Image by Memoriál de la Shoah

(JTA) — A city in northwestern Ukraine authorized the placing of a traveling zoo on the mass grave of thousands of Jewish Holocaust victims, a leader of the country’s Jewish community said.

Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, wrote Monday on Facebook about the traveling zoo that was erected this summer in the town of Kovel, 260 miles from Kiev, the capital.

“This was done with permission of the local authorities,” wrote Dolinsky about the zoo’s construction. “This place is located at the former Jewish cemetery. In August 1942, the last workers of the Jewish ghetto were killed there. A few thousand people, from 2,500 to 6,000 according to various sources.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Dolinsky added he did not know whether the Kovel zoo, which was  last week in the Volinska Gazeta local newspaper, was a case of “[idiocy], criminality, cynicism, apathy — or maybe all of the above.” He called it a “blatant act of vandalism and horrific abuse,” adding the local Jewish community had for years lobbied unsuccessfully to have the murder site commemorated with a monument.

Kovel’s deputy architect, Sergey Panasyuk, told Volinska Gazeta the request for a monument is pending consideration and approval.

The report about Kovel comes amid a polarizing debate in Ukraine following Kiev’s naming of streets in July for Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych – Ukrainian militia leaders and one-time collaborators with the Nazis, whose troops are widely believed to be responsible for lethal violence against Jews and Poles during the Holocaust.

In Ukraine, where anti-Russian sentiments exploded following a bloody revolution and annexation in 2014 of Ukrainian land by Russia, many believe these militiamen and others were patriotic heroes for their opposition to the Soviet Union.

“People who allow this must be punished,” Dolinsky wrote of the zoo, “because they know what they’re doing. Although, most likely, nothing will be done to them.”

Dolinsky also expressed concern the Kovel murders and aftermath will not receive widespread attention because of the preparations for the 75th anniversary of the killings at Babi Yar – a ravine in Kiev where the Nazis killed 30,000 Jews.

The preparations at Babi Yar, he wrote, are “because foreign guests will arrive there. But in the city of Kovel, no one is coming” so locals can ignore the events of the Holocaust era.

Last month, JTA reported that a concentration camp in Lithuania had become a popular venue for camping, treasure hunts, graduation events and adult costume parties. The Seventh Fort, where 5,000 are buried in mass graves, was privatized in 2009.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount