THENEWYORKER, APRIL 18, 2022 35lensky recited the names of member coun-
tries, thanking them for their support.
When he got to Hungary, which has re-
fused to send military aid to Ukraine,
Zelensky asked Prime Minister Viktor
Orbán to visit the Holocaust memorial
on the Budapest waterfront: “Look at
those shoes. And you will see how mass
killings can happen again in today’s world.
And that’s what Russia is doing today.”
Petrovsky-Shtern told me, “From a
purely historical standpoint, there is no
comparison” between the Holocaust and
the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Jews
were a stateless nation. No one protected
them. Ukrainians are on their own land,
protected by landscape, their own army,
and growing world opinion.” But, he
added, “from the point of view of rhet-
oric, the comparison makes sense. He
is saying, They are coming to erase us.”
When this war is over, Europe will no
longer be defined by the history of the
Second World War. The next era of Eu-
ropean history, whenever it begins, will
be the aftermath of the war in Ukraine.I
most recently visited Kyiv at the end
of January. For International Holo-
caust Remembrance Day, on January 27th,
the memorial center had originally
planned a conference, a ceremony, and
the opening of its biggest installation
so far, a tumulus-shaped building with
Rokmaniko’s models inside. The instal-
lation wasn’t finished, and some of the
conference events were cancelled. The
office seemed in disarray. Several em-
ployees had left their jobs. In the library,
two young staff members were sorting
through newly acquired identity docu-
ments for people presumed to have died
at Babyn Yar. When Dasha Dzhurom-
ska and I walked in, conversation turned
to the center’s plans for safeguarding the
collection in case of war, and then to the
staffers’ plans for saving themselves and
their families. Would they f lee? Arm
themselves? Learn to drive? A Russian
invasion was all anyone talked about, and
yet it seemed impossibly unlikely.
European and Ukrainian dignitaries
and several Ukrainian rabbis gathered in
the tiny synagogue. The interior is intri-
cately painted with prayers, blessings,
and a menagerie of animals, all in the
colorful style of synagogues in western
Ukraine that were destroyed in the Sec-
ond World War. Vitali Klitschko, theformer heavyweight boxer and now the
mayor of Kyiv, said, “We stand in a place
where innocent people were killed... .We
are a peaceful nation. We have not at-
tacked anyone. But we will defend our
land. And we will especially remember
this day.” He spoke in Ukrainian. Moshe
Azman, the chief rabbi of the Brodsky
Synagogue, in Kyiv, spoke in Russian. “I
want to address my words to all the
world’s leaders,” he said. “Remember
what happened in Babyn Yar... .It’s easy
to start a war. Let’s all do everything to
make sure a war doesn’t start. I pray that
the Lord may place righteous thoughts
in the minds of all authorities.”
After the speeches ended, the visit-
ing dignitaries piled into vans that took
them back to the center of Kyiv. It was
snowing heavily. The sky was dark. From
a distance, the mirror installation looked
like a bottomless pit, the columns likebirch trees. I walked down to the reflec-
tive field and stood for a few minutes,
as the sky started clearing and a hint of
blue appeared at my feet. There was no
wind, no howl. The names of victims
and the prayers sounded in stillness.
I walked away from the installation,
past the remains of a soccer goal, into
what felt like a half-abandoned indus-
trial zone. It housed a hip coffee shop,
the shooting range, and the sports com-
plex. On March 1st, a Russian missile,
possibly meant for the television tower,
hit near the sports complex. It burned,
and four people burned with it. Several
people affiliated with Babyn Yar sent
me video recordings of the burning bod-
ies. A witness, likely a firefighter, can be
heard saying, “So, Russians, who are you
fucking fighting? This is a child.” Un-
like the last war fought in Ukraine, this
one will leave ample visual evidence. “... and that’s a photo of the people who always
tell me to get off the furniture.”••