"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR"
An International Newsletter
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis, and Commentary

"The Art of Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World"

VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO'S MOTHER SPOKE ABOUT SOME
OF HER PERSONAL, POIGNANT MEMORIES OF WORLD WAR II

"COMING STRAIGHT FROM THE SOUL"
[Interview in Year 2003 with Mrs Varvara Yushchenko, article one]

"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR" - Number 481
E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net
Washington, D.C. and Kyiv, Ukraine, TUESDAY, May 10, 2005

------INDEX OF ARTICLES------
"Major International News Headlines and Articles"

1. "COMING STRAIGHT FROM THE SOUL"
Mykhaylyna Skoryk spoke to Mrs Varvara Yushchenko in 2003 at age 84
[Shared remembrances about WWII and the impact on her life]
INTERVIEW: By Mykhaylyna Shoryk in year 2003
With Mrs. Varvara Yushchenko, Viktor Yushchenko's Mother
Welcome to Ukraine magazine, Kyiv, Ukraine, Year 2003, Issue Two

2. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO LEADS VETERANS' MARCH
DOWN KIEV'S CENTRAL STREET KHRESHCHATYK, WALKING WITH
HIS DAUGHTER AND HIS WIFE KATERYNA
UT1, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1115 gmt 9 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, May 9, 2005 (11:15)

3. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO ONCE AGAIN CALLS
FOR RECONCILIATION OF SOVIET AND NATIONALIST VETERANS
TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1235 gmt 9 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, May 9, 2005

4. PARLIAMENTARY DEPUTY LEVKO LUKIANENKO PUSHES FOR
INTRODUCTION OF STATUS OF FREEDOM FIGHTERS OF UKRAINE
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, May 9, 2005 (14:39)

5. LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF UKRAIINSKA PRAVDA
Valentyn Labunski is not a correspondent of the newspaper "Svoboda"
From Irene Jarosewich, Editor in Chief
Svoboda newspaper, Parsippany, New Jersey, May 5, 2005

6. PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO MEETS WITH JEWISH LEADERS
Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (FJC)
Moscow, Russia & New York, USA, Friday, May 6, 2005

7. ESTONIA IS READY FOR RECONCILIATION WITH MODERN RUSSIA
Interfax News Agency, Moscow, in Russian 0417 gmt 7 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Sat, May 07, 2005

8. "BLOGS & MEMORY"
May 9 is not the end of the last world war; beginning of the Cold War.
By David Frum, The Huffington Post, The Blog
Delivering News & Opinion Since May 9, 2005
On the Web, 05.09.2005

9. "RED NOSTALGIA OR RUSSIAN AMNESIA"
OP-ED: By Janusz Bugajski and Milena Staneva
The Washington Examiner, Alexandria, Virginia
Sunday, May 8, 2005

10. OPEN LETTER: RUSSIA 'MOCKING' WWII CEREMONIES
BBC NEWS WORLD EDITION
United Kingdom, Saturday, May 7, 2005

11. FORMER SOVIET LEADER GORBACHEV WARNS AGAINST
EXAGGERATING STALIN'S ROLE IN WWII VICTORY
Mass political purges in Stalin's era must not be forgiven or forgotten.
INTERFAX, Moscow, Russia, Sunday, May 8, 2005

12. RUSSIANS CELEBRATE '45 DEFEAT OF HITLER
But for ex-soldier Lev Mishchenko and others who survived Nazi POW
camps, there was no gratitude by Stalin--but more years in gulags
By Alex Rodriguez, Tribune foreign correspondent
Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, Monday, May 9, 2005

13. "THE COURTYARD FROM THE PRE-WAR CHILDHOOD"
I had left my yard and the city of Kyiv in the month of August of 1941.
Article By Myron Petrovsky, Literary Critic
Welcome to Ukraine magazine
Kyiv, Ukraine, Year 2004, Issue Two

14. THE STRUGGLE FOR HISTORY AND MEMORY
COMMENTS: By Peter Lavelle
Untimely Thoughts,Vol 3, no 75 (297) Problemic history
Moscow, Russia, Sunday, May 08, 2005

15. THE MAN WHO REALLY DEFEATED HITLER
Sixty years on, it's time to reinstate Georgi Zhukov and remember
his role in defending Russia from the Nazis, writes Shane Kenny.
By Shane Kenny, Irish Times, Dublin, Ireland, Sat, April 30, 2005

16. WORLD WAR II - 60 YEARS AFTER: FOR VICTIMS OF STALIN'S
DEPORTATIONS, WAR LIVES ON
Estimated 1.5 million people were sent into forced exile starting in 1943
By Jean-Christophe Peuch, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
Prague, Czech Republic, Wednesday, May 4, 2005
===============================================================
1. "COMING STRAIGHT FROM THE SOUL"
Mykhaylyna Skoryk spoke to Mrs Varvara Yushchenko in 2003 at age 84
[Shared remembrances about WWII and the impact on her life]

INTERVIEW: By Mykhaylyna Shoryk in year 2003
With Varvara Yushchenko, Viktor Yushchenko's Mother
Welcome to Ukraine magazine, Kyiv, Ukraine, Year 2003, Issue Two

Everyone in the village of Khoruzhivka, which is in the Oblast of Sumy,
knows Varvara Yushchenko who lives in a house surrounded by a fence with
a green gate. There is a welcoming smell of cooking potatoes and borsch
that greets when you enter this cozy nook of a house. Mrs Yushchenko treats
her two sons, Viktor, the former prime minister and now an MP [and now
President], and Petro, a businessman and also an MP, who once in a while
come from Kyiv to visit with her.

One of the walls is adorned with photographs of smiling grandchildren; one
of the windowsills is lined up with house plants - begonias, roses and
lilies. "Look at this one," the hostess says, pointing to a flower. "It's
just come into bloom to greet you."

She leads the way into the room with a portrait of Shevchenko on the wall.
"It was on my husband's sixtieth birthday that our children gave us this
portrait. Of all the portraits of Taras that I've seen this one I like best.
He looks so handsome and not at all old like he does in many others."

Mrs Yushchenko who used to teach mathematics at the local school for
many years, regards Shevchenko as the greatest teacher of all. "My God,
my God, what a tragic fate this man suffered! And why? Because he loved
Ukraine so much, it was so dear to his heart.

At times, I get too busy with home chores and my thoughts are about all
kinds of mundane things but then I look up and look at this portrait, into
Shevchenko's eyes - and my soul is all atremble!"

Mrs Yushchenko, 84, is active and sprightly for her age. She keeps a goat,
chickens and a couple of doves. "I used to have six of them," she says,
"but only two are left. A hawk must have stolen the others." Her sons keep
insisting she moves closer to them to the capital but she refuses to leave
her village: "It's my paradise here, and I will never leave it for any other
place."

TEACHER ----------

(Q) You devoted a major portion of your life to teaching, didn't you?

Over forty years. Forty years of my life with the schoolchildren. Two years
before the war (Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 - tr.), and
the rest of my teaching career unfolded after the war. What a joy it was to
have the school reopened after the war! The Germans retreated sometime
in early September 1943, and on the 19th of that month, Oksana, another
teacher and my childhood friend and neighbour, came running to my place,
shouting: "Varvara! They're opening the school tomorrow!"

I looked up in disbelief at her - I was digging up beets, it was the harvest
time, you know, and said: "Oksana, you must be kidding!" But she was dead
serious. It was so hard to believe that life was getting back to normal. But
were there enough teachers and students to start school, so shortly after
the Germans' retreat? The war was still going on, wasn't it?

Oh yes, there were! All those who had survived wanted to teach and study so
much! When it was announced that we start school on the 20th, the good news
spread so fast by word of mouth - there was no radio or TV, you know. There
were hundreds of kids who turned up eager to study. Incidentally, these days
there are only about 150 children studying at our local school.

(Q) What motivated you to become a teacher in the first place? Were there
any teachers in your family?

No, there were not. It's an interesting story, my becoming a teacher that
is. I graduated from a secondary school in Nedryhaylivka back in 1939 but I
was not issued a graduation certificate. The local education authority
decided that 14 young graduates, who had been selected for whatever
merits, were to be sent to a teachers' training college in Lebedyn. We
were robbed of a chance to choose our own careers in life - such were
the times.

