STATEMENT: On the destruction of the historical memory of the Ukrainian people (10/15/06)

STATEMENT: On the destruction of the historical memory of the Ukrainian people

Below is the text of a statement issued by civic human rights organizations and the Ukrainian intellectual community in Ukraine and the world in connection with the destruction of the historical memory of the Ukrainian people. The statement was released at a press conference in Kyiv on September 28; an English translation prepared by Marta Olynyk was faxed to The Ukrainian Weekly on October 9 by Bohdan Fedorak, honorary consul of Ukraine in Detroit.

We are living in a time when each nation seeks to master its history as profoundly as possible, no matter how tragic it is. It is crucial to learn one's past without prejudice in order to step more confidently toward the future. This is perfectly understood by the wise Jewish nation, which devoutly preserves every trace of its millennial history. An example of this is the arrival in Kyiv a few days ago of hundreds of Jews from around the world to mark the 65th anniversary of the tragic events that took place in Babyn Yar. One hundred and fifty soldiers came from Israel to serve as an honor guard detail at the site of the mass burials. The president and government of Ukraine were the patrons of these actions aimed at honoring the memory of the victims of the Jewish Holocaust.

However, for the sake of objectivity, it should be recalled that at least half the victims at Babyn Yar (if not more) were Gypsies and Ukrainians, who were viciously destroyed by the Nazis. Among the victims were also entire crews of ships of the famous Dnipro Flotilla, as well as the defenders of Kyiv - soldiers and commanders of the Southwestern Front. Here is the grave of the unvanquished Olena Teliha and other Ukrainian patriots shot by the Gestapo in 1942, whose memories are for some reason not being honored on the state level.

At the same time, we express dismay at the encroachments on the holy of holies - the destruction of the memory of the Ukrainian nation. We are troubled by the fact that the disputes around the tragedy of the artificially engineered Holodomor of 1932-1933 are intensifying. Increasing in frequency are provocative statements by pro-Communist forces whose goal is to turn the commemoration of the Holodomor tragedy into a farce. After the end of the competition to decide the layout of the memorial complex in honor of the victims of Ukraine's holocaust, the Holodomor, political forces from the pro-government coalition launched a campaign to stop the construction. As a result, the draft of the 2007 state budget of Ukraine has not allocated a single penny for the building of this memorial. The state has terminated its financial support of the museum exposition "Not To Be Forgotten" (on the crimes of communism in 1917-1991) at the Memorial Society, which hosts up to 10,000 students and pupils free of charge every year.

Based on international experience and in accordance with a presidential decree, on May 31 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine passed Resolution No. 764 "On the Creation of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory." The institute was granted appropriate status as a central organ of the state executive power with its range of posts and special responsibilities. After all, the victims of the Holodomor, Communist repressions and Hitler's genocide are scattered throughout the Ukrainian lands. The destruction of the Ukrainian ethnos lasted for centuries. Ukraine's tragedy is such that no one has yet succeeded in grasping its scale, causes or consequences. Thus, the young generation of Ukrainians is not able to fathom its nation's past, formulate a clear-cut vision of the national idea, or develop a state-building strategy that could unite the nation on the basis of its fundamental values.

The task placed before the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory is to meticulously restore the backbone of our nation with historical consistency and objectivity.

However, the formation of its structure is being impeded by the rise to power of openly anti-Ukrainian officials of the new-old government. The institute had not even begun its work when, as a result of various officials' efforts, the budget was reduced out of existence. Furthermore, in contradiction to the above-mentioned resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, responsibility for the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory has been transferred to the officials in charge of the State Archives of Ukraine. This move, in fact, liquidates the very status of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory as the principal manager of budget funds granted by the Cabinet resolution.

This deliberate or ill-advised destruction of a state institution that was initiated by a decree of the president of Ukraine and confirmed by a resolution of the previous government prompts serious questions regarding the continuing formulation of Ukrainian state policy on the preservation of national memory.

