Leaders of the Ukrainian state honored the memory of the Babyn Yar massacre victims on Friday. President Petro Poroshenko called it ‘a common tragedy of Jewish and Ukrainian people’.
‘Babyn Yar is one of the deepest wounds inflicted by the Holocaust. It is our joint tragedy, first of all that of the Jews and Ukrainians. May the deceased innocent rest in peace,’ he posted at Facebook.
Premier Volodymyr Groysman added that ‘this day is a day of mourning and grief’. ‘Our duty is to keep the memory of the Babyn Yar and pass it to the next generations. Only memory may protect one from repeating one’s mistakes from the past,’ Groysman posted.
Babyn Yar (Babi Yar) tragedy is credited as probably as the toughest war crime in the WWII. In September 1941, this ravine, located in Kyiv, became the graveyard for thousands of Jews, Ukrainians, Russians, Roma, Soviet POWs, political opponents and insane people. On September 29 and 30 alone, the Nazis murdered over 3,000 Jews.