We were told: "You've got a secondary education, now you'll study to be
elementary school teachers." And that's it. Most of the boys were drafted
into the army - the country was getting ready for war. It was a crash course
for us - after just a few months of intensive studies and 28 exams teachers'
diplomas were issued to us so that we could start teaching in the fall. And
in September we were at work, teaching.

I felt I did not have enough education and wanted to continue studies, and
in 1940 I became a correspondence student of the Hlukhiv College, but I
completed my studies only after the war, in 1952, when my elder son Petro
was already a big boy. In fact, my husband Andriy graduated from the same
college and at the same time I did.

BRIDE AND WIFE ----------

(Q) Did you meet Andriy when you were a student?

In fact, I had known him for a long time. We were classmates in school,
and we were good friends, but before I tell you the story of Andriy, I have
another story, and it's quite a poignant one too. Strange things happen in
life. Listen to this.

In 1939, five of us, young teachers, were sent to work at a school in the
village of Derkachivka. Among the other teachers there were some young
men who were soon to be drafted into the army, seven of them, in fact,
and five out of the seven single, not married!

They had had some previous experience in teaching and they gave us all
kinds of advice - how to handle an unruly class, how to explain things to
the children, that kind of thing. They eased our way into teaching, and did
it in a very nice way. They were young, handsome and cheerful. But it came
time for them to leave for the army. On a Sunday, when I happened to be
alone in the house I shared with three other teachers, I heard a knock on
the door.

I was just getting ready to sweep the shavings from the floor - wait, it
needs an explanation. You see, the floor in the house was wooden, made
of pine planks, not painted. If you scrubbed the planks and actually scraped
them, they looked so nice, yellow and cheery, and we had done it the
previous night but did not have time to clean up.

So, back to the knock - I answered the door, and one of the young male
teachers walked in. He held an elongated book in his hands and I saw that
he was nervous - his hands trembled. And I stood in front of him holding
that broom. He stepped closer to me and suddenly blurted out: "Varvara,
I've fallen in love with you, you know, let's get married, please, right
now. I'm leaving tonight. We'll register our marriage and."

I was so taken aback I was at a loss what to do or what to say. "Are you in
your right mind?" I said. "It's so unexpected. Besides, who will register
our marriage? It's Sunday, and the marriage registry office at the local
council is closed!"

Then he showed me the book he was holding, saying that it was the register -
he had picked it up at the council building without anybody being aware of
it, and now he could enter our names into the register himself. "Nobody will
know," he insisted, "only you and me! I don't want anything from you, it's
just something I would be able to hold on, a hope." He kept pleading and
his insistence made me actually cry.

I told him to stop it and get out of my house. But he would not leave,
saying that all of my friends were already married. To which I retorted that
it did not mean anything to me and I intended to remain single. Then it was
his turn to burst into tears and he left. And I kept crying for the rest of
the day.

(Q) Did you ever see him again?

No, but it's not the end of the story. Two or three days later, I received a
letter from him, the next day - another letter. And then again. He was
writing about many things, very convincingly and eloquently. He enhanced
his letters with drawings - he definitely had a talent for drawing.

Practically every day there was a letter from him! He was sent to Moscow
where he was attached to some army headquarters. I began writing back.

His letters were like those an elder brother or father might write. He wrote
about life values, about good and evil, about true love, he gave advice,
said clever things about teaching, insisted I keep studying, gave me all
kinds of moral support. When several days passed without a letter from
him, I began worrying.

All through the year 1939 he kept regularly writing, and when in 1940 he
was sent to Central Asia, he did not stop writing either. Then the war
broke out but his letters kept coming from the front. The last letter came
in August 1943.

And on October 14 - I remember the date because it was right before
the religious feast of Pokrova (the Intercession of the Holy Virgin - tr.),
I had a dream in which I saw a huge cross that shone like a moon with
something white, like a bed-sheet, at the foot of it. It reminded me of a
grave.

When I woke up in the night, the first thought that came to my mind was:
He's no longer among the living. But later I thought it could have been a
sign that either my brother or any of my many male relatives who were at
the front had been killed.

His letters stopped coming. It was only in 1956, when the Commemorative
Books which were published then and which contained the names of those
killed in action. I looked him up in the lists and found his name and the
date when he was killed - October 14, right before Pokrova, 1943. What
do you say to that? Wasn't it a prophetic dream?

His last letter was a long one, but I remembered the following words
particularly well: "You should know this - we, the two of us, live on this
earth for each other, and if God lets us survive this war, we will love each
other for the rest of our lives, we'll have sons and we'll raise them in
good spirit."

So it turned out that it was he who had been sustaining my hope for the
better all those years, rather than the other way round. I believed in him,
his letters became so important for me, I was waiting for him until the end
of the war.

(Q) And how does Andriy come into this story?

When in August 1945 he came to the village from the front - he was one
of the first to come back - I told him my woeful story. "You know, Andriy,"
I told him, "these years of war were so hard on all of us. The Germans
brought so much suffering, and the only thing that sustained me, the only
comfort, was the letters from my sweetheart. He became the dearest
person on earth to me through his letters. I've been waiting for him to
come back."

I never told this to any of my girl friends but for some reason I felt I
could tell it to Andriy. Andriy was like a good elder brother for me, he had
an empathic understanding of things. At first, it was this warm feeling and
empathy between us, and then gradually it transformed into profound love.

We got married on December 31, 1945. He had always been a neighbour -
the house he lived in was a couple of hundred yards from my house, but in
earlier years I never thought a day would come when we would become
husband and wife.

(Q) Did you go to a maternity ward to give birth to your first son?

No, both my sons were born at home, and I did not take any pregnancy
or after-birth leaves from work.

(Q) Is it true that it was your son Petro who talked you into having another
child so that he would have a younger brother?

Yes, in a way (Mrs Yushchenko laughs saying this). Petro was about six or
seven years old when one day he came running home, all in tears. You
see, there was a family living practically next door to us, who had three
children, and we had only one son. And when on that day Petro learnt that
there was this third addition to the family, a son named Viktor, he
positively demanded that we have a new baby too.

"How come," he wailed, "they have three kids, and I'm alone here! It's not
fair! Let's go to the cabbage patch of our garden to look for a brother for
me!" Petro must have been told that the new baby had been discovered
among the cabbage heads. And he kept insisting that we be on the
lookout for a baby boy.

(Q) Do you have your own principles of children's upbringing?

I'm not sure you could call them clear-cut principles, but. They say that a
lot depends on giving a good example to follow. Yes, it's important of
course but I do believe that there are certain things that babies imbibe
with their mothers' milk and that will, to some extent, determine their
future life.

Something that comes straight from the child's parents' souls. In our life
we lived through different periods, there were very difficult years on our
way through life, but no matter what, we always lived in peace and in love.
And our children saw it and absorbed it.

Our son Viktor has always rewarded people good for evil. We did not
have any particular upbringing plans for our children, we were just there
for them.

We made it clear to them that to work was good. They saw us work hard,
they helped us with whatever they could. Our sons can do all kinds of
chores and things in the household - they know how to work in the
vegetable garden, how to mow grass or grain, how to tend beehives.

Incidentally, Viktor is an excellent bee-keeper! My grandpa had an apiary,
then my father looked after it, and still later it was Viktor who did the
bee-keeping. I always lived around places where there was a lot of honey.

(Q) Does your son Viktor cherish his childhood memories?

He does! He keeps many of his childhood souvenirs, even his crib. Once,
on his visit, he found a tiny old frame of a window that used to sit in the
wall near our big peasant stove. He cleaned the frame, washed the glass
and said that would install it into the wall of his summer house to look
through it at the world the way he did in his childhood.

(Q) Do your grandchildren come on visits too?

Yes, sure they do. Sofiyka and Khrystynka, my youngest grandchildren,
were on a visit to me here quite recently. They were so eager to see what
it was that I was doing at the stove and they kept coming too close to have
a better look. I was a bit worried lest they get hurt and I found a couple
of old things like an old rubber hot-water bottle or a flashlight for them
to play with. It's such a fun to watch children play, it gives me so much
joy.

Sofiyka was taught several songs at home and here she sang them,
dancing to her own music, "Oh, you naughty girl/ you've deceived me /
you've cheated on me!.." I told her parents, Wasn't it a bit too early for a
kid her age to sing such songs? But they just laughed and said that the
tune was too good to be missed.