One example of the cynical attitude toward the victims of political repressions in Ukraine is the site of the mass secret burials that took place in the 1930s and 1940s in Bykivnia Forest. According to various experts, the number of victims in Bykivnia is equal to the number of victims buried in Babyn Yar. All the data point to between 100,000 and 150,000 victims. But neither agencies of prosecutorial supervision nor state officials are showing any interest in the objective disclosure of the crimes of the past or in establishing their true scale. As Andrii Amons, the investigator from the Military Prosecutor's Office, stated in the final resolution "On the Closure of the Criminal Case," the Bykivnia burials have not been thoroughly investigated because the deadline for investigative actions has lapsed and because of lack of time -meaning, the Ukrainian government has neither the time nor the desire to deal with the excavations.

Who should take on this work throughout Ukraine, to conduct searches in the Solovky Islands, Mordovia, the camps of the former gulag - everywhere that Ukrainians were destroyed - if not the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory?

Meanwhile, in the last few months unsanctioned excavations ordered by unknown organizations in Poland are being conducted on the territory of the National Historical-Memorial Preserve "The Graves of Bykivnia."

It has been learned that individuals can hire a special team in Kyiv and, ignoring Ukrainian laws, exhume and bury whatever they want. Witnesses to this were the participants of the World Forum of Ukrainians, who visited Bykivnia on August 20. There they saw 15 new burial sites connected to the search for the remains of executed Polish officers. Here, in the presence of representatives of Poland, who after examining bones and skulls and not finding anything of interest to those who ordered these illegal exhumations, hired workers to calmly dump all these remains in sacks designed for waste and without following accepted procedures, place them in pits and cover them up with earth. What other state in the world would countenance such vandalism and mockery of the memory of innocent executed people?

Despite the fact that the territory of the Bykivnia burials was declared a State Historical-Memorial Preserve in keeping with Resolution No. 546 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of May 22, 2001, and which was granted national status by the decree of the president of Ukraine, this has not stopped the architects of these unsanctioned exhumations. The Specialized State Enterprise "Memorials of Ukraine" has not reacted to either the bill of indictment about these violations or the instruction issued by the Main Administration for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage of the Kyiv City State Administration to put an immediate halt to the arbitrary exhumations. Furthermore, one of the initiators of the excavations, Andrzej Pszywoznik, who is the secretary of the Council for the Protection of Monuments to the Struggle and Martyrdom of Poland, is spreading inaccurate information in the Polish press that 103 burial sites containing the remains of Polish officers have been found in Bykivnia.

Even the following fact is ignored: the previous investigation designated the Bykivnia burials as a crime site and, therefore, any exhumations must be carried out after a new criminal case is reopened and in the presence of an investigator charged with conducting a forensic medical examination.

A similar attempt to conduct unsanctioned excavations took place in 2001, when symbolic graves appeared in the National Preserve at Bykivnia, complete with the crosses and symbols of a foreign state. What next?

Without denying the possibility that remains of Polish citizens who were repressed by the Stalinist regime may be found in Bykivnia Forest, the Ukrainian side should organize an objective investigation of the circumstances surrounding their deaths and a search of burial places, relying on newly opened KGB archives and based on international agreements and European laws. Under other circumstances, the actions of the Polish side may be viewed as instigating an international conflict, an example of which was the incident at the Polish Orliata war cemetery in Lviv.

Preventing a similar situation could be possible only if the Ukrainian side on the state level were represented by the Institute of National Memory, which would prohibit illegal acts on the territory of the National Preserve at Bykivnia and direct the excavations within the legal purview of Ukraine's legislation.

The circumstances of jointly experienced tragedies, when various nations fell victim to the Soviet totalitarian regime, should lay the foundation of completely different, good-neighborly relations. The bones of our victims and foreign victims should not reside in joint graves.

Dmytro Pavlychko, head of the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council
Pavlo Movchan, head of the All-Ukrainian Prosvita Society
Ivan Drach, head of the executive of the Ukraine-World Society
Roman Krutsyk, head of the Vasyl Stus Kyiv City Organization of the Memorial Society
Anatolii Pohribnyi, head of the Kyiv branch of the Union of Writers of Ukraine
Volodymyr Serhiichuk, Ph.D. (history), professor and head of the scholarly division of the Memorial Society

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