KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) — The Odessa Holocaust Museum was dedicated in a special ceremony.
Odessa city officials, Holocaust survivors and other Ukrainian Jews took part in Monday’s opening ceremony.
The museum was built on the initiative of the South-Ukrainian Regional Department of the Association for Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners and the Ukraine-Israel Association.
The permanent exhibition, spanning four rooms of the museum building, presents the history of the Holocaust with historical documents, artifacts, photographs, historical and personal photographs, and oral and video histories.
The museum includes a research library, an educational center and memorial space.
“The museum must become an educational center for children and youth. Never again!” Roman Shvartzman, leader of Odessa Association for Former Ghetto and Concentration Camps Prisoners, told JTA.
Eduard Dolinsky, director general of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, told JTA that “the primary mission of the museum is to advance knowledge of the Holocaust, preserve the memory of its victims, and encourage reflection of moral and spiritual questions raised by the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.”
About 3 million Jews in the former Soviet Union were murdered by the Nazis during World War II, including some 247,000 Jews — 22,000 children — in Odessa and the surrounding region.
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