Lo Tishkach arranges all travel logistics
and distributes questionnaires to participants about burial sites that are
visited. Through completed questionnaires, Lo Tishkach assembles information
about the size and condition of the burial grounds, maintenance, number and
conditions of gravestones or other markers, current use of the site, restorative work needed, and history
of the local Jewish community. In the case of execution sites during the
Holocaust, information is sought regarding the number of victims and the
circumstances of their murder. Expedition members are expected to undertake
physical labor in cleaning sites.
In addition to local people, Ms. Yanover said that Lo Tishkach
is open to organizing expeditions for foreigners. In July, she
continued, Lo Tishkach expects to host about 30 English-speaking young people
in a pilot project; participants will meet in Lviv and proceed from there to
Transcarpathia, formerly a part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. About 270
Jewish burial grounds are known to exist in this mountainous region.
Preparatory seminars are being held through Skype technology, Ms. Yanover
explained.

The catalogue includes at least one page
for each of 52 Jewish burial grounds in the Kyiv region.
The page about Yahotyn Jewish Cemetery (right)
describes its history and notes that it is no longer in active use. Jews now
are buried in a section of a municipal cemetery. Fewer than 100 Jews remain in
Yahotyn today, said the description.
The orange band at the bottom of the page
says that the cemetery currently is undemarcated and unprotected. The
remaining gravestones (10 in all) “are at risk from weather erosion and the
effects of vegetation, and there is evidence of rub-bish dumping at the site.”
Other information in the orange band outlines assistance needed in this
cemetery: determine and enclose borders, and restore gravestones. An orange
band indicates that the site is “seriously threatened.” A green band indicates
that the site is “not under threat.”
In response to a question, Ms Yanover said that the total Lo
Tishkach budget for Ukraine in 2010-2011 (September to September) is $80,000,
excluding her salary and certain special projects. Her office is awaiting news
on several grants for which they have applied.
69.
The Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies was established in 2002 as a
non-government organization in partnership with the Institute of Political and
Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. It maintains a
small office in a building of the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv. Its
staff consists of five local individuals along with an Austrian volunteer. The writer spoke with Anatoly
Podolsky, director of the Center, during a visit to the organization’s
office.
Dr. Podolsky stated that the Center works in two areas,
Holocaust research and Holocaust education.
In the area of research, he continued, the Center organizes several annual
study trips to Poland and one to Yad Vashem in Israel. It maintains very good
contacts with Poles in relevant positions, he said. The Center publishes a
scholarly journal every six months that reports results of research in Poland,
Ukraine, and other countries. At the present time, Dr. Podolsky stated, there
is great interest in comparing the fates of Jews and Roma who lived in the
Carpathian mountain area during the Holocaust.
Efforts
of the Center in education include various conferences for teachers and
pupils, as well as publications suitable for various groups. It encourages
research into the Holocaust by high school students. A three-day competition in
the topic is held every year in Kyiv, and the most noteworthy papers are
published in an anthology. This program is partially financed by grants from
the Embassy of the United States, said Dr. Podolsky.
The
Center’s publishing program is diverse, said Dr. Podolsky. It includes
student research, its own research, memoirs of survivors, various official
records of the period, and translations of useful materials published abroad.
Dr.
Podolsky stated that the government of Ukraine provides little political,
moral, or financial support for Holocaust studies. The Holocaust is remote
to them; they know that the Holocaust occurred in Europe, but somehow Europe
does not include Ukraine in this period. They claim that the Holocaust is not
central to Ukrainian history. Many Ukrainian Jews are wealthy, government
officials say; therefore, the Jews should finance all aspects of Ukrainian
Holocaust studies.
Primary
funders of the
Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies include The Rothschild Foundation
(Hanadiv) Europe, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Swedish
Holocaust Memorial Association. However,
said Dr. Podolsky, support from these and other funding sources remain irregular.
Nonetheless, he continued, he remains “optimistic” about the capacity of the
Ukrainian Center to continue its work.
Dr. Anatoly Podolsky, right, faces continuing
financial problems in managing the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies.
Photo: the writer.
In response to a question about contemporary antisemitism in Ukraine,
Dr. Podolsky said that it is “marginal.” Anti-Jewish stereotypes persist, he
continued, and sometimes antisemitic comments are made during political
campaigns about Jewish or partly-Jewish candidates; he cited recent elections
in Odesa, Kherson, and Uzhgorod as examples. Bigoted commentators are quick to
call attention to Jewish family names, Dr. Podolsky observed, and to scapegoat
Jewish oligarchs about current economic problems. Nonetheless, he does not
perceive antisemitism as a major problem.
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