Holocaust memorial center will be built at Babi Yar

The concept of the project of Babi Yar Memorial will be presented in Kyiv in November 2017. This was stated by the member of the Supervisory Board of the project Natan Sharansky on Thursday at a press conference, the press service of Kyiv administration reports.

"We agreed on the borders of the site where the complex will be located and discussed the directions of the museum's activity, which should be both a center and a memorial, historical and research center. In November we present its concept in Kyiv, "he said.

In addition, Natan Sharansky, Vitali Klitschko noted that the Memorial Holocaust Center Babi Yar in Kyiv should be built at the same level as Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the Holocaust Memorial in Washington.

“Worldwide, there are memorials of this great tragedy, which occurred during the Second world war. Monuments of the Holocaust is in Israel, Poland, Germany, USA. However, in Ukraine, a country where there was this terrible tragedy, where brutally killed a large number of people: Jews, Ukrainian, Russians, Gypsies ─ nothing has been done. We need to honour the memory of the dead. As city authorities, we will do everything to make future generations aware of the tragedy of Babi Yar,” said the mayor of Kiev.

At the press conference it was noted that the creation of the memorial center will be allocated two plots of land at Babi Yar – 22300 square meters and 54753 square meter. Construction will be carried out on a smaller area at the stadium of the sports complex avant-garde, as more land will be allocated for landscaping and recreation area. The opening of the memorial center, scheduled for 2021, but before that must pass competition on the best project.

Chief Rabbi of Kyiv Yaakov Dov Bleich said that the Park at Babi Yar as a result of implementation of the project of the memorial center will not be built and will be better landscaped. “The final project has been coordinated with the Jewish (religious ed.) law. The construction will be carried out on the territory of the cemetery”, he said.

Yaakov Dov Bleich also noted the importance of this project for education of future generations. “We see for example in Rwanda and in Cambodia the recurrence of similar tragedies. The world community is silent sometimes, when it comes to discrimination of some groups of people this situation develops, and then hard to stop it. Worldwide created similar museums and emphasizes the idea that people should not be indifferent”, – he stressed.

In September at Babi Yar created a Lapidarium of tombstones of the old Jewish cemetery.