Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to Jewish people around the world to speak out on behalf of his country, citing Jewish history sites struck by Russia in its assault on its neighbor.
“I am now addressing the Jews of the world: don’t you see what is happening?” Zelensky asked. “That is why it is very important that millions of Jews around the world do not remain silent now.”
“Nazism is born in silence,” he warned, “so shout about the killing of civilians, of Ukrainians.”
In Wednesday’s installment of the daily videos Zelensky has been posting online, the president warned that Russia is trying to erase the history of Ukraine, and of its Jews specifically, following the bombing of the Babyn Yar memorial at the site of the Nazis’ largest massacre of Jews.
“The world promises ‘never again,’” Zelensky said. “Babyn Yar is a special part of Kyiv, a special part of Europe. A place of prayer, a place of remembrance for 100,000 people killed by the Nazis.”
“Who would make it a target for missiles? You are killing Holocaust victims for the second time,” he said.
Zelensky pointed out that the Soviets built a TV tower and a sports complex over Babyn Yar, among other steps taken to cover up that Soviet Jews were victims of the Holocaust.
“But why was it bombed? This is beyond humanity,” he said.
Zelensky also mentioned that, on the first day of the war, Uman, the pilgrimage site for Breslev hassids and tens of thousands of other Jews each year, was “brutally bombed.”
Pushing back at Russian claims that Ukraine is their country’s birthplace and therefore actually part of Russia, Zelensky said the strike on Babyn Yar “shows that for many people in Russia, our Kyiv is completely foreign. They know nothing about our capital, about our history.”
“But they have an order to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all,” Zelensky said.
Russian missiles and shells struck the site of Babyn Yar during Moscow’s assault on Kyiv on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid spoke out against the attack but did not mention Russia.
“We condemn the strike on the Jewish cemetery next to the memorial for the Holocaust of the Jews in Kyiv and the Jewish people in Babyn Yar,” Lapid said. “We call to respect the site… We continue to monitor the events and express our sorrow at the loss of human life.”
Lapid instructed Ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky to offer Israel’s help with repairs to the site.
Natan Sharansky, former head of the Jewish Agency and current chairman of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Advisory Board, slammed the attack and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin seeking to distort and manipulate the Holocaust to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic country is utterly abhorrent,” Sharansky stated. “It is symbolic that he starts attacking Kyiv by bombing the site of the Babyn Yar, the biggest of Nazi massacres.”
Sharansky said that the memorial is meant “to preserve historical memory following decades of Soviet suppression of historical truth so that the evils of the past can never be repeated. We must not allow the truth to – once again – become the victim of war.”
On September 29-30, 1941, 33,771 Jews were systematically shot dead and buried in a ravine over the 48-hour period at Babyn Yar (Babi Yar in Russian).
As many as 150,000 people – Ukrainians, Roma, Soviets, and the physically and mentally disabled – were murdered by the Nazis over a longer period, making the city Europe’s largest mass grave.
Yad Vashem voiced its “vehement condemnation,” and called on the international community to protect civilian lives and historic sites.
“Rather than being subjected to blatant violence, sacred sites like Babi Yar must be protected,” said the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. “Yad Vashem reiterates its call to refrain from abusing and distorting the memory of the Holocaust… History must be remembered accurately, and its moral lessons must be implemented truthfully by all.”
