JEWISH WORLD

international authorities in the Jewish world with regard to where it’s supposed to be built.” I n recent remarks to the Kyev Jewish Forum, Kyev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that the Babi Yar property belongs to the munici- pality and that he sees it “as my mission to implement this memori- al.” As for the area designated for the creation of the Memorial Center, BYHMC representatives told JNS that it’s leased from the city of Kyev. Meylekh Sheykhet, director of the Ukrainian branch of the Washington-based Union of Coun- cils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union who lives in Lviv, has fought proposals to build at the site for years through the Ukrainian court system on the grounds that it vio- lates Ukraine’s rigorous Laws on the Protection of Cultural Heritage, as well as Jewish law. Sheykhet shared with JNS docu- ments from the Chairman of the Scientific and Methodological Council of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine that acknowledge the professional sur- veys of the site undertaken on behalf of the Union of Councils. Additional information that Sheykhet obtained from 1944 aerial photos from the U.S. National Archives where the cemetery fence is visible were passed on to the Ukrainian Ministry. The 2013 papers committed the ministry to investigate further, but Sheykhet says that still hasn’t happened, and therefore according to Ukrainian law, there’s no official approval for the site, which means nothing may be built there. One Jewish member of Ukraine’s parliament, Olga Vasylevska- Smaglyuk of the ruling SN Party, related to JNS that she had approached BYHMC staff and asked to see a map of the site and the building permit so that she could receive further information on the Jewish cemetery issue. “They told me it was confidential, and I would have to sign a five-year nondisclosure agreement if I want- ed to see it. Of course, I refused.” Like most Ukrainian Jews, Vasylevska-Smaglyuk had family members who perished during the Holocaust. While she is not in favor of any construction going ahead without permits, she is passionate about the need for a Ukrainian Holocaust memorial center. “I don’t care who builds it, and I don’t care about the politics,” she tells JNS . “The Ukrainian government will never build it. There’s no money and not too much interest. Russians give money here for all kinds of things, and if they don’t build it, we will have nothing here.” Izabella Tabarovsky agrees. “In the absence of anyone else’s interest in this matter (we American Jews, in particular, have completely failed in our duty toward these Holocaust martyrs), this project is our best hope — maybe our last hope — to turn Babi Yar into a kind of place of memory that the 2.7 million Jews murdered in a Holocaust by bullets at sites across those territories deserve to have.” S haransky, who was born in 1948 in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, recalls being arrested on his way from Moscow to one of the annual clandestine and illegal memorial gatherings at Babi Yar in the mid-1970s. “Babi Yar is a pow- erful symbol of two things: the “Holocaust by bullets” and second- ly, the awful crime of the Soviet regime and their big efforts to erase the memory” of the Jews who were killed. “My childhood was spent just three miles from other Holocaust killing fields,” he tells JNS . “But we grew up knowing nothing about it.” Sharansky relates that even as the independent Ukrainian government put a stop to the policy of silence surrounding Jewish victims of the Holocaust, “there has been no seri- ous effort to create any memorials, due to bureaucratic and financial reasons,” he added. “So, when the mayor of Kyev [Vitali Klitschko] and one of the philanthropists approached me” to head the supervisory board of the BYHMC, “it was like closing a big circle in my life.” Sharansky rejects the view of some critics that the BYHMC is a foreign body imposing on Ukraine. In the words of a May 2020 appeal to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed by 700 Ukrainian intellectuals and other Jewish activists, including Meylakh Shey- khet, “The authors call on President Zelensky “ … to take, in coopera- tion with civil society, real responsi- bility and direct control over the creation of a memorial complex at Babi Yar. This will prevent external destructive and manipulative influ- ences.” It goes on to say that the project should be “exclusively the preroga- tive of and under the control of the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian civil society and should not be placed in the hands of foreign citizens or pri- vate structures.” Acknowledging the critics, Sharansky asserts to JNS that “our funders are first, Jewish internation- al businessmen. They are involved because of one reason. Not because they are connected to the Kremlin. They are from Ukraine and have families who were killed in the Holocaust, some in Babi Yar. Our board is filled with some of the most respected names.” They include the first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk; former President of Poland Alexander Kwasniewski; former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.); former For- eign Minister of Germany Jos-chka Fischer; and president of the World Jewish Congress Ronald S. Lauder. “There’s no way some of this project will be hijacked by Moscow,” Sharansky adds. “There are those who attempt to undermine this project and prove that it’s an imposition of Moscow on Ukraine. What nonsense.” He does believe that the BYHMC should include Ukrainian govern- ment involvement, “but not be owned by the govern- ment.” He cites the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as examples of entities receiving govern- ment funding and input with no say over museum policy. “We don’t want either the Moscow or the Ukrainian version of the Holocaust to dictate our policy.” In his meetings with Zelensky, Sharansky says he has invited participation of government representa- tives to the BYHMC board and is waiting for someone to be appointed. M eanwhile, as the politics play out, the young and enthusias- tic staff of Jews and non-Jews is busy formulating innovative pro- grams to stimulate interest in the difficult task of preserving memo- ry, honoring and remembering the victims, and fostering Holocaust education. Under the direction of artistic director, Ilya Khrzhanovskyi, who created controversy when some plans for radical ideas that were never approved were leaked, the team has initiated projects such as Letters to the Righteous, an effort to reach out to help ease the isola- tion of the thirty surviving Ukrai- nians who took part in hiding Jews during the Shoah. “We are building a museum in order to preserve the memory of the tragic events and the lessons learned from them for decades to come. It should be dynamic, mod- ern and tell a story,” says Khrzha- novskyi. “Our task is to convey this story to people living now, so that they feel that this story con- cerns them. This is important for everyone who lives in Ukraine. This story is not only about how many Jews were killed by the Nazis. It is about humanism, about the events that took place in this country and about which the whole world knows. I believe that this museum will become the hall- mark of Kyev and Ukraine all over the world.” With a background in theater and film, Nadia Pizharskaya, who manages the Righteous Gener- ation project, is also working on the audio installation that will be rolled out for the anniversary on Sept. 29 and will then become part of the permanent exhibit of the BYHMC. In a Zoom interview, Nadia told JNS , “It’s taking place in the alley; not on our land. We picked it because it’s the quietest, cleanest, best-lit place — and then we found out it’s the Jewish cemetery. We didn’t know it beforehand. On each lamp post there will be a dif- ferent soundtrack, and because it’s the cemetery we won’t be allowed to use any music, so we’ll be read- ing the names of the victims. Kaddish will also be heard. On the next part of the alley, where the TV tower built by the Soviets is on the right-hand side, they took the gravestone of the nearest rabbi and just put it there to remind people that there used to be a cemetery there.” Nadia, who is not Jewish, says she frequently walks through the area, which is used as a public park, and notes that “the first gravestone you come to is where all the dogs are pissing. People just don’t care. That’s why I want to do this project, just to make them aware.” Judy Balint is an author and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. JNS.org Future continued from page 6 There is strong movement in Ukraine to claim Babi Yar as an internal Ukrainian matter distinct from the Holocaust. 14 JEWISH WORLD • OCTOBER 16-22, 2020 A view of a memorial with a Jewish menorah at Babi Yar. Natan Sharansky (fourth from right) heads the advisory board for the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center.