In the village of Oktyabrskoye, located near the city of Kerch (in Ukraine’s Crimea), a memorial service took place, dedicated to the 69th anniversary of the genocide of Jews in what was then Nazi-occupied Kerch. The service took place on November 29.
The memorial was attended by the Kerch Jewish community Chairman Semyon Podolskiy, former ghetto prisoner Evgenia Borisova, and the Head of the Department for Ethnic Affairs of the Kerch City Council, Sergei Voronchikhin. The ceremony was also attended by Ludmila Yakovenko, Deputy of the Lenin Rural Area, historian Nadezhda Dotsenko, and Oleg Yukovetsky, the Chairman of the Kerch “Tavrika” Center for International Relations. Community members, school children and local residents also participated in this event.
Held at the monument and the obelisk erected in Oktyabrskoye to pay honor to the Jews who died here in this mass execution (at the Bagerovsky moat), the crowd gathered to remember the deceased with a moment of silence and the lighting of memorial candles. Those who spoke at the gathering called for the living to honor the memory of the victims through kindness and friendship between people regardless of their nationality.