Foreign Ministry: Ukraine calls for evidence-based remembrance of Babyn Yar tragedy

"Ukraine calls on the international community to unite in order to preserve and affirm universal values, prevent discrimination on any grounds, prevent the recurrence of such crimes, as well as to join evidence-based and politically independent restoration and preservation of historical memory of the Babyn Yar tragedy," reads the commentary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on the occasion of the 79th anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy.

As noted, Ukraine and the whole world today honours the memory of tens of thousands of victims shot by the Nazis in the Babyn Yar. Only on September 29-30, 1941, almost 34,000 men, women, and children were killed in the Babyn Yar just because they were Jews.

"This tragedy, common to the Ukrainian and Jewish peoples, is a mournful symbol of the Holocaust, a testament to the inhumanity of totalitarian regimes. The Nazi regime killed thousands of innocent people, the Soviet regime persistently killed the memory of these victims," Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry emphasized.

In this context, Ukrainian diplomats recalled that the Soviet government had consistently conducted anti-Semitic campaigns and purposefully destroyed not only the remembrance of the tragedy but also the place of execution, in particular, in the postwar period. However, thanks to human memory and the invaluable contribution of witnesses and researchers, the tragedy of Babyn Yar has taken its rightful place in world history.

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