Genocide's Ghosts

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AUSTRIAN ARCHIVES/CORBIS

UNFORGOTTEN: A Nazi soldier executes a man beside a mass grave in Ukraine in 1941

Treading across a snowy field in the middle of the Ukrainian town of Rava-Ruska, Olga Kushta says quietly: "This is where they were shot. I watched all the killings."

Sixty-four years have passed since Kushta stood by the roadside with her teenage friends, watching Nazi soldiers day after day as they led some 5,000 Jews from the town to the rim of a giant pit, and shot them in the back at point-blank range. Kushta, now 78, says she still replays in her mind the moment when a close friend of her mother's passed by and pleaded with her for help. Drawing...