Memorial to the murdered Jews of Dnipro

Пам'ять вбитих євреїв Дніпра

In the industrial town of Dnipro (until 2016: Dnipropetrovsk) several memorials remember the more than 10,000 Jews who were killed by SS-Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) during the German occupation from 1941 to 1943.

History

Dnipro, which was until 2016 called Dnipropetrovsk (Russian: Dnepropetrovsk), is located 400 kilometres southeast of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev on both banks of the river Dnieper. Until 1926 the town was called Yekaterinoslav. Shortly after the town's founding by Catherine the Great in the 18th century Jews started settling there. Until the beginning of the 20th century the town developed into a populous industrial town, particularly known for metal working. More and more Jews moved to the city: the large Jewish community and the many Jewish schools, houses of prayer and societies made Yekaterinoslav/Dnipropetrovsk an important regional centre of Jewish culture, which it stayed also during Soviet times. The Jewish population in 1939 was approximately 89,000 out of a total of 526,000.
Prior to the town's capture by the German Wehrmacht on August 25, 1941 hundreds of thousands inhabitants were able to flee or were evacuated by Soviet authorities, up to 60,000 Jews left the town. When the Wehrmacht invaded the town only half of the population of Dnipropetrovsk was left, 30,000 to 35,000 Jews among them. Along with the Wehrmacht units of the SS-Einsatzgruppe C (mobile killing units) moved into the town. Already in September 1941 their members shot more than 170 Jews. After the Jews of Dnipropetrovsk had to pay horrendous dues to the occupying forces in October 1941 the Higher SS and Police Leader Jeckeln ordered all Jews to assemble near a large department store on October 13. From there the Jewish men, women and children were taken to the botanic garden by members of the Police Battalion 314 and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen and shot there. The murderers killed some of the Jews on the old Jewish cemetery. All in all about 12,000 Jews from Dnipropetrovsk were shot on October 13 and 14, 1941. On October 19, 1941 the Wehrmacht said that the »Jewish Question« in the town of Dnipropetrovsk was »basically solved«.

Dnipropetrovsk, undated, Post-war photograph of the site of the mass shootings in the botanical garden, Yad Vashem

Yekaterinoslav, about 1900, choral synagogue, public domain

Victims

The exact number of Jewish victims in Dnipropetrovsk is not known. In the summer of 1943 the SS tried to obliterate the traces of mass murders under the code name Sonderkommando 1005 (Special Action 1005): Jewish forced labourers had to exhume the mass graves of 1941 and burn the bodies. The perpetrators themselves stated in their reports to have killed about 15,000 Jews from Dnipropetrovsk. The town was liberated by the Red Army in October 1943.

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

After the end of the Second World War many Jews returned or moved to Dnipropetrovsk. In 1970 about 70,000 Jews lived in the town again but there was only one synagogue. It was the only Jewish institution in the city at all. In the 1970s and 1980s more and more Jews emigrated to Israel.
Various memorials erected at different times remember the murdered Jews of Dnipro. The first memorial was erected by Jewish soldiers of the Red Army immediately after the town's liberation, the Hebrew and Russian inscription explicitly spoke of Jewish victims. Soon after the plaque was removed since it didn't fit in with the official Soviet propaganda which suppressed the systematic genocide of the Jews. Instead a stele in the Yuri Gagarin Park near the botanic garden remembers the »Victims of Fascism«. Only after Ukraine's independence was it possible to erect a stele mentioning Jewish victims. It is nearby and bears inscription in Hebrew and Ukrainian. On the new Jewish cemetery is another memorial from Soviet times: The metal gaunt figure is raising one hand to the sky and releases a bird. Also in this case victims are not referred to as Jews but as »peaceful citizens«. In 2009 the Jewish community raised a monument in the Pisarzhevsky park, the former old Jewish cemetery.
In 2012 the – by it's own account – largest Jewish cultural centre in the world was opened in Dnipro. The ensemble consisting of five towers is called »Menorah Centre« and was built around the old synagogue. The centre which was built thanks to the donations of two Ukrainian businessmen hosts a hotel, a congress centre and the »Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine Museum« among other things.

Dnipro, 2004, Memorial near the botanical garden, »Tkuma«

Dnipro, 2013, The »Menorah Centre« opened in 2012, Roman Minchyn

Possibilities

Guided tours

Open

The memorials are accessible at all times. The »Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine Museum«: Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Contact

http://tkuma.dp.ua/

tkuma@tkuma.com

+38 056 452 2163

ul. Sholom Aleykhem 4
49000 Dnipro

Dnipro, 2005, Memorial near the botanical garden, Stiftung Denkmal

Dnipro, 2013, Soviet memorial on the new Jewish cemetery, bmalina

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