On July 23, Roza Tapanova, Director General of the Babyn Yar National Historical and Memorial Reserve, took part in a public interview hosted at the Museum of the History of the City of Kyiv. The event was organized by the Voices of Peace Museum, a project of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, as part of an ongoing series dedicated to memory and war documentation.

Moderated by Natalia Yemchenko, Director of Communications at SCM, the discussion focused on a pressing and complex topic: “Why We Need a War Archive — and How to Build One.”

“The central mission of our institution is to reflect on the tragedy of Babyn Yar as one of the key symbols of the Holocaust in Ukraine,” Tapanova said. “But after February 24, 2022, we became witnesses to a new historical trauma — and it has reshaped our strategy. Today, Babyn Yar is an institution that creates dialogue between past and present, that works with multiple layers of memory, and that represents Ukraine within the global historical context.”

Tapanova emphasized that a war archive must not only store evidence but also speak — through public storytelling, museum exhibitions, and judicial testimony. Central to the discussion were themes of verification, ethical standards, structural consistency, and data protection.

“We are building a living memory,” she explained. “An archive must not be only a repository. It should become a place where memory finds its voice — in narrative, in exhibitions, in justice.”

In her closing remarks, moderator Natalia Yemchenko added:

“We are witnessing the most well-documented war in history — a war unfolding in real time. The most tangible context for this documentation is justice. In our conversation, we agreed: now is the moment to define our principles. For me, principles must come first. Without shared principles, no new structure can be built.”

This conversation is part of a broader public initiative focused on preserving the memory of war in Ukraine. The exhibition space of the Voices of Peace Museum, located inside the Museum of the History of the City of Kyiv, is currently hosting the documentation project “Diaries of the Peaceful: Voices of Those Who Survived — and Those Who Didn’t.”