Painful memories

Exhibition “Letters – Painful Memories” is open at the National Museum “Memorial in Commemoration of Famines’ Victims in Ukraine.” The exposition includes diaries of witnesses of the Holodomor in 1932-33 that were kept in the SBU archives and memoirs of our contemporaries, whose family survived the horror.

“They sold sausage of human flesh,” says Oleksandra Radchenko, village teacher from Kharkiv region. “Even newspapers wrote that the measures are being taken but children are dying anyway.” “Elka asked about who a soldier is. I explained briefly: soldiers are trained to kill people,” this diary entry is dated January 1933. And this recollection is very recent – from November 13, 2007: “My family survived the Holodomor only because our village was located seven kilometers away from Vinnytsia,” wrote Nadia Viter from the village of Stadnytsia in Vinnytsia raion, Vinnytsia oblast. “Residents of Vinnytsia did not starve – they were given food cards. Jews opened Torgsins in the city, where you could get a bowl of grain for a wedding ring or a pair of earrings. To get a place in line to the Torgsin our mom went to Vinnytsia really early in the morning. She came back all in tears saying ‘Oh God, what have I just seen!’ Near the Torgsin there were a few dead bodies of people who didn’t get their turn to exchange jewelry for food in line.”

“Along with the diaries and letters there will be five specially selected documentaries about that time presented at the exhibition,” said the leading museum tour guide Oleksandra MONETOVA. “By the way, one of these documentaries is our production. We made it this year on the budget money allocated for the maintenance of the memorial. It actually shows diaries and letters dated from the 1930s and the off-screen voice reads them. This was made for better perception: some people perceive information better by the ear, and yet other people have better visual memory.”

“Obviously, when you are traveling somewhere people try to show you the most beautiful and the most pleasant places,” says Galina VALKOVA, school’s principle from Ufa (Bashkiria). “But people really have to know about what Ukrainians went through in the 1930s. It is especially true about Russian people. It was not only the tragedy of the Ukrainian people. And despite the vision of the Holodomor in Ukraine of the official Russia, ordinary citizens in Russia sympathize with you.”

The exposition will be open until November 24 – the last Saturday in November, when Ukrainian people will commemorate the victims of the famines and political repressions.