About the project

The “Shoah Atrocities Map-Ukraine” (SAMU) project is initiated and managed by the Tsal Kaplun Foundation (TKF) .
Scientific Editor of the ShoahAtlas: Alexander Kruglov”
This multi-year project was started in 2019 and is partially supported by a grant from the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) .
TKF works  with the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies (UCHS) to incorporate the Atlas presentation into Ukrainian educational curriculum
Short description of the project in English, in Ukrainian
SAMU project objectives
The SAMU project intends to provide a visual representation of Holocaust scale and create digital atlas of Holocaust killing sites in Ukraine. Ukraine is the world's largest depository of Holocaust killing sites, containing about 1,500+ sites dispersed throughout
the woods, villages and towns of the country. About 20% of these sites are not listed in the existing catalogs, and are only known to the local populace.
The goal of SAMU project is to provide an informed perspective on the scope and scale of the Holocaust tragedy in Ukraine. From 1941-1944, about 1,5 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their local collaborators. Yahad In-Unum did pioneering
investigative work that brought public attention to the mass killing of Jews in Eastern Europe during “Holocaust by Bullets”.
Yahad’s “InEvidence” map provides information about 450 locations in Ukraine where Jews were murdered.
The concept, scope and methodology of SAMU project are different from the
Yahad In-Unum approach in several aspects:
  • ShoahAtlas combines interactive maps, search engine and profile of each killing site;
  • Each killing site is presented by dedicated marker and site’s profile page,
  • Killing site’s profile pages and Jewish community pages contain vital data, photos and links to comprehensive information about individual community and related killing sites;
  • Interactive regional maps present location of all Holocaust killing sites;
  • Map’s “time slider” tool demonstrates dynamics of mass killing;
  • Overview of Holocaust events in each region are incorporated into the Atlas.
We believe that society must increase its efforts and improve the tools for public education in order to combat the current rise of global
anti-Semitism. The gradual loss of artifacts and the increasing lapses in people's memory makes it vital that “remembrance” data is collected as fast as possible, before it is lost forever. This creates a sense of absolute urgency for the implementation of the SAMU project.