Five new Holocaust monuments will be unveiled in different Russian locations this week, the Russian Jewish Congress (REC) announced on Friday.
“In Russia, five monuments to the victims of the Holocaust will be unveiled over five consecutive days, from November 11 to 15,” the REC reported. “The monuments will be erected as part of the Restore Dignity memorial program. All the monuments will be unveiled at the places of mass executions carried out by the Nazis during the occupation.”
“Most of the victims, old men, women, and children, were peaceful Soviet citizens of Jewish descent, doomed to destruction only because of their nationality. The Russian Jewish Congress obtained permission from local administrations to erect granite obelisks with the Star of David and plates with the names of the dead in these places,” the report said.
Over the project’s ten years, it erected 70 monuments commemorating Holocaust victims.
The main participants in the program in addition to the Russian Jewish Congress, are the Holocaust Center and the Eben-Ezer Foundation for Evangelical Christians.
On Monday, November 11, the first monument will be unveiled in the village of Divnoye in the Stavropol Region, where in September 1942 the Nazis executed 660 Jews.
On November 12, a monument and slabs of granite with the names of the victims will be erected in the village of Grigoropolisskaya, in the Stavropol Region; on November 13 – the village of Podgornaya also in the Stavropol Region; on November 14 – in the Velizh ghetto in the city of Velizh in the Smolensk Region, where 3,000 Jews were murdered; and on Friday, November 15, a monument and granite slabs with the names of the dead will be inaugurated in the village of Soldato-Aleksandrovskoye, Stavropol Region, where 270 Jews were executed.
“Every year, the Restore Dignity program expands its coverage, with support from local authorities in the various Russian regions. The project is being implemented with private donations, and anyone can take part in it by donating to the Russian Jewish Congress,” the press release said.