The Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine” hosted a series of events dedicated to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The memorial date is celebrated by the decision of the UN General Assembly of November 1, 2005, every year on January 27. In 2011, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a decision to mark January 27 as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Ukraine at the state level.
It was on this day in 1945 that troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front liberated the prisoners of the largest death camp in occupied Europe, Auschwitz-Birkenau, located near the occupied Polish city of Auschwitz, which became a terrible symbol of the Holocaust and Nazi crimes in World War II. It is deeply symbolic that the camp was liberated by a unit under the command of Major Anatoly Shapiro, a Ukrainian Jew, a native of the Kharkiv region, who saw with his own eyes the place where about 1.2 million people were killed over a period of five years.
The tragedy of the Holocaust is an integral part of the national history and memory of Ukraine, which was under Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944. It was on Ukrainian soil that the Nazis and their accomplices took the lives of over 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews (that is, one in four of the over 6 million victims of the Holocaust).
Despite the constant anxiety and unfavorable general conditions, a ceremony to honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust was traditionally held in the halls of the Museum, which was attended by visitors together with representatives of educational and cultural institutions. The guests were addressed by the Director of the Museum, Dr. Iryna Radchenko, who reminded them of the importance of preserving the memory of this tragedy, as well as the relevance of its study in the conditions of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is symbolic that in memory of the 6 million dead Jews, six candles were lit in a special candlestick of the Yad Vashem Memorial Complex to the Holocaust and Heroism of the Jewish People.
On the memorable date, the opening of the exhibition “The Auschwitz Experience in the Art of Former Prisoners” took place, created by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (Republic of Poland). Especially for the Ukrainian audience, the Museum “Memory of the Jewish People and the Holocaust in Ukraine”, together with colleagues from the Polish museum, created an adapted exhibition in Ukrainian. The visual series of the temporary exhibition impresses with its emotionality, depth of feelings and presents the history of the Nazi “death factory” through the creativity and memories of former prisoners – people who went through the terrifying ordeals of the hell created by the Nazis.
It is important that the memory of people who became victims of the Nazi genocide is not exclusively part of the museum space but also speaks through time and generations. Thus, during these memorial days, numerous thematic excursions were held for students of city educational institutions, as well as students at universities of the Dnipro region. Young visitors had the opportunity to get to know the history of the Holocaust in Europe and Ukraine in more depth, learn about the role of propaganda in Nazi Germany, the strategies of people's behavior during the Holocaust, and see unique exhibits that talk about the events of those terrible years.