THE BITTER WAR OF MEMORY WITH FORGETTING AND SELECTIVITY. Review of Victoria Khiterer’s monograph “Bitter War of Memory: The Babyn Yar Massacre, Aftermath and Commemoration”

Abstract

A review of the monograph by Millersville University Professor Victoria Hiterer, “Bitter War of Memory: The Babyn Yar Massacre, Aftermath and Commemoration,” published in 2025. The review highlights the author’s conceptual approach to studying the Babyn Yar tragedy not only as a fact of Nazi genocide, but also through the prism of the historical context (socio-demographic changes in Kyiv in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), post-war Soviet denial of the Holocaust, and the struggle to preserve memory. The book emphasizes the combination of thorough scientific analysis with the author’s personal experience. The conclusion is made about the significant importance of the monograph for bringing the Babyn Yar tragedy into the global context of genocide research and memory politics.