Jewish organizations collect "Atoms of Remembrance"

Jewish organizations collect the "Atoms of Remembrance" in Chernobyl Zone of Alienation

with the support of the  Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility, Future"

 26 April 2010. The Ukrainian Union of Jewish Students and the Association of graduate students of the PAIDEIA European institute of Jewish studies (Stockholm, Sweden) have announced the start of international project on research and maintenance of Jewish legacy in Chernobyl Zone of Alienation. The research in the Polessky region (Kieva region) within the framework of project «Atoms of Remembrance» has began on the eve of the Chernobyl nuclear power station catastrophe anniversary.

The first expedition took place in the memory days, when the former habitants of the abandoned cities come to the burial places of their relatives. Jewish families also come here because these days there is an access to the closed territories of the cemetery. Researchers not only studied the state of the Jewish memorial places but also got a few interesting testimonies: for example the fact that the wave of Jewish migration from these places coincided with beginning of Chernobyl nuclear power station building – as though people felt the hidden threat.

"A half-decay period of the memories is much shorter, than one of Plutonium. So one of major aims of our project is to collect and save these flashbacks while eyewitnesses are still alive" – says Alex Krasnitsky, one of the project organizers.

Chernobyl region comes into the special notice of the Jewish culture researchers from around the world in spite of danger because  here is a grave of one of spiritual leaders ofHassidism, founder of Chernobyl Rabbi  dynasty Menakhem Nakhum Tversky.

Now the project organizers are preparing the trip to the Zone of Alienation for young specialists from the Western European countries. These are artists, journalists andculture experts. This summer they will go to Polessky region «in search of lost time». The results of the project will be presented in autumn at an international exhibition in Stockholm. 

Organizers are ready to give exclusive pictures, share the results of researches, the records of interviews with the inhabitants and those, who visit Area of alienation, to invite the representatives of mass-media and NGOs and to accompany international groups in further expeditions.

A project is organized by the Ukrainian Union of Jewish students together with the Association of graduate students of the PAIDEIA European institute of Jewish studies(Stockholm) within the framework of the Geschichtswerkstatt Europa program with the support of “Memory, Responsibility, Future” Foundation (EVZ, Germany). 

The list of sites where the release was published:

http://www.aen.ru/?page=brief&article_id=56967

http://www.sem40.ru/lenta/news-dir/184333.html