A very important event took place in Dnipro – a mourning ceremony dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and the 85th anniversary of the mass shootings of the Jews of Dnipro carried out by the Nazis in October 1941. The ceremony took place in Students’ Park, at the memorial site where the Jewish Community of Dnipro traditionally gathers to honor the memory of the innocent victims.
This year, given the special circumstances of our difficult times, the ceremony was held in a limited format, yet it preserved all the main elements of a solemn and profound event: words of remembrance, addresses by spiritual and community leaders, the lighting of candles, and a memorial prayer.
The ceremony was opened by the Chief Rabbi of Dnipro and the region, Shmuel Kaminezki, who spoke about the sanctity of memory, the tragedy of the destroyed Jewish lives, and the spiritual obligation of every generation to remember the Catastrophe of European Jewry.
Then the participants of the ceremony were addressed by the Director of the Jewish Community of Dnipro, Zelig Brez; the advisor to the Mayor of Dnipro, Oleh Rostovtsev; the Director of the Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine,” Dr. Iryna Radchenko; and the Director of the Jewish Lyceum No. 144 named after Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, Olena Krasnova. After each address, a memorial candle was lit.
The memorial prayer “Kel Maleh Rachamim” was recited by the rabbi of the “Beit Chabad Levi Yitzchak” Synagogue, Yisroel Aryeh-Leib Gurevich, who also lit a memorial candle in honor of the murdered Jews of Dnipro.
Particular significance was given to the ceremony by the participation of the students of the Jewish Lyceum. This year, due to the circumstances of the present time, only representatives of certain classes were able to come to the memorial site, but the very presence of the children became an important part of the event, for it is precisely the transmission of memory to future generations that is one of the main meanings of such ceremonies.
“Even though not many children came to this mournful place today, for Jewish education this holds enormous significance,” emphasized the Director of the Jewish Lyceum, Olena Krasnova. “Our students must know what happened, must understand why the memory of the victims of the Holocaust is not only part of history but also part of our responsibility. We will certainly continue to speak about this in the educational work of the lyceum, because the preservation of memory and its transmission to future generations is one of the most important missions entrusted to us by the united and cohesive Jewish Community of Dnipro under the leadership of Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki.”
