This is one fas­ci­nat­ing post, Mr. Emory, because it demon­strates a con­cise & viable link­age between the pre-WWII inter­na­tion­al busi­ness car­tels & the damned pirates that ran them.

I should like to add before get­ting to crux of my com­ment, that SS-Ober­grup­pen­führer Karl Wolff worked for Deutsche Bank AG when he was a mem­ber of the Freiko­rps & SS-Haupt­sturm­führer Otto Albrecht Alfred von Bolschwing was a part­ner in Bank voor Onroerende Zak­en (both men were piv­otal in orches­trat­ing the liq­ui­da­tion of mil­lions of civil­ians dur­ing the “Blut und Boden” cam­paign in Nazi-occu­pied Eura­sia, & lat­er, senior CIA assets).

And if I may go off a lit­tle on tan­gent, to demon­strate how dead­ly these fas­cist con­nec­tions to pre-WWII inter­na­tion­al bank­ing were, allow to demon­strate anoth­er per­son­’s con­nec­tions to the human-traf­fick­ing rack­et (the barter of Jews for free­dom) in Hun­gary: Fer­enc Nagy.

Specif­i­cal­ly Fer­enc Nagy’s con­nec­tions to a com­pa­ny called “Per­ma­nent Indus­tri­al Expo­si­tions” or PERMINDEX, & the bank that over­saw PER­MIN­DEX’s assets: J. Hen­ry Schroder Bank­ing Cor­po­ra­tion.

For lit­tle back­ground on PERMINDEX, I will be quote from a book rec­om­mend­ed to me by my friend, the late Mr. Albarel­li, authored by Pro­fes­sor Jef­frey M. Bale, titled “The Dark­est Sides Of Pol­i­tics, I: Post­war Fas­cism, Covert Oper­a­tions And Ter­ror­ism”

The fol­low­ing quote can be found on page 120, in the ref­er­ence sec­tion of Chap­ter 3 titled “Post­war Neo-Fas­cist Inter­na­tion­als, Part I: Nazi Escape Net­works, The Mou­ve­ment Social Européennes, Europäis­che Neu-Ord­nung, and Jeune Europe”

QUOTE — “... 66. For more infor­ma­tion about Merex, see Heinz Vielain, Waf­fen­schmuggel im Staat­sauf­trag was lange in Bonn geheim bleiben musste? (Her­ford: Busse See­wald, 1986); Lee, Beast Reawak­ens, pp. 183–4, who claims that Sko­rzeny helped found the com­pa­ny (in addi­tion to doing busi­ness with ex-CIA offi­cer Sam Cum­mings’ Inter­arms Com­pa­ny and becom­ing a “major weapons bro­ker” for the Salazar regime); and González-Mata, Ter­ror­is­mo inter­na­tion­al, pp. 146–51, who quotes a 13 Sep­tem­ber 1975 telegram pre­pared by an offi­cial at the Por­tuguese embassy in Paris for the details con­cern­ing Spíno­la’s con­tacts.

Among the oth­er per­sons with whom Spíno­la sup­pos­ed­ly met dur­ing his sum­mer vis­its to sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries were Franz-Josef Strauß of the Bavar­i­an Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU: Chris­t­ian Social Union); Sánchez Cov­isa of the GCR; bil­lion­aire Jorge Jardim, an ex-Sec­re­tary of State appoint­ed by Salazar and a key finan­cial backer of anti-inde­pen­dence orga­ni­za­tions in Mozam­bique and oth­er Por­tuguese colonies; Her­mann Josef Abs of Krupp, pre­vi­ous­ly head of the Deutsche Bank under the Nazi regime; lead­ers of the ELP; John McCone, for­mer­ly CIA direc­tor and at that time­head of the Inter­na­tion­al Tele­phone and Tele­graph (ITT), which had pre­vi­ous­ly played a key role in anti-Allende sub­ver­sion in Chile; sev­er­al CIA offi­cials includ­ing an adju­tant of Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Ver­non A. Wal­ters, then Deputy Direc­tor of the agency; and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from a num­ber of oth­er multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies and arms traf­fick­ing firms, includ­ing Bel­gium’s Société Générale, Petro­fi­na, ELF (a French oil com­pa­ny that was deeply impli­cat­ed in the so-called snif­fer plane scan­dal), MGM (an arms trad­ing com­pa­ny in Mod­e­na that Ital­ian judge Luciano Violante believed was linked to indi­vid­u­als asso­ci­at­ed with the Fronte Nationale (Nation­al Front), the orga­ni­za­tion­al back­bone of the Decem­ber 1970 Borgh­ese Coup and lat­er plots), and Per­min­dex (an alleged Swiss-based CIA pro­pri­etary com­pa­ny...” — END QUOTE.

