Monument to the political victims of concentration camps, Rostov-on-Don. Photo: wiki commons

Nearly 1,000 people took part in a march on Sunday in Rostov-On-Don, Russia, to mark the 70th anniversary of the murder of 27,000 people by Nazi forces in August, 1942.

Led by former chief rabbi of Israel Meir Lau and Russian Jewish Congress President Yury Kanner, who wore Star of David armbands in memory of the tens of thousands of Jews who were executed at the Zmievskaya Balka massacre in 1942, participants memorialized the single largest massacre in Russia perpetrated by Nazi forces.

“The unprecedented turnout on today’s march shows the memory of the Jewish genocide in Rostov is shared and preserved by Jews and non-Jews alike,” Kanner said.

Last year, the massacre site became an issue of controversy when local officials removed a plaque noting the murders of thousands of Jews and replaced it with one that memorializes the “peaceful citizens of Rostov-on-Don and Soviet prisoners of war”, without making mention of the Soviet Jews who were killed.  The RJC petitioned a local court to have the original plaque restored.

“The judge paused the trial and requested the written expertise of the Ministry of Culture to testify if this is the place where Jews were executed and if the Nazi’s genocide policy was conducted,” Matvey Chlenov, deputy executive director of the RJC, told The Algemeiner.  “We expect positive results from the experts appointed by the ministry of culture.”

Russian Jews march in Rostov in memory of Holocaust.