“He was a humble man”

The chief rabbi of Ukraine, Moshe Reuven Azman, called what happened in the Kiev suburbs of Irpin and Bucha “war crimes”. The Russian army seized the area shortly after invading Ukraine in late February and allegedly murdered hundreds of civilians during the weeks of occupation.

Rabbi Azman was there shortly after the Ukrainian army retook the two cities about two weeks ago. He wanted to see the terrible events for himself. At that time he did not yet know whether there were any Jews among the dead, and thus possibly members of his own community.

FUNERAL Now there is sad certainty: Zoreslav Zamojskij, a Jew, Ukrainian and resident of the Kyiv region, did not survive the Russian war of aggression. Last Friday he was buried according to Jewish rites in the presence of Rabbi Azman and a handful of other parishioners.

“He was a humble person and he prayed a lot,” says Azman in a video of the funeral that the rabbi published on his Telegram channel. Azman says that under different circumstances, many more people would have come to the funeral. “However, we do not know where his relatives are.”

Zoreslav Zamojskij documented the last weeks of his life on Facebook.

Not much is known about the circumstances surrounding the death of Zoreslav Zamojskij, who would have been 44 on April 12. According to media reports, his body, found on a street in Bucha, showed signs of possible torture. More details have not yet been released by the Ukrainian authorities. However, the man who was killed himself documented the last few weeks of his life in detail on his Facebook page.

JOURNALIST Zamojskij, who, according to the information in his profile, worked full-time in a legal consultancy, also worked as a local journalist for regional media. From the beginning of the Russian invasion, he kept a public diary on Facebook and documented in detail the acts of war he witnessed in his immediate neighborhood in Bucha. It is not known whether it was this activity as a reporter that made Zamojskij the target of the Russian occupiers.

His last post on Facebook was on the evening of March 4, a few days before Bucha was to finally come under the control of the Russian army. He describes the eerie calm in the place, only in the distance explosions could be heard from time to time. “God alone knows what will happen tonight, I can only imagine it,” he writes.

The comments below refer to Zamojskij’s violent death, and many people express their condolences. A user writes: “I’m in shock. Baruch Dayan HaEmet.”

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