101 years over the mass grave: the history of the oldest memorial complex of the Jewish community of Ukraine – video

A recent report by local television about the monument to the Proskurov pogrom prompted me to check the history of the memorial itself. Behind the 1925 obelisk lies a separate century-long biography — a mass grave, rescuers of Jews, a vanished cemetery, an almost completed demolition, Hebrew inscriptions of the 21st century, and three different official names for one object.

Author: Anton Pshedynsky

On the evening of August 27, 2026, I came across a small segment on Khmelnytsky’s 33 channel titled “Bloody History of the Oldest Memorial Complex of the Jewish Community”.

In the frame — a tall light obelisk, bronze human figures, the Star of David, menorahs on the fence, and a slab with an inscription in Hebrew. The segment lasts less than four minutes. But almost every minute of it raised a separate question.

Why is a monument built in 1925 adorned with works by a sculptor born in 1937? Who paid for its construction? What from the current complex has truly been preserved from 1925? How did it survive the German occupation? Why did the Soviet authorities simultaneously limit Jewish memory and place this object under state protection? Who decided to demolish it after the collapse of the USSR? Why is the same monument called by three different names in official Ukrainian documents today?

And finally: who is actually buried under it and how many people are there?

I started checking.

The historian we hear in the report is Sergey Nikolaevich Yesyunin, a candidate of historical sciences and a leading researcher at the Khmelnytsky Regional Museum of Local Lore. He has been working at the museum since 1995, and since 2006 as a leading researcher, focusing on the history of Khmelnytsky and the cities of Podolia, and is the author of hundreds of historical and local lore publications. Therefore, his appearance in the segment is not a random street comment: before us is one of the people who professionally study the history of the city.

But then I deliberately did not limit myself even to his story. For NANews — News of Israel, I compared the segment with archival materials, documents of the Khmelnytsky City Council, the historical and architectural plan of the city, publications of “Hesed Besht”, “Shtetl No.7”, data on cultural heritage, and our previous studies of Ukrainian-Jewish history.

And the monument turned out to be almost an independent historical character.

February 15, 1919: three hours after which a mass grave appeared

First, we need to understand what happened at this place.

Proskurov is today’s Khmelnytsky. The city was renamed in 1954, so the name “Proskurov pogrom” may not mean anything to an Israeli reader who knows the modern map of Ukraine.

February 15, 1919, was a Saturday — Shabbat.

At this moment, Ukraine was in the chaos of war after the collapse of the Russian Empire. Bolsheviks, Ukrainian troops, White armies, local armed formations, and later Polish troops were simultaneously active here. State institutions existed, but control over armed people was far from what we understand today.

After an unsuccessful Bolshevik uprising in Proskurov, ataman Ivan Semesenko accused the local Jewish population of supporting the uprising.

Semesenko commanded a Ukrainian military unit that was part of the UNR — Ukrainian People’s Republic forces. For an Israeli reader, the closest explanation is this: the UNR was an attempt to create an independent Ukrainian state in 1917–1921, simultaneously at war with Bolshevik Moscow and other forces.

It was Semesenko’s Ukrainian military subordinates who went into the Jewish quarters of Proskurov.

Sergey Yesyunin in the report speaks of 1600 killed in less than three hours. He emphasizes another terrible feature: people were mostly not shot but killed with bayonets and other cold weapons.

Historical materials indeed contain testimonies of an order not to expend bullets. Descriptions feature bayonets and sabers.

Yesyunin also speaks of the elderly, children, women, and pregnant women among the victims.

Another detail sounds almost implausible: an orchestra and sisters of mercy.

It did not arise from thin air. Sources describe the organized passage of an armed column through the city before the start of mass killings, with the column accompanied by an orchestra; testimonies also mention sisters of mercy. But there is a fine line here. I did not find sufficient grounds to write that the orchestra continued playing directly during the killings inside the houses.

Therefore, the phrase “the massacre took place under the music of the orchestra” sounds impressive but goes beyond what can be confidently proven.

1600 dead — a number of memory, but the archive gives a different picture

The situation with the number of victims is not entirely clear.

On the memorial and in the materials of the local Jewish community, the number 1600 people is fixed.

But archival calculations do not allow it to be turned into the only indisputable number.