The Direc­tor of the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency dur­ing the events cli­max­ing to, dur­ing and in the sub­se­quent cov­er-up of the mur­der of Pres­i­dent Kennedy, one John Alexan­der McCone, was, for all intents, con­struc­tions, and pur­pos­es, a cen­tral play­er in the web of inter­na­tion­al fas­cist ele­ments sur­round­ing the phe­nom­e­non of state-spon­sored ter­ror­ism and the prop­a­ga­tion of “far-right” ide­o­log­i­cal hat­ed towards legit­i­mate demo­c­ra­t­ic estab­lish­ment (for what it’s worth).

As late as 1975, CIA Direc­tor John McCone is covert­ly work­ing with the fas­cist-filled orga­ni­za­tion PERMINDEX!

To expound just for a moment on what exact­ly PERMINDEX was and what forces sur­round­ed it, I will start by quot­ing from pgs. 385–386 of the book “Des­tiny Betrayed (Sec­ond Edi­tion) JFK, Cuba, And The Gar­ri­son Case” by James DiEu­ge­nio.

QUOTE — “...When the announce­ment for Per­min­dex was first made in Switzer­land in late 1956, its prin­ci­pal back­ing was to come from a local banker named Hans Selig­man. But as more inves­ti­ga­tion by the local papers was done, it became clear that the real backer was J. Hen­ry Schroder Bank­ing Cor­po­ra­tion. This infor­ma­tion was quite reveal­ing. Schroder’s had been close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Allen Dulles and the CIA for years. Allen Dulles’s con­nec­tions to the Schroder bank­ing fam­i­ly went back to the thir­ties when his law firm, Sul­li­van and Cromwell, first began rep­re­sent­ing them through him. Lat­er, Dulles was the bank’s Gen­er­al Coun­sel. In fact, when Dulles was the CIA Direc­tor, Schroder’s was report­ed­ly a repos­i­to­ry for a fifty mil­lion dol­lar con­tin­gency fund that Dulles per­son­al­ly con­trolled. Schroder’s was a wel­come con­duit because the bank ben­e­fit­ed from pre­vi­ous CIA over­throws in Guatemala and Iran. Anoth­er rea­son that there began to be a furor over Per­min­dex in Switzer­land was the fact that the bank’s founder, Baron Kurt von Schroder, was asso­ci­at­ed with the Third Reich, specif­i­cal­ly Hein­rich Himm­ler.

The project now became stalled in Switzer­land. It now moved to Rome. In a Sep­tem­ber 1969 inter­view Shaw did for Pent­house Mag­a­zine, he told James Phe­lan that he only grew inter­est­ed in the project when it moved to Italy. Which was in Octo­ber 1958. Yet a State Depart­ment cable dat­ed April 9 of that year says that Shaw showed great inter­est in Per­min­dex from the out­set.

