17 May 2008 13:04

Ukraine 3000 Foundation Members Take Part in Cleaning Up the Bykivnia Graves State Historical and Memorial Preserve

May 17, 2008, members of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation took part in cleaning up the grounds of the Bykivnia Graves State Historical and Memorial Preserve. This action was timed to coincide with the events within the framework of celebrating the Victory Day and commemorating the victims of political repression on the third Sunday of May.

The Fund members cleaned up a part of the preserve territory, removing the garbage from mass grave sites of Ukrainian intelligentsia executed in 1937.

Among other participants of the action were students and teachers from local schools, public authorities, and members of the religious organizations.

The Ukraine 3000 Foundation has been initiating clean-ups in the Bykivnia Graves preserve territory for the last two years. Last year, on an initiative of the Fund and the PLAST Ukrainian Scouting Organization, the Memory Beyond Time patriotic charitable action was held, cleaning up the sites of mass shootings of Ukrainian intelligentsia in 1937 and of Soviet prisoners of war returning from Germany in 1945. A commemorative plaque was placed on the site where the executed prisoners of war are buried.

In 1936-1941, the Bykivnia Forest was used for mass burials of those repressed and executed by NKVD in Kyiv. In 1936, the construction of a special zone for secret burials officially began. Since then till Kyiv’s occupation by the Nazis, the victims of the Communist regime had been systematically buried in the woods near Bykivnia.

Also in the thick of the forest, 800-900 meters away from the territory once enclosed into the green fence, mass graves of the Soviet prisoners of the war and Ostarbeiters were found, who returned home from the German prison in 1941-1945 and were also shot.

By the historians’ data, around 120-130,000 people were buried in the Bykivnia Forest.

April 30, 1994, the Bykivnia Memorial Compound was unveiled. May 22, 2001, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine led by Viktor Yushchenko passed a decision, On Creating the Bykivnia Graves State Historical and Memorial Preserve, May 22, 2006, by an order of President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko, the preserve received the national status.