On September 5, a poignant memorial ceremony took place at the Holocaust memorial in Kalevi-Liiva, Estonia. This ceremony was attended by distinguished individuals and representatives, underscoring the solemnity of the occasion.
The Kalevi-Liiva dunes and forest became a killing site on September 5, 1942, when the first group of Czech Jews was shot at the site. In the spring of 1943, attempts were made to hide the murder. The mass graves were discovered only in 1961. In 1995-1996, the Jewish Community of Estonia erected a monument to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. In 2002, the Czech, German and Polish embassies helped to renovate an information board on the killing site.
The ceremony was attended by members of the Council of the Jewish Community of Estonia, representatives of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, representatives of the Embassies of Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and the United States.
The Chairman of the Community Alla Jakobson addressed the audience: “We must never forget the events that took place here. The Holocaust is an unimaginable crime. It is our duty to seal the memory of these broken lives for future generations so that a tragedy like this never happens again.”