Well, that's life. I hope God will grant them joy and happiness.

Varvara Yushchenko is a very hospitable hostess and she will entertain
her guests and treat them to goodies as long as the guests choose to
stay but she acts in accordance with the saying, Welcome the coming
and speed the parting guest. -30-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK to original Welcome to Ukraine article with photographs:
http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20032/68
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE: Victor Yushchenko's mother, Varvara Tymofiyivna,
died on January 31, 2005 at age 86. She was buried in her native
Khoruzhivka village, at the local cemetery next to the grave of her
husband, Andriy Andriyovych.

Varvara Tymofiyivna was born on 27 November 1918. All her life she
taught mathematics at Khoruzhivka school. She brought up two sons,
she had seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She was
highly respected by her home-folks. Victor Yushchenko's mother used
to say: "If you can walk - get to work."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE: President Viktor Yushchenko spoke the following words
related to the tragedy of World War II, his father's imprisonment at
Auschwitz during the war, and his commitment to secure democracy
for Ukraine.

President Yushchenko speech on the occasion of the first part of
the 2005 Ordinary Session of the Council of Europe Parliamentary
Assembly (Strasbourg, 24 January 2005):

".............Ladies and gentlemen,
I became the President by the will of the Ukrainian people that wishes to
see its country prosperous and democratic. My vision of Ukraine is of a
society and a state governed by the rule of law. This vision of mine has
deep personal and national roots.

From Strasbourg, this symbol of Europe’s conscience, its reconciliation and
unity, I will go to Auschwitz. That place has become the symbol of pain. It
reminds us of the Holocaust, a dreadful crime against humanity. That is the
place of sufferings of my father, Andriy Yushchenko, a village teacher and a
soldier who was wounded and taken prisoner to Auschwitz under the number
11367.

I have already been to that place together with my children. I hope to go
there with my grand-children as well. My family has not forgotten my father’s
stories. I took back to Kyiv a handful of earth from Auschwitz. And I have
sworn over it that there would be any “Jewish issue” in Ukraine.

I belong to a nation that had to go through the largest tragedies in the
European history of the XXth century – two world wars, the great Ukrainian
famine-genocide, and the Holocaust. As a patriot of my country, and a
responsible politician, I have always done and will always do everything I
can so that Ukraine never has any element of anti-Semitism, intolerance to
any ethnic groups, religions, and cultures.

I would like to assure you that in my capacity of the President I will take
every effort to secure the irreversibility of democratic changes in my
country. The Ukrainian public authorities will do their utmost to secure the
fundamental principles of the Council of Europe – human rights protection,
pluralist democracy and the rule of law.

We will see to it that the state not only makes verbal guarantees but
safeguards basic human rights and freedoms. The rule of law will
become the cornerstone for all the state institutions, the courts of law in
particular. No one will be above the law, everyone will be equal to
it......" -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
===============================================================
2. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO LEADS VETERANS' MARCH
DOWN KIEV'S CENTRAL STREET KHRESHCHATYK, WALKING WITH
HIS DAUGHTER AND HIS WIFE KATERYNA

UT1, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1115 gmt 9 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, May 9, 2005 (11:15)

KIEV - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has been attending events
in Kiev to mark the 60th anniversary of Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.
State-run UT1 TV has broadcast live coverage of Yushchenko leading a
march of veterans down Kiev's central street, Khreshchatyk.

At the head of the column of veterans, Yushchenko was accompanied by
parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, Secretary of State Oleksandr
Zinchenko, First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh and Kiev mayor
Oleksandr Omelchenko. Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko was walking
several metres to Yushchenko's left. During most of the ceremony,
Yushchenko was walking holding his daughter by the hand. His wife,
Kateryna, was also walking by his side.

Walking further behind were Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko,
Security Service of Ukraine head Oleksandr Turchynov, Interior Minister
Yuriy Lutsenko and National Security and Defence Council Secretary
Petro Poroshenko.

A military orchestra was marching before the country's leaders, playing
World War II melodies. Khreshchatyk was flanked with crowds of onlookers,
who cheered the veterans and the country's leaders. No military hardware
was displayed.

Earlier on 9 May, Yushchenko came back from Moscow after attending a
Victory Day parade there. Upon his return to Ukraine, Yushchenko laid
flowers at a World War II monument in Kiev. After the march, Yushchenko
left for a World War II memorial in Kiev, where he is to host a festive
dinner for veterans and deliver a speech. The march down Khreshchatyk
lasted for about 30 minutes. -30- [Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
===============================================================
3. UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO ONCE AGAIN CALLS
FOR RECONCILIATION OF SOVIET AND NATIONALIST VETERANS

"But I am asking you, veterans, I am taking my hat off and begging you to
offer your hands to each other. This is necessary for the future of Ukraine.
This is necessary for us to show that everything is all right in Ukrainian
society. We have put a full stop in our history."

TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1235 gmt 9 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, May 9, 2005

KIEV - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has called on Soviet veterans
to offer their hands to those who fought for independence in the Ukrainian
Insurgent Army against both the German and Soviet armies. Addressing
veterans outside the World War II museum in Kiev, he said that Russian and
German veterans came to Moscow today to shake hands. He asked them to
forgive each other for the sake of their grandchildren.

The following is an excerpt from Yushchenko's speech broadcast live by
Ukrainian television TV 5 Kanal on 9 May:
[Yushchenko] Dear veterans of the Great Patriotic War, dear Ukrainian
citizens, friends, ladies and gentlemen, everybody present on this square! I
would like to bow low to you and congratulate you on the 60th anniversary of
the victory in the Great Patriotic War. [Passage omitted: Yushchenko thanks
veterans for the victory.]

There were several feats, special missions to liberate Ukraine. Millions of
people, fighting in the same ranks and shouting "For motherland, for
Stalin", defended every Ukrainian village, every plot of its land. They
carried all the difficulties of war on their shoulders.

There was another kind of soldiers, the soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent
Army, who also hoped for a free Ukraine. But they fought for it in their own
way, using their capabilities.

Dear friends, 60 years have passed since the end of the World War II. I
have just arrived from the parade on the Red Square in Moscow, where I
saw the presidents of Russia and Germany standing next to each other,
where Wermacht soldiers were invited to Moscow to meet veterans of the
Great Patriotic War, to sit at a round table and shake each other's hands.

Sixty years have passed since the great victory. In our hearts we have
forgiven the Germans, the Japanese and the Poles. We have forgiven
those who possibly was on the other side of the front line. But we have
not forgiven ourselves.

Unfortunately, veterans of the World War II have not yet offered their hands
to the veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. I know how hard this
process is. I know what pain there is in the hearts of dozens of thousands
of veterans when reconciliation is discussed today.

But I am asking you, veterans, I am taking my hat off and begging you to
offer your hands to each other. This is necessary for the future of Ukraine.
This is necessary for us to show that everything is all right in Ukrainian
society. We have put a full stop in our history.

Through forgiveness we have come to understanding and reconciliation,
like it was done by the Germans, the Spaniards, the Poles and the
Japanese, and like any wise nation would do.

I have received a letter from the German chancellor, where he passed
congratulations on the holiday and apologized for the tragedies during
the World War II.

Dear friends, today we are living in another society, a free society, which
calls on its citizens to offer hands to each other and leave
non-reconciliation in the past.

I am asking the organizations of veterans, participants in the Great
Patriotic War and soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army to support this
initiative. Today we hope, dear veterans, as your sons and daughters, that
you can do this for the sake of your children and grandchildren, for the
sake of Ukraine's future. [Passage omitted: Yushchenko praises the
veterans who liberated Ukraine.] -30-
===============================================================
4. PARLIAMENTARY DEPUTY LEVKO LUKIANENKO PUSHES FOR
INTRODUCTION OF STATUS OF FREEDOM FIGHTERS OF UKRAINE

Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, May 9, 2005 (14:39)

KYIV - Verkhovna Rada deputy Levko Lukianenko, who is a member of the
faction of the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc and chairman of the Council of Elders
of the Ukrainian Republican Party "Sobor," says he favors the passage by
parliament of the special status of freedom fighters of Ukraine. He made
the statement at a news conference in Ivano-Frankivsk on May 6.

