On the occasion of commemorating the victims of Nazism and the 80th anniversary of the tragedy of Babyn Yar, the Department of Social and Humanitarian Affairs conducted bus tours to Drobytskyi Yar memorial complex for cadets and students of Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs. During Holocaust (1933-1945), about 6 million Jews died. According to various estimates, between 1.2 and 1.4 million Jews died in Ukraine during the years of German occupation. Today, 248 places of mass murder of Jews are known.

One of them is Drobytskyi Yar tract. On December 27, 1941, the liquidation of Kharkiv ghetto began here. Under the pretext of being sent to work, the Nazis began taking groups of Jews out of the ghetto near the Drobytskyi Yar tract, where they were shot after the robbery. On January 7, 1942, Kharkiv Jewish ghetto ceased to exist. Roma and captured Red Army soldiers were also shot. In total, 16 to 20,000 people were killed.

Due to the efforts of many Kharkiv organizations, enterprises and individual citizens in 1990-2000, Drobytskyi Yar Memorial Complex was built on the site of the tragedy. This historic site has never been alien to Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs. The cadets and university management take part in the annual commemoration ceremony in December every year.

Participants of excursions to the memorial complex “Drobytskyi Yar” were among the first to see the renewed museum exposition, which was opened on September 29, 2021. It includes thematic lighting of the exhibition space, the opportunity to hear the miraculously saved eyewitnesses of the tragedy, learn more about individual pages of Holocaust through an interactive table. All this helps to better understand the essence of those tragic events, which should not be repeated by all people of good will.

The measures were carried out in accordance with the current quarantine requirements.

Andrii Prokhorov, director of the KhNUIA museum.

Department of Public Relations of KhNUIA