In the preserved nominal document, 1063 people killed and died from wounds are listed. Other sources give about 1200 directly killed and hundreds more who died later. In historical literature, one can find a range of approximately 900 to 1600 victims.

Why such a range?

Because we are comparing different things: people who died directly on February 15; those who died later from wounds; lists compiled at different times; eyewitness testimonies; materials of aid organizations; later reconstructions of losses.

Therefore, I would leave 1600 exactly where this number has a source: in the words of Sergey Yesyunin, on the memorial, and in the memory of the community. But if answering the question “how many people historically proven died,” the answer no longer fits into one number.

This is precisely the case where caution does not diminish the tragedy. On the contrary — it separates memory from the accounting illusion of absolute accuracy.

960 orphans and three orphanages

After the pogrom, another number remained, which is easy to overlook against the backdrop of the number of dead.

960 children, according to the local Jewish community and materials of “Shtetl No.7”, were left orphans.

Orphanages were created for them.

A hundred years later, the “Hesed Besht” foundation returned to these children as a separate line of memory: in a special issue of “Shtetl No.7”, prepared for the centenary of the pogrom, information about the dead, orphans, and eyewitness testimonies were collected.

The fund also holds the book “Fragments of Old Proskurov”, which contains documents about the Jewish history of the city.

This detail changes the scale of the event. “1600 dead” is a terrible statistic. But 960 children who had parents in the morning and were orphans by evening is already a social catastrophe of an entire urban community.

It was from this community that the idea of the monument was born six years later.

Was it “Petliura’s pogrom”

This is one of the questions that will inevitably arise for a reader in Israel.

For decades under Soviet rule, the monument was officially called “The Mass Grave of the Victims of the Petliura Pogrom”.

Does this mean that Symon Petliura ordered the killing of Jews in Proskurov?

I did not find such a document, and historians do not present it.

The direct organizer of the Proskurov pogrom is called Ivan Semesenko. At the same time, Semesenko and his people acted within the UNR armed forces system, which means it is also impossible to completely exclude the political and military leadership of the republic.

We have already separately analyzed this complex topic in the NANews material “Do not forget about the sword”: Symon Petliura, Ukraine, Israel, and the controversial memory that cannot be given to Moscow.

For this article, it is enough to fix the boundary of what is proven: Petliura’s order to conduct the Proskurov pogrom is not established; the mass killing was committed by Semesenko’s Ukrainian servicemen; the ability of the UNR leadership to prevent and punish pogroms remains a separate question of historical responsibility.

That is why the modern name “Proskurov pogrom” is more accurate than the Soviet political label “Petliura’s”.

But the Soviet formulation has not completely disappeared. A hundred years later, it unexpectedly resurfaces in the registry history of the monument itself. I will return to this.

There were Jews in the same Ukrainian army: 1919 does not fit into a black-and-white picture

Here it is especially easy to make history convenient.

One can say: Ukrainian military killed Jews — and put a period.

But then another reality from the same 1919 will have to be cut out.

A few months after the Proskurov massacre, a full-fledged Jewish military unit operated within the Ukrainian Galician Army — Solomon Leinberg’s Jewish Kurin. NANews detailed it in the material “The History of the Jewish Kurin in the Ukrainian Galician Army of 1919”.

Jewish fighters fought for the Ukrainian state project, operating in areas including Proskurov, Vinnytsia, Berdychiv, and Fastiv.

Another line is associated with Yevhen Konovalets.

Konovalets’ Sich Riflemen arrived in Proskurov after the pogrom. Konovalets ordered an investigation. Sotnik Mykola Bisik and city commandant Hryhoriy Hladky collected materials on the causes of the killings, organizers, perpetrators, and losses of the Jewish population.

We checked this episode separately in the article “Yevhen Konovalets returns to Ukraine: Jews alongside the founder of the OUN…”.

But even there, I did not find evidence that this investigation resulted in a full-fledged judicial punishment of the organizers specifically for the mass killing of Jews.

An inconvenient, yet real picture emerges.

In one 1919, people in Ukrainian uniforms killed Jews in Proskurov.

Other Ukrainian military investigated this killing.

And Jewish soldiers simultaneously wore Ukrainian uniforms themselves and fought for Ukrainian statehood.

A short slogan here will inevitably lie about something.

