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.

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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.

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“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.”

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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.