Holocaust memorial unveiled in Uzhhorod
Transcarpathian regional center hosted the 10th anniversary Festival of Jewish Culture. This year it received its own name – Heymish Ungvar, which means “comfortable, cozy, warm.”
Head of the Charity Fund ‘Hesed Shpira’ Mykhailo Galin said during the festival that the Jewish community perceived Uzhhorod as similarly cozy, warm and homely.
Various creative activities and attractions completed on Sunday the inauguration of the memorial sign to victims of the Holocaust and heroism of the rescuers who dared resist the inhuman actions aimed at destroyingthe entire nation.
This inauguration, as Uzhhorod residents rightly noticed, became a culmination of the Days of Jewish Culture in Uzhhorod.
The memorial was installed with the assistance of the Government of Hungary. The grand opening of the sign was a mourning and yet life-affirming event. It was attended by Hungarian delegation, Jewish clergy, representatives of public organizations of the community, local authorities, general public.
“Regardless of nationality and ethnicity,we have a common destiny in this corner of the world!” - Deputy State Secretary of Hungary Csaba Latorcai said.
He was supported by head of Ukrainian Association of Jews – former prisoners of ghettos and Nazi concentration camps Borys Zabarko: “historical memory can both divide and unite! That is why its falsification, distortion or concealment is intolerable.
The memory of these terrible events, when local Jews that were an integral part of the city gathered in the synagogue, and were taken to campsfrom there, is still alive in the hearts of many of Uzhhorod and Transcarpathian residents. Therefore, there were no indifferent people.
The solemn mourning ended with a joint prayer led by chief rabbis of Ukraine and Uzhhorod, after which all those present placedpebbles of memory around the monument.
The authors of the memorial sign concept and landscape arrangement become sculptor Mykhailo Kolodko and architect Peter Szarvasi.
According to various sources, in 1944,about 14 thousand Jews from Uzhhorod and its suburbs and about 100 thousand from all over Transcarpathia were moved to the concentration camps. The survivors of Nazi tortures were around 20-30% of prisoners.
