Today, September 29, 2022, people in Ukraine and indeed across the world will commemorate the 81st anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar.
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It will be a moment of mourning and remembrance, but also an occasion to examine the tremendous progress made by Ukraine, which today, almost a century later is able to elect by a vast majority, a young Jewish president, the descendent of a family of Holocaust victims – Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine's efforts to recall its historical crimes was the theme of the address I gave in Kyiv, in 2016, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the massacre, at the very site where it took place.
That night, I spoke after then-Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu as well as the leaders of Germany, Ukraine and Poland – the forces that make up the new Ukraine.
In the address, I used my own words, of course, but I also spoke on behalf of the president of the Republic of France, who had sent me to represent him at this occasion. Some of the reasons that drive me, a French Jewish intellectual, to support Ukraine as I do, are contained in this speech:
President of Ukraine, presidents, ambassadors, rabbis and representatives of the various religions, ladies and gentlemen.
There is always a moment in the destiny of a great nation when the darkest pages of the Book of the Dead and the Living come face to face with the light of insight and remorse. For Ukraine, such a moment has arrived today.
Eighty years after the massacre of the multitude of Ukrainian Jews at Babi Yar, in this eternally cursed and damned ravine, over three-quarters of a century after the destruction of 34,000 men, women, and children, whose only crime was being born Jewish, the time has come for contrition, repentance, and for this heinous crime to become an integral part of the great memorial of the universal consciousness. It is perhaps no coincidence that this moment has occurred on the eve of this extremely special period, referred to by Jews across the globe as the "Days of Awe."
Indeed, this is surely no coincidence. There is clearly a good reason why such a moment should occur precisely on the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), a holy festival on which all Jews celebrate God's judgment, a time when every nation on earth is summoned to appear in God's court.
I am well aware of precisely how difficult, and on occasions even painful, this duty to remember – or in this case, possibly even to appear before the Lord – can be. I am fully conscious of just how much it can weigh down, even only for the sake of appearance, on both the national narrative and nation pride.
I have the honor to speak, today, in the name of a president and a nation – France – that chose to implement a similar type of holy, but ultimately painful duty of remembrance. Because, ultimately, there was a genuine need to break the absolute silence created by decades of political and establishment censorship, and this is exactly what President Jacques Chirac did when he acknowledged the responsibility of the French state for the deportation of France's Jews to the death camps.
Former Chancellor of Germany, Willy Brandt did this too, when he knelt down in front of the monument in memory of the fallen in the Warsaw Ghetto. It is what Pope John Paul II did when he made the historic decision to pray alone in Auschwitz.
And now it is Ukraine's turn, through the clear voice of its president, to call on the nation not to give in to the Holodomor (the mass, man-made famine orchestrated by the Soviet authorities, that took place in Ukraine in 1932-1933); and to repeatedly celebrate the memory of Metropolitan Archbishop Andrei Sheptytsky, a truly righteous man among nations; but at the same time to make the massacred Jews of Babi Yar – those who were murdered and left without a grave, without a trace, with no documents, who cannot even be properly counted – into symbols of common humanity and a shield to protect us against the return of the ultimate of all evils.
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Having said that, we know that this process of recognition is also the preparatory test for justice and truth. We know that nothing solid has ever been built by a country that failed to disperse its own shadows and face up to its own ghosts. We are perfectly well aware that the fundamental and strict recording of historical memory, alongside the ongoing, objective effort to count the victims, have become one of the main principles for establishing the new Europe – these have been its driving force, its foundation and framework all in one.
Consequently, Mr. President, rabbis, religious dignitaries, ladies and gentlemen, you should acknowledge that all the deeds done here today on this special day, every word spoken, every name whispered, form a veil of mourning, forgiveness, and redemption placed on the earth stained by the blood of countless innocent lives.
But you should also surely know that the very fact that this ceremony is taking place, that so many Ukrainians from a variety of different origins and faiths (Jews, Christians, Muslims and atheists) have gathered, on this fate-stricken land, and that this encounter between the authorities of the new Ukraine and the representatives of the states (of Israel and Germany) who, together with Ukraine and the rest of the world, share the heritage of the martyrs of Babi Yar – all of this is another step for your country, to exit the era of totalitarianism and darkness, another step forward on the path ahead.
Based on an address delivered by the author in 2016.
