One of Europe’s most prominent Holocaust memorials was bombed by Russia amid the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, USA Todayreports.
After the bombing, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky took to Twitter on Tuesday to call out Vladimir Putin for bombing the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial in Kyiv, which honors the estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people who died at that site between 1941 and 1943.
“To the world: what is the point of saying «never again» for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar?” Zelensky wrote. “At least 5 killed. History repeating.”
In a video address on Wednesday, Zelensky condemned Putin for “killing Holocaust victims a second time.”
Natan Sharanksy, the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center advisory board chairman, confirmed the bombing in his own statement.
“Putin seeks to distort and manipulate the Holocaust to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic country is utterly abhorrent. It is symbolic that he starts attacking Kyiv by bombing the site of the Babyn Yar, the biggest of Nazi massacre,” Sharanksy said.
Sharansky added, “We, at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, built on Europe’s largest mass grave of the Holocaust, work to preserve historical memory following decades of Soviet suppression of historical truth, so that the evils of the past can never be repeated.”
Jewish groups around the world have also condemned the strike, with Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum Yad Vashem requesting that Babi Yar be preserved, maintaining that the sacred site has “irreplaceable value for research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust.”
“Rather than being subjected to blatant violence, sacred sites like Babi Yar must be protected,” Yad Vashem said in a statement.
As reported by the New York Times, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said it was enraged at “the damage inflicted on the Babyn Yar memorial by Russia’s attack today.” Britain’s Holocaust Memorial Day Trust charity reiterated their remarks, saying it was “horrified” by the assault on Babi Yar.
Meanwhile, Karyn Grossman Gershon, the chief executive of Project Kesher, a nonprofit that focuses on legitimizing women leaders in the Jewish community said she is “beyond devastated” about Russia’s attack on the memorial site.