People who said “no” in February 1919

Another feature of the current memorial is that it tells not only about the victims.

In the report, Sergey Yesyunin separately recalls people who tried to save Jews.

Klymentiy Kachurovsky was a protodeacon of the Proskurov Cathedral. It is important to clarify: protodeacon is a church rank, so the common definition “priest-protodeacon” is legally and ecclesiastically inaccurate.

Kachurovsky hid Jewish children in his home. When people sought refuge near the temple, he tried to protect them and was killed himself.

His story later received a separate place on the memorial.

Sergey Polozov — a doctor and public figure — also sheltered people and helped the victims.

Trokhym Verkholya, associated with the city council and the Ukrainian public movement, opposed the pogrom and sought to stop the violence.

Sources also mention an official L. Bienko, who died trying to protect Jews.

But the automatic transcription of the fresh TV segment let us down here.

It mentions a certain “Vikentiy Sihora”.

When I started looking for this person, the story did not add up.

Historical materials name the head of Proskurov Mykola Vikentiyovych Sikora. Together with other city authorities, including Marian Stavinsky, he demanded to stop what was happening.

This is a minor mistake only at first glance.

After several reprints, “Vikentiy Sihora” would have turned into yet another historical character, although he most likely appeared simply from poorly recognized Ukrainian speech.

1925: the monument is erected not by the state, but by the living community of the deceased

Six years later, an obelisk appeared over the mass grave.

This is 1925.

At that time, people who had seen the pogrom with their own eyes were still alive. Widows of the deceased walked the streets of Proskurov. Children who had been orphaned were growing up. For them, February 15, 1919, was not “the history of Ukrainian Jewry,” but a specific day of their own lives.

And it was they who collected the money.

The main funds for the creation of the memorial were provided by the families of the deceased and the Jewish community of Proskurov. More detailed local materials also indicate partial financial assistance from the city authorities.

Therefore, the too beautiful phrase from the TV segment — “built entirely without state funds” — I would slightly correct. The initiative and main funding were indeed communal, but the city’s participation, according to sources, was also present.

For construction, bricks from the local Halperin factory were used.

In “Shtetl No.7”, the author of the project is named I. Korenblit, as well as local craftsmen whose names have not been preserved.

There are grounds to assume that this refers to the artist Israel Korenblit (1890–1971), but I did not find a document that would allow unequivocally equating “I. Korenblit” with Israel Korenblit.

Therefore, the modern city record remains more cautious and simply states:

“local craftsmen”.

What exactly remains of the 1925 monument

Here begins the first big mystery that the TV report does not explain.

Today, the memorial looks like a rather complex complex: a tall obelisk, bronze reliefs, inscriptions, menorahs, the Star of David, tiles.

But in 1925, this entire set did not exist.

The historical core was a stepped brick obelisk over the mass grave.

The official record gives its height as 7.4 meters. In the materials of the Jewish community, a rounded description is found — about eight meters.

In the detailed documentation, the foundation dimensions are approximately 5.07 × 3.8 meters.

This is a massive brick structure consisting of several volumes decreasing upwards with a pyramidal top.

And here’s another characteristic detail emphasized by the community: the monument did not receive the usual set of Soviet symbols. It emerged before the Stalin era and was created as a Jewish memorial pantheon, not as a later state Soviet structure.

But the most noticeable thing in modern photographs appeared much later.

Sculptor Korzhev was minus 12 years old in 1925.

In the 33 channel story, we see bronze bas-reliefs and hear the name of the Khmelnytsky sculptor Konstantin Korzhev.

If you watch the video without additional verification, you might decide that Korzhev designed the monument in 1925.

Impossible.

Konstantin Alekseevich Korzhev was born on March 4, 1937, in Baku. He lived and worked in Khmelnytsky from the mid-1960s, engaged in monumental sculpture, and died in 2004.

Therefore, the bas-reliefs belong to the modern reconstruction.

Even more interesting is the discrepancy in authorship.

The TV story names Konstantin Korzhev.

The historical and architectural documentation of Khmelnytsky associates the relief compositions with Konstantin and Alexander Korzhev.

Therefore, the most accurate formulation is not to attribute the entire current complex to one author, but to say that the bas-relief design was created by the Korzhevs during the later reconstruction.

