Thread by @motytchak

very good, @VladDavidzon:
wsj.com/amp/articles/u… - thank you, man, for hearing me and even listening.

small thread here on #BabynYar.

#Khrzhanovsky's record of approaching the totalitarian past by re-creating it in the most visceral manner raises a disturbing question.
Is vividly bringing the aesthetics of #Nazi terror on the very ground where it had taken place an appropriate way to honor victims?

#BabynYar

Karel Berkhoff — the Western world’s foremost expert on #BabynYar and the memorial’s former lead historian —resigned, he compared the project to a Shoah theme park.
Over several months Mr. Berkhoff was joined by a majority of the staff, a paralyzing turnover...

Unlike other Holocaust memorials around the world, whose governing bodies consist of their own citizens, Ukraine is barely represented on the project’s board. Chairman Natan Sharansky said that “a project that shows contempt for the people of Ukraine will not be built”

#BabynYar

The #BabynYar likely will be the last major Holocaust memorial built during the lifetimes of survivors. With costs to surpass $100 million. Most funding has come from 4 Jewish billionaires, some of whose families perished at there. Yet 3 of the billionaires are Ru citizens...

The leading role played by russians has been controversial, given that the country has occupied & annexed swaths of Ukrainian territory and waged a war that has cost at least 14,000 Ukrainian lives since 2014.

#BabynYar

Add here the appointment of ru filmmaker #Khrzhanovsky to oversee content/message of Memorial as art dir...
His stated plan for #BabynYar is to re-create an “immersive” experience in which visitors act in the roles of #Nazi executioners, Jewish victims or local collaborators...

Visitors would be faced w/ images & stimuli that guide them through the horror experienced by victims, w/
a multitude of trauma-inducing experiments while wandering a labyrinth. #Khrzhanovsky proposed to use #VR to create sth akin to the Stanford prison experiment...

#BabynYar

#Khrzanovsky had developed such techniques during the more than decadelong filming of #DAU. That cinematic project — made up of a dozen immersive feature films — led to a criminal investigation into alleged #abuse of infants during production.

#BabynYar

His films also have been criticized for their re-creations of sexual violence and for including real-life neo-Nazis as central protagonists.

#Khrzanovsky #BabynYar

Again:

#Khrzhanovsky's record of approaching totalitarian past by re-creating it in the most visceral manner is disturbing.

Is vividly bringing the aesthetics of #Nazi terror on the very ground where it had taken place an appropriate way to honor victims?

#BabynYar

The victims deserve a powerful retelling of the tragedy on Ukr soil. Ukrainian President @ZelenskyyUa, himself of Jewish descent, should take the lead in setting matters right at the troubled #BabynYar Holocaust Memorial Center.

- concludes @VladDavidzon.

I would add also here...
Mr. @ambassadorlion, this is unfolding on your watch. I doubt you would like to go down to the history as the Israel's Ambassador to Ukraine, who could have prevented ‘Holocaust Disneyland’, but didn't do it.

#BabynYar

@threadreaderapp, pls unroll.