"The Verkhovna Rada should establish a separate status of freedom fighters
of Ukraine," Lukianenko said. In his words, the current membership of Rada
is not in the position to recognize fighters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army
(UPA) as combatants or participants of military actions in the Second World
War.

"This is why the most farsighted means of resolving this issue is to
establish a separate status of freedom fighters of Ukraine," the deputy
stressed. Lukianenko explained that this status would apply not only to UPA
fighters, but also to members of the nearly 1,400 troops that fought against
Bolshevism in 1920-1925 under the leadership of atamans (field commanders).

"The status would also cover members of the army of the Ukrainian People's
Republic, those servicemen that defended it," he said. Lukianenko noted that
the status of freedom fighters of Ukraine would also cover the 19th and 18th
centuries, as well as participants of popular uprisings.

"And given such an approach there would be no need to do anybody a favor,
but to simply recognize the best sons of the Ukrainian people those of its
representatives, who during the course of the entire 340-year history of
Ukraine fought for its freedom," Lukianenko said.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, President Viktor Yuschenko spoke about
the need to hold reconciliation talks between soldiers of the Soviet army
and OUN-UPA fighters. Initiatives were on several occasions put forward in
the past to recognize OUN-UPA fighters as combatants during the time of
the Second World War. -30-
===============================================================
5. LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF UKRAIINSKA PRAVDA
Valentyn Labunski is not a correspondent of the newspaper "Svoboda"

From Irene Jarosewich, Editor in Chief
Svoboda newspaper, Parsippany, New Jersey, May 5, 2005

Olena Prytula, Editor-in-chief
"Ukraiinska Pravda," Kyiv, Ukraine
May 5, 2005

Dear Olena Prytula -

On May 5, the internet newspaper "Ukraiinska Pravda" published a
Ukrainian-language article by Valentyn Labunski titled "Moia pravda pro
Mykolu Melnechenka" (My truth about Mykola Melnychenko) that was
preceded by a editorial note identifying the author as a "correspondent
of the Ukrainian-language New York newspaper 'Svoboda' ".

The information provided in the editorial note is false - Valentyn Labunski
is not a correspondent of the newspaper "Svoboda" in New York;
"Svoboda" never approved the publication of this type of article; no one
from the staff of "Ukraiinska Pravda" contacted our editorial offices to
confirm if Valentyn Labunski is a correspondent of "Svoboda".

Therefore we request that this letter be published as a correction and
that the incorrect information be removed from the editorial note.

Respectfully, Irene Jarosewich, Editor-in-chief, Svoboda
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SVOBODA newspaper, Established in 1893
Published by The Ukrainian National Association
2200 Route 10 Parsippany, New Jersey 07054
973.292.9800, www.svoboda-news.com, svoboda@worldnet.att.net
===============================================================
6. PRESIDENT YUSHCHENKO MEETS WITH JEWISH LEADERS
Wants Jews of Ukraine to feel a connection to the tradition of their
forefathers, while strengthening their culture and continuing to attend
synagogues.

Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (FJC)
Moscow, Russia & New York, USA, Friday, May 6, 2005

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine – At a meeting with President of Ukraine Victor
Yuschenko, the Chief Rabbi of Sevastopol and the Crimean Peninsula,
Benyamin Wolf, gave an overview of the activity and development of the
Jewish community in Ukraine and in Sevastopol in particular.

President Yuschenko emphasized that he was paying great attention to
this development and considered to be a matter of importance, so that
Jews of Ukraine may feel a connection to the tradition of their forefathers,
while strengthening their culture and continuing to attend synagogues.

The Ukrainian President also affirmed that he considers this to be one of
his personal challenges that needs to be fulfilled in Ukraine during his
term in office as President.

During this friendly conversation, Rabbi Wolf and President Yuschenko also
spoke about the broad and effective activity that has been carried out by
the Ohr Avner Foundation, headed by FJC President Lev Leviev, which is
remarkable for its success in establishing and maintaining hundreds of
Jewish educational institutions, not to mention social and humanitarian
projects, in Ukraine.

President Yuschenko, who frequently visits the Crimean region, expressed
his willingness to participate in the inauguration of the new synagogue,
which is to be erected in Sevastopol in the near future. The Jewish
Community of Sevastopol is a member of the Federation of Jewish
Communities of Ukraine. -30-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=277726
===============================================================
7. ESTONIA IS READY FOR RECONCILIATION WITH MODERN RUSSIA

Interfax News Agency, Moscow, in Russian 0417 gmt 7 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Sat, May 07, 2005

TALLINN, Estonia - Estonia is ready for a reconciliation with Russia,
Estonian President Arnold Ruutel has said. "I believe that Estonia is ready
for reconciliation with modern Russia. Our present and future should not be
fettered by the legacy of the past," Ruutel said in an interview given to
the [Estonian] Postimees newspaper published on Saturday [7 May].

At the same time he said that the issue of reconciliation with Russia was of
some delicacy. "No politician can be so lacking in responsibility as to, for
example, use the game with demands for compensation to score points for
themselves," Ruutel said. He went on to add that with its present words and
deeds, Russia was not showing much of a desire for reconciliation with
Estonia.

"The current Russian authorities do not show readiness to become aware of
the past, as was the case at the 1989 Soviet Congress of People's Deputies
[at which the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was condemned]. "But we must
understand that the reasons for that lie mostly in modern Russia's national
identity and domestic politics rather than in blinkered anger towards
Estonia and the other Baltic states," Ruutel said.

"In search of its national identity, Russia has tried to move in several
directions at once: to develop the CIS, to enter into partnership agreements
with the EU and NATO and to volunteer to mediate in the Middle East peace
settlement. Without a doubt, the large-scale celebrations on 9 May are part
of Russia's search for and establishment of its national identity. We have
no grounds to criticize Russia for these ambitions," he said.

Ruutel went on to add that for Estonia, the consequences of World War II
were significant. One of them is that "the territory of modern Estonia is
smaller than it was before the war", he said.

[Estonian ambassador to Moscow Karin Jaani has welcomed President Putin's
recent statement on relations with the Baltic states. "If President Putin
and the Russian government openly admit that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
was criminal, that is enough," she has told Ekho Moskvy radio, the station's
news agency, Moscow, in Russian, reported at 0304 gmt on 6 May.

Jaani said Putin's statement was an important step towards establishing
good-neighbourly relations between Russia and Estonia. "We should clarify
our past and close this issue once and for all so that we can live as good
neighbours... The fact that for the last 10-15 years there have practically
been no active relations between Estonia and Russia shows that there has
been no political will," the agency quoted Jaani as saying.] -30-
===============================================================
8. BLOGS & MEMORY
So it might accurately be said that the historical event commemorated
on May 9 is not the end of the last world war; it is rather the beginning
of the Cold War.

By David Frum, The Huffington Post, The Blog
Delivering News & Opinion Since May 9, 2005
On the Web, 05.09.2005

The Guardian tells me that my job here is to "disturb a cosy worldview." But
I appreciate the invitation to post here, so maybe instead of disturbing,
I'll settle for expanding.

May 9, the launch date of the Huffington Post, is also the day that
President Bush joins Vladimir Putin in Moscow's Red Square to mark the
60th anniversary of the end of World War II on the eastern front.

As anniversaries go, May 9 is a strange one. Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun
committed suicide in their bunker on April 30. On May 7, the German High
Command traveled to Rheims in France to sign an unconditional surrender
before representatives of all the allied governments, including the Soviet
Union. The surrender went into effect the next day, VE Day, May 8, 1945.
That's the day the war ended.

For political purposes of their own, however, the Soviets refused to accept
the validity of the May 7 surrender. They insisted on having their own
separate instrument of surrender, which they then celebrated on their own
day, May 9.

The Soviets' refusal to share a day of celebration with the Western allies
was another in a gathering series of warnings of their dangerous postwar
ambitions for eastern and central Europe. These ambitions would fasten a
new totalitarian oppression on half a continent for almost half a century.
So it might accurately be said that the historical event commemorated on
May 9 is not the end of the last world war; it is rather the beginning of
the Cold War.

That's why the Russian plans for this anniversary event have alarmed so
many people: a giant military parade through Red Square - just like the old
communist days; special invitations to Belarussian dictator Aleksandr
Lukashenko and North Korea's Kim Jong Il (Kim declined; Lukashenko
accepted); continued kid-gloving of Josef Stalin by senior leaders as lower
echelon bosses erect statues to the old killer; an ever more monstrous
failure to acknowledge, commemorate, mourn, and punish the crimes of
communism.

