PRESS CONFERENCE, UNIAN, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thu, Sep 28, 2006
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #770, Article 5
Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, October 8, 2006
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 memory 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 the Presidential
Decree, on 31 May 2006 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 the 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 to 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-every-
where 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 20 August 2006. There they saw fifteen 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 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 the Resolution of the
Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 546 of 22 May 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-neighbor relations. The bones of our victims
and foreign victims should not reside in joint graves.
Dmytro Pavlychko
Head of the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council
