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Classy politician o' the day - the Mayor of Kiev

From Ha'aretz:

"No monument stands over Babi Yar" - may once again be an accurate reflection of reality if Kiev's municipality carries out its plan to build a hotel on the memorial site of one of the most notorious massacres of Jews during the Holocaust. On September 29 and 30, 1941, German SS troops, supported by other German units and local collaborators, gathered 33,771 Jewish civilians at the ravine outside Kiev and murdered them with machine guns....Last week, however, the Kiev municipality approved a plan to build 28 hotels to accommodate the tens of thousands of visitors expected for soccer's 2012 European Championships. One of these hotels is planned to be set up on the Babi Yar site, now in a residential area of Kiev. Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi has reportedly been interested in turning his city's remaining green space into real estate and is taking advantage of Euro 2012 to implement his plan, city sources said". 
Babi Yar is probably best known from its reference in D.M.Thomas's 'The White Hotel', a well-received novel from 1981, which - shall we say - was quite free in its use of material from Kuznetzov's memoir 'Babi Yar'. Both merit reading.

I would hope that people would not wish to work above an ossuary or to stay in a hotel built on a foundation of human bones.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 9:21 am. You can skip to the end and leave a response.

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Blogger JuliaM said... 9:43 am

"I would hope that people would not wish to work above an ossuary or to stay in a hotel built on a foundation of human bones. "

It's 2009. The only question on the lips of most of the target audience for this would be 'What are the bar prices, and is there a good buffet?'...  



Blogger Croydonian said... 11:07 am

I fear you are right. To adapt Mencken, no-one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the public.  



Blogger Old BE said... 2:48 pm

I am speechless.  



Blogger Croydonian said... 11:21 am

BE - Hateful, isn't it?  



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