Eighty-four years after the tragic mass murder of the Jews of Rudnya, Russia, a memorial at their burial site was rededicated in a solemn ceremony attended by community leaders, descendants, and local residents.

The event took place on the eve of Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, marking both the anniversary of the massacre and sixty years since the victims’ remains were reinterred from the original killing site to the Jewish cemetery in Rudnya, located on the road to the historic town of Lubavitch. A renewed plaque now bears the names of hundreds out of the thousands who perished.

The Jews of Rudnya were forced into a cramped ghetto following the Nazi occupation in 1941. Shortly thereafter, approximately 500 young Jews were taken away under the pretext of labor and never returned. By the end of the month of Tishrei, the remaining Jews were led to anti-tank trenches on the city’s outskirts, where they were brutally murdered, many of them buried alive.

The rededication ceremony was organized by the Rudnya District Administration and its head, Mr. Yuri Ivanovich Ivashkin. In attendance were Rabbi Yitzhak Kogan, Head of Agudas Chabad in the FSU; Rabbi Gavriel Gordon, Shliach to Lubavitch; philanthropist Mr. Baruch Ben Zion Gurovitz; and representatives of the Russian Jewish Congress, which supported the memorial’s renovation.

Rabbi Berel Lazar, Chief Rabbi of Russia, sent his blessings through Rabbi Levi Mondshine, Rabbi of Smolensk and the region, who also led the memorial.

Rabbi Yehoshua Raskin of Moscow, a grandson of Rabbi Laine, recited the Kaddish with deep emotion, recounting the extraordinary discovery made when the remains were moved in the 1960s—his grandfather’s body was found intact, holding a Tehillim, with a radiant face, as if untouched by time.