Ukrainian city remembers Jews on Holocaust anniversary

The Ukrainian city of Lviv, once a major center of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, is commemorating the 75th anniversary of the annihilation of the city’s Jewish population by Nazi Germany and honoring those working today to preserve what they can of that vanished world.City authorities honored recipients during a ceremony Sunday with 75 sculptured glass keys modeled by an American artist on an old metal synagogue key that she found at a Lviv market. The commemorations, including a concert amid the ruins of synagogues, come amid a larger attempt to revive the suppressed memories of the Jews who were once an integral part of life in the region.”God forbid our city once suffered such a misfortune,” Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said at the ceremony. “Today we cannot even imagine for a moment the pain, humiliation and grief that thousands of Lviv’s people suffered in the last century.” Iryna Matsevko, deputy director of the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe and one of the organizers, said it was the first time the western Ukrainian city has acknowledged the efforts in such an extensive way.She said it comes amid a growing consciousness in Ukrainian society of the need to remember the Jews who were annihilated by Nazi forces during their occupation of Eastern Europe, which occurred with the participation of local people in some cases. The new efforts have included Jewish history courses at universities, new research by young Ukrainian scholars and grassroots efforts by local teachers and other volunteers that otherwise get little attention. Volunteers have also worked to recover Jewish gravestones that were used to pave roads and return them to cemeteries.”This is part of the process of reviving the memory of the Jewish heritage. Of course, this process is slow. I want it to be quicker, but for the last 10 years we have seen how the Jewish heritage is returning to people’s consciousness and a lot of activities are taking place,” Matsevko said. “It is very important that people are being acknowledged for their work in Jewish heritage.” Before World War II, Lviv and the surrounding area belonged to Poland. Then called Lwow, it was the third largest Jewish community in prewar Poland after Warsaw and Lodz, with most working as merchants, manufacturers or artisans. Before World War I, Lviv and the surrounding area were part of the eastern Galicia region of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the city was called by its German name, Lemberg.In June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union, its former ally. When the German forces entered the city they and their Ukrainian collaborators massacred Jews in the city and countryside. While occupying the area, Germans murdered Jews in the ghetto, the Belzec death camp and a forced labor camp,