the challenge of memory is more acute today than ever before.
Therefore, the work of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (BYHMC) to commemorate and educate about the event is so important, comprising a dedicated complex of memory and education about this angle of the Nazi genocide.
BYHMC is investing into new archival work which has helped identify more than 1,400 new names of previously unknown victims, bringing the total number of known names to more than 28,500. Innovative 3D technology has pinpointed the exact location of the massacre, while a groundbreaking educational concept, the RED DOT project, will increase knowledge through user contributions. Meanwhile, new archival video materials were uncovered and weaved into a Cannes award winning film Babyn Yar.Context by Sergei Loznitza.
Importantly, efforts must also be made to physically commemorate those who were rounded up and shot. In Germany, France and elsewhere, the points of deportation are routinely given the respect of a memorial. Similarly, many cities in Western Europe feature ‘Stolperstein’ stepping stones, marking where Jewish Holocaust victims once lived. By contrast, mass graves where thousands upon thousands were murdered in Eastern Europe, have remained unmarked. Babyn Yar provides an example in rectifying this, where efforts are being made to fittingly remember those murdered there. During the past year, BYHMC has unveiled a series of installation memorials and a symbolic synagogue.
Some of these installations include the ‘Glance into the Past’, monuments utilizing photography which invite the visitors to take a peek into the built-in lenses and see pictures taken in the past from the very spot of the monument. These installations stand on the very spots where a number of historical photographs of Babyn Yar were taken. Looking through the lenses, which are mounted on rocks, visitors see pictures after the massacre taken in early October 1941.
Another installation is the ‘Mirror Field’, made entirely of stainless steel, the structure features a podium in the form of a mirror disk with a diameter of about 40 meters, with 10 6-meter-high columns installed on it. The columns and the disk were shot through by bullets of the same caliber that the Nazis used during execution in Babyn Yar.
The names of victims sound at the installation around the clock. During the day, the sky is reflected in it. At night, light and sounds of memory pass through the bullet holes, while rays from the tops of the columns illuminate the sky.
Additional powerful memorials will be unveiled later this year to mark the massacre’s 80th anniversary. Visitors will have no doubt about the exact death that took place there.
“Never Again” demands bringing tragedies such as Babyn Yar to greater academic and public attention. The work of BYHMC provides real insight into how the challenges of Holocaust remembrance can be overcome, despite decades of attempted suppression of the horrors.
German soldiers rummage through the belongings of Jews shot in the Babin Yar tract Photo: Archives of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research