2 October memorial to Holocaust victims in Khmelnytsky visited a group of tourists from Australia.
This place is always alive the memory of the tragedy of the Jewish people. In our city, it was shot 16 thousands of Jews, specifically in the place, where the memorial now!, – 8200 human. Where in those days it was a deep ravine.
The death sentence for the Jews was the order of the gebits commissar from 14 December 1941 of the year, according to which the Jews with their property had to move to the ghetto - city blocks specially fenced with barbed wire.
Jews in Proskurov began to be shot since autumn 1941 of the year, and before the end of the year they were destroyed about 850 human. Didn't spare the elderly, no children, no babies. And before the execution, they robbed household property, selected values, forced to undress in front of the grave and even took away clothes.
The conveyor of death has been working even more intensively since autumn 1942 of the year. Jews were shot in two stages: first ghetto prisoners, and at the end 1942 years and specialists. Besides, Jews were brought to Proskurov for extermination from the surrounding towns. In particular, brought from Nikolaev 800 human, from Black Island 1172. There was not a single tailor left in the villages, shoemaker or tinsmith. There was a tough command to complete the liquidation of all Jews to the end 1942 year and finally "solve the Jewish question". The same applied to the Jewish labor camp workers.. They repaired the road to Vinnitsa, it was the only way, through which supplies were supplied to the German army. But even though the road was not completed, Jews were shot.
IN 1965 year, in the year of the 20th anniversary of the Victory over fascism, monuments were built on all Jewish mass graves, including here. But it's gone 40 years old, the monument is dilapidated and lopsided, the forest came close to him. And it was decided to create a memorial complex on this site., which was erected after 2010 of the year. First of all, the Khmelnytsky charitable foundation "Hesed Besht" took part in the creation of the memorial., sponsors, city officials and volunteers. Our volunteer Semyon Milman has nine close relatives and many distant relatives buried in this grave.. It was Semyon Lvovich Milman and the director of Khesed Beshta Igor Alexandrovich Ratushny who initiated the creation of such a memorial., took on the bulk of the work, looking for funding, developed the project, prepared and approved documentation, needed to start construction, and brought this noble cause to completion. The main financial sponsor was a resident of Los Angeles, our countryman Grigory Solomonovich Galperin. He financed almost all the work.
It was very hard work. First, it was necessary to uproot and take out a lot of trees, to level the slope - more than a thousand cubic meters of earth were brought in for this; drain, make retaining concrete walls, steps. And only then did the construction of the memorial begin..
According to tradition, visitors to the memorial placed pebbles on the graves. After all, it is not customary to lay flowers on Jewish graves, as they wither and lose their beauty. And the stones are eternal, how eternal is our memory of the departed.
The tragedy of the Holocaust is not only part of Jewish history, it's a bitter part of world history. During the war, the Nazis and their accomplices exterminated about six million Jews, that is a third of the nation. It wasn't just murder., it was an attempt to destroy the Jews as such.
The Holocaust became that point in the history of the world, after which mankind proclaimed the principle "Never again". Glory to the Almighty, Jews now have the State of Israel, in which they can be saved from anti-Semitism, and which willingly gathers all Jews and members of their families in the holy land, cares and helps them in every possible way. Therefore, I believe, that such tragedies will never happen again.