Presidents of Ukraine, Israel and Germany honor victims of the Babylonian massacre – PRAVDA.sk

On Wednesday, the presidents of Ukraine, Israel and Germany jointly honored the nearly 34,000 Jewish victims of the Babyn Jar massacre near Kiev, which was committed by German Nazis and local collaborators 80 years ago. The AP agency informed about it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during an intercession in the Babyn Jar gorge near Kiev.

The Babyn Jar gorge near Kiev became the first site for the systematic extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany. The mass killing of the local Jewish population took place there over the course of two days – on September 29 and 30, 1941. The remains of the victims – 33,771 men, women, children and the elderly – ended up in mass graves.

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the massacre, the names of 159 of the hundreds of members of the Nazi SS units who took part in the killings in Babyna Spring were published on Wednesday.

Not everyone killed directly: some dragged Kiev Jews from their homes, took their property and luggage, or served refreshments to shooters. These were people between the ages of 20 and 60, only a few of whom were brought to justice; the vast majority of them returned to normal life in their homeland after the war.

Read more The scariest secret in human history is illustrated by the new film The Report by Petr Bebjak

“Babyn Jar is the largest mass grave of the Holocaust… and it is the grave that was filled the fastest,” said Natan Šaransky, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Babyn Jar Holocaust Memorial Center.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took part in Wednesday’s memorial service together with colleagues from Israel and Germany – Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Yitzhak Herzog.

Crystal Wailing Wall

The three presidents have inaugurated a memorial center dedicated to the story of Eastern European Jews killed during the Holocaust and buried in mass graves. They also took part in the unveiling of a memorial to the victims of the Babyna Spring massacre by the well-known conceptual artist Marina Abramovičová.

The so-called Crystal Wailing Wall is considered to be one of the largest art installations built in Europe in the last decade. It is a 40 meter long wall made of black anthracite, in which 75 large crystals are incorporated.

“For us Germans, there is only one reaction (to the events in Babylon Spring): never again,” said German President Steinmeier during a memorial service, stressing the need for a constant fight against anti-Semitism.

He regretted that anti-Jewish prejudices were now growing stronger in Germany and other countries. “The evil spirits of the past are reappearing in a new disguise,” Steinmeier said.

100 weeks

Even according to Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog, the events of 80 years ago must never be repeated. “In the interest of all mankind, we must ensure that there is never another Babyn Jar,” he stressed.

Ukrainian President Zelensky called the massacre in the Kiev gorge a “black, disgusting chapter in world history.” According to him, this is a common tragedy of the Jewish and Ukrainian people.

The Babyn Jar Gorge was used by the Nazis for mass murder throughout the occupation of Kiev, which lasted more than 100 weeks. In total, they have estimated that they have killed more than 100,000 people, including Jews, Roma, Ukrainians and Russians.