On September 29, commemorative events will take place in Kyiv to mark the 83rd anniversary of the tragic events at Babyn Yar – the mass murder of Jews, Ukrainians, Roma, and individuals of other nationalities perpetrated by the nazis.
Media representatives are invited to cover the event.
You can register for the events using this form.
EVENT SCHEDULE
Memorial Ceremony to Honor the Victims of Mass Executions in Nazi-Occupied Kyiv During World War II
Location: Babyn Yar, Menorah Memorial
Among the invited guests are representatives of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Government, ambassadors and representatives of diplomatic missions, relatives of the victims, members of the Jewish community, and clergy.
12:00 PM. Opening of the exhibition “Someone Was a Neighbor: Choice, Human Behavior, and the Holocaust”
Location: Babyn Yar National Historical and Memorial Preserve, Yurii Illienka Street, 46 A
The co-organizer of the exhibition is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, one of the most renowned specialized historical museums in the world.
The exhibition includes photographs, eyewitness testimonies, and historical information about nazi policies, as well as the involvement of the local population in crimes against Jews, both active and “silent.”
The exhibition addresses one of the central questions of the Holocaust: How was the Holocaust possible? Why did most ordinary people support nazi crimes or remain silent? Similarly, today, the people of russia behave in much the same way, effectively endorsing military aggression and war crimes against Ukraine’s civilian population committed by russian invaders.
This is the first joint project between the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Ukrainian side. The museum is a non-partisan, federal, educational institution and serves as the U.S. national memorial to Holocaust victims, ensuring the memory of the Holocaust remains enduring, understood, and relevant.
Memorial Concert performed by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. Symphony No. 1 “In Memory of the Martyrs of Babyn Yar” by Dmytro Klebanov.
Location: National Philharmonic of Ukraine, Volodymyr Descent, 2
The work, which will be presented to the general public in its newly revised version for the first time, has an extraordinary history and is a testament to the Soviet “Genocide of Memory.”
Dmytro Klebanov, a Ukrainian composer of Jewish descent from Kharkiv, completed the symphony in 1945, dedicating it to the memory of the martyrs of Babyn Yar. It is the world’s first symphony about the Holocaust.
During the composer’s lifetime, the piece was performed only once in 1947 in Kharkiv. Afterward, the symphony was immediately banned, planned performances were canceled, and the composer was accused of formalism.
With the thaw in the Soviet Union, it became possible to revisit the memory of Babyn Yar’s victims. In the late 1980s, the symphony was performed in Kyiv by Ukrainian conductor Ihor Blazhkov with the State Symphony Orchestra, and in 2011 it was performed in Kharkiv by the Kharkiv University of Arts. Both performances were flawed, as the original manuscript was inaccessible, and musicians used a copy of the score with numerous errors.
Only in 2024, thanks to the joint efforts of the Babyn Yar National Historical and Memorial Preserve and representatives of the music community, a photocopy of the original manuscript and a more accurate handwritten copy were obtained. These materials revealed that after the premiere, the composer had made significant corrections to the score.
A tremendous amount of editing was done with the support of the Kharkiv National University of Arts, where Dmytro Klebanov taught for many years. Ukrainian composer Oleksandr Shchetynsky took on the task of editing and preparing the score for performance.
The original symphony score has revealed a nearly unknown masterpiece, without which the history of Ukrainian music would be incomplete. The symphony is rich with the folklore of two peoples – Jewish and Ukrainian. It is also symbolic that this work was created in Kharkiv.
Media contact: +38 067 209 5021, Oksana Herasymova.