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Obj. ID: 47791
Memorials
  Holocaust memorial in Berezne, Ukraine, 1980s

© ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, Photographer: ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, 2019

Memorial Name

No official name

Who is Commemorated?

Jewish Holocaust Victims from Berezne and surroundings, who were killed here on August 25, 1942

Description

The monument is located on the mass grave in Berezne. It is two almost symmetric black marble slabs. The left slab bears an image of a torch and a Russian inscription, which does not mention the ethnicity of the Victims. The right slab bears a Magen David, a Menorah, and a Hebrew inscription.

Inscriptions

Russian

На этом месте
25 августа 1942 г.
немецко-фашистскими
оккупантами
были расстреляны
3680
советских граждан

Translation: At this place, 3,680 Soviet citizens were shot by German fascist occupiers on August 25, 1942

Hebrew

לזכר קדושי ברז’נה והסביבה
שנרצחו ונקברו חיים ביום י”ב אלול
תש”ב, אוג’ 1942
ע”י הגרמנים הנאצים ועוזריהם ימ”ש

”ואתה את דמינו אוסף בכדים
כי אין לו אוסף מלבדן”

נ. אלתרמן

קול דמי אחינו זועק מאדמה זו [Gen. 4:10]

ת.נ.צ.ב.ה.

Translation: In memory of the martyrs of Berezne who were murdered and buried alive on 12 Elul 5702, August 1942 by Nazi Germans and their helpers. May their names be obliterated. // "And our blood in small vases you collected, Because no one else would, only you alone" N. Alterman // The voice of our brothers' blood cries out from this ground [paraphrase to Gen. 4:10]// May their souls be bounded in the bundle of life

Commissioned by

to be determined

Summary and Remarks
Remarks

1 image(s)

sub-set tree:

Name/Title
Holocaust memorial in Berezne | Unknown
Object Detail
Monument Setting
Date
1980s
Active dates
Reconstruction dates
Artist/ Maker
Historical Origin
Community type
Congregation
Unknown
Site
Unknown
School/Style
Unknown|
Period
Period Detail
Collection
Unknown |
Documentation / Research project
Iconographical Subject
Material / Technique
Black marble
Material Stucture
Material Decoration
Material Bonding
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Material Cloth
Material Lining
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Documented by CJA
Surveyed by CJA
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Historical significance: Event/Period
Historical significance: Collective Memory/Folklore
Historical significance: Person
Architectural Significance: Style
Architectural Significance: Artistic Decoration
Urban significance
Significance Rating
0
Ornamentation
Custom
Contents
Codicology
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Pricking
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Catchwords
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Blank Leaves
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Façade (main)
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History/Provenance

There were more than 3,000 Jews in the Berezne ghetto. On August 25, 1942, the Einsatzgruppe soldiers took Jews from the ghetto of Berezne out from the shtetl and killed them there [Shtetl Routes].

Shortly after the WWII, Jewish Holocaust Survivors from Berezne erected three wooden monuments with Russian and Hebrew inscriptions at the killing site [Yad Vashem]. 

In the 1960s, grave robbers dug up the mass graves. Later, the Soviet authority built a dendropark on the territory of the mass graves. In the 1980s, the monument was erected on the site [Shtetl Routes].

The inscription includes verses from the 1942 poem by Israeli port Natan Alterman "Of All the Peoples". The poem first appeared in print in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Novemeber 27, 1942, four days after the Jewish Agency informed the public authoritatively about the mass murder of European Jewry by Nazi Germany.

Main Surveys & Excavations
Sources

"Berezne - Commemoration of Jewish Victims,"
Untold Stories - Murder Sites of Jews in Occupied Territories of the USSR (Yad Vashem project), https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/untold-stories/commemoration/14626048.

For the poem, see
"Of All the Peoples" by Nathan Alterman, https://momentmag.com/poem-of-all-the-peoples-by-nathan-alterman/ (accessed March 11, 2024)

Trochliuk, Natalia "Berezne - guidebook," Shtetl Routes (Ośrodek „Brama Grodzka – Teatr NN”), https://shtetlroutes.eu/en/berezne-putvnik/ (accessed March 15, 2024)
Type
Documenter
ESJF | 2019
Author of description
Anna Berezin, Marina Sedova | 2024
Architectural Drawings
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Computer Reconstruction
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Section Head
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Language Editor
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Donor
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Negative/Photo. No.
The following information on this monument will be completed: