On November 10, in the town of Lubavitch, the Rudnya district of the Smolensk Region, there was a Holocaust memorial was dedicated. The memorial and accompanying ceremony commemorated 483 Jews who were murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices in November 1941.
The monument was made possible thanks to the initiative of the Russian Jewish Congress (RJC) and the Holocaust Center.
During the ceremony, RJC Head Yuri Kaner explained that the memorial was dedicated in Lubavitch as part of the "Restore Dignity" project which was initiated by the Russian Jewish Congress in 2008. The project’s goal is to identify the mass graves of Holocaust victims in Russia, where possible burying the remains in compliance with Jewish law and erecting monuments to the victims at the sites.
The dedication ceremony involved the Deputy Governor of the Smolensk Region, Sergei Goryunov, local officials and activists from the Jewish community and various Jewish organizations, Israeli diplomats and representatives of other diplomatic missions. Rabbi Yizchak Kogan of Moscow's Bolshaya Bronnaya Synagogue and Chief Rabbi of Smolensk Levi Mondshine read the memorial prayer.