Exhibition
“A Ukrainian-Jewish Century: Pictures and Stories from 1920 to 2025”
14 April – 30 June 2026
The National Historical and Memorial Reserve “Babyn Yar” in collaboration with Centropa, presents the exhibition “A Ukrainian-Jewish Century: Pictures and Stories from 1920 to 2025” at the Living Memory Exhibition Center.
This exhibition is based on the Centropa Collection, developed between 2001 and 2007 through a joint project of the Center for the Study of the History and Culture of East European Jewry at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and Centropa Vienna. Researchers conducted interviews with 264 elderly Jews across nine Ukrainian cities, digitizing over 3,000 family photographs and personal documents and recording 1,400 hours of stories that range from grandparents to grandchildren.
The collection is now preserved in the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Created specifically for Babyn Yar and its exhibition space, the project invites visitors to explore a century of intertwined Ukrainian-Jewish life through photographs and personal narratives — from intimate family portraits to scenes of everyday life at work, in school, on the beach. The exhibition also reflects on pivotal historical experiences, including the Holodomor, the Holocaust, and wartime evacuation.
A dedicated section highlights Jewish writers with roots in Ukraine, from Nobel Prize-winning Israeli author SY Agnon, born in Buczacz, to contemporary voices such as Katja Petrowskaja.
The exhibition includes photographs taken by Edward Serotta between 2022 and 2025 in Jewish communities in Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv, Rivne, Kyiv, Chernihiv and Chernivtsi. Additional photographs by Maksym Levin (+) and Taras Kovalchuk.
The exhibition is conceived as a permanent project at the Living Memory Exhibition Center, presented periodically alongside other exhibitions. The current presentation runs from 14 April to 30 June 2026.
Opening (by invitation): 13 April 2026
Public opening: 14 April, from 11:00
Press preview: 13 April
Accreditation: Kateryna Muzyka, +380 50 331 6206, [email protected]
Venue:
Living Memory Exhibition Center, 46-A Yurii Illienko St., Kyiv
National Historical and Memorial Reserve “Babyn Yar”
Opening hours:
14 April – 30 June
Daily, 11:00–18:00
Admission free
Curator: Edward Serotta (Vienna)
Exhibition Design: Marie Gollner-Schmid (Vienna)
Translations: Olga Taratula (Sambir)
English Editing: Lauren Granite (Washington, D.C.)
Ukrainian Editing: Regina Dimitrsina, Anna Domnich (Vienna)
Coordination: Jonathan Schwers (Vienna), Olga Taratula (Sambir)
Exhibition Production: Infinitum (Kyiv)
The project is supported by:
Stiftung EVZ (Berlin)
The Alfred Landecker Foundation (Berlin)
Bader Philanthropies (Milwaukee)
The Kronhill-Pletka Foundation (New York)
The Robert and Walter Kohn Foundation (Seattle)