RUTHFULLY YOURS

For centuries Ukraine has constituted the historical homeland for much of European Jewry, and more than half of American Jews have roots in the region. An estimated 1.5 million Jews were killed on its territory during the “Holocaust by bullets,” with some 90% of the killings carried out directly by German forces. Babyn Yar—a ravine outside of Kyiv, where some 34,000 Jews were rounded up and shot Sept. 29-30, 1941—has come to symbolize the killing fields across Eastern Europe.

The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center initiative, launched in 2016, likely will be the last major Holocaust memorial built during the lifetimes of survivors. Costs are projected to surpass $100 million. Most funding has come from four Jewish billionaires, some of whose families perished at Babyn Yar. Yet three of the billionaires are Russian citizens. The leading role played by Russians has been controversial, given that the country has occupied and annexed swaths of Ukrainian territory and waged a war that has cost at least 14,000 Ukrainian lives since 2014.

This strife has been amplified by the appointment of Russian filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovsky to oversee the content and message of the memorial as artistic director. Although Mr. Khrzhanovsky is an undeniably talented filmmaker, his vision for the project is disturbing. His stated plan for Babyn Yar is to re-create an “immersive” experience in which visitors act in the roles of Nazi executioners, Jewish victims or local collaborators.

A document describing his plans proposed to present visitors with images and stimuli that guide them through the horror experienced by the victims. At the same time, they would be faced with a multitude of other trauma-inducing experiments while wandering a labyrinth. Mr. Khrzhanovsky proposed to use virtual-reality technology that would create an experience akin to the Stanford prison experiment.

The filmmaker had developed such techniques during the more than decadelong process of filming “DAU” (2019). That cinematic project—made up of a dozen immersive feature films—has led to a criminal investigation into alleged abuse of infants during production. The films also have been criticized for their re-creations of sexual violence and for including real-life neo-Nazis as central protagonists.

When Karel Berkhoff—the Western world’s foremost expert on Babyn Yar and the memorial’s former lead historian—resigned, he compared the project to a Shoah theme park. Over several months Mr. Berkhoff was joined by a majority of the staff, a paralyzing turnover. The scandal has led to months of criticism among Ukrainian civil society and opinion makers, and the previous architectural design for the memorial complex has been thrown out, leaving a “hole in the ground,” according to one observer.

The desire of the memorial’s core donors and board to forge an original and affecting memorial is laudable. Yet Mr. Khrzhanovsky’s record of approaching the totalitarian past by re-creating it in the most visceral manner raises a disturbing question. Is vividly bringing the aesthetics of Nazi terror on the very ground where it had taken place an appropriate way to honor victims?

Unlike other Holocaust memorials around the world, whose governing bodies consist of their own citizens, Ukraine is barely represented on the project’s board. Chairman Natan Sharansky has said that “a project that shows contempt for the people of Ukraine will not be built.” The center’s board of directors has responded to recent criticism by holding an open board meeting and giving a seat to former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk. The board should add more qualified Ukrainians to avoid legitimate concerns about historical distortions or Russian state interference in Ukrainian affairs. But questions about the source of financing and Mr. Khrzhanovsky’s role and vision remain unanswered.

While the controversy continues, the Ukrainian government has its own plans. Anton Drobovych, the new head of the Ukrainian National Institute of Memory, has confirmed the intention to complete a state-funded Babyn Yar memorial museum in time for next year’s 80th anniversary. But the center’s problems aren’t going away.

These cascading controversies threaten the private project’s survival. Its failure would be a tremendous shame for Ukrainians and world Jewry. The victims deserve a powerful retelling of the tragedy on Ukrainian soil. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, himself of Jewish descent, should take the lead in setting matters right at the troubled Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center.

Mr. Davidzon is the Odessa Review’s chief editor and Tablet Magazine’s European culture correspondent.