Mourning ceremony devoted to the 75th anniversary of the tragic events of the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, when fascists killed almost 20,000 persons, mainly Jews, took place at the Drobytsky Yar Memorial on December 14.
It was attended by the Chairman of Kharkiv Regional State Administration Yuliia Svitlychna, Ukrainian MP and the President of Kharkiv Regional United Jewish Community Oleksandr Feldman, the Chairman of Kharkiv Regional Council Serhii Chernov, the deputy mayor of Kharkiv Yevhen Vodovozov, the second secretary of the Embassy of the State of Israel to Ukraine and the head of Israel Cultural Centre in Kharkiv Alisa Liderman, the representatives of religious confessions and public organizations, veterans, students, cadets, schoolchildren, and the residents of Kharkiv.
“Unfortunately, there is a lot of violence, anger, national and religious discrimination in the world today. In order the similar catastrophes not to happen again, we must constantly work on the commemoration of the Drobytsky Yar tragedy and the Holocaust on the whole, we must involve young people in this activity, to carry out events, to create and support memorials and monuments,” Oleksandr Feldman noted.
After the moment of silence, the participants of the ceremony laid flowers on the place of mass shooting.
Later, the requiem concert in memory of the victims of the Drobytsky Yar tragedy took place in the House of the Philharmonic. The Academic Symphony Orchestra performed Requiem by Mozart for the residents of Kharkiv.
It should be noted that before the anniversary, on December 6, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine added the Drobytsky Yar Memorial to the Register of monuments of local importance of Ukraine.
It should be reminded that starting from November, in Kharkiv’s Drobytsky Yar Memorial the excursion and the lessons of tolerance for schoolchildren and students were carried out. They are aimed at provision of truthful information about the tragic events to as many people, especially the youth, as possible. In addition, in AVEC Gallery (70, Sumska Str.), the Drobytsky Yar Ashes Exhibition was opened on December 13. It exhibits the archival documents, letters, newspapers and memoirs of eyewitnesses, as well as the personal belongings of those who died.
Reference: After the occupation of Kharkiv in October 1941, the victimization of Jews began in the city. On December 14, at the command of the commandant of the city, all Jews were forced to move to the ghetto barracks of the machine-tool plant located in the KhTZ district. The liquidation of Kharkiv ghetto started on December 27, 1941: under pretence of sending people to work, the fascists began to take the Jews from the ghetto to Drobytsky Yar in the eastern outskirts to shoot them there. Kharkiv Jewish ghetto ceased to exist on January 7, 1942. Roma and captive Red Army soldiers were also executed in the ravine. The total of 16,000-20,000 persons were killed. On the whole, Nazi killed nearly 6 million Jews during the years of the World War II.
The construction of the holocaust memorial in Drobytsky Yar started in 1992. The first stage of the memorial was opened on December 13, 2002. It included the memorial menorah, the path and the 20-metre-high obelisk. The memorial hall with the Vial of Sorrow was opened on August 22, 2005.