One of the reliefs is dedicated to Klymentiy Kachurovsky.

This is no longer the monument of 1925.

This is a conversation of descendants with the monument of 1925.

The obelisk survived the German occupation — and we don’t know why.

In July 1941, German troops occupied Proskurov.

For the local Jewish community, another catastrophe began — the Holocaust.

The Nazi occupiers created a ghetto in Proskurov. The history of the Jews of the region during the Holocaust is gradually returning today through archival documents. As early as 2024, NANovosti reported how the materials of the Jewish communities of the Khmelnytsky region began to be massively digitized: “Archival documents about the Jewish community and the Holocaust are being digitized in the Khmelnytsky region of Ukraine”.

And the monument to the 1919 pogrom — survived.

Why?

I don’t know.

And after searching, I didn’t find a document that allows a confident answer.

You can’t write that the Germans “decided to leave” the monument. You can’t invent a secret reason. We only know the result: the structure survived the occupation.

There is a photograph from 1950. The obelisk is already back in Soviet Proskurov and looks quite recognizable. Next to it in the photo are still Jewish tombstones.

This is a very important photograph.

Because today the surrounding cemetery of the monument in that form no longer exists.

The cemetery disappeared around the monument.

Initially, the obelisk stood in the Jewish cemetery.

Later, the urban environment around changed. The materials of the Jewish community say that part of the cemetery territory was liquidated, the land was used for construction, household needs, and gardens.

As a result, there was almost a visual substitution.

A modern person arrives at the address, sees a standalone well-maintained memorial complex, and perceives it as a monument that was once specifically placed on a vacant lot.

But it stands here because under it is a mass grave, and around it was once a Jewish cemetery.

The disappearance of the surrounding space changed the reading of the monument itself.

That is why in this story, it is necessary to distinguish between the preservation of the obelisk and the preservation of the historical landscape.

These are not the same thing.

Soviet power: prohibiting memory and simultaneously protecting the monument.

The Soviet episode especially poorly fits into ready-made schemes.

The materials of the Jewish community speak of restrictions on holding independent commemorative events. There is also a statement about plans to remove the monument.

But at the same time, it was the Soviet authorities that officially made it a protected historical object.

On March 11, 1972, the executive committee of the Khmelnytsky regional council adopted decision No. 66.

The object received protection number 1.

The name was:

“Mass grave of the victims of the Petliura pogrom”.

At the same time, Soviet communal services periodically performed cosmetic repairs.

It turns out to be an inconvenient paradox: the Soviet system could control the form of Jewish public memory, but physically not only did it not destroy the obelisk — it included it in the state register.

And it is this 1972 decision that still surfaces in Khmelnytsky documents 54 years later.

After the USSR, the monument was almost lost.

One might expect that after 1991, the Jewish monument would enter its safest time.

The opposite happened.

Regular maintenance ceased. The plaster began to fall off. The old brickwork was exposed. The monument gradually fell into a state of disrepair.

At some point, specialists came to a decision that today sounds almost incredible:

the old obelisk was proposed to be dismantled, and a new memorial sign installed in its place.

Housing services were instructed to prepare documentation and estimates for dismantling.

And then the monument was saved by a completely prosaic thing — money.

When they started counting, it turned out that dismantling the huge old brick structure would be expensive.

Restoring it turned out to be more rational.

If the estimate had been slightly different, today we might be looking not at the obelisk of 1925, but at a modern replacement.

Autumn 1998: the decision was made to keep the old brick.

The real salvation began in autumn 1998.

Funding was sought from Vadim Rabinovich, who then headed the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress. He allocated the first funds.

Later, the city got involved, and local builders helped.

Technical issues were handled by Vladimir Suslov and Yefim Shraybman.

The work was not cosmetic.

The damaged plaster was removed from the obelisk.

Damaged bricks were cleaned and replaced.

The structure was reinforced.

After that, it was replastered.

The work was carried out, in particular, by the enterprise “Vlata”, headed by Vladimir Trofimov.

Therefore, today’s object is not a “new creation based on 1925”.

Inside it, the original brick structure has been preserved.

This is one of the most important things I managed to find out.

1999–2001: around the old obelisk, a completely new memorial appears.

In 1999, the Jewish charitable fund “Hesed Besht” began operating in Khmelnytsky.