On this 60th anniversary, the hard fact is that united democratic Germany
has completed and more than completed the work of remorse and
repentance for the crimes committed decades ago in Germany's name.
Russia, though, is rapidly reverting to the authoritarian and expansionist
past.

This very weekend, an article under Vladimir Putin's name appeared in the
French newspaper Le Figaro contemptuously rejecting any apology to the
Baltic states for Soviet-era deportations of Baltic populations and
attempted extirpation of Baltic language and culture:

"Our Baltic neighbors ... continue to demand some kind of repentance from
Russia. . I think they are trying to attract attention to themselves, to
justify a discriminatory and reprehensible policy of their governments
toward a large Russian-speaking part of their own population, to mask the
shame of past collaboration."

Imagine if a German chancellor were to describe the fall of the Third Reich
as a "catastrophe"! Yet that's just what Putin termed the collapse of the
Soviet Union in his address to the Russian nation last week: "the greatest
geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century."

The crimes of Nazi Germany are remembered and memorialized. Indeed if
anything there is a danger of over-remembrance: as if the Germany that was
vanquished six decades ago this week were more alive in our mind than the
democratic Germany that exists today. But who is memorializing the crimes
that were planned in the building that overlooks that Red Square where
today's ceremonies take place? There are some excellent books on the
subject in the languages of the West - Anne Applebaum's superb Gulag
won a much deserved Pulitzer Prize last year - and the independent states
of central Europe have their own individual memorials.

But where is the Russian equivalent to the memorial to the murdered Jews
built in Berlin? Americans spent hundreds of billions of dollars to contain
and defeat Soviet communism - yet where is the American equivalent to the
Holocaust museum to recall to mind the Soviet crimes that explained and
justified America's sacrifices? And where - a special question to the
audience for this blog - are the movies that tell new generations the story
that Vladimir Putin wishes to consign to silence and forgetfulness?

Maybe this May 9, 2005, is a time to begin - not just a new blog - but a new
work of memory. -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Frum is the author of five books, including two New York Times
bestsellers: THE RIGHT MAN: The Surprise Presidency of George W.
Bush (2003), and co-author with Richard Perle of AN END TO EVIL:
What's Next in the War on Terror (2004).

Frum is the Reader's Digest resident fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute and writes a daily column for National Review Online. He
contributes frequently to the editorial pages of The New York Times and
The Wall Street Journal, as well as to Great Britain's Daily Telegraph and
Canada's National Post. He appears regularly on CNN, Fox News, and the
BBC.

David Frum was born in Toronto, Canada in 1960. He received a simultaneous
BA and MA in history from Yale in 1982. He was appointed a visiting lecturer
in history at Yale in 1986; in 1987, he graduated cum laude from the Harvard
Law School, where he served as president of the Federalist Society. Frum
lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, journalist and novelist Danielle
Crittenden Frum, and their three children.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/2005/05/blogs-memory.html
===============================================================
9. "RED NOSTALGIA OR RUSSIAN AMNESIA"

OP-ED: By Janusz Bugajski and Milena Staneva
The Washington Examiner, Alexandria, Virginia
Sunday, May 8, 2005

When world leaders gather today in Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary
of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the political fallout will send shock waves
throughout the region. While Russian President Vladimir Putin is eager to
use the opportunity to glorify Soviet achievements, rekindle national pride
and display Russia's historic stature as a great power, the peoples of
Central and Eastern Europe have little nostalgia for an event that
exchanged one dictator for another and resulted in half-a-century of brutal
Soviet domination.

For them, the war did not fully end until Communism fell and the Soviet
Union collapse in 1991.

In today's celebration has become a highly charged political issue not
because of what it celebrates - the defeat of Nazi Germany - but for what it
fails to acknowledge: the enslavement of half of Europe by the Soviet Union
and the Kremlin's war crimes against its own population and against its many
neighbors.

The Kremlin refuses to recognize that Stalin's policies aided Hitler in
carving up Europe before the two dictatorships clashed over the spoils. In
reality, the 27 million Soviet war dead often cited by Russian officials and
unaware Westerners includes millions of citizens and soldiers who were
murdered by their own regime and millions more who were forcibly
incorporated into the Soviet Union during the war.

Furthermore, Moscow's post-war domination stifled Central-East Europe's
economic development, retarded its political evolution and isolated it from
the West. Today, while struggling to overcome their communist legacies and
consolidate their roles as EU members and NATO allies, the Central-East
European states seek to maintain cordial and productive relations with
Russia. But the parade in Moscow presents a thorny predicament for Europe's
new democracies, as they do not want to be trapped into celebrating their
own occupation.

There are fears that the presence of some Central-East European leaders in
Red Square may reinforce Moscow's historical distortions, while their
absence would be condemned by West European capitals as proof of the
region's alleged Russophobia. Estonian and Lithuanian leaders have boycotted
the ceremony, despite the Kremlin's effort to lure them by promising to sign
long-overdue border treaties with the Baltic states after the celebrations.

President George W. Bush faces an even more delicate dilemma. While he
needs to show support for and solidarity with his close allies in central
and eastern Europe, many argue that he cannot afford to alienate Russia at
a time when Washington seeks cooperation with Moscow on such issues as
missile defense, energy, nuclear nonproliferation and the war against
international terrorism. In an effort at diplomatic maneuvering, President
Bush has agreed to attend today's parade, but he also added Latvia and
Georgia to his European itinerary as a way to alleviate regional fears.

However, symbolic gestures only go so far. Laying a wreath at the monument
of victims of communism in Riga and speaking at the square of the Rose
Revolution in Tbilisi do not change the fact that there are a growing number
of unresolved issues between Washington and Moscow. The time is ripe for
the White House to devise a more comprehensive and realist policy toward
Russia.

During the last year, the inconsistencies between Russia's professed
objectives and its observable policies have become too glaring to ignore.
And U.S. policy appears to be shifting by looking more closely and
critically at the Kremlin's domestic and international agenda. Moscow's
opposition to the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in Ukraine last year
served as a sobering reminder that the Kremlin has not discarded its
imperial ambitions.

President Bush should not allow for a contradiction between his stated
support for global freedom and uncritical cooperation with a Russian regime,
which has registered a marked regression in civic democracy while seeking
to dominate its neighbors.

It is important for our administration and the American public to understand
that criticisms of Moscow's distortions of the 60th anniversary are not
merely an attempt to re-examine Russia's historical legacy. Even more
troubling is that the May 9 parade may serve to hide the country's
increasingly grim political predicament, its stilted democratic development
and its unwelcome regional ambitions.

The Kremlin leadership is attempting to build the country's national ethos
and statehood on imperial nostalgia and denial of the ruthlessness of Soviet
communist oppression. Russian identity is still vacillating among many
controversial symbols, and unless Moscow openly acknowledges the role
that Soviet leaders played in Europe's division in the past, it cannot
contribute to Europe's unification in the future. -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Janusz Bugajski is director of East European studies at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington, D.C. and author
of "Cold Peace: Russia's New Imperialism." Milena Staneva is a research
assistant at the East Europe Program of CSIS.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/05/09//opinion/op-ed/59oped09bugajski.txt
===============================================================
10. OPEN LETTER: RUSSIA 'MOCKING' WWII CEREMONIES
Mr Putin is accused of betraying the ideals that won World War II
Open letter attacking Russia's record on democracy and political freedom.

BBC NEWS WORLD EDITION
United Kingdom, Saturday, May 7, 2005

Russian plans to mark 60 years since the end of World War II will make a
mockery of the occasion, world leaders have been warned.

A group of politicians, academics and human rights campaigners have signed
an open letter attacking Russia's record on democracy and political freedom.

They say official ceremonies to be held in Moscow undermine the memory of
those who fought and died in the war. Signatories include ex-Czech President
Vaclav Havel and former US ambassadors. Moscow has also upset neighbours
Georgia, Estonia and Lithuania, who all plan to boycott Monday's ceremonies.
Russia's retreat from freedom and democracy in the post-Soviet era has never
seemed more rapid or broad scale

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili is staying away because Russia and
Georgia have failed to agree on a timetable for closing Soviet-era bases in
his country. In a separate row, Estonia and Lithuania are boycotting the
ceremonies because they say their liberation from the Nazis marked the start
of Soviet occupation. Latvia will send dignitaries - but along with Estonia
and Lithuania it wants Russia to apologise for the Baltic states' annexation
by the Soviet Union in 1940.

