Russian and U.S.Jews are engaged in a race against time to provide a proper Jewish burial for the victims of mass executions perpetrated by the Nazis in countries of the former Soviet Union.
The five-year project, which began this month, is dubbed "Dignity Return" and is being led by Yurij Kanner, president of the Russian Jewish Congress, together with Rabbi Marc Schneier, chairman of the World Jewish Congress in the United States.
"We've agreed to united Jewish communities' efforts and attract the whole world public opinion to the project in order to raise the Holocaust subject to a new world level," said Kanner. "We'd like to do all as quickly as possible, as very few witnesses are left to show the burial fields," he explained.
Both Jewish leaders hope to inspire thousands of people around the world to volunteer in the effort to bring the remains of victims found in Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, the Ukraine and Estonia to a final resting place, in accordance with Jewish law.
The initiative is being supported by Jewish organizations from the United States, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and the Ukraine.
“These sites, all but forgotten and neglected, must be restored as part of our history as a people,” said Rabbi Schneier, who noted that the number of people who can share a personal experience from the Holocaust is growing smaller by the day.
"As a result, it is increasingly up to those who were born after the Holocaust to preserve and protect their stories and these sites so that Holocaust revisionists will be unable to change history, and our call of ‘never again’ will continue to resonate from one generation to the next,” Rabbi Schneier said