After saving the structure itself, the second stage began — creating a space of memory around it.

It was at this moment that the memorial was born in the form we see in the 2026 video.

Four bronze bas-reliefs appeared.

Four memorial plaques appeared.

The territory was paved.

A metal fence was installed.

The design of the fence incorporated menorahs.

The fence design is associated with the artist Israel Giora Moiseev.

In the central part of the complex, a Star of David was arranged, filled with a large granite stone — a kind of small memorial mound.

The area around the mass grave took on the appearance that is easy to mistake for the original today.

But between the original obelisk and this design — about three-quarters of a century.

The Hebrew on the monument is genuine, but it is also a later layer.

The TV story says that the inscriptions are in Ukrainian and Hebrew.

This is confirmed by photographs.

In the 2019 photo near the memorial, a plaque is clearly visible: Ukrainian text on the left, Hebrew on the right.

So there is no doubt here.

But the historical and architectural documentation of the city provides a more complete picture: the memorial elements use Ukrainian, Hebrew, and English.

Therefore, the statement “on the monument Ukrainian and Hebrew” is true, but does not fully describe the linguistic design of the complex.

And even more importantly: these plaques themselves do not belong to 1925, but to the reconstruction of the late 1990s — early 2000s.

The modern memorial literally speaks simultaneously in several historical languages.

The brick speaks the language of 1925.

The Soviet passport — the language of 1972.

Bronze and Hebrew plaques — the language of Jewish revival after the collapse of the USSR.

Why are 1998, 2000, 2001, and even 2004 mentioned?

If you simply search for the date of the monument’s reconstruction, a new confusion arises.

In one source — 1998.

In another — 2000.

In a third — 2001.

Even 2004 is mentioned.

At first glance, someone is mistaken.

After comparison, the chronology becomes clearer.

1998 — the beginning of saving the old obelisk.

1999 — the creation of ‘Hesed Besht’ and the continuation of work within a new organizational framework.

2000–2001 — the formation of the current complex, installation of memorial elements, and landscaping.

A detailed chronicle names October 2001 as the moment of the complete restoration of the monument and mass grave.

The final finishing was done by the company ‘DITA’, and the landscaping is associated with ‘Vlata’.

And the 2004 mentioned in some publications, judging by the sequence of events, refers not to the beginning of saving the original structure, but to later activities or a generalized description of the completed project.

Therefore, writing in one line ‘the monument was reconstructed in 2004’ means erasing several different stages.

The oldest part and the newest part literally stand one above the other.

There is almost a visual historical construction in this memorial.

Inside — brick from 1925.

Outside — restoration from 1998.

On it — artistic elements from the turn of the century.

Nearby — slabs with Hebrew.

Around — landscaping from 2000–2001.

And beneath all this — people killed in 1919.

This is not a monument of one date.

This is a layered history of memory.

And therefore, Sergey Yesunin’s words about a ‘memorial pantheon’ here are perhaps more accurate than the simple definition of ‘obelisk’.

‘The only one in Ukraine’ — that’s something I didn’t repeat.

The report claims that the structure is the only monument in Ukraine dedicated to the victims of the Jewish pogrom.

This part, after verification, I would not repeat in the article as an established fact.

There are other memorial signs and memorials to the victims of Jewish pogroms in Ukraine — in different cities and towns.

The uniqueness of Khmelnytsky lies elsewhere.

Here, a early interwar obelisk, installed in 1925 directly over the mass grave with community and victims’ families’ money, has been preserved, and then a large modern Jewish memorial was formed on its basis.

This is stronger than a dubious attempt to win a competition with the word ‘only’.

And the formulation by Channel 33 about the oldest memorial complex of the Jewish community was precisely the reason for this investigation.

2014: a swastika appeared on the pogrom monument

The story did not end after the beautiful reconstruction.

Presumably on the night of March 28, 2014, unknown individuals applied neo-Nazi symbols to the memorial.

The episode was included in the monitoring of anti-Semitism by the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine.

It resulted in an almost mocking historical circle: a structure placed over the grave of people killed as a result of anti-Semitic violence, 95 years later itself becomes the object of anti-Semitic vandalism.

But the monument remained again.