Russia sees itself as the main power which helped bring freedom to Europe,
defeating the Nazis at an enormous human cost - 30m Soviet lives were lost.

'MOCKERY'
Russian President Vladimir Putin said recently that the three Baltic states
had been "treated as pawns in world politics" but said Moscow had already
apologised and would not do so again. "Must we do this every day, every
year? That is downright senseless," he told German television.

Pro-democracy campaigners in Europe and the US have expressed growing
concerns about modern Russia. In the letter, to be published in full in the
UK's Financial Times newspaper to coincide with the 9 May ceremonies,
signatories accuse Russia of betraying the principles behind victory in
1945. They write: "[We] believe the venue and hosting of this event are
altogether unsuited to the fundamental principles for which that historic
victory... was achieved."

Russia in 2005 lacks strong democratic institutions, while political
freedoms, civil liberties and the rule of law are weak, the signatories
allege. "It seems to us a mockery of the occasion to gather there in honour
of the 20th century's climactic sacrifice for Europe's freedom."

As well as Mr Havel, the letter's 75 signatories include former prime
ministers of Estonia and Bulgaria and academics and democracy activists
from eastern and western Europe and the US.

Several current and former members of the European parliament, US
congress and UK parliament also signed the letter. Richard Allen, former
national security adviser to former US President Ronald Reagan, has
signed, alongside several former ambassadors.

Russia has been accused of concentrating too much power in the hands
of the Kremlin, and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently
criticised levels of media freedom. -30-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4522495.stm
===============================================================
11. FORMER SOVIET LEADER GORBACHEV WARNS AGAINST
EXAGGERATING STALIN'S ROLE IN WWII VICTORY
Mass political purges in Stalin's era must not be forgiven or forgotten.

INTERFAX, Moscow, Russia, Sunday, May 8, 2005

MOSCOW - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said that the role
of (former Soviet leader) Iosif Stalin in the victory over Nazi Germany
must not be exaggerated and that mass political purges in Stalin's era
must not be forgotten.

"Of course, Stalin's name will be mentioned during the celebrations of the
60th anniversary of the victory in World War II. However, one should not
go as far as to say that we owe the victory to Stalin, or that the victory
would have never been won without him. This event must not be used to
glorify Stalin," Gorbachev told Interfax.

In his view, "while assessing Stalin's role, one should remember that he
was responsible for mass repressions, that he would have stopped at
nothing and made use of every tool to achieve his goals," Gorbachev said.

"I had an opportunity to thoroughly study his archives. The slaughter
machine was operating not without his knowledge. He personally signed
death verdicts in great numbers, thus sending both outstanding public
figures and ordinary people to death," he said.

In Gorbachev's view, "this must not be forgiven or forgotten." -30-
===============================================================
12. RUSSIANS CELEBRATE '45 DEFEAT OF HITLER
But for ex-soldier Lev Mishchenko and others who survived Nazi POW
camps, there was no gratitude by Stalin--but more years in gulags

By Alex Rodriguez, Tribune foreign correspondent
Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, Monday, May 9, 2005

MOSCOW -- Lev Mishchenko should have been given a hero's welcome
when he returned to the Soviet Union in 1945.

The young Russian officer had survived three years of terror in Nazi POW
camps. At the risk of execution, he had defied a German commander's order
to become a turncoat. And on a spring night when Russian prisoners of war
worried that Nazis might be preparing to carry out mass executions,
Mishchenko made his escape.

But when he returned home, he said, Soviet authorities greeted him with
rounds of interrogations and, eventually, charges of espionage. The
accusations were groundless, but it didn't matter. Mishchenko had narrowly
escaped the barbarism of Nazi Germany only to find himself firmly in the
grip of Josef Stalin's paranoia. He spent the next nine years locked away
in the gulag.

"It was injustice, of course, but I wasn't surprised," said Mishchenko, now
88. "I understood that nothing in the Soviet Union ever changed. I had no
illusions about that."

Mishchenko and millions of other Russians likely will well up with pride
Monday when the country celebrates its 60th anniversary of Victory Day,
Russia's most significant and solemn holiday that commemorates the defeat
of Nazi Germany. The anniversary also was celebrated Sunday during V-E,
or "Victory in Europe" Day commemorations across Europe and in the U.S.

Russia turned the tide against a German military machine that had marched
deep into western Soviet territory, reaching the outskirts of Moscow and
the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. The price was unfathomably
high--26 million Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed in the war, more
than from any other nation.

For Russians such as Mishchenko, the sense of sacrifice associated with
the war was compounded by the tragedy of Soviet rule under Stalin. Millions
were executed or died in labor camps as a result of Stalin's purge of
Soviet citizens he deemed "enemies of the state."

At least 1 out of every 10 returning Russian POWs were accused of
betraying the state and sent to labor camps, said Alyona Kozlova of
Memorial, a leading Russian human-rights group. Stalin worried that the
returning POWs had been hardened by their war experiences and would
be less apt to be intimidated by his rule, Kozlova said.

Mishchenko said he was neither intimidated nor inspired by Stalin. His
allegiance was to Mother Russia, not the Soviet dictator.

"We defended our country, and we thought it necessary to do that
regardless of the fact that we lived in an authoritarian state, and
regardless of the way the authorities treated us," Mishchenko said.
"Even when I was in the Soviet labor camp," he added, "I did my work
diligently--not for the state but for the country."

Mishchenko was 24 when he was called to serve on the Eastern Front, where
Adolf Hitler had launched his June 22, 1941, invasion of the Soviet Union
with a massive display of military might: more than 3 million troops, 3,350
tanks and 2,000 aircraft. Mishchenko was a junior lieutenant heading a
supply unit for Russian infantrymen trekking toward the front.

As they made their way across the plains and woodlands of western Russia,
Mishchenko sized up the Red Army's lack of preparation. Some soldiers were
not uniformed; many lacked basic rain gear. Within weeks, infantry units
began running out of food.

Mishchenko was captured near the Russian city of Vyazma, three months
after the invasion began. His commanders had ordered him to make his
way to three nearby Russian fortifications to urge troops there to hold
their
positions as long as possible. Armed only with a revolver and seven bullets,
he crawled through fields by night, using stars to guide him.

After coming up on a village taken by German troops, he quietly retreated
into the forest, dug a small trench and went to sleep. Hours later he awoke
as someone kicked his knee.

"I realized it was a German soldier," Mishchenko said. "I was in a state of
panic. I tried to take my gun out, but I was immediately clubbed in the
head by another soldier."

He was taken to a POW camp in Smolensk, then shuttled to a camp in the
Russian village of Katyn, where a German commander who spoke Russian
told Mishchenko and other Russian soldiers they were being enlisted as
spies and would be sent to the front. If they balked, they would be shot.
Mishchenko refused. He was thrown into a truck with three comrades who
had refused to cooperate.

"We all thought we were going to be executed, and I decided that I would
somehow commit suicide, that that would be a better fate for me," he said.
Inexplicably, the POWS were taken back to the camp in Smolensk.

At Smolensk, scores of POWs were dying from typhoid and starvation,
Mishchenko said. The camp limited daily food rations to 3 ounces of bread.
Guards threw potatoes at starving POWs, then shot them as they tried to
reach for the food.

Mishchenko was shuttled through several camps in Germany before being
tattooed with the number 64109 and sent to Buchenwald concentration
camp, where 56,000 people were murdered between 1937 and 1945.

Jews and POWs were kept in separate sections. Though most Russian
POWs survived, some were summoned over loudspeakers to the camp
gate after committing minor infractions. "That was the worst thing that
could happen--it meant that the prisoner was about to be executed and
cremated," Mishchenko said.

As Allied forces closed in on Buchenwald, German soldiers evacuated the
POWs. Prisoners too exhausted to march were shot. Fearing the Germans
eventually would execute the remaining POWs, Mishchenko and several other
Russian soldiers escaped. They found an American Army unit that put them
up at a nearby hotel. Two months later, U.S. trucks took the men to the
Soviet border. "The reception there was absolutely cold," Mishchenko
recalled. "They treated us as suspicious people."

