ties in the IT industry and are connected by an increasingly large number of daily flights.
At the Babyn Yar ceremony, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko described Israel as a “key partner” for Ukraine, both economically and politically.
“I can say as mayor that, in the last year, 60 percent of foreign investment came to Kyiv and one of the significant parts of that investment came from Israel,” he told the Kyiv Post.
“The only way we can resolve the conflict in the south-east (of Ukraine) is by flourishing economically,” he added.
Never again
During the ceremony at Babyn Yar, both Zelensky and Netanyahu stood before the menorah monument and delivered speeches commemorating the 1941 massacre.
“We cannot forget and forgive” the events at Babyn Yar, Zelensky said. “The Ukrainian people will always remember crimes against humanity. We will never forget what racism and xenophobia lead to.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the Babyn Yar monument in Kyiv on Aug. 19, 2019. (Matthew Kupfer)
Netanyahu struck a similar emotional note to that of his 1999 address at the monument.
“We will never forget the suffering and pain our people have known,” Netanyahu said. “At the same time, we remember the Righteous Among the Nations who risked their lives to rescue Jews. They not only risked their own lives, they risked the lives of their families and sometimes paid the ultimate price. We do not forget them even for a moment.”
He also hailed the strong and secure state that Israel had built and praised President Zelensky and the Ukrainian government for preserving memory of Babyn Yar.
“You are continuing your efforts in the war against anti-Semitism,” he said.
Living memory
For many Jews in Israel and the diaspora, Ukraine is a country often associated with deeply negative moments in Jewish history.
In 1648-1657, Ukrainian Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytskyi led an uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During this volatile period, his forces massacred tens of thousands of Jews.
During World War II, some Ukrainians collaborated with the Nazi occupants. Historians implicate Ukrainian nationalists in collaboration with the Third Reich and ethnic cleansing of local Jewish and Polish populations during this period.
Ukraine’s treatment of nationalist leaders such as Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych as national heroes has been a stumbling block in Ukraine’s relations with Jewish communities. Israel’s ambassador to Ukraine, Joel Lion, has been particularly outspoken in his criticism of Kyiv’s decision to glorify these figures.
For his part, Netanyahu has faced criticism from scholars of the Holocaust for overlooking the issue of Holocaust revisionism as he builds ties with the countries of Eastern Europe.
But after the Babyn Yar ceremony, both Israeli and Ukrainian dignitaries expressed support for the countries’ joint commemoration of the massacre.
Natan Sharansky, a Ukraine-born Soviet dissident and former Israeli politician, said that Babyn Yar is both a symbol of the Holocaust in Ukraine and of the Soviet Union’s efforts to erase memory of the Holocaust.
“One of the first times I was arrested…was when I tried to come here on the anniversary of Babyn Yar in 1976…” he said. “Now, the fact that we can not only come here, but we are also planning on building a huge Holocaust center in memory of all those who were killed (here)…and (we) are doing it with the full support of the Ukrainian government, for me it’s extremely symbolic.”
The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center is a planned educational center and memorial complex with the financial backing of several Ukrainian- and Russian-Jewish oligarchs. It is scheduled to open in 2023. Sharansky sits on its supervisory board.
Sharansky, who says many of his family members were killed at Babyn Yar, believes that history should push Jews and Ukrainians to build greater friendship. But, for this, they cannot simply ignore tragic events in their past.
“I grew up in the center of Soviet anti-Semitism and Ukrainian anti-Semitism. But also when I became a dissident, I grew to appreciate the passion of Ukrainian democratic nationalists. Together with us, (they) were fighting for democracy,” he told the Kyiv Post.
“So I think our very tragic past should teach us about the ways that unite us.”
Georgiy Logvynskyi, an outgoing Ukrainian lawmaker who has been deeply involved in Ukraine’s relations with Israel, also stressed the importance of the memorial ceremony.
“For many, it’s history. For me, it’s my life,” he told the Kyiv Post. “My relatives are buried here. For me, it’s a place of tragedy for my people, my family, and my country.”
“People were destroyed, killed for their ethnic background alone,” Logvynsky said. “For this reason, it’s very important to make sure children know that such a thing should never repeat itself. It’s a symbol for the entire world.”
