Drobytskyi Yar, Kharkiv
The shooting of the Kharkiv ghetto's prisoners in December 1941 – January 1942: 16 to 20 thousand people; the memorial was damaged in 2022.
In December 1941 – January 1942 the Nazis shot the prisoners of the Kharkiv ghetto, prisoners of war and the mentally ill at Drobytskyi Yar in groups of 250–300. The ESU gives 16–20 thousand killed, the exact number could not be established; the Kharkiv archive documents 15,000, the Drobytskyi Yar foundation estimates up to 30,000. The memorial complex, from a 1991 competition, by Oleksandr Leibfreid and Viacheslav Savenkov, opened in December 2002, followed in 2005 by the Hall of Memory with the "Bowl of Sorrow". On 26 March 2022 russian shelling damaged the menorah and the main monument: craters on the grounds, trees destroyed; the Ministry of Defence wrote then: "The Nazis are back. Exactly 80 years later." On 27 January 2025 the memorial honoured the victims without visitors for the first time.
Closed to the public since 2022: about 80 per cent of the grounds have not been demined; official ceremonies are held on 27 January. Kharkiv and the region are under daily strikes.