Babi Yar exhibition receives a House of Commons showcase
FINCHLEY AND Golders Green MP Mike Freer and ex-Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky have stressed the importance of an exhibition commemorating the Babi Yar (also known as Babyn Yar) massacre of September 1941, in which more than 33,000 Jews were shot dead over two days by German soldiers on the outskirts of Kiev. Due to the Sovietera conspiracy of silence, the mass slaughter at Babi Yar has remained largely outside public consciousness. To rectify this, the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre project was established in 2016, on the 75th anniversary of the massacre, with the intent of creating a permanent memorial.
The exhibition has been displayed this week in the Upper Waiting Room area of the House of Commons, hosted by Mr Freer following an approach by the Ukrainian organisers, who have an office in his constituency.
“What worries me is the rise of the extreme right and left across Europe,” he told the JC. “There is a real worry about people who do not believe the Holocaust took place, or places in which antisemitism is getting traction again.
“Any exhibition that can remind people of where it can lead has to be good. Every year we say people must not forget — and I believe it is right to show people some of the worst aspects of what went on.”
Mark Regev, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, said the exhibition raised awareness of massacres in which “many, many Jews, one million and a half, were murdered by bullets in places like Babi Yar and all across Eastern Europe”.
On September 29, 1941, Jewish men, women and children were rounded up before German forces, along with Ukrainian collaborators.
They were stripped before being shot dead. Police reports showed that 33,771 Jews were slaughtered.
Addressing an audience also including Lord Pickles and MP John Whittingdale at Monday’s launch, Mr Sharansky said it was “so important” that the Babi Yar atrocities were properly commemorated, particularly with rising concern among Jewish communities across Europe about antisemitism.
It was also essential that Ukraine made good on its pledge to build a memorial for Babi Yar victims.
Natalia Galibarenko, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, was another speaker at the event.
The exhibition moves on next week to JW3’s Finchley Road premises.
THERE WERE tears among a JW3 audience including ambassadors and other embassy representatives as 88-year-old Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor Susan Pollack gave her testimony at its HMD event.
Other speakers included MP Dame Margaret Hodge, who reflected on her family’s experience of the Holocaust and her own battle against Labour Party antisemitism.
‘It’s right to show the worst aspects’