The Path of Remembrance action took place in Drobytsky Yar (Kharkiv) on May 5, on the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. The wayside willows and rowan trees were bedded out in memory of Nazi victims. Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Feldman told that birch walkway was bedded out here ten years ago. Now it is extended with the new path of remembrance, which leads to the place of killing and burial of thousands of innocent victims.
“They demonstrated heroism making everything possible to remain humans even in the most difficult situation. Do not forget about this day, about this place, about each of six million people, who were killed during the war, only because they were Jews,” Mr. Feldman emphasized. “Not too long ago it was difficult to imagine that war would take place in Ukraine again, and people would die. We must rear our children so that wars and violence to become a thing of the past.”
The necessity to honour the memory of Nazi victims for the sake of the future generations was also emphasized by the chairman of the board of the Kharkiv City Organization of Jews participating in military operations Mykhailo Zolotkovskyi, who had lost his grandfather, grandmother, aunt and two cousins in Drobytsky Yar. “Youth is our future, and it is necessary to remember the past for the sake of the future,” he noted.
The action was attended by the chairman of the board of founders of the AVEC and Co. PJSC Borys Feldman, the chief rabbi of Kharkiv and Kharkiv oblast Moshe Moskovitz, the head of the Security Service department in Kharkiv oblast Oleksandr Pivovar, and others. War veterans, representatives of public organizations, representatives of Jewish, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Armenian, and German communities, Kharkiv schoolchildren and students also came to honour the memory of those who died.
The event was organized by the International Charitable Foundation “Oleksandr Feldman Foundation”, the Association of National and Cultural Unions of Ukraine, and the Kharkiv Regional United Jewish Community.
It should be reminded that the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day is observed worldwide on May 5, 2016 in memory of 6 million Jews killed by German Nazis and their accomplices during the World War II. Mass murders of Kharkiv residents, mainly of Jewish origin, were performed in Drobytsky Yar in 1941-1942.
