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World Jewish News
Monument to victims of fascism unveiled in Novaya Odessa
07.05.2009
A monument sacred to the memory of the victims of fascism was unveiled in Novaya Odessa, Nikolayev oblast, on May 5. The monument has been erected as part of Victory Day's celebration at the scene of death of Novaya Odessa's 125 Jews.
The District Organization of War Veterans and its head Aleksandra Baybarak initiated the creation of the commemorative sign. Search activities on collecting data about the victims of fascism on the district and town's territory have been continuing for several years.
Today, they have managed to prove identity of about 100 deceased. It is known that executions of Jews beyond the town ends took place at the end of September, 1941, from the very moment of Novaya Odessa's occupation by fascists.
Representatives of the Presidium of the District Organization of War Veterans made a request to devote funds for commemorative sign's erection out of the Jewish Foundation of Ukraine (JFU).
And the Foundation supported this initiative. This year, it is the first memorial unveiled by the Jewish Foundation as part of the all-Ukrainian memorial project Memory and Gratitude' with financial support from JFU President Oleg Grosman.
In Nikolayev oblast, this organization is represented by Mikhail Goldenberg, the head of Yevreyskaya obshchina district organization (Russian: Jewish community), who read out a welcome letter from the Foundation's leaders at the monument's unveiling.
As it was noted by Elena Ivashko, the Head of the Department for Affairs of Nationalities of the Oblast State Administration, owing to wide search activities, sites of mass executions and burials of the citizens of Jewish and other nationalities are known today.
In the first days of fascist occupation, 4,000 townsmen were shot at the municipal cemetery of Nikolayev, approximately 8,000 citizens were taken to Zhovtnevyi district and exterminated there, and 4,500 people were executed in Voznesenskiy district.
About 120,000 civilians brought here from Moldova, Odessa, Kirovograd and other oblasts were exterminated on the territory of Domanevskiy district. Mass executions of citizens of Jewish, Rom and other nationalities took place in most places and districts of the oblast. Unfortunately, truth about those terrible events has been concealed for a long time.
That is why commemorative signs and memorials have not been erected on common graves.
At present, with authorities' assistance, monuments were fixed up in the village of Yastrebinoye of Voznesenskiy district, in the village of Novopoltavka of Novobugskiy district, and on the border of Vradievskiy and Krivoozerskiy districts in 2007.
In 2008, a memorial plaque was tableted in the village of Mostovoye of Domanevskiy district, and the grave site was put in order in the village of Dmitrivka of Voznesenskiy district.
However, the commemorative sign in Novyi Bug requires capital repairs; it is also necessary to carry out additional search activities for determining sites of civilians' execution in the village of Viktorovka of Bratskiy district, in the villages of Raydolina and Staraya Pokrovka of Veselinskiy district as well as to mark these places.
Altogether, there are about 30 commemorative signs erected in the sites of mass execution and burials of citizens of Jewish, Rom and other nationalities in Nikolayev oblast.
Representatives of the district council and the state administration, as well as of the town authorities and Jewish community, veterans of the Great Patriotic War, youth, and pupils of Or Menachem Jewish school (totally numbering about 50 people) took part in the unveiling of the monument in New Odessa.
The memorial has been erected in the central park of the town and constitutes a granite stele created in national traditions with the following words in Hebrew and Russian: "In loving memory of Jews of Novaya Odessa shot by fascist occupants in August of 1941. Eternal memory and our sorrow to them!"
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