A series of memorial services and conferences will be held across Ukraine over
the coming month remembering Jews slain by the Nazis in the aftermath of
Operation Barbarossa 70 years ago.
An international conference on
anti-Semitism that coincides with the 70th anniversary of the murder of 33,771
Jews at Babi Yar later this month will take place in the capital Kiev on
September 20.
The event, organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition
for Combating Anti-Semitism with the support of the Ukrainian parliament, is
aimed at battling anti-Semitism and educating future generations against
racism.
“The conference will bring together lawmakers from around the
world, with the specific goal of addressing the troubling scourge of Jew-hatred
everywhere, especially in the countries of the former Soviet Union,” the
organizers said in a statement.
“This conference will therefore present
us with a welcome opportunity to highlight a united front, to display a common
commitment to fight anti- Semitism to the very best of our abilities, while also
designing innovative and necessary strategies to achieve that very
goal.”
Meanwhile, memorial services will be held over the coming month by
the Lo Tishkach Foundation in several Ukrainian towns and hamlets where
thousands of Jews were executed by advancing German forces.
Ceremonies
will be held in Baryshivka on September 12; in Fastiv and Dymer on September 14;
in Brovary on September 26; and in Tarascha on October 10.
In recent
years the foundation has been working in cooperation with the Association of
Jewish Communities of Ukraine, and the United States Commission for the
Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, to commemorate the mass murders of
Jews with the setting of memorial stones.
Some one million Jews were
executed, typically by shooting, by German units called Einsatzgruppen after the
Third Reich conquered large swaths of the Soviet Union in 1941. The method of
executions was eventually deemed inefficient by the Nazis who created
concentration camps with gas chambers the following year.