"Mass Burials Memorials" Program
Many places of mass burial in post-Soviet territory, dating from the time of the Holocaust, are still unknown or not marked in any way. Since there are less and less living witnesses of the Catastrophe that can help with the identification of these burial, the work on finding, recording, and finally memorializing sites of mass burial is rather urgent.
In 2007, the EAJC began an experimental project “Placing memorials on mass burial sites of the Holocaust.”
A number of memorials have already been placed in Ukrainian and Belorussian communities with the aid of the local Jewish communities and governmental administrations. The project is now under consideration for implementation in Moldova and Pyatigorsk, Russia.
On the 14th of June, in Styebliv town of Cherkassy Oblast, a memorial sign was erected where the Nazi occupants shot 143 Jewish citizens of Styebliv in 1941. The memorial was erected together with the local Jewish community, with the aid of the Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi district state administration, the Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi District Council of People's Deputies, and the Styeblov Town Council.
On the 16th of September, in Slutsk, Belarus, a ceremonial opening took place of a memorial dedicated to the 3000 Jews who died in January, 1943, during the suppression of an anti-Fascist uprising in a ghetto (Photos from the ceremony).
The author of the memorial project is a member of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress General Council, Chairman of the Union of Belarusian Jewish Associations and Communities, architect Leonid Levin. The memorial's erection was also aided by the Slutsk District Executive Committee, the Slutsk and Pinsk Jewish communities, the Union of Belarussian Jewish Public Associations and Communities, the creative workshop of the architect L. Levin, as well as numerous private funds and individuals.
In 2008-2009 the project's realization was suspended because of a lack of funding in conditions of the world financial crisis. In 2010, the program was restored.
On June 22, in the city of Boyarka, a memorial to the death of 55 Jews from Boyarka and Tarasovka village was restored with the aid of the “Lo Tishkach” and “Genesis” funds.
On the 7th of November, a monument honoring the Jewish community destroyed by Nazis in 1941-1945 was erected in Mariampol' village of Galytska District of Ivano-Frankivsk, in place of a destroyed Jewish cemetery.
On the 5th of August, Vaad Ukraine made a treaty of cooperation a mutual aid with the pan-Ukrainian charity fund “Path of Mercy,” so as to work together in placing memorials on places of mass Jewish burials from the time of the Great Patriotic War. As an implementation of this treaty, memorial signs will be erected soon in Skybynska Dubina village and the Voronnoe village in Bakshiv Yar of Zharkovsky District, Cherkasskaya Oblast.
On October 17, a memorial to the victims of Jewish pogroms was opened
in Dubova village (former town of Dubova) of Uman' region, Cherkaskaya oblast.