Zelensky marks Babyn Yar anniversary: tragic warning to all mankind

[Tanuki]

https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/zelensky-babyn-yar-tragedy-a-warning-to-all-mankind.html?cn-reloaded=1

..."On Sept. 29, 1941, all Jews living in German-occupied Kyiv were ordered by Nazi authorities to gather at the city’s present-time Lukianivska Square, bringing their personal belongings with them. They were then led to the nearby Babyn Yar (Babi Yar) ravine. There, 33,771 Jews were murdered on Sept. 29-30 alone.

The Babyn Yar area became the execution place for as many as up to 150,000 people, including civilian Jews, Soviet prisoners of war, Romanis, and Ukrainian nationalists between 1941 and 1943. Only 29 persons are known to have escaped the initial two-day massacre.

..."The memory of the Babyn Yar, the Holocaust, is the warning to all mankind on the fact that an ideology of intolerance and violence can bring us back to the frightening past when the most precious thing — the human life — used to become a bargaining chip in the hands of dictators.”

“In the years of war, when everything around seemed to be breathing cruelty and death, the best features of our people — mercifulness, compassion, and self-sacrificed — got revealed. With great thankfulness, were recall the deeds of ordinary people who were risking their lives to save their fellow countrypeople from inevitable death.”
.....

Zelensky himself is a non-practicing Jew, and the first Jewish president of Ukraine."....(more)

[IndyOp]

1. Light one candle for those whose right to exist was denied...

[pecosbob]

2. They made people disrobe and march into a pit where they shot them for their ethnicity

thousands of people...and their neighbors pointed them all out to the Nazis.

[Tanuki]

3. Babi Yar poem by Yevgeni Yevtushenko

https://remember.org/witness/babiyar

BABI YAR

By Yevgeni Yevtushenko
Translated by Benjamin Okopnik, 10/96

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.

I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o’er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself. 
The Philistines betrayed me – and now judge.
I’m in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I’m persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.

I see myself a boy in Belostok 
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.

I’m thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of “Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!”
My mother’s being beaten by a clerk.

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The antisemites have proclaimed themselves
The “Union of the Russian People!”

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I’m in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other’s eyes.
How little one can see, or even sense!
Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,
But much is still allowed – very gently
In darkened rooms each other to embrace.

-“They come!”

-“No, fear not – those are sounds
Of spring itself. She’s coming soon.
Quickly, your lips!”

-“They break the door!”

-“No, river ice is breaking…”

Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,
The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.
Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,
I feel my hair changing shade to gray.

And I myself, like one long soundless scream
Above the thousands of thousands interred,
I’m every old man executed here,
As I am every child murdered here.

No fiber of my body will forget this.
May “Internationale” thunder and ring 
When, for all time, is buried and forgotten
The last of antisemites on this earth.

There is no Jewish blood that’s blood of mine,
But, hated with a passion that’s corrosive
Am I by antisemites like a Jew.
And that is why I call myself a Russian!

**************************************************

[PCIntern]

6. Marvelous poem:

I know acquaintances of Yevtushenko including a fellow poet(ess).

Brilliant writer. Thank you for posting that

[Behind the Aegis]

7. a must read....

...especially among certain groups!

[struggle4progress]

9. +

[RestoreAmerica2020]

4. In remeberance...

Ps Thank you for post.

[Behind the Aegis]

5. Overlooked or outright unknown piece of the Holocaust

Given the number of people who don't even know about the Holocaust, and the others who only see the Holocaust as "the concentration/death camps," events like this are often overlooked or completely unknown because so many are trying to make sure the Holocaust isn't relegated to the dustbin of history or completely rewritten and/or denied, as is now the new trend.

[rollin74]

8. kick

[spanone]

10. ...