85 Years After Babi Yar Massacre, Ukraine’s President Joins Memorial Ceremony

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended today (Tuesday) the annual memorial ceremony for the tens of thousands of Jews murdered by the Nazis in the Babi Yar massacre, near Kyiv, on September 29 and 30, 1941.

The ceremony was held under heavy security, including a special air-defense system and the deployment of numerous snipers, amid concerns that the Ukrainian president could be targeted, including by Russian drones.

Upon arriving at the ceremony, Zelenskyy received an update from representatives of the “Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine” on preparations to fly the coffin of Israeli teenager Daniel Omansky to Israel. Omansky was killed this week in a Russian attack on Kyiv. The coffin is expected to depart tomorrow from Chișinău for Israel, and the teenager will be buried in a cemetery in central Israel.

Representatives from some 50 countries attended the ceremony, including Israel’s new ambassador to Ukraine, Roi Rosenblit, and the ambassadors of all G7 countries: the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Japan. Rabbis in Ukraine and Chabad emissaries also took part.

In his speech, Zelenskyy said: “We must remember the terrible things that took place here many years ago, and now they are happening again, this time at the hands of the Russians.”

The ceremony was organized by the Office of the Ukrainian President, the Babi Yar site, and the “Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine.” Participants included Rabbi Moshe Asman, one of Ukraine’s chief rabbis; Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch, the rabbi of Kyiv; Rabbi Motti Levenhertz, the Chabad emissary in Kyiv; and rabbis from many cities across Ukraine.

As a reminder, on the eve of Yom Kippur, September 29, 1941, and over the following 24 hours, the Nazis and their collaborators gathered the Jews of Kyiv and the surrounding area at Babi Yar, where they murdered 33,771 Jews in two days.