Memorial to the murdered Jews of Chernobyl

Пам'ять вбитих євреїв Чорнобиля

In Chernobyl (Ukrainian: Chornobyl), a monument in the old Jewish cemetery commemorates the murdered Jews of the city and its surroundings.

History

Chernobyl, located about 94 kilometres north of Kiev, was first mentioned in writing in 1193. The Jewish community was founded in the late 17th century. At the end of the 19th century more than 5,500 out of the 9,400 inhabitants were Jews. Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl (1730-1787) founded one of the most famous Hasidic dynasties here, the Twersky dynasty.
On April 1, 1919, during the civil war, members of the White Army murdered about 150 Jews in Chernobyl. Subsequently, the Twersky families left the city. In 1916, a rabbi founded the first Hasidic religious school in Chernobyl. It was closed a few years later by the Soviet authorities and converted into a secular Yiddish school. Some Jewish families founded a kolkhoz which they called »Nae Welt«. Yiddish remained an approved administrative language until 1937, after which all Jewish institutions were closed. On the eve of the Second World War, about 1,780 Jews lived in the city, representing about one-fifth of the population.
On August 25, 1941, two months after the attack on the Soviet Union, the German Wehrmacht occupied the city. The Jews were coerced into forced labour and had to wear badges. On November 19, 1941, Ukrainian policemen gathered all Jews in the yard of the Jewish kolkhoz. Under the supervision of German units, the Jews were driven to the cemetery west of the city. There the German units shot all Jews while local police closed off the area. The bodies were buried on the spot. In the following weeks, the Germans and their accomplices captured all the Jews who had managed to save themselves from the »Aktion« and shot them. The Jewish community of Chernobyl was thus annihilated.

Chernobyl, undated, One of the city's former synagogues, public domain

Chernobyl, about 1919, Jewish militia for self-defence during the civil war, Yad Vashem

Victims

Members of German units murdered some 400 to 450 Jews during the »Aktion«on November 19, 1941 with the help of the local police. At the beginning of December, they murdered another twenty Jews who had been able to escape the murder operation.

Ukraine, the second-largest Republic in the European part of the former Soviet Union, was at the centre of the Second World War and the Holocaust. It is estimated that five to six million Ukrainians died during the war, including around 630,000 Jews. In mid-September 1939, following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in accordance with the Hitler-Stalin Pact – a secret German-Soviet agreement –, the south-east of Poland became part of the Soviet Ukraine. The oppression of the local population was now an everyday occurrence. In summer 1941, the German attack on the Soviet Union initially affected these very regions. Right from the start of the invasion the Jewish population was accused of supporting the Soviet powers and became the target of brutal attacks. These attacks were often the work of nationalist Ukrainians, who initially welcomed the advance of the Wehrmacht. German SS Einsatzgruppen and allied Rumanian units soon began to carry out mass shootings of Jews. The Babyn Yar ravine near Kiev, where German units and Ukrainian militia murdered over 33,700 Jews over two days in September 1941, has since become a global symbol of the genocide of Jews. The non-Jewish population was also a target for persecution. National Socialist racist ideology classed Ukrainians, as all »Slavs«, as »subhuman«. The occupiers looted the country, deported way over one million civilians to carry out forced labour and publicly executed hostages. By 1943 a partisan war against the Wehrmacht was raging along with the campaign of the nationalist »Ukrayinska Povstanska Armiya« (Ukrainian Rebel Army or UPA) against the Soviets and the Polish population in western Ukraine. The number of Poles to die in the process lies way over 100,000. From 1944 the Ukraine was again part of the Soviet Union and also encompassed former territories in eastern Poland. The UPA continued its campaign until the mid-1950s. The Soviet authorities deported around 300,000 Ukrainians to Siberia to counter the resistance. The Ukrainian culture of memory was aligned with the symbolic forms of remembrance found in the Soviet Union. Monumental sites of memory were constructed to celebrate the »victory« in the Great Patriotic War. It is only recently that victims have been remembered alongside the venerated heroes. In addition, a culture of memory centred on the campaign of the UPA has emerged in western Ukraine, with the UPA’s legacy being interpreted as a struggle for independence. Confrontation with anti-semitism and the collaboration with the German occupiers has only begun around 2000. With just a few exceptions, the mass shootings of Jews were ignored until the 1980s. It was not until 1991 that the government of independent Ukraine acknowledged Babyn Yar as a »symbol of Jewish martyrdom«. Long after gaining independence, Ukraine was still on the search for its national identity. The documentation of Soviet crimes – for example the state’s responsibility for the Great Famine (Holodomor) in 1922-23 that led to millions of deaths – has more significance in the establishment of a Ukrainian identity than learning about the Holocaust. Nevertheless, new memorial sites for the murdered Jews were established throughout the country, such as Drobitskiy Yar in Kharkiv or the Holocaust Museum in Odessa. On many mass grave sites new memorials were created, partially with German support. In Kiev, a new grand memorial site with global relevance was planned at Babyn Yar. These plans were put on hold with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. What impact the current defensive war will have on Holocaust remembrance in the future remains to be seen.

Remembrance

The Red Army liberated Chernobyl on September 28, 1943. After the war some Jews who had been able to leave the city before the Wehrmacht arrived returned to Chernobyl. In 1970, approximately 150 Jews still lived in Chernobyl.
A few days after the nuclear disaster at the nearby nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986, all inhabitants of Chernobyl were evacuated. Although the city is now located within the 30 km wide restricted area, some hundred mainly elderly people are living there again. A Jewish community no longer exists. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Jewish community maintained five synagogues and a house of prayer. Today, only the façade of one of the synagogues has survived. In Soviet times the building was used as a recruitment centre for the army. The old Jewish cemetery is no longer preserved except for two resting places of the Twersky dynasty. On the site there was a school until 1986. In the Soviet era, the Jewish community centre »Kahal« housed the city's cultural centre. The second Jewish cemetery where the Holocaust monument is located is situated on the western outskirts of the city. The monument was built after the war by relatives of the murdered. The date of the mass shooting and the Hebrew inscription could be seen on the faded memorial plaque until only recently, when the monument was repainted and the inscription painted over. The memory of the Jewish community from Chernobyl is still remembered by members of the Twersky dynasty and other Hasidic Jews. In their tradition, the city still enjoys a high status to this day.

Chernobyl, 2017, Memorial to the murdered Jews, Sergey Paskevitch

Open

The memorial is located in the 30-kilometre wide restricted area, which visitors are only allowed to visit with a special permit.

Contact

http://chornobyl.in.ua

redactor@chornobyl.in.ua

Chernobyl, 2017, Ruin of a synagogue, Sergey Paskevitch

Chernobyl, 2015, Former shtetl house, Yevgenni Shnayder

Chernobyl, 2015, Street with former shtetl houses, Yevgenni Shnayder

Chernobyl, 2015, Abandoned house, JYevgenni Shnayder

Chernobyl, 2017, Old Jewish cemetery, Sergey Paskevitch

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