EDUCATION – Cemetery and Mass Grave Surveys Underway in Kiev and Odessa Oblasts, Ukraine

Teams of Ukrainian students and youth have begun to visit Jewish cemeteries and mass graves in Kiev and Odessa Oblasts as part of a vast educational project to survey hundreds of Jewish burial sites across Ukraine. Groups led by the Kiev-based Centre for Jewish Education and Odessa Jewish University have to date visited 48 Jewish burial grounds in 29 locations.

Participants carry out comprehensive surveys at each location, illustrated by detailed photographs, and gather vital information on the area’s Jewish life, history and culture. The data collected from these surveys will be presented in a series of publications providing an up-to-date record on the situation of Jewish burial grounds in Ukraine and will be publicly accessible on the Lo Tishkach Database.

Co-ordinated by the Lo Tishkach Foundation and supported by the Genesis Philanthropy Group, the first year of this three-year educational project seeks to practically engage young Ukrainians with their culture and history, encourage reflection on the values that are important for responsible citizenship and mutual respect, collect valuable information for the Foundation’s database, and develop values of volunteerism and civic responsibility.

Working together with local partners the Centre for Jewish Education in Ukraine, Odessa Jewish University, Hillel Kharkov, the Jewish Student Center (Kiev) and the Ukrainian Union of Jewish Students, this project will see young Ukrainians visiting hundreds of Jewish burial sites in Kiev,Odessa, Kharkov, Khmelnitsky and Zakarpattia Oblasts.

The Jewish population of Ukraine stood at around 2 million before World War II, around 1.4 million of whom were killed during the Holocaust. The current Jewish population is estimated at between 100,000 and 300,000 people. Ukraine is thought to have up to 2,000 Jewish cemeteries and World War II Jewish mass graves.