One can see why. The board of direc­tors as made up of bankers who had been tied up with fas­cist gov­ern­ments, peo­ple who worked the Jew­ish refugee rack­et dur­ing World War II, a for­mer mem­ber of Mussolini’s cab­i­net, and the son-in-law of Hjal­mar Schacht, the eco­nom­ic wiz­ard behind the Third Reich, who was a friend of Shaw’s. These peo­ple would all appeal to the con­ser­v­a­tive Shaw. There were at least four inter­na­tion­al news­pa­pers that exposed the bizarre activ­i­ties of Per­min­dex when it was in Rome. One prob­lem was the mys­te­ri­ous source of fund­ing: no one knew where it was com­ing from. Anoth­er was that its activ­i­ties report­ed­ly includ­ed assas­si­na­tion attempts on French Pre­mier Charles De Gaulle. Which would make sense since the found­ing mem­ber of Per­min­dex, Fer­enc Nagy, was a close friend of Jacques Soustelle. Soustelle was a leader of the OAS, a group of for­mer French offi­cers who broke with De Gaulle over his Alger­ian pol­i­cy. They lat­er made sev­er­al attempts on De Gaulle’s life, which the CIA was privy to. Again, this mys­te­ri­ous source of fund­ing, plus the rightwing, neo-Fas­cist direc­tors cre­at­ed anoth­er wave of con­tro­ver­sy. One news­pa­per wrote that the orga­ni­za­tion may have been “a crea­ture of the CIA . . . set up as a cove for the trans­fer of CIA . . . funds in Italy for legal polit­i­cal-espi­onage activ­i­ties.” The Schroder con­nec­tion would cer­tain­ly sug­gest that...” — END QUOTE.

Just to put that last part into per­spec­tive, Allen Welsh Dulles, the CIA Direc­tor who Pres­i­dent Kennedy sacked, could at any­time, pull funds for his per­son­al use, to the tune of $50,000,000.00 USD. Now, adjust­ing for a 737.9% cumu­la­tive rate of infla­tion, in this most foul year of our lord, two-thou­sand and twen­ty-one, that is the equiv­a­lent of $418,936,274.51 USD!

Allen Dulles (my per­son­al prime sus­pect in the mur­der of Pres­i­dent Kennedy) could, at any giv­en moment, pull half a bil­lion dol­lars out of thin air for his own per­son­al use?!

Funds that were back­ing a CIA-front com­pa­ny filled with real, liv­ing and breath­ing World War II “Axis Pow­er” financiers?

Con­tin­u­ing with the PERMINDEX para­dox, I shall now quote from the notes sec­tion of an arti­cle pub­lished by Pro­fes­sor Peter Dale Scott in The Asia-Pacif­ic Jour­nal. The arti­cle is titled, “The Dulles Broth­ers, Har­ry Dex­ter White, Alger Hiss, and the Fate of the Pri­vate Pre-War Inter­na­tion­al Bank­ing Sys­tem”:

QUOTE — “... 62. The J. Hen­ry Schröder & Co. Bank and J. Hen­ry Schroder Bank­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (Schroban­co, the firm of which Allen Dulles had been an offi­cer) had a finan­cial stake in all three of Allen Dulles’ major CIA covert oper­a­tions. Schröder had financed the cre­ation of Anglo-Per­sian (lat­er Anglo-Iran­ian) oil: thus Frank Cyril Tiarks was a part­ner both in J. Hen­ry Schröder & Co., and also in the Anglo-Iran­ian Oil Com­pa­ny (1917–1948). (He was also a mem­ber of the Ribben­trop-inspired Anglo-Ger­man Fel­low­ship and of the British Union of Fas­cists.) Schroban­co had a stake in the Inter­na­tion­al Rail­ways of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, a firm devel­oped in con­junc­tion with what became Unit­ed Fruit in order to ship out Unit­ed Fruit’s bananas in Guatemala. Both Schröders and Schroban­co were heav­i­ly invest­ed in Cuban sug­ar; and M.E. Rion­da, pres­i­dent of Cuba Cane Cor­po­ra­tion, was a mem­ber of Schrobanco’s board...” — END QUOTE.

The above infor­ma­tion speaks for itself. In short, as far as I see it (and I have fought in com­bat for the Unit­ed States), all U.S. covert action dur­ing the reign of Allen Dulles was for the ben­e­fit of his investors in Schorder Bank. PERIOD! The “Cold War” was a sham to keep him and a few hun­dred of his clos­est fas­cist busi­ness part­ners con­trol­ling 99% of all Earth­ly resources.

The 1953 Iran­ian coup d’é­tat code-named “Oper­a­tion Ajax” and the tor­ture and mass-mur­der of lib­er­al social democ­rats that fol­lowed, was pri­mar­i­ly for the ben­e­fit of J. Hen­ry Schroder Bank­ing Cor­po­ra­tion share­hold­ers.

