Ukraine: Memorial Dedicated at Kammeny Brod, Ukraine

Ukraine: Holocaust Memorial Dedicated at Kammeny Brod, Ukraine

(ISJM) Allan Dolgow has passed on news reported by Michael Savin, of the press service of the Russian Jewish Congress, about the recent (May 24, 2009)inauguration of a new memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in the village of Kammeny Brod, Ukraine, a small town which once had three synagogues. During the German occupation the Jews of the town were killed.

The president of the Russian Jewish Congress, Yurij Kanner, who was born and grew up in Kammeny Brod, and he initiated of the creation of the memorial, which is also dedicated to the memory of his many relatives killed in the village.

Representatives of the local administrations, activists of Jewish communities, and rabbis of Berdichev, Gitomir (Zhitomir), Lvov and Chmelnitsk were present during this ceremony.

It is not clear from the report where the new monument is located. The survey of Jewish sites in Ukraine by the sponsored by the United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad reported in 1996 that there was a Jewish cemetery in the town and at least two mass graves of Jews executed in 1941.

The first mass grave is located at 1.5 km to Northeast from Kamenny Brod, and was unmarked in the pine forest. The second mass grave is located to the northeast, 500m from a faience factory, reached by crossing Zovtnevaya Street. It was fenced (c. 1950?), and at least in the 1990s it was kept moderately clean and the marker/monument was kept in repair.

ISJM welcomes more news of this and simlar monuments and events.