The United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad is funding memorialisation and restoration work at five Holocaust mass grave sites and Jewish cemeteries in Ukraine in collaboration with the Lo Tishkach Foundation.
The memorialisation projects will take place at sites in the Kyiv region of Ukraine, an area surveyed by Lo Tishkach in the summer of 2009. During the course of those surveys, critical memorialisation and protection projects were identified and presented to the Commission.
Where necessary, the mass grave and cemetery locations will be cleaned and demarcated and a durable memorial will be placed on site inscribed in Ukrainian, English and Hebrew.
“I am delighted that the U.S. Commission, the body that launched mass survey and memorialisation work in the 1990’s across Central and Eastern Europe is working with us to preserve the memory of these Jewish communities and of the Holocaust,” said Philip Carmel, Executive Director of the Lo Tishkach Foundation. “Moreover, it is highly appropriate that we launch this initiative during the 70th anniversary of the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, the event which began the wave of mass killings and extermination of Jewish communities in this region.”
Construction of memorials and general renovation work to the memory of Holocaust victims will take place later this year at mass grave sites in Baryshivka, Fastiv and Tarascha and at the Jewish cemeteries in Brovary and Dymer. Inauguration ceremonies involving local Jewish communities, local municipalities, U.S. Commission and Lo Tishkach representatives will begin in the spring.
“The aim of Lo Tishkach has always been to link in survey work with identifying what is needed in order to protect and memorialize on site. As we continue processing our survey reports across Eastern Europe, we look forward to mobilising support to preserve all these vital sites of our collective heritage,” Carmel said.
