At the Jewish Lyceum No. 144 named after Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, a leading educational institution of the Jewish Community of Dnipro, a memorial assembly was held dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust and the tragic events of October 1941, when the Nazi occupiers shot thousands of Jews of our city. The event was titled “We Remember. We Honor. We Do Not Forget.”
The main attention was given to the events of October 13–14, 1941, when the Jewish population of the city was gathered near the Central Department Store – the former “Lux” department store. The lyceum students were told how people were informed about resettlement or being sent to labor camps, and when they had gathered, they were led under convoy out of the city, in the direction of the territory of what is now Pisarzhevsky Park, which was then a Jewish cemetery, and then toward the ravine on the outskirts of the city, which has now become a park near the university campus. But at the end of the path, a terrible death awaited the tormented people – near the Chervonopovstanska Ravine, the Nazis killed more than 11,000 Jews in two days, and the mass persecution and killings continued in the following weeks and months of the occupation.
The participants of the assembly tried to see behind the events the terrible human tragedy. They spoke about the fates of people whose ordinary lives – families, homes, studies, work, and dreams of the future – were destroyed by Nazi persecution and mass killings. For behind the terrible number – more than eleven thousand victims – lies the tragedy of unique human fates, destroyed families, and unfulfilled dreams. It was precisely on this that the students focused, comprehending the tragedy not merely as a historical fact but also as the pain of a city in which thousands of innocent people lived and built their future.
The participants of the assembly also recalled the places that preserve the memory of the tragedy: the memorial plaque on the wall of the Central Department Store, the memorial in Students’ Park, unveiled in 2001 on the initiative of the Jewish Community of Dnipro, and the “Matzevah” monument, installed in 2009 on the territory of the former Jewish cemetery. Special mention was made of the Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine,” opened in 2012 in the Menorah complex, which helps preserve testimonies about people’s fates and transmit the historical truth to future generations.
An important content of the event was the awareness that to remember means not only to know dates and numbers. It means to empathize, to value human life, and to stand against antisemitism, hatred, and indifference to another’s pain. The assembly concluded with a moment of silence in honor of the innocent victims.
“The preservation of historical memory and its transmission to the younger generation is an important part of our lyceum’s mission,” noted Lyceum Director Olena Krasnova. “Knowledge of the truth about the past helps young people become aware of the value of humanity, responsibility, and respect for every life. It shapes them as individuals and helps them become conscious and responsible members of the united and cohesive Jewish Community of Dnipro under the leadership of Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki.”
