29 and 30 September mark the 80th anniversary of the single worst massacre of the Second World War, when over 33,000 Jewish citizens of Kyiv were shot in the Babyn Yar ravine. The Federal President and Elke Büdenbender traveled to Kyiv on 6 October for the official commemorative event.

In the morning of 6 October, they also visited the northern Ukrainian town of Koriukivka, to remember the civilian victims of the German occupation of Ukraine in the Second World War. In early March 1943, in an operation led by an SS special unit, 6700 people in the village of Koriukivka were murdered in retribution for Soviet partisan activities. In his speech on the 80th anniversary of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, the Federal President mentioned Koriukivka as being one of the forgotten places when it comes to remembering German history.

In the evening, at the invitation of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Federal President and Elke Büdenbender attended a memorial ceremony in Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv, at which the Federal President gave a speech.

Overview of the programme:

Tuesday, 5 October

• Arrival in Kyiv

Wednesday, 6 October

• Flight to Koriukivka by helicopter
• Koriukivka, town centre
  Laying of flowers at the official memorial to the victims of the Koriukivka massacre
• Forest near Koriukivka
  Wreath laying ceremony at a reburial site in the forest
• Koriukivka, school
  Talks with pupils, teachers and representatives of civil society
• Flight back to Kyiv by helicopter
• Bilateral talks
• Kyiv, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center
  Speech at the memorial ceremony at the invitation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
• Flight back to Berlin