Russian Holocaust Memorials

Our partner in Russia, Ebenezer, is working on a Memorial project together with the Russian Holocaust Center. There are more than 500 places in Russia where mass killings of Jews took place during World War II. People gave completely forgotten about this, and there are no monuments on those places. This is why Ebenezer decided to begin to build the monuments together with the Russian Holocaust Center.

Boris Vasyukov from Ebenzer emailed us about one of the first memorials in Lyubavichy:
Lyubavichy is a small village in the Smolensk area (450 kilometers from Moscow). It is a very well-known place for religious Jews. Thousands of them come here every year to visit the graves of Lyubavichy's rabbies. We decided to build a big memorial on this place (and not a small monument) to testify to the Jewish people that we love them. The memorial is devoted to 483 Jews killed 70 years ago by German invaders and their accomplices.

On the 10th of November, 2011, there was an inauguration of the memorial in the village of Lyubavichu, Smolensk area. The representatives of the local administration of Smolensk area and the town of Smolensk, leadership of Russian Jewish congress, Russian Holocaust Centre, Israeli and German embassies, bishops and pastors of evangelical communities, and mass media took part in the inauguration. All in all there were about 200 people, who gathered. Isaak Kogan, the main rabbi of Moscow synagogue opened the ceremony. There was a Jewish commemoration prayer at the burial place. All the speakers noticed that evangelical Christians and Ebenezer made the major contribution into keeping the memory of Holocaust victims. At the end of the ceremony Christians, who came from Moscow, Smolensk and other cities of Russia, prayed together and sang a Jewish prayer “Shma Israel” (Hear Israel) and anthem of Israel Hatikva.

So the memorial has been set up! We prayed for it 1,5 years and people worked on it 4,5 months.