February 2026: the place is still alive, not just listed

In February 2026, on the 107th anniversary of the Proskuriv pogrom, the Jewish community of Khmelnytsky gathered again at the mass grave.

People read prayers, remembered the deceased, lit candles.

So, in front of us is not a decorative object that municipal services paint every few years.

It continues to perform exactly the function for which the families of the deceased collected money one hundred and one years ago.

Between the first generation of relatives and the people who came here in 2026, there is almost no living human chain.

There is a monument.

And now the strangest thing: what is the monument officially called today?

I specifically looked into current documents.

And I found that there is no single answer.

In the Soviet protection record, the object was called:

‘Mass grave of the victims of the Petliura pogrom’.

This wording was fixed by decision No. 66 of March 11, 1972.

In the documents of Khmelnytsky, already independent Ukraine, another name appears:

‘Mass grave of the victims of the Proskuriv pogrom’.

This is how the object is indicated, for example, in the municipal program of Khmelnytsky for 2022–2027.

But the current open city list goes even further.

In it, line No. 41 looks almost sterile:

No. 1 — ‘Mass grave’.

Further:

1919;
monument — 1925;
authors — local craftsmen;
brick, cement;
height — 7.4 m;
decision No. 66 of 11.03.1972.

here it is on Google Maps – https://maps.app.goo.gl/RR9e22Qkwr1fgXny9

So the word ‘Petliura’ is no longer there.

The word ‘Proskuriv’ is also not there.

Jews — also not there.

Only ‘Mass grave’ remains.

Was there an official renaming? I did not find a document.

The first temptation is to write: Ukrainian authorities renamed the monument.

But how to confirm it?

I searched for the corresponding decision.

I did not find it.

There is no document that would say something like: ‘rename the “Mass grave of the victims of the Petliura pogrom” to “Mass grave”‘.

Therefore, making a political conclusion about the conscious ‘erasure of Petliura’ or, conversely, ‘erasure of the Jewish theme’ based on one table is not possible.

We see another, more strange fact:

several official municipal systems use different names for the same monument.

And this is not my play on words.

Identifiers match.

Height 7.4 m.

Decision No. 66.

Protection number 1.

Address.

This is one object.

Even the address in official databases is different.

Here bureaucratic archaeology becomes relevant again.

Old address:

Tolstoy Street, 7/1.

But Lev Tolstoy Street in Khmelnytsky was renamed.

Today the memorial is located at:

Prince Svyatoslav the Brave Street, 7/1.

The modern cultural list already uses the new address.

And the city set of open data continued to show Tolstoy, 7/1, despite the database update in 2026.

Therefore, a search query ‘Proskuriv pogrom monument Khmelnytsky’, ‘Mass grave of the victims of the Petliura pogrom’, ‘Jewish memorial Tolstoy Street’, ‘Mass grave Prince Svyatoslav the Brave’ or ‘Proskuriv pogrom memorial 1925’ can lead to different cards and names, although it is about the same place. This is not a set of SEO synonyms — this is the confusion that the documents themselves create today.

In the modern state register, I did not find it as a separate line.

I checked the list published by the Ministry of Culture of the State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine for the Khmelnytsky region.

In the version updated on June 13, 2025, I did not find a separate line for the Proskuriv memorial.

But this does not mean that it can be demolished tomorrow and that the protection status is no longer there.

Here the transitional structure of Ukrainian legislation works.

The monument was taken on state record back in 1972, that is, under the legislation that existed before the current Law of Ukraine ‘On the Protection of Cultural Heritage’.

Old protected objects do not automatically turn into nothing just because their card has not yet been transferred to the new system.

And this is especially interesting right now.

In 2026, Ukraine creates a new electronic registry — and has made provisions for such monuments

On January 28, 2026, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine launched an experimental project of a new information system “State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine”.

Its structure specifically provides a field for:

the monument’s protection number, registered under the legislation that was in effect before the current law.

That is, monuments like ours are not a technical anomaly that no one noticed.

The state explicitly provides for the existence of objects from the old registry and a mechanism for their transfer to the modern digital system.

For the Proskuriv mass grave, such an old anchor remains:

No. 1, decision No. 66 from March 11, 1972.

At the time of this review, I did not find a document:

• on the exclusion of the monument from protection;
• on the refusal to include it in the State Register;
• on the deprivation of status;
• on the decommunization of this particular object;
• on the official renaming.