The 1954 Guatemalan coup d’é­tat, code-named “Oper­a­tion PBSUCCESS” and the indige­nous geno­cide that fol­lowed, was pri­mar­i­ly for the ben­e­fit of J. Hen­ry Schroder Bank­ing Cor­po­ra­tion share­hold­ers.

The 1961 anti-Cas­tro ter­ror­ist-led inva­sion at bahía de Cochi­nos, code-named “Oper­a­tion Zap­a­ta” and the non-stop (to this very sec­ond) U.S. state-spon­sored ter­ror­ist strikes against the peo­ples of that tiny island, was pri­mar­i­ly for the ben­e­fit of J. Hen­ry Schroder Bank­ing Cor­po­ra­tion share­hold­ers.

The 1965 Indone­sian coup d’é­tat which facil­i­tat­ed the mass-mur­der of three-mil­lion human beings, was main­ly for the ben­e­fit of a J. Hen­ry Schroder Bank­ing Cor­per­a­tion invest­ment called “Ned­er­land­sche Nieuw Guinea Petro­le­um Maatschap­pij” (a joint ven­ture between Sau­di Aram­co, Inter­es­sen­ge­mein­schaft Far­benin­dus­trie AG, Freeport Sul­phur Com­pa­ny, & Stan­dard Oil) & 60% of the stock in NNGPM was con­trolled by Nazi Reit­er-Schutzstaffel Prince Bern­hard of Lippe-Biester­feld, a mem­ber of the “Bilder­berg Group” & the CIA con­trolled “Amer­i­can Com­mit­tee on Unit­ed Europe”, which spawned the mod­ern Euro­pean Union!

And J. Hen­ry Schroder Bank­ing Cor­po­ra­tion is the force behind PERMINDEX?

And PERMINDEX was financ­ing the trea­so­nous 1961 mur­der attempts against French Pres­i­dent Charles de Gaulle?

Clear­ly, Allen Welsh Dulles was the point man to any covert oper­a­tion PERMINDEX was involved with in 1963, domes­ti­cal­ly speak­ing, in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.

And Allen Dulles’s replace­ment, John Alexan­der McCone knew all about these cryp­to-fas­cist machi­na­tions. PERIOD.

And for any per­son who dares to retort the infor­ma­tion that I have post­ed here, I would turn your atten­tion to the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency doc­u­ments at the fol­low­ing links:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/104–10181-10114.pdf

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104–10291-10009.pdf

The first one clear­ly demon­strates that PERMINDEX mem­bers actu­al­ly offered their ser­vices to the CIA, & it was not, in fact, a CIA front com­pa­ny, as it has been alleged for about fifty years.

The con­trol offi­cer for the first doc­u­ment is CIA Covert Action Staff of the Direc­torate of Plans, Cord “The Cyclops” Mey­er Jr.

The sec­ond PERMINDEX doc­u­ment states, quite plain­ly, that the very first Gen­er­al Coun­sel for PERMINDEX was Unit­ed States Dis­trict Judge of the Unit­ed States Dis­trict Court for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York, Lloyd Fran­cis MacMa­hon!

This is mon­strous, because for rough­ly four decades, Chief Judge MacMa­hon rule against any civil­ian for “Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act” requests about CIA activ­i­ties, specif­i­cal­ly CIA oper­a­tions hav­ing to do with Robert Aime Maheu’s actives!

Chief Judge MacMa­hon also was a mem­ber of the dra­con­ian “Unit­ed States For­eign Intel­li­gence Sur­veil­lance Court” between 1985 & 1989, the time peri­od when “Iran-Con­tra” relat­ed covert oper­a­tions were lit­er­al­ly the focal inter­est of the entire US Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Com­mu­ni­ty!

I should also note in this sec­ond CIA doc­u­ment, that the con­trol offi­cer for said doc­u­ment is Robert Trum­bull “The Crow” Crow­ley, CIA Deputy Direc­tor of Clan­des­tine Oper­a­tions Divi­sion, & chief Deputy Direc­tor for Oper­a­tions liai­son to the CIA’s Coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence Staff (two posi­tions Crow­ley simul­ta­ne­ous­ly held for near­ly three decades!)

