Seeing, feeling, remembering: a new exhibition at the Babyn Yar Museum

An exhibition entitled «Their Memory in My Eyes» is accessible to visitors of the Babyn Yar National Historical Memorial. Testimony of witnesses to the genocide back from the Second World War in conjunction with visual materials have been presented by ARKA Youth Agency for Roma Culture Advocacy.     

This exhibition is a deep and emotional journey into history in which each historical material tells a personal story of a victim or a witness. It is dedicated to the memory of Romanis who have survived the Nazi genocide in the Second World War or to their fallen relatives.

Within the exhibition, documentary evidence and visual materials have been presented that depict history in an emotional manner. Thanks to the materials being displayed, we can see those moments that typically remain outside the official historiography and thus, we are able to emphasise with the pain. After all, the storytellers are children. The stories of genocide have been visualised by Natali Tomenko, a painter.

«I have painted each and every poster for each and every personal story from the standpoint of a Romani artist. Moreover, I have created them from the standpoint of a descendant, a grandchild of a genocide survivor. This topic hit very close to home as it has been discussed in my family on many occasions. Stories in this exhibition are stories of children, stories of their survival. Of which strategies have children chosen in order to save not only their own lives but the lives of their close ones», – said Natali Tomenko.     

Illustration: Natali TOMENKO

In various countries, the tragedy of Romani people took place in a different manner—but the fact that was common to all of the numerous groups in different countries was the suffering of the children. The authors of the exhibition hope that the search for common symbols and ideas about the past shall urge Romanis to develop new forms of representation of their own history in the public space. The project intends to draw attention to the problem of childhood in the present-day conditions of Romaphobia and the Russian-Ukrainian war. 

«This project is of vital importance today, too. After all, due to the full-scale invasion, there are children suffering, too—including Romani children. At the same time, there are pending wars in several countries all around our planet. So this is a bit of an international project which was on abroad, too. I want as many people to see these materials as possible. The narratives, the visual content will allow people to get closer to the Romani community and see that Romanis are people just like anyone else. Like Ukrainians, like Jews, like Crimean Tatars. That Romanis are a part of the Ukrainian society», – stresses Natali Tomenko, the visual artist of the project and Deputy Director of ARСA.      

The exhibition stresses how important it is to preserve the memory. Those personal stories are vehicles through which we now have the possibility to not just find out about the events of the past but also feel the emotions of the survivors. It is important to not just preserve the memory about the tragedy but to deeply realise that each loss is more than a statistical subtraction—it stands for families destroyed, fates destroyed, and entire little worlds demolished. 

Illustration: Natali TOMENKO

Preservation of this testimony is crucially important in order for the dignified honouring of memory to take place. An exhibition is a reminder of the fact that our history is comprised of millions of such victims. This is a reminder to us of the fact that human life is valuable and of the fact how important it is to remember those who perished, in order for those victims to not have fallen in vain.

The exhibition is open until late September at the following address: city of Kyiv, 44 Yuriia Illienka Street.

Illustration: Natali TOMENKO