Therefore, the most accurate description of the current state sounds not too impressive, but honest: the monument continues to be on the local protection register based on the 1972 decision, and I have not yet found its separate modern state card.

And another 0.437 hectares, which are easy to overlook

The monument has not only a point on the map.

The historical and architectural documentation of Khmelnytsky defines a protected area for it of about 0.437 hectares.

This is no longer a question of a beautiful obelisk.

It is about the space associated with the mass grave and cultural heritage.

And here, the history of the disappeared Jewish cemetery around it is especially important: the physical space of memory is always larger than the structure itself.

Why today’s monument cannot simply be dated to “1925”

After all this review, I would generally be cautious about a museum label consisting of one line:

“Monument to the victims of the Proskuriv pogrom. 1925.”

Yes, 1925 is its birth date.

But the current complex consists of at least several eras.

1919 — mass grave.

1925 — brick community obelisk.

1941–1944 — survived German occupation.

1950 — photograph of the monument still next to Jewish tombstones.

1972 — Soviet state protection status.

1990s — destruction and real threat of dismantling.

1998 — beginning of the rescue of the old obelisk.

1999 — “Hesed Besht”.

2000–2001 — bas-reliefs, slabs, menorahs, Hebrew, Star of David, and modern memorial space.

October 2001 — completion of the main reconstruction.

2014 — neo-Nazi vandalism.

2026 — new commemorative ceremony and simultaneously a new era of digital state registration.

And between all these dates, the brick laid by masters in 1925 continues to stand.

A hundred years later, the debate is not only about the deceased but also about the language of memory

That is why the fresh four-minute report turned out to be more interesting to me than it initially seemed.

In it, Serhiy Yesyunin talks about the massacre.

But the monument itself also tells about how different generations explained this massacre to themselves.

The families of the victims in 1925 created a Jewish pantheon without Soviet symbols.

In 1972, the Soviet authorities turned it into a “mass grave of the victims of the Petliura pogrom”.

After the restoration of Ukraine’s independence, the official language introduced the “Proskuriv pogrom”.

In the 21st century, Hebrew, menorahs, and the Star of David appear on the old brick.

And in the current city table of 2026, all this is unexpectedly reduced to two words:

“Mass grave.”

What is more correct?

For computer registration, perhaps two words are enough.

For history — categorically not.

Under this line are at least a thousand documented human fates, the community’s memory of 1600 dead, 960 orphans, people who tried to save neighbors, seven decades of Soviet history, a disappeared cemetery, reconstruction after the threat of demolition, and one hundred and one years of attempts not to let February 1919 turn into just a number.

That is why NANews — News of Israel will continue this topic not through the convenient choice of “who was good and who was bad”, but through documents and people.

The Proskuriv pogrom cannot be used to declare Ukrainian history inherently anti-Semitic.

But it cannot be dissolved in a beautiful story of Ukrainian-Jewish friendship either.

In the same Ukraine of 1919, there were Semesenko and his killers, Kachurovsky and Polozov, Konovalets’ investigation, and the Jewish Kurin of Lejnberg.

And in Khmelnytsky, a hundred years later, there stands a monument on which all these contradictions are literally layered one on top of the other — with brick, bronze, Ukrainian words, and Hebrew letters.

What I have not yet been able to establish

After all the review, there are questions to which I consciously do not invent answers.

I did not find a document explaining why the Germans did not destroy the obelisk during the occupation.

I did not find a separate administrative act by which the Soviet name “victims of the Petliura pogrom” was officially replaced first with “victims of the Proskuriv pogrom” and then simply with “Mass grave”.

I did not find confirmation that the investigation initiated after the pogrom along Konovalets’ line ended with judicial punishment of the organizers specifically for the mass murder of Jews.

I cannot prove without reservation that the person mentioned in the history of the structure I. Korenblit is indeed Israel Korenblit, although such identification seems likely.

And I did not repeat the claim of the “only monument in Ukraine” to the victims of the Jewish pogrom because it does not withstand scrutiny.

These are not weak points of the article.

In my opinion, this is where the line between memory and legend lies.

33 Channel, August 27, 2026 — “Bloody History of the Oldest Memorial Complex of the Jewish Community”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nogB7LLgTVE