Every year on January 27, the world observes International Holocaust Remembrance Day, honoring the victims of the Nazi regime, including six million Jews. In Ukraine, the tragedy of the Jewish people is an inseparable part of the nation’s history and collective memory.
To mark this occasion, the UNESCO Office in Ukraine, in cooperation with the State Archival Service of Ukraine and with the support of the European Union, organized the international conference «Memory as Resilience: Preserving Jewish Documentary Heritage in Ukraine». The event brought together leading scholars, experts, archivists, government representatives, and civil society representatives to discuss the importance of documentary heritage in preserving historical truth, combating antisemitism, and fostering cultural resilience, particularly in times of war.
Representatives of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy also took part in the event: Taisa Sydorchuk, head and researcher of the historical group of the project «Jewish Heritage in Ukraine: interdisciplinary reflections through the lens of archival documents, culture, history and literature», Tetiana Chorna, website support and online promotion manager of the project, head of the project «Digital Collection of Ukrainian-Jewish Documentary Heritage», and project manager at the Yaroslav Mudryi National Library of Ukraine, and Nadiia Ufimtseva, researcher of the project’s historical group.
Tetiana Chorna participated in the first panel discussion, “Digitalization as a Tool for Access, Preservation, and Education,” where, together with representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, the State Archival Service of Ukraine, and leading academic libraries, the role of digitization in preserving historical memory, studying the history of the Holocaust, and countering antisemitism was discussed.
The second panel of the conference was dedicated to UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” Programme as a tool for supporting Jewish collections in Ukraine. Within the discussion, Nadiia Ufimtseva and archival specialists focused on the integrative nature of Jewish heritage within the Ukrainian historical and cultural context, as well as on the specific features and challenges of its scholarly research and preservation.
An important component of the conference was the exhibition “Voices That Survived: Jewish Memory and Resilience in Ukraine.” The exhibition brought together archival photographs, video testimonies, and original documents representing both the tragic experience and the resilience of Jewish communities in Ukraine. The exhibition materials can be accessed via the link provided.
All events within the framework of the project are organized with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the partner and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.