SUMMER SEMINAR-SCHOOL “HOLOCAUST HISTORY: STUDY, TEACHING, MEMORY”
During August 13–17, 2023, the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies organized the educational seminar-school “The History of the Holocaust in Ukraine: Study, Teaching, Memory.” The founder and head of the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies, the leading researcher of the Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Candidate of Historical Sciences Anatoliy Podolskiy and head of the Department of Political Culture and Ideology of the Institute, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Yuriy Nikolaiets.
Yuriy Nikolaiets is speaking
In his speech “Multiple Crimes Against Humanity: Holocaust, Famine, Genocide, War Crimes and Their Modern Qualification”, Yuriy Nikolaiets characterized modern approaches to defining war crimes, highlighted the main limitations of the methods of waging war, recorded in international humanitarian law. He also identified separate actions of the Russian Federation in the war against Ukraine, which can be qualified as war crimes, namely: physical extermination of the part of the population of the temporarily occupied territories; deportations of the population of temporarily occupied territories; relocation of the population from the Russian Federation to the temporarily occupied territories; attacks on civilian infrastructure objects (including the unprecedented destruction of hydraulic structures, which was considered a war crime as early as the 3rd millennium BC in Ancient Egypt); tortures of prisoners of war and civilians; mobilization of the population of the temporarily occupied territories into the armed forces of the Russian Federation; the destruction of settlements, not due to the needs of conducting hostilities; forced removal and non-return of children. The scientist also highlighted analogies in the war practices of Germany in 1939–1945 and the Russian Federation in the Russian-Ukrainian war from 2014.
Anatoliy Podolskiy is speaking
Anatoliy Podolskiy in his speech “Peculiarities of the history of the Holocaust in the European context” emphasized the importance of understanding the typology and peculiarities of events from the history of the Holocaust on the territory of Ukraine and other lands of the European continent. Special attention of the speaker was given to modern academic and educational challenges, regarding the comparison of the crimes of National Socialism during the Second World War and the war crimes of the Russian occupiers in Ukraine during their aggression and war against our state. It was noted that the policy of state anti-Semitism of the Hitler regime in Germany during the Second World War has common features with the overt Ukrainophobic policy of Putin’s totalitarian regime during the Russian war against Ukraine.
Participants of the seminar
30 history teachers of comprehensive secondary educational institutions and teachers of higher education institutions from 16 regions of Ukraine took part in the work of the seminar-school.