Mishchenko was arrested by the Soviet counterespionage unit known by the
acronym SMERSH, which means, "Death to Spies." He was accused of spying
for Germany while in the POW camps and convicted after a 20-minute trial.

Soviet soldiers took Mishchenko to a gulag camp in Pechora, deep in the
heart of taiga woodlands at the foot of the northern Ural Mountains. He was
assigned a variety of jobs during the next nine years: clearing snow,
carrying loads of wood, working as an electrician and, later, a chemist.

Mishchenko was released in 1954, a year early. Waiting for him was his
fiance, Svetlana. She assumed he had been killed until Russian intelligence
agents questioned her about his possible role as a spy. "In a way it was
welcome news," she said, "because that told me he was still alive."

An estimated 12 million people died in the gulags. Though Mishchenko
survived, the stigma followed him for two years. His university studies
trained him for a career in nuclear physics, but he was turned away from
even menial jobs.

In 1956, the same year he and Svetlana wed, authorities cleared him of all
charges. Later that year he began a 30-year career as a nuclear physicist
at a Moscow research institute.

Spry and soft-spoken, Mishchenko now shares a small Moscow apartment
with his wife on their $455 combined monthly pension. He said he will
remember Victory Day on Monday the same way he always has, proud that
Russia saved itself from Hitler but disappointed that long after the war,
Russia's own tyranny endured. -30-
===============================================================
13. "THE COURTYARD FROM THE PRE-WAR CHILDHOOD"
I had left my yard and the city of Kyiv in the month of August of 1941.
Myron Petrovsky, a literary critic shares his reminiscences.

By Myron Petrovsky, Literary Critic
Welcome to Ukraine magazine
Kyiv, Ukraine, Year 2004, Issue Two

By God, did I want to find myself again in that courtyard! I was connected
to it as though by rubber ropes, and the more I was being pulled from the
courtyard of my childhood, the greater was the force with which these ropes
were drawing me back. Or alternately I felt as though I were a dust particle
that cannot withstand the mighty pull of a vacuum cleaner - I was sucked in
and kept going all through those tubes and ducts dreaming of at last being
carried to my ultimate destination and thrown on the asphalt of my very own,
very dear courtyard, the very best one in the world.

But if anyone asked me then why I wanted to go there so much, I would
hardly be able to answer in any clear way - I would have gabbled something
incoherent. I just wanted to get back to it, OK? And that's it. I do need to
get back, how can't you understand?

I had left my yard and the city of Kyiv in the month of August of 1941. One
day my father, already wearing his new officer's uniform, rushed from the
barracks situated quite a way off in the street called Kerosynna (Kerosene -
tr.) to our house in Lyuteranska (Lutheran) Street, ran up the stairs to our
apartment on the fifth floor, and bursting in, shouted, "You've got about
fifteen minutes to pack!" My mother and my elder brother - I was too small
to participate - faced the daunting task of having to pack our possessions
in a few suitcases and bags within an impossibly short time.

He warned that the small truck whose platform was already overflowing with
somebody else's suitcases and bags - not counting the refugees themselves -
would not wait any longer. "You hear the honking? That's the truck. It's
your last chance to get out of town." The rapidly advancing German troops
would encircle the city of Kyiv within several days. But, he added, in
several days the situation at the front would radically improve, the city
would be retaken and you'd be able to return back home.

But the opportunity to go back to my native town - and to my native
courtyard, the courtyard of my childhood - took seven long years to present
itself. And all those years, filled with moving from place to place and
miserable life in the evacuation, I dreamed of going back to my native
courtyard, to my school, to my native town.

On the one hand, by Kyiv standards it was an ordinary courtyard, one of
many. On the other, there was something special in it. Our house stood on
the slope of a rather steep hill, and on the side of the street it rose to
the height of five floors - but the side facing the yard had additional two
stories. On one side of the house ran a wooden gallery with doors of the
second and third floors opening into it. Trucks and cars could gain access
to the yard through a gateway and narrow passage, so narrow that trucks
had a problem of fitting in, and once in, they had to inch their way
through.

The back part of the yard was occupied by a dump and wooden sheds and
lean-tos that stood against the wall of the opposite house and contained
mostly firewood. They reminded me the boards of an ancient ship.

The yard had several levels; there were ladders and staircases leading up
and down, cul-de-sacs, niches and passages suggesting secret places. Now,
in my memory I can compare it to the pictures of Escher (Mauritis Cornelius
Escher,1898-1972, Dutch artist whose lithographs and woodcuts depict
imaginary metamorphoses, geometric distortions, and architectural
impossibilities - tr.) in which the stairs leading up also take you down.

You could not find a better place for playing hide-and-seek and war (yes,
before and during the war kids played soldiers and war). The children from
the neighbouring houses envied the unlimited possibilities for play our yard
offered, but we showed collective yard patriotism and prevented any
incursions of the neighbours into our territory.

The courtyard permeated my whole being and kept appearing and featuring
even in my night dreams. And there was one amazing thing to these dreams -
no matter whether, in my dreams I was a little boy, a teenager, a young man
or an ageing man, the action of the dreams took place in one and the same
place - the courtyard of my childhood. The dreams took me to the yard even
when the action, in accordance with the loci of the reality, should have
taken place anywhere else rather than in that yard.

But dreams have their own, incomprehensible logic - if at all. The events
separated by space and time kept occurring in that yard. It became the stage
where everything that occurs has its own, secret sense, no matter how
impossible the unfolding situation would be in real life. The yard was the
stage on which, like in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, its enclosed space
could be a forest, the sea, a field or a palace, depending on the whim of
the demiurge.

While we were away from Kyiv, I kept so insistently and persistently begging
my father to do everything possible and impossible to go back to Kyiv, that,
probably fearing that his refusal might damage my psychic health, he yielded
to my entreaties, and after the war took his family back to Kyiv
(incidentally, to do so he had to reject several lucrative offers of jobs
and decent apartments in other cities). To return to the devastated Kyiv was
to go into the unknown, with unclear prospects for the future.

On the very first day of our return to Kyiv, as soon as we settled in our
new apartment, I went to see "my" courtyard. I was so excited and nervous
as though I was on my way to my first date with a girl. It turned out it was
not easy to get to Lyuteranska Street - the central part of Kyiv was still
the scene of almost complete devastation, with most of the houses turned
into brick boxes, empty inside, or reduced to huge piles of rubble. I had to
take a circuitous route to get to the house where we had lived before the
war - and to the coveted yard.

Almost at every step I gasped - the Ginsburg House, the tallest in Kyiv,
gone; the Chervona Armiya theatre - a huge hole in the ground; here and
there - and everywhere - gaps, like knocked out teeth, in the rows of
buildings. The house on the corner of Lyuteranska Street and Merinhovska
Street - gone. But I did get to the house number 11 in Lyuteranska Street.
At first glance, not much had changed - the same front wall, the paint
peeling; the same asphalt on the sidewalk, all in cracks.

But the house was dead - not the house anymore, just a box, empty inside.
The side which used to have seven floors collapsed altogether. Around the
empty windows the signs of the devastating fire were particularly
conspicuous. Through the windows I could see the insides of what used to
be my house, with no floors dividing the stories. Our balcony was
miraculously there - I even spotted the frame of the metal bed on it. It was
on this bed that my brother and I used to sunbathe on good summer days.

The balcony had seen a stunt my brother had performed with me clinging to
his back - he, to prove his athletic strength, put me on his shoulders
piggy-back, climbed over the railing and holding on to the posts carried me
around the balcony, his feet dangling several dozen feet above the asphalt
below. When he had begun to climb over the railing, I had uttered my first
and last shriek of horror - I was quick to realize that in my situation the
best thing was to sit tight and keep my mouth shut.

We had survived then, and now several years later, I was standing beneath
that balcony with no chance of climbing up to it - there were no staircases
to climb. After the initial shock passed, I noticed there were sturdy
Ukrainian young girls and women working in and around the house, clearing
up the rubble and getting things ready for rebuilding (the house was indeed
rebuilt - tr.). Among them were people in dirty, enemy uniforms - German
prisoners of war. To see them, wearing the uniforms of the aggressor was
also shocking. But I was in still for another shock - the girls were openly
flirting with the Germans!

