8 July 2009
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Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine – Cemetery and mass grave surveys led by project partners Hillel Kharkov are underway in this eastern Ukrainian region. Lo Tishkach Education Director Katy Nicholson joined participants on a recent visit to a Jewish mass grave in Krasnohrad and was interviewed on Ukrainian television about the project (click here to watch the clip). |
Marked by a memorial stone and located at the edge of a forest, the mass grave at Krasnohrad is one of 20 Jewish burial grounds in Kharkiv Oblast. Click here to view Krasnohrad mass grave on the Lo Tishkach Database.
This visit forms part of a huge educational project launched by Lo Tishkach earlier this year to survey all of Ukraine’s Jewish cemeteries and mass graves. To date, 136 Jewish burial grounds have been visited by Ukrainian students in five regions: Odessa, Kiev, Kharkiv, Zakarpattia and Khmelnytskyi.
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 is currently being updated to the Lo Tishkach Database.
Co-ordinated by the Lo Tishkach Foundation and supported by the Genesis Philanthropy Group, the project seeks to practically engage young Ukrainians with their culture and history, encourage reflection on the lessons of the Holocaust, and develop values of volunteerism and civic responsibility.
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.
