The war launched by Russia in Ukraine a month ago has forced millions to flee from their homes and has seen towns and cities shelled and bombarded. Residential and commercial buildings as well as airports, industrial sites, and military installations have been destroyed.
The onslaught has raised local and international alarm over the threats to the rich historic and religious heritage across Ukraine. This includes Jewish heritage.
“[O]f course the safety of human life is paramount,” the Foundation for Jewish Heritage (FJH) said in a statement. “However, historic buildings should also be carefully protected.”
It noted the particular significance of Jewish heritage in Ukraine:
Jewish heritage sites in Ukraine have special significance given that they are linked to Jewish communities that were decimated or annihilated in the Holocaust. They stand as testimony to man’s potential for inhumanity with crucial lessons for today.
Around 400 synagogue buildings and prayer houses are scattered around Ukraine, according to the Historic Synagogues of Europe survey carried out by the Center for Jewish Art on behalf of the FJH. Though dozens are used today as synagogues, the majority have been transformed for other use or stand abandoned or in ruins. Around 75 — even if ruined — are regarded as having national or international significance, and some are listed as historic monuments.
Moreover, there are around 1,300 Jewish cemeteries around the country, dating back centuries. These include the burial places of revered rabbis and sages, such as in Uman, Medzhybyzh, and Belz, that are pilgrimage sites for orthodox Jews, as well as the mass graves and memorials to Holocaust victims.
To date (March 25) we have learned of little physical damage to Jewish heritage sites in Ukraine.
The main damage was in Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, the country’s second largest city; no injuries were reported.
On March 26, the towering Menorah structure, a central feature of the sprawling Dobrytsky Yar Holocaust memorial park on the outskirts of Kharkiv was damaged by shelling. An image was posted on social media by various sources.
The memorial park commemorates around 15,000 Jews massacred at a ravine there in December 1941-January 1942.
In a tweet, Ukrainian Foreign Ministery Dmytro Kuleba posted a photo of the Menorah and lashed out at Russia.
“Why Russia keeps attacking Holocaust memorials in Ukraine? I expect Israel to strongly condemn this barbarism,” he said.
On March 11, a missile hit a shopping center next to the Kharkiv Great Choral Synagogue, shattering windows in the building. Constructed in 1912-13 with a soaring dome, the synagogue, the largest in Ukraine today, was closed and converted into a workers’ club by the Soviet authorities in 1923 and turned into a cinema in 1941. It served the Jewish community in 1945–1949 and then was used as a sports club from 1949–1990 before being restituted to the Jewish community.
In addition. on March 15, a Chabad yeshiva in Kharkiv, housed in the former Chebotarskaia Synagogue (Third Jewish prayer house Sefardim), took a direct hit, punching a hole in the roof. A Hillel and kindergarten in Kharkiv also suffered some damage, but no-one was hurt.
“Despite the attacks on our institutions, the direct hit today on the Yeshiva and the windows of our main synagogue and the kindergarten that were broken from the bombings nearby, we will in the first opportunity renovate and restore and expand all our buildings and programs more than ever before,” Rabbi Moshe Moskovitz, Chief Rabbi and Chabad emissary of Kharkiv, said in a Facebook post March 15.
He added, “We are continuing to help evacuate people daily in addition to giving shelter and food to those who have moved into the synagogue and are sending daily hot meals and medicines to the elderly and needy who are trapped in their homes.”
In addition, in a tweet on March 3, the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF) posted a picture and quoted the United Jewish Community as saying that a shell had damaged the Jewish cemetery in Bila Tserkva. No further details were available.
There were reports March 1 that Russian shelling of a Ukrainian TV tower and communications complex had damaged the nearby Holocaust memorial site at Babyn Yar, outside Kyiv, where tens of thousands of Jews were massacred by German occupation troops and Ukrainian helpers during World War II. The reports sparked outrage, but reporters who visited the scene said the sprawling memorial site — which includes memorial sculptures and a newly built synagogue — had not been harmed.
Jewish communities across Ukraine — as in Kharkiv — are using their synagogues as shelters and hubs for aid to refugees.
People in the cultural heritage field in general are working to protect monuments with sandbags and other casing, with aid — both direct and indirect — from international organizations.
Kateryna Chuhuieva, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, outlined some of this in a briefing March 17:
Ukraine receives huge support from museum colleagues and cultural heritage defenders from all over the world. Besides, the main organization including international ones offered their help. Among those are UNESCO, Blue Shield International Council, the International Council of Museums, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Council on Archives, the International Council of Libraries, charity foundations, separate museum-institutions, and others.
This support is expressed in different ways including museum reports and flashnobs, as well as financial and management assistance, internship and scholarship offers for personnel.
Chuhuieva said some heritage sites and museum had already been destroyed or suffered damage. She urged people to send it reports of attacks on or damage to cultural heritage sites — and provided several links where this information could be sent.
However, she asked reporters and activists not to share information about protective measures or even the location of the protected museum collections, for fear that this could lead to them being targeted.
All around the country, museum experts do everything to save the collections. Despite this, we ask journalists and activists not to share information about current protection measures, imposed by museums and local residents, the location of these goods, and the places for their relocation during the war. Publication or sending such data to unknown individuals and unchecked organizations might endanger people as well as museum exhibits.
Other experts, however, feel that making heritage sites, their history, and their importance known is essential in aiding their protection, hoping that raising public awareness will help to “virtually protect” them.
Scholars, for example, have begun posting articles, in Ukrainian, Polish, and English, about specific heritage sites to an art history journal’s web site.
Among the first such articles are pieces by Sergey R, Kravtsov, an expert on Ukrainian Jewish heritage at the Center for Jewish Art, on the Great Choral Synagogue in Kharkiv and the Brods’ka Synagogue in Odessa .
Read the full official report on Chuhuieva’s briefing, with links where to send reports
Watch a video of her briefing (with voice over in English)