A deadly evil

Six and a half decades have passed since that infinitely long day of June 22, 1941, which brought terrible news into every Ukrainian home — more terrible than all the plagues-war had begun! Our nation has fought off death many times in its history for the sacred right to live and be free. But this time it was the cruelest test: our nation encountered an enemy that truly embodied a deadly evil.

Let us not recall dry statistical figures again (the German aggressors threw 165 divisions and 5.5 million soldiers on the Soviet-German front, the majority of which were troops of the South Army Group that fought on Ukraine’s very territory). Let us not repeat the deceitful words of Stalinist propaganda about the “untrustworthy” Nazis (untrustworthiness derives from the word “trust,” and what kind of trust could any sound-minded individual place in Hitler? Stalin could, but that’s a different story). Instead, let us contemplate what exactly happened on June 22, 1941. This may be useful for those young Ukrainians who, to quote a contemporary poet, “are sort of mixing up World War Two with the Trojan War.”

So who was the enemy in that war? The enemy was a crazy fanatic and, at the same time (whenever necessary), a devilishly cunning tyrant, who believed that the “Aryan race” should rule the world. The Slavs, including Ukrainians, as representatives of an inferior race, were subject to extermination or enslavement (Alfred Rosenber’s playing up to the idea of Ukrainian statehood did not change the situation because “the Fuehrer’s line” consisted precisely in extermination). And who headed the huge Soviet empire that had swallowed up Ukraine? The “leader of the peoples,” one of the greatest criminals in human history, a bloodthirsty Jesuit with the mentality of a gangster boss.

But the main thing is that the bulk of the Ukrainian nation did not bother mulling over which of the two tyrants was “better.” The people were aware that Nazism was essentially bearing death — both spiritual and physical — to Ukraine. To survive, the people had to defeat Nazism, otherwise there would be no “tomorrow.” The fact that some Ukrainians later had to fight simultaneously against the two totalitarian (Stalinist and Hitlerite) regimes in the ranks of the OUN and the UPA does not contradict this maxim, because even though the victory over Hitler seemed to have temporarily strengthened his “vis-a-vis” in the Kremlin, Stalin’s time was also being measured and weighed on the scales of history. Both of them were bound with the same rope.

Therefore, to overcome Stalinism and “kill the Dragon,” we first had to destroy “the brown evil.” This was clear to Oleksandr Dovzhenko, for example. And today, on the Day of Mourning, we, Ukrainians in 2006, who are so painfully and agonizingly coming to an understanding of the value of every human life, are honoring the memory of those who fell in the war.