This week Ukraine has been holding official 80th anniversary commemorations for the victims of the Nazi crimes against humanity at Babyn Yar in Kyiv which primarily targeted Jews. The presidents of Israel and Germany also took part in these solemn events.
It is heartening that a place associated with such an atrocious and massive hate crime has become a symbol of reconciliation, hope and cooperation.
We remember not only the victims, but all those brave individuals who during the dark Soviet era, when the truth about Babyn Yar was kept concealed or was distorted, revealed the truth. They include, among others, Mykola Bazhan, Yevgenii Yevtushenko, Ivan Dziuba, Viktor Nekrasov and Anatoly Kuznetsov, the author of the documentary novel “Babyn Yar.”
It was they who called for honesty in dealing with the past as the basis for building a better future based on understanding and trust. And in Ukraine, with its complex history and diverse population, this was critical.
Speaking at the first big unofficial meeting in Babyn Yar in 1966, the Ukrainian literary critic and dissident, Ivan Dziuba, addressed the assembled as “my brothers in humanity.” Babyn Yar, he stressed, “is our common tragedy, a tragedy first of all of the Jewish and Ukrainian people.”
Instilling the values of tolerance and inclusion were crucial in building a modern democratic Ukraine, and the Babyn Yar lesson had a significant role.
But however important this tragic symbol remains, it signifies only the tip of the iceberg of what needs to be remembered and addressed.
The Nazi massacres of civilians in many other places in Ukraine, such as Koriukivka, Chernihiv Oblast, where 6,700 people were killed, should not be allowed to overshadow the horrific crimes of the Soviet terror apparatus.
Marked and unmarked graves of the untold number of Ukraine’s inhabitants who were murdered by the Cheka, NKVD and KGB, whether by execution, hunger or other forms of torture, are everywhere. Near to Babyn Yar is the Bykivnia memorial site where thousands of victims of the Stalin terror were dumped in mass graves. Similar sites can be found all across Ukraine.
In independent Ukraine, there was never a process similar to de-Nazification in post-war Germany which would have brought those responsible for the Soviet crimes to account. Hence still differing perceptions of history given that Soviet killers and torturers lived out their lives with impunity and are even regarded as heroes by their offspring.
This is precisely what the current Russian leadership headed by Vladimir Putin thrives on. The distorted historical memory and glorification of Soviet imperialism and autocracy are used to justify not only his authoritarianism but also Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, other neighbors and the West.
And look at the results in the Russian-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine and Crimea – killings, torture, imprisonment and ethnic cleansing. All this 80 years after the Nazi terror in Babyn Yar, when many began to believe that such horrific violations of human rights would never be seen again in Europe.
But, as we remember, we must continue to keep our guard and draw lessons.
