From August 23 to October 29, 2024

The exhibition “Bakhmut. The Faces of Genocide 1942 | 2022”, organised by the National Historical Memorial Reserve “Babyn Yar”, will be on display at Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum from August 23 to October 29 this year. This is the first exhibition presented in the European Union by the “Babyn Yar”.

The exhibition aims to draw parallels between the tragedy of the Holocaust in 1942, during which over 3000 innocent civilians, mostly Jews, were killed in Bakhmut, and the deliberate destruction of the city by russian occupiers in 2022-2023. This exhibition reveals the history of two genocides separated by eight decades, but both committed by repressive regimes: Nazi Germany and modern russia.

Historical facts

The exhibition displays documents and photographs from the collections of Bakhmut Museum of Local History, which provide a detailed chronology of the historical events and allow an assessment of the scale of the Nazi crimes of 1942. It includes unique archival material, memories of witnesses and documents that became important evidence in the Nuremberg Trials.

On January 11, 1942, more than 3,000 Jews and other peoples were imprisoned in the basement of a former NKVD building in Bakhmut. They were held for several days without food and water, then shot and walled up alive in an abandoned alabaster mine.

On August 1, 2022, the russian Ministry of Defence, together with pro-Russian Telegram channels, announced the start of a ground operation in Bakhmut. Since then, the town has been almost completely destroyed, thousands of houses have been bombed and tens of thousands of residents have been forced to flee. Photos by Ukrainian Association of Proferssional Photographers reveal how history repeats itself and how totalitarian regimes destroy people’s destinies and cause immense suffering.

Art installations

The exhibition focuses on artistic installations that reveal the the essence of two genocides of different centuries, and the denial of human rights, the destruction of personality and the importance of preserving memory. Mykhail Alekseenko presents three installations: “Dust,” “Dust 2022” and “Shed Tears.”

• “Dust” (2014). This installation was created for the Euromaidan protest. It symbolises the disregard for human rights and the destruction of the individual. First, human rights are suppressed, then the personality is destroyed, the visual reflection is erased, and finally the human being turns into dust, i.e. a metaphor of ashes. Ashes are the memory keepers.

• “Dust 2022” depicts the metaphor of memory destruction. This installation is a recent creation and shows how russia is trying to destroy memory in Ukraine by adopting the experience of the USSR.

• “Shed Tears” is an audiovisual installation that depicts the shared pain and tears of all Ukrainians. The monotonous drops, reminiscent of a metronome, symbolise a minute of silence in memory of the dead – a minute that never ends. The black hole we are looking into. There seems to be no end to this pain, but at the same time, in this abyss, we see the reflections of ourselves and others, reminding us that we are alive. Only the living can carry the memory of the dead.

Documentary footage

The exhibition features the work of video artist Clemens von Wedemeyer and renowned documentary photographers Kostiantyn and Vlada Liberov, Sergey Korovayny, Andriy Dubchak and George Ivanchenko, revealing the destruction of the infrastructure of Bakhmut in the last two years and what the locals have had to endure. This documentary footage allows us to evaluate not only the scale of the crimes committed by the Nazis in 1942, but also the scale of the crimes committed by modern russia.

The work of German author Clemens von Wedemeyer connects Bakhmut’s past and present. In 1941, Clemens’s grandfather, Wehrmacht officer Harald von Vietinghoff-Riesch, filmed his unit’s military actions in the city of Artemivsk. Staying in Bakhmut in 2021, Clemens attempted to capture the places his grandfather had filmed and the details related to Nazi occupation in the city. These shots are intertwined with the horrific images of the war that the artist saw on the news.

The exhibition has become a platform for discussion between scholars, artists and public figures, which promotes change in society and in the culture of memory.

The exhibition will take place at Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum from August 23 to October 29, 2024. We kindly invite everyone to visit this unique exhibition and to get acquainted with important historical events and remember the innocent victims.

Interview with the project team

PROJECT TEAM
Ukrainian team
Idea: Roza Tapanova, Mariia Mizina, Oleksiy Moroz 
Head curator: Mariia Mizina 
Guest Curator: Dana Brezhneva 
Project manager: Anastasiia Pasieka 
Print supervisor: Evgenia Kasyanchuk 
Video editing: Viktor Kolesnikov 
Designer: Ruslan Tukanov 
Production: Oleksandr Mosindz-Khalchenia 
Video technical support: Oleksii Yadchenko 

Lithuanian team
Exhibition coordinator: Eglė Pietarytė 
Communication coordinator: Henrika Kryževičienė 
Marketing coordinator: Judita Astrovienė
Visual communication designer: Renata Vinckevičiūtė-Kazlauskienė 
Architectural solutions designer: Rasa Pranskevičiūtė 
Video content creator: Aurimas Dudanavičius 
Translator: Teresė Ringailienė

Organisers of the exhibition: National Historical Memorial Reserve “Babyn Yar” and Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum

Partners: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, NGO Living memory and Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers

Information partners: Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, Kauno diena, Kaunas IN, Lietuvos geležinkeliai, Gijota, Forum Cinemas, 2GO, OWEXX, Keliauk Lietuvoje, čempijon.lt, Media traffic and Clear Chanel