From: Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 1170)
Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.
I am for peace, but when I speak,
they are for war!
Psalm 120:6-7
While russia keeps weaponizing its WWII narrative, turning it into a glorification of its military power, I think about how hard it is to celebrate war. I believe that one day, when this current war is over, Ukraine will celebrate its victory. However, will it really be a joyous festival? Or will it be the day to finally exhale and cry out all the tears we have held back? Can we truly celebrate victory without honoring and remembering those who gave their lives for it?
“Victory Day” was a great propaganda tool in the Soviet Union, and I remember it still very prominent in my childhood. But the more I think about it, the more puzzling it gets. I remember how WWII veterans were being honored, but abandoned on other days of the year. I remember a year when there was a large Victory Day celebration in our city with loud music and fun activities, but how my grandma was sad there was no bus to take her and other veterans to the cemetery to visit the graves of their friends. The traditional wish from my grandma and her generation was “May you have a peaceful sky over your head,” and those words were often repeated on TV by those who now send deadly missiles to Ukrainian cities.
While many people buy the myth that russia is both the main martyr and the power that solely brought down the Nazi regime in Europe, facts beg to differ. I will post some links with facts and sources that explain how russia claims the highest number of WWII casualties in order to appeal to the guilt of the Germans and to the sense of indebtedness of other countries, when in fact it was not russia that participated in World War II, but the Soviet Union, a state composed of multiple union republics, with Russia being only one of them, and the greatest demographic losses (in relation to the total population) and destruction were suffered by Ukraine and Belarus. These republics were fully occupied and had the most intense combat operations on their territory. The largest number of Holocaust victims in the USSR also occurred in Ukraine and Belarus.
It is hard to believe manipulation when you know the truth from your family. That’s why today I remember my great-grandfather, killed in a battle not far from now-occupied Kakhovka; my grandma’s older brother who went missing in action; my great-grandfather, who lost his leg yet was never recognized as WWII veteran because he “didn’t fight long enough;” my great-grandmother, who was 23 when she was sent to a labor camp in an underground aviation plant (Mittelwerk) in the Alps as an “ostarbeiter” (labor camp slave); my grandmother, who lived through the horrors of Nazi occupation; all of my relatives who survived the post-war famine while the Soviet Union was exporting grain to support newly established communist regimes in Romania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
I mourn all the lives lost and damaged by that cruel war and pray and hope that “Never again” will once again become a reality and not just a nice slogan.
Voice of Ukraine 