Last week's bombing of the Babyn Yar memorial site in Kyiv left five dead and drew the ire of the international Jewish community, who joined the official cultural body of the United Nations in condemning what under several legal bodies constitutes a war crime. 

The memorial sits atop the approximate location where, in September of 1941, approximately 34,000 Jews were executed in a two-day rampage that in considered one of the most significant events in the Holocaust.

At the center of the memorial is a synagogue designed by architect Manuel Herz which stands as a mechanically-opened "cabinet of wonders" meant to resemble the opening of a children's pop-up book of traditional religious text. 

Per the architect: "I wanted to create a project that has a transformative dimension and establishes a new ritual on the site. I strongly believe that a monumental, static approach would be wrong. I n view of the site that is literally and metaphorically drenched with blood, we cannot respond to the massacre by designing a building that imposes itself onto the ground, and onto the narrative of history. We will never match the monumental suffering of the massacre, through a monumental architecture. The categorical and definitive message that a monumental and static building would suggest, stands at odds with the tens of thousands of distinctive voices that perished in Babyn Yar. I was looking for a building that is polyvalent , rather than demanding a conclusive reading. Hence, the idea was borne to design an architecture that creates a new collective ritual, that has a performative and transformative quality, that is commemorative, just as it also creates a feeling of wonder and awe. And a building that barely touches the ground."

Herz was also particular about including Ukrainian Jewish iconography typical of late 17th and early 18th century Synagogues, which feature prominently in the interior and dazzling roof motif that were left miraculously undamaged by Russian munitions. 

Per the architect: "These symbols have an additional meaning: Together, they recreate the star constellation that was visible over Kyiv on the night of September 29th, 1941. For the visitors, looking up into the ceiling of the new synagogue will create a subtle link to the night that the massacre started."

Following the incident, the German-born Herz spoke with popular Israeli news outlet Forward to express his concern over the Russian military's seemingly deliberate recklessness, which has also prompted a suspension of the BHYMC-backed competition to create a master plan for the expanded site.

"Only a few months after its inaugurations the synagogue is caught up in a war, which only celebrates death," the architect lamented. "What is the point of commemorating history, if the lessons to be learned are forgotten and ignored so easily? It leaves me speechless, numb and powerless."