Yar
Holocaust Memorial Complex (menorah monument of 2002).
Drobytsky Yar is a ravine near Kharkiv that witnessed the Holocaust (Shoah) tragedy — the systematic mass shootings in 1941–1942. Preceding these horrific murders, the Wehrmacht troops occupied Kharkiv on October 24, 1941. The Nazi German command conducted a population census with separate lists of Jews and Roma. The Nazis organized a ghetto for them on the eastern outskirts of the city. All Jews and Roma brought together in the ghetto were murdered shortly.
People were driven in groups of up to 300 people to Drobytsky Yar and shot there. To save bullets, children were thrown into pits alive. In total, between 16,000–19,000 people were killed.
In the post-war Soviet era, the tragedy that had struck this place was almost forgotten. NGOs almost secretly carried out the research aimed at preserving the memory and compiling the Holocaust chronicles, mainly the lists of victims. After the restoration of Ukraine’s independence in 1991, Ukrainian authorities decided to commemorate the victims of Nazism buried in the Drobytsky Yar, and a year later the decision was made to build a memorial.
The memorial complex was unveiled in 2002. There is a 20-meter menorah at the entrance, an alley, and a mourning hall with the Chalice of Grief, where the names of the innocent victims are engraved.
Almost 80 years have passed since the dreadful tragedy of the Holocaust, but the world still cannot recover. For most of us, this is such a short time to forget it, but for others — enough to commit the same crime. In 2022, as a result of the military invasion of the Russian Federation, Ukraine suffered mass murders and burials again. Moreover, Russian invaders desecrated the memory of those who had perished in the most atrocious war in history. During the artillery shelling on March 26, the Russian army damaged the menorah monument in the Drobytsky Yar.
Whatever stored the memories may now become a memory itself.
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