Abstract: The article is devoted to the formation of historical memory about the past in modern Ukraine and the place the Holocaust takes in this memory. The paper analyses research-academic, pedagogical and memorial aspects of commemoration of the fate of Ukrainian Jews in times of the Holocaust. Much space is allocated to the comparison
of formal (State) and informal (work of NGOs) approaches to research and education on the topic concerned. The main feature of the so called formal approach to Holocaust research lies in “ignoring” scholarly, historiographic papers on the topic, marginalizing the issue. Despite the certain gains in informal Holocaust studies, this topic is still on the margin of popular opinion in the modern Ukrainian society. However the situation is gradually changing. The mentioned situation is in sharp contrast with the recent events in informal Holocaust education in Ukraine. Over the past decade significant results have been gained owing to the activities of scholarly and educational NGOs
in the country, among them Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies. One can trace continuous educational seminars for teachers, publication of textbooks and manuals, competitions of students’ research and art works. Many teachers began teaching the concerned topic within their self-developed courses, not waiting for the facilities from
the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Therefore, the author believes that such high intensity and quality of informal education began to exercise influence on the formal approaches to Holocaust education in Ukraine. And not only on the approaches to the mentioned topic, but also on the tendencies of ethnocentrism and monocultural
and monoethnic views that are, unfortunately, still prevailing in Ukrainian formal education. The gains of informal Holocaust education undermine the given tendencies and pave the way for multicultural education, which defines the future of Ukraine. Modern Ukrainian tendencies for memorialization of the memory about the Holocaust
are somewhat similar to the situation in educational sphere. The similarity lies, first and foremost, in the activities by NGOs and elements of civic society, who, also not waiting for the actions on behalf of the government, find themselves the financial means (mostly abroad) to mark and commemorate the sites of mass execution and
murder of Ukrainian Jews during the Nazi occupation. Though in most cases this is a responsibility of governmental institutions. The author believes, that such attitude on behalf of the government to preservation of the memory about the Holocaust in Ukraine in all the concerned aspects (research-academic, educational, memorial) is
a result of catastrophic lack of understanding or desire to understand that Ukrainian history is not monoethnic but multicultural and that the responsibility for memory about the past includes also the fate of Ukrainian Jews in times of the Holocaust as a constituent part of Ukrainian WWII history.
