The war brought so much grief and tears thateach person accounted for more than whole generations. The world is changeable, at times merciless and cruel. During the period, “when — as Anna Akhmatova said — she smiled, only dead, she was glad of calmness”, what people had to worry about could not be described in either one or thousands of words. Fascist ideology was based on praise and faith in the great vocation of the Aryan race, which led to genocide. The victims of this terrible phenomenon became such only because their political, racial, national, religious motives were not the same as those who wished to exterminate them. Memorials to victims of the fascist genocide are scattered around the world, one of which is located in Ukraine, in Kharkov, in a place called Drobitsky Yar. Fascism "rewarded" humanity with the blackest periods of history, terrifying memories and frightening pages of books.
Drobitsky Yar - Kharkov wound
The evil of fascism during the Second World Warspread over huge areas. The Soviet Union was no exception. The main goal of the fascists was not only to win the war, to gain territories and resources, but also to wipe out those who, in their opinion, were not worthy of living on the same planet with them. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is celebrated around the world on January twenty-seventh. This date again revives those terrible events that have forever left their imprint in history and hearts. Drobitsky Yar, Kharkov ... The history of this place is not distinguished by particular condescension on the part of the fascist invaders.
In the fierce winter cold of 1941-1942, the land of thisYara took over thirty thousand corpses of local residents, most of whom were Jews. This is one of the biggest mass graves of victims of Nazism, one of the heaviest wounds received by the Kharkiv region and the whole world.
The story of the massacre
Nazi leg appeared in Kharkov in December 1941of the year. After the occupation of this territory, an order was issued about the resettlement of all local Jews to the eastern part of the city and brought to the knowledge of the entire population. Crowds of people who created the human river, two days - from 15 to 16 December - walked through the avenue, carrying at the same time some valuable things, some children, some old grandfathers. Everyone understood that the cold barracks of plants - this is not their ultimate goal. Each of the crowd went to their deaths. In order to save their children, women pushed them out of this condemned mass of people in the hope that the locals would save them. Unfortunately, very few people wanted to share someone else's grief in those days, because everyone had enough of their own.
In small rooms, people could not even sit down,I had to sleep while standing, because they were as full of suicide bombers. From time to time several hundred people were taken out of these barracks to take their lives on the outskirts of the city where Drobitsky Yar is located, brutally shooting them from two previously dug pits. A few days after this crime, the earth did not dry out of blood and moved from the groans of the still-living.
The liberation of Kharkov
After in 1943, the Kharkiv regionwas released, a special commission was established to establish the facts of what was happening in Drobitsky Yar. The Soviet authorities closed their eyes and ears to this tragedy for a long time. For years, the hearts of those who were not indifferent to the thousands of those killed, were torn not only from horror and sadness, but also from the fact that everyone pretends that life in Kharkov flowed in a stream without any obstacles. When the season of heavy rains began in the post-war period, irrefutable evidence of mass murder began to appear on the surface of Drobitsky Yar - people began to find human skulls and children's pigtails with red bows.
The actions of the Soviet authorities
Imagine what a person feels seeing asthe rain blurs the grave and again, like a knife, reveals the memory, is impossible. It was very difficult to get the authorities to take measures for the burial of the dead, but the local people could do it with their numerous appeals. Going to make concessions, the city executive committee singled out two women with shovels who were supposed to bury the ravines. Only a couple of years later they managed to bury the dead.
Next to this burial was put a smallobelisk, on which, as was customary in the Soviet Union, there was not even a mention of the fact that the people killed here were Jews. Drobitsky Yar has become a place that citizens remember and forgot about power.
Creating a memorial
Только в 1991 году поступило предложение to build a memorial for the victims of the fascist genocide on the territory of Drobitsky Yar. The construction was started next year, but due to the constant lack of funds, the first part of the memorial was opened in 2002.
It consisted of the sign of the Menorah, the alley and the monument.In 2005, a mourning hall was erected with the Chalice of Grief. Mankind will not recognize all the names that were forever erased from the earth by the terrible crime of the fascist invaders, but their memory will be eternal.
