29 September 2005 -- Survivors, Ukrainian officials, and Jewish community leaders paid tribute in Kyiv today to victims of a Nazi massacre at Babi Yar.
In his address to the nation on the 64th anniversary, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said the Babi Yar tragedy remains a painful memory.
Yushchenko pledged "there will be no violence, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and international enmity" in contemporary Ukraine.
At the ceremony in Babi Yar just outside Kyiv's city center, flowers were laid at the monument marking the area where the executions took place. The president's office said Yushchenko was absent because of illness.
The massacre began in late September 1941 when Nazi forces occupying Kyiv marched local Jews to the brink of a steep ravine and shot them. More than 33,700 Ukrainian Jews were killed over the next few days.
Altogether, Nazis murdered more than 100,000 people at Babi Yar.
(AP)
See also:
Ukraine: Holocaust Witnesses Record Their Stories
Yushchenko pledged "there will be no violence, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and international enmity" in contemporary Ukraine.
At the ceremony in Babi Yar just outside Kyiv's city center, flowers were laid at the monument marking the area where the executions took place. The president's office said Yushchenko was absent because of illness.
The massacre began in late September 1941 when Nazi forces occupying Kyiv marched local Jews to the brink of a steep ravine and shot them. More than 33,700 Ukrainian Jews were killed over the next few days.
Altogether, Nazis murdered more than 100,000 people at Babi Yar.
(AP)
See also:
Ukraine: Holocaust Witnesses Record Their Stories