NEW CHALLENGES IN STUDYING AND PRESERVING THE MEMORY OF THE HOLOCAUST
From November 28 to December 1, 2022, a meeting of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) was held in Gothenburg (Sweden).
Plenary sessions of the forum, which were attended by experts, political representatives, representatives of international organizations and civil society, contributed to the exchange of opinions regarding the development of the educational and scientific spheres of Holocaust memory.
On November 28, 2022, at the meeting of the Academic Working group of the International Alliance, the leading researcher of our Institute, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Anatoliy Podolskyi, spoke (online).
A. Podolskiy’s speech during the meeting of the IHRA Academic Working Group
In his speech, the scientist emphasized that during the Russian aggression and war against Ukraine, in particular after the enemy’s full-scale invasion into Ukrainian lands, new challenges appeared in the study and preservation of the memory of the Holocaust during the times of the defense of the country against the brutal war crimes of the occupiers. During the years of independence in Ukraine, a scientific school of humanitarian researchers was gradually formed on the issue of Holocaust Studies, this topic became an integral part of the study of the history of the Second World War in educational institutions of the country at all levels.
Also, it was during the years of sovereign Ukraine that the politics and culture of commemorating the victims of the Holocaust appeared and achieved significant success in society and the state.
The Russian aggressor in Ukraine kills people, destroys buildings, cultural monuments, memorial sites, including memorials and memorial signs to Ukrainian Jews – victims of the Holocaust. Bombs and rockets of the enemy hit the terrain of Babyn Yar in Kyiv, destroyed part of the memorial in Drobitsky Yar in Kharkiv. As a result of aggression and war, the teaching of the history of the Holocaust is also changing. Ukrainian scientists and educators have embarked on the path of comparing the crimes of Hitler’s and Putin’s dictatorships.
Russian aggression and the aggressive policy of the Russian occupiers, the speaker noted, are also destroying Ukrainian culture, which is connected with the history of the Jews of Ukraine, a culture that was carefully created during the years of independence. The enemy shows its cave-like, terrible and cruel Ukrainophobia and anti-Semitism.