THE MEETING OF THE DNEPROPETROVSK JEWISH COMMUNITY LEADERS AND YAD VASHEM CHIEFS IN DNEPROPETROVSK

On December 13^th, at the “Gold Rose” synagogue main hall in the frames of cooperation project of Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community and Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority Yad Vashem the official reception has been initiated by the Igor Kolomoiskiy, where the meeting of Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community Trustee Committee with Avner Shalev, (Chairmen of the Yad Vashem Directorate) and Arie Zuckerman (Special Advisor to the Yad Vashem Chairman) has been held.

The Chief Rabbi of Dnepropetrovsk Region Shmuel Kaminetskiy has opened the reception with introduction of the meeting participants and narrated about the Yad Vashem role for Jewish spiritual heritage and the connection of the Chief Israel Museum with Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community.

Avner Shalev emphasized the importance of preserving the historical memory of Jewish nation, in particular the remembrance about Holocaust. The participants showed keen interest to the Mr. Shalev narration about his meeting with the Ukrainian President – Viktor Yushchenko, where relevant and complicated issues of WWII history have been discussed, including OUN-UPA activity, exploits of Ukrainians – Righteous among the Nations, etc. The President delivered to the Israeli guest documents about members of Yushchenko family, who participated in rescuing of the Jews from Nazi genocide during the Holocaust period. In his speech, Avner Shalev underlined the importance of cooperation Yad Vashem and Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community and expressed gratitude to Mr. Gennadiy Bogolubov and Mr. Igor Kolomoiskiy for initiative to conduct the reception and for tremendous contribution in Yad Vashem Memorial development.

The meeting has been marked with the speeches of Gennadiy Bogolubov (Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community Director), Alexander Dubilet (“Privatbank” President), Igor Kolomoiskiy (member of Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community Trustee Committee), Mark Shlyak  (member of Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community Trustee Committee and Chairman of Tkuma (“Revival”) All-Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies Advisory Committee), Igor Shchupak (Director of Tkuma All-Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies).

Igor Shchupak described the main directions of Tkuma Center activity focused on studying, teaching and preserving the historical memory about Holocaust in Ukraine, as well as told about joint Tkuma and Yad Vashem projects, which have been successfully implemented recently. Among them – translated from the Hebrew and issued for the first time in Ukraine the monographs of the leading Israeli researches on Holocaust History, i.e. Prof. Dan Michman (Chief Historian of Yad Vashem, Chairman of Tkuma International Academic Board) “Holocaust Historiography. Jewish Perspective: Conceptualizations, Terminology, Approaches and Fundamental Issues”, and Ytzhak Arad (ex-chairman of Yad Vashem, prominent researcher) “Jewish Catastrophe on the occupied territories of the Soviet Union (1941-1945)”. On December 23rd the group of Ukrainian educators is being sent by Tkuma Center to Israel to participate in Yad Vashem International School for Holocaust Studies.

Tkuma Center is essential Yad Vashem partner in realization of the project of Documentation and Commemoration of the names of Jewish people, who perished during the Catastrophe on the territory of FSU.

During the meeting a lot of new perspectives as well as new directions of Tkuma Center partnership with Yad Vashem have appeared, which to promote the development of innovative educational, research and museum projects.