Dear organizers, dear participants, 

Dear Excellencies,

On the 1st of November 2005, the UN General Assembly adopted the "Holocaust Remembrance" resolution, declaring the 27^th of January the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Ukraine at a state level commemorates the Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, the most terrible page in the history of the Jewish people and one of the most terrible genocides.

At the time of the German attack, Ukraine had the largest Jewish population in Europe - 2.7 million people, but the devastating policy of terror against Jews in occupied Ukraine destroyed them as a socio-cultural and ethno-religious community.

  Today we honor the memory of all those who remained forever behind the barbed wire of Nazi torture chambers, in nameless graves or crematoriums. For the physical destruction of entire nations, the Nazis created a terrible network of concentration camps: Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Westerbork, Gross-Rosen, Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Mauthausen, Majdanek, Salaspils, Sobibor, Treblinka.

Millions of people were destroyed in the bloody camps, which became links of the conveyor belt of death. It is scary to even imagine the scale of murder, gas chambers, torture, mass executions, hunger and unbearable slavish existence in the ghetto.

  As Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl, a former prisoner of Nazi concentration camps, wrote: "those of us who do not have similar life experience are unlikely to understand the conflict, destructive to the soul and willpower, that occurs in the soul of a starving person." Ukrainians especially remember the pain of the execution of the nation by starvation.

One of the most terrible places of exterminating Jews is Babin Yar in Kyiv, which has also become a symbol of mourning, where already at the beginning of March 2022 russian cruise missiles were sent.

Honoring the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, I cannot help but mention the courage and self-sacrifice of those Ukrainians who, risking their own lives and the lives of their families, saved Jews during the German occupation of Ukraine. The special commission of the Yad Vashem Jewish memorial museum identified 2,673 names of such heroic Ukrainians, awarding them the honorary title of "Righteous Among the Nations."

It is also impossible not to mention the blessed hieromartyr Father Omelyan Kovch, who saved many prisoners of the Majdanek concentration camp: he baptized them and issued more than 600 baptism certificates, despite the risk of reprisals by the Nazi occupation administration. The Sheptytskyi family, saving more than 160 Jews and openly demanding from the Nazi leaders to stop their persecution, became an example of how valuable mutual aid and mutual respect is, regardless of nationality and religion.

The anti-Semitic obsession of the Nazi regime marked the history of mankind with extremely cruel atrocities.

Now Ukrainians are fighting the russian aggressors for their lives, defending their right to be a sovereign state with weapons in their hands. The russian federation launched a war against Ukraine with the ferocious obsession of the Nazis - a “crystal” opinion that Ukrainians have no right to exist.

Years have passed since the Nazi crimes. "Never again" was repeated in the form of new war crimes and crimes against humanity. The criminals, and the direct perpetrators of these heinous crimes, are the leadership of the kremlin. This is why, Ukraine strongly calls for joining the creation of the Special Tribunal for the punishment of the russian murderers and their accomplices.

On the 20^th of January 2022, Ukraine joined the statement on behalf of the EU made during the session of the UN General Assembly. In particular, it emphasized that the Holocaust is one of the biggest crimes in human history and that its memory is a cornerstone of European values.

By cherishing the value of human life, we can do everything possible to prevent the recurrence of terrible, bloody human tragedies.

Do not be silent when russian murderers have unleashed a war and are destroying Ukrainians.

By understanding the uniqueness of a person, respecting dignity, showing mercy, we honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Thank you for your attention.