80 metų nuo žudynių „Babyn Yar“ yra ne tik jubiliejus - tai raginimas veikti

Six million is much more than a number. It is synonymous with humanity’s darkest chapter – The Nazi attempt to wipe an entire people off the face of the earth. However, we must also see beyond the number. Six million individual lives were lost, none more important than another. Each died their own death. Each was murdered not by a faceless system, but by a fellow human being. If the world is to take Holocaust remembrance seriously, then we must make every effort to remember and cherish each of those lost and to properly commemorate their cruel obliteration, writes Father Patrick Desbios.

My interest in the subject was sparked by my grandfather, who was deported as a French soldier to a Soviet prisoner of war camp in Western Ukraine during World War Two. As I put together the pieces of his story, I also began to uncover the fate of millions of Jews and Roma who were slaughtered in mass shootings in Ukraine. Two decades of hard and painstaking research led to the discovery of countless mass graves. I found that it wasn’t just bodies that were buried in Ukraine and Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, but the memory, any tangible trace of those who had been callously murdered.

I went from village to village, where thriving Jewish communities had been abruptly snuffed out. Time and again, I discovered that so many residents had no idea mass murder had taken place in the fields near their homes. Slowly but surely, the older generation, who had witnessed their Jewish neighbors and friends being led to their death, told the grim tale, many for the first time ever.

In this part of the world, Soviet rule had deliberately suppressed the truth for decades. There is no more powerful example than Babyn Yar. Almost exactly 80 years ago, almost 34,000 Jews were massacred by Nazi forces over a 48-hour period at the Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv, destroying the city’s Jewish community. In the subsequent decades, the victorious Soviets turned Babyn Yar into a waste dump and built roads and housing over what is Europe’s largest mass grave. Specific Jewish or minority suffering simply did not comply with the prevailing Communist narrative. As a result, virtually no memorial existed to acknowledge the horrific crimes which had taken place at Babyn Yar.

Thankfully, things are changing. History is finally being recorded. The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center is establishing a fitting memorial to the tragedy for the first time ever, with a variety of memorial installations and a symbolic synagogue unveiled at the site during the past year. Moreover, the Center is spearheading significant educational and research projects – The names of 20,000 previously unknown victims have been identified and new details of the massacre have been unearthed. A lost world is being brought back to life and voices long forgotten are being heard once again.

Eighty years have passed since the Babyn Yar massacre and we are finally putting right an historic wrong. I am immensely proud to be part of this effort, heading the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center’s Academic Council. I am proud not only because we are at last telling the historical truth, but because failure to do so has appalling consequences.

The ‘Holocaust by bullets’ in Eastern Europe, of which Babyn Yar is its most potent symbol, was unique in its human cruelty. While the gas chambers saw people murdered in an industrial fashion, Nazi death squads brought the murderers face to face with their victims. Time and again, they looked into the eyes of fellow human beings and without flinching, killed them in cold blood. Murder became routine. Lavish feasts often marked the end of a day’s killing. Few, if any, ever expressed remorse. The ‘Holocaust by bullets’ represents man’s ultimate descent into depravity and evil.

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Sadly, such wickedness continues to plague the world in the form of extremism, bigotry and antisemitism. Recently, we have witnessed a global explosion of antisemitic incidents. Meanwhile, I have personally seen the appalling consequences when such hatred is allowed to flourish. Just as I did in Eastern Europe, I have devoted significant efforts during recent years uncovering mass graves in Iraq, documenting the devastating massacres of Yazidis by ISIS. I have witnessed how easy it is for history to repeat itself.

That is why the eightieth anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre is not just an anniversary. It is not only a long-overdue opportunity to properly commemorate a tragedy undocumented for far too long. It is a wake-up call. If the Babyn Yar story remains untold, then the path will be paved towards similar horrors. If the world can allow evil to unfold in Iraq, then it can happen anywhere. Humanity ignores Babyn Yar at its peril.

Father Patrick Desbios is the Head of Academic Council at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center.

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