Starting in October 1941, Nazi troops occupied Kharkiv and began preparations for the mass-murder of the local population.

Children were thrown into pits alive, to save bullets, in the expectation that they would quickly freeze to death.

[1] The site's menorah monument was allegedly damaged by Russia on March 26, 2022 in an artillery exchange during the invasion of Ukraine.

[2] In the beginning of the 1990s, a competition was held for the best design of the memorial to immortalize the thousands of citizens murdered by the Nazis.

At a meeting in late August 2001, the Kharkiv Oblast administration decided to resume the construction of the memorial.

The main part of the memorial is a monument symbolizing a synagogue, with the Ten Commandments between its columns; most notably: "Do not kill".

Excursions to the ravine had already been held before, but the official opening was on 27 January, the anniversary of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp's 1945 liberation (later designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day).