Jewish remains found in Ukraine mass grave
Delegation uncovers remains of hundreds of Jews in mass grave in Ukraine who were murdered in World War II
Several weeks ago, a secret mission called “Kaddish for Ukraine’s Jews” began looking for the mass graves of Ukrainian Jews who were massacred during the Second World War.
In an operation initiated by the Jewish Congress and the Holocaust Museum in Paris and Washington, the delegation uncovered an enormous mass grave in a forest in Ukraine containing remains of hundreds of Jews murdered in the time of the Holocaust. The remains were uncovered in one of the 500 sites the delegation members are planning on excavating.
The operation initiators contacted priests and elderly residents in Ukraine and asked for assistance in locating potential sites where thousands of Jews may have been murdered and buried in mass graves.
About three weeks ago, the delegation members began examining areas around Lvov located in western Ukraine. Before the Second World War, about 110,000 Jews lived in Lvov, and with Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941, this city and the surrounding area was one of the first ones that were invaded.
Among the members of the delegation were a pathologist, several archeologists, local rabbis and eight Zaka Rescue and Recovery members, including organization Chairman Yehuda Meshi Zahav and his son Shimon.
“One of the sites that the elderly told us about was in a small village next to Lvov, where there is a forest next to a Jewish cemetery,” said the members of Zaka. “We used metal detectors to locate the exact area by detecting the bullets.”
1,800 Jews estimated in mass grave
“The metal detectors went off exactly in that area. They began digging, and two meters down, the remains began to surface. Hundreds of skulls and bare skeletons were counted in the grave site. The years in which the bullets were manufactured were engraved on the bullets recovered from the remains – 1941, 1939 – as well as the country in which they were manufactured – Germany.
Meshi Zahav said that most of the skeletons were children. “We know that as opposed to Gypsies, the Nazis also killed the Jewish families along with their children," he said.
The delegation members estimated that in this mass grave alone some 1,800 Jews were buried. They said that after the grave was uncovered, Ukrainian authorities agreed to recognize the area as a Jewish burial site, and a religious burial ceremony was organized with the participation of a rabbi from Lvov.
The delegation members are planning on returning to the area in about two weeks and erect a monument in memory of the victims. After the holidays, the delegation will return to Ukraine in order to uncover other burial sites of Jews killed by the Nazis.
One of the lead initiators of the project is the French historian Patrick Dubois. He recruited the help of the Holocaust Museum in Paris in funding the project.
The museum’s director, Jacques Fredj, said “It is a real breakthrough. Now our mission is to find out the names of those people so that they will not be left with no identity.”
Journalist Noa Klieger reported that throughout the years other mass graves were found in the enormous forests of Ukraine. And with today’s new technology, it will be able to locate other sites such as the one found next to Lvov.
