Ukraine plans hotel on site of Babi Yar massacre by Nazis

I thought this is such an outrageous act (note to and Chris #12: you must be ignorant of history not to understand why Babi Yar is important not as just a memorial but as history, you twerp) that my first thought was, follow the money. The city fathers want to finance a hotel by holding the Babi Yar site hostage. Transparently obvious.

Plans to build a hotel on Babi Yar are nothong more than an attempt by the Kyiv and Ukraine gov'ts to extort money from the Jewish people. They plan to demand money to "relocate" the hotels to another site. You should investigate the true motivation behind this heinous act by a corrupt nation that is desperate to raise money any way it can!

Turkey has been wiling to open all its documents for analysis together with Armenian and international scholars to determine the events of 1914-1915. However Armenians constantly reject to go over documents. They just want the world accept the terrible events which are undeniable, as genocide. History had many atrocities such as the blockade of Vienna by the Ottomans that ended with many dead civilians but these are not Genocides, they are terrible atrocities which did not have the objective of totally eliminating a race or ethnicity. In 1915 while the rebellious Armenians in the East of Turkey were brutally forced to exile, Armenians in Istanbul and Izmir were continuing to live in comfort. In fact some were even serving inside the Ottoman palace as MDs and other positions. While the atrocities to Armenians are of the highest level without investigating the actual facts and documents it is unfair to call it genocide yet.

So lets build then of occupied lands? Get a life!!~

Russia seems to have the largest land mass of any country...but i guess there is not enough land in the Kiev area to build the hotel.

sorry to have to take a different point of view, but there are too many memorials and too much ceremony about the holocaust. programs should be devised to help the former soviet education system address it's age old antisemitism, of which this latest event is just a minor lapse of taste.

Have you ever been there? I guess not. So how can you tell weather it is a forest or a ravine. I've been there many times as a child. It is a small forest and it has been surronded by a residential area back in the 1980's. And it is no surprise to me that Ukraine, the histrical hotbad of antisemitism is doing it. I thank god for taking me and my family out of this country.

Some have been built while others are under construction. :::: http://jta.org/news/article/2009/06/23/1006076/odessa-holocaust-museum-dedicated http://www.forward.com/articles/7010/

While Jews lost 6 million people under Hitler, Ukraine lost far more under Stalin's forced starvation program. http://infoukes.com/history/famine/gregorovich/

And as a note, Babi Yar is by no stretch of the imagination a 'forest.' It's a deep ravine. That was its attraction for the Germans. All they had to do was shoot the Jews in the bottom and pull down earth from the sides to bury them.

Israel built a kibbutz on the site of Deir Yassin, and that 'Museum of Tolerance' was slated to go up over a Muslim cemetery. What's the problem? As I recall, many here were outraged that anyone could find fault with these actions.

Haaretz, please keep us informed as what we can do to help Councilmember Councilman Sergei Melnik. This is an important issue to all of us.

You're very selective. Is the ADL a Russian organisation? Is AIPAC ? They, supported by American Jews lobbied Congress against recognising the Armenian Holocaust committed by Israel's ally, Turkey. Where are the articles about this? Shame on them.

from the undoubted horrors of the Holocaust. Surely the land is for the living not the dead. A plaque and a memorial is sufficient at Ypres the site of a major battle during WW1 where a lot more people died than at Babi Yar, but it is built on as people get on with their lives. Or do the people of Europe have to set aside vast tracts of land, because someone died there once? In which case most of Europe can't be built on. Don't misunderstand me the Holocaust was unique in it's barbarity but it is time to move on.

Dear, The Israelis have been doing this kind or even worser like building on a muslim cemetery in central Jerusalem turning the mosques to night bars the facts are there go and see them for yourselfs but as those places are not jewish you will OK them I would say.

The Israeli right wants folks to ignore reality. Just as Ahmadinejad wants folks to ignore reality. The cause of both is simple. To prevent decent and rational people from dealing with reality.

put all cites of holocaust massacre, under the protection of unesco.

soccer is a great healer and brings people closer together.Babi Yar is a good place to heal

Anti-semitism is the oldest ideology in Russia and Ukraine for sure, as well as most parts of the world.

Ukrainians...great Jew-lovers!

We don't live there no more and we're not going back so screw them! Anyway, we don't have that victim image anymore. If we say something, it's predictable that they'll bring up the Palestinians. Frankly, I don't think we could win the argument right now. It's just a sad story. This isn't the only problem we have with them. It's a place notorious for Anti-Semites like the Klan. It's a story but it's not our land and not our country. We can't do anything about it but cry for the victims of Babi Yar. Who gives a shit about the Ukraine anyway?

What could be more important than making money? There is no respect or memory of this massacre. I guess the government there wants to deny or forget that it ever happened.

If places like Babi Yar are remembered and there is no monument to the people murdered there, it makes it easier for holocaust deniers like Ahmadinejad. When countries destroy the evidence and memories of the genocided, it makes it easier for people to remain ignorant of what happened there. It may be that Hitler said "who remembers the Armenians" before he killed the Jews; however, I doubt there is an Armenian alive who will let you forget what happened to them; but more accurately there are few people who know the Circassians were 95% genocided, and people don't know or care because they never found out about it.

From what I understand from Armenian talkbacks is that the Russians would not let the Armenians talk about their genocide during Stalin's day; and that is the way Russians do their business. Armenians suffered a lot because of the Russian civil war, from Lenin as well as from Turkey and Germany. They went from the genocide to suffering under Stalin. Their present president escaped to Azerbaijan from Stalinism. It is the Armenian diaspora that keeps the genocide recognition issue alive; Russian Armenians are ambilavent from their being and having been under Russian rule.

I wrote here before that the residents in Sochi where Russia plans to have the Olympics are also angry because Russia plans to build over the area where (Abkhazis I believe) were massacred. In the days on Russian expansionism, many people, including Circassians were genocided. Although Armenians always remember their genocide, 95% of the Circassians were genocided by Russians and not too many people know or remember it. In Kiev, the Jews were genocided and there should be a monument to them, or it will all be forgotten as has been the genocide of the Circassians and other non-white natives of the Caucasus. You may see protests during the Russian Olympics if the Russians allow it.