Obj. ID: 44837
Jewish Funerary Art  Memorial at the Mass Grave in the Jewish Cemetery in Lanivtsi, Ukraine, 1990

To the main object: New Jewish cemetery in Lanivtsi, Ukraine

During the liquidation of the Lanivtsi ghetto on August 14, 1942, the nazis shot Jews in the Jewish cemetery. According to the Security Police, they killed 1,833 Jews. According to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission, the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Lanivtsi is 2,535 [Encyclopedia, p. 1403]. According to the Lanivtsi City Council and the Christian Center "Nebesa," 3,587 Jews perished during the Holocaust in Lanivtsi and about 1,000 were deported to Vyshnivtsi [Lanichevska; "Shanovni kraiany!"].

According to Yad Vashem, Jewish Holocaust survivors from Lanivtsi were granted permission from the local authority to fence off the mass graves in the cemetery, and installed the fence in 1949. Jewish Holocaust survivor Iosef Marder repaired the fence around the mass graves and erected a monument between them in 1964. The monument bore Hebrew and Russian inscriptions. Since that time, Iosef Marder and other Holocaust Survivors organized a memorial ceremony on the day of the mass murder, during which they recited Kaddish.  

In 1981, Eeta Onishynkov, the last Jew in Lanivtsi, was buried in the mass grave, according to her will. There is a tombstone with her name behind the monument ["Yevreiskie kladovyshche v Lanivtsiakh, Ternopilskoi oblasti"]. 

A new monument near the mass graves was unveiled on May 9, 1990. A short Ukrainian inscription carved on the monument did not provide information about the events and the ethnicity of the victims [Yad Vashem]. According to the photos, the metal plaque with Hebrew inscription was bolted on the monument above the Ukrainian inscription sometime before 1999. 

The monument was included on The List of Monuments of History of Local Significance by Order no. 148 of the President of Ukraine Representative in Ternopil Region on June 25, 1992 ["Ternopilska oblast..."]

Since 1999, the Christian Centre "Heavens" has taken care of the Jewish cemetery, the mass graves, and the Holocaust monument in Lanivtsi ["Blahoustrii..."]. In September 2012, they organized a commemoration ceremony dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the mass murder of Jews in the cemetery. The Head of the city, the city and district authority representatives, the Head of the Jewish Community of the Ternopil region, Ihor Banzeruk, Jewish community members, Jewish Holocaust Survivors, and their families took part in the event. About 400 participants gathered at the central square, where the Lanivtsi ghetto was, and then went to the monument through the street, following the route the Victims had been led on to the killing site in 1942. Authority representatives and the Jewish Community members took the floor. A deputy of the Main Rabbi Of the Progressive Judaism Communities in Ukraine, Siva Fainerman, recited a prayer [Lanichevska].

Local authority representatives together with residents of the city commemorate the Remembrance Day of the Babyn Yar Victims (September 29th) and International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th) by laying flowers at the monument in Lanivtsi [Ternopoliany; "Rokovyny trahedii u Babynomu Yaru"; Za Zbruchem; "U den pamiati zhertv Holokostu..."].