It is no small won­der that the machi­na­tions of these WWII-era fas­cist finan­cial insti­tu­tions are still in effect:

They are the mar­row of the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency...

Look who is run­ning the Holo­caust memo­r­i­al in Ukraine: our old pals Ger­man Khan and Mikhail Fried­man of the Alfa Group/Crown net­work of com­pa­nies! This sto­ry is weird. Remem­ber: we have been told that Alfa is a “tool of Putin”. And yet here we see Khan/Friedman work­ing with neo-Cold War­riors like Joe Lieber­man and for­mer heavy­weight champ Vladimir Klitschko, may­or of Kiev and an out­spo­ken pro-Ukraine voice. If Khan/Friedman were tru­ly “anti-West”, why would they be fund­ing schol­ar­ship pro­grams through the Carl Duis­berg Soci­ety?

And why are Jews like Khan and Fried­man work­ing with Bor­mann-type groups like this? Con­sid­er­ing what we see going on with the Wal­len­berg groups, are we see­ing an effort by fas­cists (using Jews as front­men) to claim Holo­caust mem­o­ry for them­selves?

The cra­zi­est thing is that even this watered-down, CIA-com­pli­ant ver­sion of the Ukrain­ian Holo­caust is STILL too much for the hard­lin­ers on the Right in Ukraine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ukraine-holocaust-memorial-babyn-yar/2021/10/05/5e63c1a4-22bd-11ec-a8d9-0827a2a4b915_story.html

In Ukraine, plans for world’s largest Holo­caust memo­r­i­al com­plex can’t escape mod­ern feuds
Men walk past a new, open-air syn­a­gogue at the Babyn Yar Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter in Kyiv on Sept. 14. The syn­a­gogue, made from reclaimed oak tak­en from build­ings around Ukraine and designed to unfold like a pop-up book, is part of an ambi­tious project with the goal of build­ing one of the world’s largest Holo­caust muse­ums and memo­r­i­al com­plex­es. (Oksana Parafe­niuk for The Wash­ing­ton Post)
By David L. Stern
Octo­ber 6, 2021 at 4:00 a.m. EDT

KYIV — The plan car­ries the weight of his­to­ry: build­ing what could be the world’s biggest Holo­caust memo­r­i­al com­plex on the site of a 1941 mas­sacre that claimed tens of thou­sands of lives over two days.

Yet it also is bur­dened with the com­pli­ca­tions of mod­ern polit­i­cal rival­ries, feud­ing visions and dis­putes over who has the final word in inter­pret­ing Ukraine’s com­pli­cat­ed past — rais­ing ques­tions about whether the memo­r­i­al site will ever be con­struct­ed on the scale imag­ined.

It also marks the lat­est turn in Ukraine’s decades-long attempts to find ways to remem­ber the wartime deaths of up to 1.5 mil­lion Jews on its ter­ri­to­ry — most of whom were shot over open pits in what is called the “Holo­caust of Bul­lets.” Pre­vi­ous plans for Holo­caust memo­ri­als end­ed in con­tro­ver­sy and infight­ing.

It all cen­ters on Babyn Yar — also known by its Russ­ian translit­er­a­tion Babi Yar — a ravine on Kyiv’s north­west­ern edge where Nazi forces and local col­lab­o­ra­tors round­ed up and exe­cut­ed more than 33,000 Jew­ish men, women and chil­dren over two days begin­ning Sept. 29, 1941, accord­ing to his­to­ri­ans, war researchers and oth­ers.

Cer­e­monies were held Wednes­day at the site as part of events mark­ing the 80th anniver­sary of the mas­sacre.
Rab­bi Yaakov Dov Ble­ich address­es wor­shipers dur­ing prayers ahead of Yom Kip­pur at the recent­ly built syn­a­gogue at the Babyn Yar Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter in Kyiv on Sept. 15. (Oksana Parafe­niuk for The Wash­ing­ton Post)

Today, the filled-in ravine is a park, sur­round­ed by urban sprawl. The bod­ies were exhumed and burned by the Nazis before they retreat­ed in attempts to hide the mass killings, wartime accounts say.

