B’nai B’rith has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International praises Ukraine for adopting International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27 as its official day of commemoration. Some 900,000 Ukrainian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Ukraine now joins many European and other countries that mark the observance of an annual Holocaust day of remembrance, first declared by the U.N. General Assembly in 2005.

In addition to the Ukraine parliament’s institution of a day to remember Holocaust victims, representatives also voted to memorialize the 70th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre in early October. In September of 1941, 100,000 people were murdered and buried at Babi Yar, near Kiev; with 33,000 Jews murdered during the course of two days, Sept. 29-30.

B’nai B’rith commends Ukraine for recognizing the importance of remembering and honoring the lives of those who were brutally murdered during the Holocaust and the tragedy of the immense losses inflicted on Ukraine’s Jewish community.