Crimes of Silence

By Oksana Bashuk Hepburn

An email from my Florida tennis captain was political rather than recreational “sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 millions Russians murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian peoples looking the other way!”

 The email troubled me. This was my response:

Regretfully, I won’t be forwarding.  The note contains errors and omissions which I would be endorsing were I to send it on. FYI, some 10 million of the 20 million dead attributed to "Russians" were Ukrainian.  Most battles of the War’s Eastern front were fought in Ukraine.  It suffered the greatest War losses of any nationality.

For some reason these facts are too often missing in statements dealing with WWII and the Soviet period as are other truths: that Hitler learned genocide from Soviet Communists; that Joseph Stalin and his deputy Lazar Kaganovych were the chief architects of the Great Famine 1932-33 which starved some 10 million Ukrainians a decade before Hitler’s atrocities. 

While there is condemnation of the heinous Nazi crimes, attempts to erase the Ukrainian genocide by silence is instructive. Had there been a global outrage against Soviet atrocities, Hitler might not have dared to follow suit.  Instead, there were prizes: The New York Times reporter Walter Duranty received the Pultizer for falsely denying the Famine; Stalin became Time's Man of the Year. Petitions to rescind Duranty’s award, led by the remarkable American academic Dr. James Mace, were dismissed.  It continues to puzzle me that Hollywood, with its keen eye for human tragedy, has remained silent on as big a story as the Famine despite links, and therefore knowledge, of many of its greats, including Stephen Spielberg, to Ukraine.

It makes one wonder whether this silence by humanity’s collective conscience is systemic. 

Recently, Ukraine’s Head of the State Archives Committee, a former Communist, stated that she would not be making available documents from the Communist era.  Media reported that Olga Ginsberg brazenly undermined the creation of the Memorial Museum dealing with the Famine and other Communist atrocities by asking “Who needs to be told about the Soviet occupation?”  Her boss, Deputy Prime Minister Dmytro Tabachnik, did not ask her to resign ...(end of reply)

I wondered how my note would be received - accusations of me too-ism, a popular dismissive technique used to silence attempts to highlight the Ukrainian genocide when pointing out that the Jewish genocide is not unique? 

A reply came a few days later:

Ukraine has a lot of blood on its hands as well as the Nazis and the Soviets. One of the worst events took place outside of Kiev in Babyn Yar and is one that Jews will not forget.

It follows with a lengthy piece from the Jewish Virtual library and no mention that of the 100,000 people massacred in Babyn Yar, more than two thirds were Ukrainians; one third Jews. There is no mention of the Holodomor Famine Genocide in Ukraine 1932-1933 nor Stalin’s Lazar Kaganovych.

I consider whether to continue the exchange or keep my peace.

In reply...

I was in Babyn Yar honouring all its dead, for all human beings are equal in their right to life, freedom and more--as the UN Charter of Rights elaborates.  All are entitled to have the evils against them exposed and not suppressed by silence.

Victor Pinchuk, Kyiv’s leading billionaire is funding a Jewish Holocaust museum there.  Also, he collaborated with Hollywood’s Stephen Spielberg in a recent movie about the plight of Jews in Ukraine under Nazi occupation.  While Spielberg has made several movies, including the Academy Award winner, The Pianist, about the Jewish holocaust, as have others, none has been made about Ukraine’s loss of life in the Famine holocaust nor about its giant War effort against the Nazis.  Typically, Ukrainians are mentioned only in a negative light; their contributions lumped into the “Soviet” or “Russian” effort.

It would be a worthy history lesson and do wonders for good inter group relations, if both our sides come together to honour the incredible devastation of each of our peoples (end).

Will it happen?  Will influential people like Pinchuk and Spielberg correct the conspiracy of silence that surrounds the Famine?  Will officials like Ginsberg be made to resign for inappropriate statements? Will politicians like Tabachnyk be forced to leave politics for failing to hold her accountable?   Such actions would happen in Europe, the United States, or Canada.  To be well regarded, Ukraine needs to move to this level of democratic responsibility; its Orange forces must seek such resignations; and its large Diaspora and all freedom-loving people of the world must encourage such action. There must be zero tolerance for Soviet atrocities.  Moreover, condoning evil by silence is a crime against humanity.

If we cannot agree on this point, we have learned nothing and genocides will continue to rage. 

Oksana Bashuk Hepburn is writing a book about three generations of women in Canada and Ukraine between the War and the Orange Revolution era.