The Babyn Yar Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter pro­pos­es to build a $100 mil­lion com­plex of muse­ums, research cen­ters, works of art, an open-air audio and visu­al exhibits on more than 320 acres of land — larg­er than the Nation­al Mall in Wash­ing­ton.

Biden pledges sup­port for Ukraine as wor­ries mount over Rus­sia

A muse­um would be ded­i­cat­ed to the Babyn Yar site itself — where the Nazis con­tin­ued to shoot Jews, Sovi­et pris­on­ers, Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists and oth­ers through­out the war. Anoth­er pro­posed instal­la­tion would focus on the killing fields across East­ern Europe dur­ing World War II.

Some ele­ments are com­plet­ed. The “Mir­ror Field” is a stain­less-steel plat­form with 10 steel columns rid­dled with bul­let holes. The columns play record­ings of vic­tims’ names and ages.

But a group of Ukraini­ans intend to stop the com­plex at any cost, claim­ing the Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter orga­ni­za­tion is part of a Krem­lin dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign against Ukraine, which has bat­tled pro-Moscow sep­a­ratists in east­ern Ukraine since 2014 and seeks inter­na­tion­al sup­port for the return of the Crimean Penin­su­la annexed by Rus­sia.

The crit­ics point to Russ­ian bil­lion­aires Mikhail Frid­man and Ger­man Khan — the center’s two main fun­ders — and the Russ­ian artis­tic direc­tor Ilya Khrzhanovsky.
A cou­ple walks toward the “Mir­ror Field” audio­vi­su­al instal­la­tion at the Babyn Yar Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter. (Oksana Parafe­niuk for The Wash­ing­ton Post)

Moscow, the oppo­nents assert, seeks to embed a “Russ­ian” view of the Holo­caust in the pro­posed memo­r­i­al com­plex. For many Ukraini­ans, the war is still a high­ly sen­si­tive sub­ject. Among nation­al­ists, in par­tic­u­lar, any ref­er­ence to the tem­po­rary embrace of Ger­man forces by parts of the pop­u­la­tion is denounced as Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da.

But the planned memo­ri­als’ “his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive” was com­piled by lead­ing inter­na­tion­al and Ukrain­ian Holo­caust experts, who say they strove to be even­hand­ed in pre­sent­ing the numer­ous roles, pres­sures and dis­as­ters Ukraini­ans faced dur­ing World War II.

Holo­caust-deny­ing phras­es scrawled on Auschwitz death camp bar­racks

“I am con­vinced that behind the Russ­ian bil­lion­aires who are financ­ing the project stands [Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir] Putin,” Josef Zis­sels, head of one of Ukraine’s largest Jew­ish orga­ni­za­tions, told a Ukrain­ian media out­let ear­li­er this year.

Zis­sels and his part­ners have pro­posed their own Babyn Yar project based on a “Ukrain­ian” ver­sion of events.

After becom­ing artis­tic direc­tor in 2019, Khrzhanovsky float­ed an idea of using role-play­ing for muse­um vis­i­tors — where they would take on the per­sona of vic­tims, bystanders or exe­cu­tion­ers — to bring home the hor­ror of Babyn Yar.

The sug­ges­tion was leaked to the media and unleashed accu­sa­tions that Khrzhanovsky aimed to cre­ate an “enter­tain­ment com­plex” at Babyn Yar. Khrzhanovsky lat­er said this was a pre­lim­i­nary idea and nev­er seri­ous.

Inten­tion­al or not, Khrzhanovsky’s pro­pos­als led to mass res­ig­na­tions among the project’s staff. Dieter Bogn­er, a cura­tor for exhibits, was quot­ed in April 2020 as say­ing the plan “dan­ger­ous­ly approach­es the impres­sion of a Holo­caust Dis­ney rather than a place of remem­brance and reflec­tion.”

Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter offi­cials, in a writ­ten state­ment to The Wash­ing­ton Post, called the alle­ga­tions of Russ­ian influ­ence to dis­cred­it Ukraine a “ridicu­lous and insult­ing accu­sa­tion.”