But the main thing was that I was back and was in my yard! So familiar, so
dear! Here are the stone steps leading to the apartment in the basement, the
steps polished by the soles of the boots of their occupants - the Kutsenko
family; they used to have a "New Year" (in the Soviet times Christmas and
consequently Christmas trees were banned - but the tradition could not be
banned and Christmas trees were rechristened "New Year" trees - tr.), so
nicely decorated with little flags, each bearing a picture of the communist
party leaders; next to the Kutsenkos lived the Kohan family about whom I
knew nothing except that they were even poorer than our family; there was
also the Aronovych family - one woman and her two husbands - or so the
rumour had it; these two husbands were always elegant and polite. What
happened to these people, I wondered looking at the empty, blackened
windows.

And on these steps I used to sit in the evenings. Once I inadvertently
overheard a conversation, conducted in the twilight behind - literally - my
back. The conversation was about me. The two whispering voices informed
each other that "he" - that is me - "had a crush on her." "Her" was a girl
named Nelya; she was one year my senior and attended school; I was
several months below the school age and my crush was intensified by
envy. When I realized that I was the subject of the whispering conversation,
I felt very proud.

And there is a place where some sort of a shed used to stand - a shed for
storing something. There was always a trough full of wet clay standing by
and we, the boys, were fond of putting our hands into that clay and
squeezing it and kneading it. Once, a small and curly-haired boy called
Zhrik decided it'd be fun to strike the lay with a metal stick, but instead
of the clay he struck my head. It did not hurt that much but there was a lot
of blood that gushed from the open wound.

My father and my brother who were promptly informed of the incident, came
running. They took me to an emergency room of a nearby hospital where my
wound was sewn up. I never cried in front of the other boys, and when I
returned, my head all bandaged up, I felt I had earned a lot of respect. For
some reason, I was somewhat embarrassed by the overt signs of this newly-
won reputation - I did not think I deserved it. I did not cry and did not
complain mostly because I was too shocked by what had happened.

And there are the ruins of those lean-tos - we used to play hide-and-seek
there. It was such a great fun to be hiding in the semi-darkness of a
lean-to, all alone, as though in a cave. Was it an atavistic, primordial
craving for the safety of a cave? I don't know but the slope of a nearby
hill was dotted with the entrances to the caves that the kids had dug in the
ground.

And here are the five steps of the porch; and over there the wide crack in
the asphalt that had become even wider; and over there on the wall, the
eternal formula, scratched into the bricks - Ivan + Manya = Love.

There were so many familiar things around, even barring the devastation -
and yet something was wrong. I did not feel the exhilaration I had expected
I would feel the moment I walked into my old, dear courtyard. It was not
because of the obvious signs of ruination and destruction - no, it was
something else, something different, but I could not put my finger on it.

The reality proved to be too much different from my dreams and memories. It
was as though I was looking through the viewfinder of an old photo camera -
if things were out of focus you saw two overlapping images. By rotating the
ring on the protruding lens you could make the two images fully coincide and
merge - but in my case something was preventing me from getting things into
the desired focus. I felt cheated and disappointed, and depressed.

I, dispirited and downhearted, walked around the yard, looking for something
that would restore the focus and bring back the emotions of my childhood.
The working women and the German prisoners of war noticed my anxious
wandering to and fro across the yard, and began making comments. I could
not tell whether they were suspicious or just mocking or wondering what this
lanky bespectacled teenager in a jacket a couple of sizes too small for him,
was up to.

Feeling more depressed and unnerved and self-conscious by the minute, I
retired to the distant corner of the yard where the skeleton of a bench
stood. I perched on the hard edge and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. The
soviet cigarettes were without filter then, smelly and very strong. Puffing
on my cigarette, I stared into the ground, wondering why the reality turned
out to be so disturbingly different from my dreams. Taking a long drag on
my cigarette, I raised my head and.

And at that moment a miracle happened. It caught me so much by surprise,
that I had a coughing fit. Tears welled up in my eyes, and when I wiped them
I discovered the thing I was looking for - I saw the yard of my childhood,
the yard I had been longing for. Things came into focus, the images merged.
What I saw around me and what I remembered became one, turning into a
palpable, 3-D reality. I had really come back to the backyard of my
childhood.

I had left this place when I had been a nine-year old boy, small in stature
for that age, and I had returned seven years later, a sixteen-year old
teenager taller than the average height, a young man who was addressed in
queues and in stores with respect due to a grown-up - I had grown up in the
intervening years almost by three feet and naturally, now I saw everything
from a very deferent angle! Why did I not think about it before? How could I
have overlooked such an obvious thing?

When I had sat down on that bench, I had gone down - in a very literal
sense - to the height of a small nine-year old, and sitting there and
looking up I began to see things the way I had seen them back then, from
the same angle.

I remember that day of my coming back to Kyiv and returning to my
courtyard very vividly and clearly. I was taught an excellent lesson then -
it's the angle at which we look at the world that makes all the difference.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: to the original Welcome to Ukraine article with photographs:
http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20042/32
===============================================================
14. THE STRUGGLE FOR HISTORY AND MEMORY

COMMENTS: By Peter Lavelle
Untimely Thoughts,Vol 3, no 75 (297) Problemic history
Moscow, Russia, Sunday, May 08, 2005

The VE Day commemorations in Western Europe today tell us a lot what the
war means 60 years on - and most of the meaning is about the present. This
should not surprise anyone - this is what history is all about. The
following are some observations after reading scores of articles on VE Day
by the "commentariat" during the past few hours and watching Russian TV
and the BBC (before Bush's arrival to Moscow).

Bush's comments in Latvia and the Netherlands were heavy on rhetoric
(basically about his administration's foreign policy goals) and light on
history. No one can deny that the Baltic republics got the worst deal in
East Central Europe as a result of the Second World War. During the course
of hostiles they were volleyed back and forth: from the Soviets to the Nazis
and then back to the Soviets. Bush picked up on this much to the delight of
his host and other Baltic leaders.

Most commentary understands Bush comments as a swipe at Russia. In fact,
they aren't. The United States very much wants NATO to pursue America's
global foreign policy agenda and the new countries of the alliance can help
make this happen. France and Germany are resistant to Bush's agenda (i.e.
war of preemptive aggression). Tony Blair - returned to office - is probably
the most lame duck leader ever imagined. "New Europe" is Bush's gambit to
keep NATO focused on American interests around the world.

Bush commented on Soviet/communist oppression in the Baltics and
East-Central Europe in the post-war environment. He was correct to do so.
The Soviet Union oppressed the countries it liberated from Nazi occupation.
But, implying both occupations were the same is a gross historical error.

The Nazis had their collaborators. In Western Europe they had
"administrators" and "policemen" who did their bidding. In the East it was
very different. Nazi occupations in the East meant more times than not
extermination or slavery. Those willing to fight with the Nazis were
welcomed, but rarely armed. Those interested in killing Jews were always
given a blank check -all the bullets and booze they could use and consume.

Soviet occupation of East Central Europe denied democratic institutions,
freedom of speech, freedom of movement and other basic freedoms. The
Soviets also deported populations - during and after the war. However, the
Soviets were not bent on genocide. Soviet occupation was hard and it was
very ideological - almost to the very end. Soviet occupiers put ideology
into practice - war on the "class enemy" was pursued in Soviet occupied
Europe just as it had been in the Soviet Union itself.

Additionally and something those so attached to history 60 years later don't
want to talk about, what about Soviet control over its empire in Eastern
Europe. Millions of people were members of local communist parties. Of
course there are those who will tell you that these local communist parties
only survived because of Soviet security forces and the Red Army. This is
only partly true.

There is no denying that East Central Europeans never gave up on national
self-determination, but they also grew to expect improvements in standards
of living under the communists - in a way this was the trade off, or deal,
as it were.

For decades most communist regimes delivered on this deal. When they
couldn't, trouble was never far away (and a reminder of the enormous
headache and cost for the Kremlin's empire). Soviet economic central
planning promised prosperity, but when it failed to measure up resistance
to colonial rule was made evident time and again.

Most who like to comment today on Eastern Europe know little about this
region before the war. Most countries were ruled by dictatorships of a
fascist-like variant and most had enormous economic problems. There were
exceptions - in the Baltic republics and Czechoslovakia. