Memorial opens on site of ancient synagogue
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8 سال پیش
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(7 Sep 2016) LEAD IN:
(7 Sep 2016) LEAD IN:
A new memorial to survivors of the Holocaust has opened in Lviv, Ukraine.
The memorial is built around the ruins of an ancient synagogue that was destroyed by the Nazis in the 1940s.
STORY-LINE
Built in 1595 in the Jewish district of what is now Lviv city, the Golden Rose synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis in 1941.
During the Holocaust, 420,000 Jews, including more than 100,000 children, were murdered in and around Lviv.
According to some reports only 800 Jewish people from Lviv survived - those that managed to escape to the west.
The Golden Rose was burnt down as part of a Nazi campaign to get rid of all synagogues.
Now the square where it once stood and the ruins of the synagogue serve as a backdrop to a memorial for the hundreds of thousands of Jews that were killed during the Holocaust and the German occupation of the Western Ukraine.
Survivors and relatives have come to pay their respects at a ceremony marking the opening of the "Space of Synagogues" memorial.
Leszek Allerhand was born in Lviv in 1931. He comes from a family of assimilated Polish Jews.
His father and grandfather were prominent lawyers.
Out of the more than 30 people in the Allerhand family, only Leszek and his parents survived the Holocaust.
After the war they moved to Krakow. Leszek Allerhand became a doctor and worked as the chief medic for the Polish Winter Olympic team. Now he lives in Zakopane.
Today he is back in Lviv with other eyewitnesses on the square where the synagogue was destroyed 75 years ago.
"Like I said before, we knew that something was about to happen here. We knew that the Germans burned synagogues and other prayer places, but we didn't expect that everything would happen so fast, because it all happened just a few weeks after the invasion," he says.
On the memorial are quotes from the people of Lviv - memories of the Holocaust.
Survivors, visitors and relatives of the victims place stones from the ruins on the plaques.
"When sometimes my grandchildren ask me how could we survive living in a basement for 2 years without ever seeing the sun, without anything… (I say that) It was a great wish to survive and to live that gave us power to go through this period of time," says Holocaust survivor, Iron Weiss.
Restoration of the square started last year. A second memorial is planned in the same area where another synagogue once stood - that too was destroyed during the war.
Sophia Dyak, director for the Centre of Lviv City History hopes that one day the Golden Rose might be rebuilt.
"The most important thing is that we found a solution that will help to rebuild Golden Rose in the future and bring this area back to life. This place is very symbolic, although in fact it's not all about just the area, it's about the people who lived here and who created this place," .
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A new memorial to survivors of the Holocaust has opened in Lviv, Ukraine.
The memorial is built around the ruins of an ancient synagogue that was destroyed by the Nazis in the 1940s.
STORY-LINE
Built in 1595 in the Jewish district of what is now Lviv city, the Golden Rose synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis in 1941.
During the Holocaust, 420,000 Jews, including more than 100,000 children, were murdered in and around Lviv.
According to some reports only 800 Jewish people from Lviv survived - those that managed to escape to the west.
The Golden Rose was burnt down as part of a Nazi campaign to get rid of all synagogues.
Now the square where it once stood and the ruins of the synagogue serve as a backdrop to a memorial for the hundreds of thousands of Jews that were killed during the Holocaust and the German occupation of the Western Ukraine.
Survivors and relatives have come to pay their respects at a ceremony marking the opening of the "Space of Synagogues" memorial.
Leszek Allerhand was born in Lviv in 1931. He comes from a family of assimilated Polish Jews.
His father and grandfather were prominent lawyers.
Out of the more than 30 people in the Allerhand family, only Leszek and his parents survived the Holocaust.
After the war they moved to Krakow. Leszek Allerhand became a doctor and worked as the chief medic for the Polish Winter Olympic team. Now he lives in Zakopane.
Today he is back in Lviv with other eyewitnesses on the square where the synagogue was destroyed 75 years ago.
"Like I said before, we knew that something was about to happen here. We knew that the Germans burned synagogues and other prayer places, but we didn't expect that everything would happen so fast, because it all happened just a few weeks after the invasion," he says.
On the memorial are quotes from the people of Lviv - memories of the Holocaust.
Survivors, visitors and relatives of the victims place stones from the ruins on the plaques.
"When sometimes my grandchildren ask me how could we survive living in a basement for 2 years without ever seeing the sun, without anything… (I say that) It was a great wish to survive and to live that gave us power to go through this period of time," says Holocaust survivor, Iron Weiss.
Restoration of the square started last year. A second memorial is planned in the same area where another synagogue once stood - that too was destroyed during the war.
Sophia Dyak, director for the Centre of Lviv City History hopes that one day the Golden Rose might be rebuilt.
"The most important thing is that we found a solution that will help to rebuild Golden Rose in the future and bring this area back to life. This place is very symbolic, although in fact it's not all about just the area, it's about the people who lived here and who created this place," .
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