Opin­ion: Rus­sia and Poland are play­ing polit­i­cal games with the Holo­caust

Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­sky and Vitali Klitschko — the for­mer world heavy­weight cham­pi­on who is the may­or of Kyiv — are also involved in the Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter. Zelen­sky has voiced full sup­port for the project, but has stayed away from com­ments on the bick­er­ing.

Israeli politi­cian and for­mer Sovi­et dis­si­dent Natan Sha­ran­sky, Belaru­sian Nobel lit­er­a­ture lau­re­ate Svet­lana Alex­ievich, for­mer U.S. sen­a­tor Joseph I. Lieber­man (I‑Conn.) and oth­er promi­nent fig­ures sit on the center’s super­vi­so­ry board.

And Frid­man and Khan have per­son­al rea­sons behind the project: Both are Jew­ish, born in Ukraine when it was a Sovi­et repub­lic, and had fam­i­ly mem­bers killed at Babyn Yar and else­where in the Holo­caust.
Jew­ish wor­shipers before the start of Yom Kip­pur at an open-air syn­a­gogue at the Babyn Yar Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter on Sept. 15. (Oksana Parafe­niuk for The Wash­ing­ton Post)

As it stands, the com­plex is locat­ed on pri­vate and gov­ern­ment land. The Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter, as a pri­vate insti­tu­tion, makes deci­sions for land that it owns, while gov­ern­ment-held land “requires deci­sions of the Cab­i­net and Ukrain­ian pub­lic,” accord­ing to writ­ten answers from Ukraine’s Cul­ture Min­istry.

“We coop­er­ate with [the Babyn Yar Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter],” it added.

Some, how­ev­er, believe over­sight so far has been lack­ing.

They point to a “memo­r­i­al syn­a­gogue” that was recent­ly com­plet­ed on a strip of land that was once part of an Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian ceme­tery.

Jew­ish reli­gious law for­bids build­ing on top of human remains. Before con­struc­tion, the Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter con­duct­ed an archae­o­log­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion on the top lay­ers of soil. Two bone frag­ments were dis­cov­ered, but noth­ing else — what the cen­ter said was proof that no graves were ever there. These find­ings were approved by the Cul­ture Min­istry.

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Anton Drobovych, who is head of Ukraine’s offi­cial Insti­tute of Nation­al Remem­brance and worked for the Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter before Khrzhanovsky’s arrival, said the frag­ments showed that fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tions should be con­duct­ed and Ukrain­ian soci­ety should be involved.

“A few years will pass and some­one can sue the Cul­ture Min­istry, ask­ing, ‘How did you give this per­mis­sion?’ ” he said. “And there, where there’s sup­posed to be prayer and med­i­ta­tion, will be a scan­dal — that’s what wor­ries me.”
A guide speaks to school­child­ren about the open-air syn­a­gogue at Babyn Yar. (Oksana Parafe­niuk for The Wash­ing­ton Post)

Yet he acknowl­edged that the syn­a­gogue itself — a large, box­like struc­ture that opens up like a children’s pop-up book to reveal a stun­ning, mul­ti­col­ored place of wor­ship — was “the most beau­ti­ful syn­a­gogue I’ve ever seen, a work of art.”

Oth­er project ini­tia­tives have attract­ed praise. A doc­u­men­tary, “Babi Yar: Con­text” by Sergei Loznit­sa, one of Ukraine’s best-known film­mak­ers, won a spe­cial jury prize at this year’s Cannes Film Fes­ti­val.

The Memo­r­i­al Cen­ter is cre­at­ing a 3‑D topo­graph­i­cal map of Babyn Yar in 1941, pin­point­ing the site of the mas­sacre, and is near­ing com­ple­tion on a dig­i­tal data­base of the names and bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion of all the vic­tims.

Mar­tin Dean, a British schol­ar on the Holo­caust who worked on the 3‑D project and the his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive for the site, seeks to down­play the bit­ter­ness sur­round­ing the project.

“If you look at every Holo­caust memo­r­i­al, this always goes on,” he said. “It always takes a long time. Debates are a sign that Ukraine is demo­c­ra­t­ic.”

But he also warned that while the momen­tum behind the memo­r­i­al is strong, this could change.

“This is like a gold­en moment for Ukraine and if we don’t do it now, we might miss this chance,” he said.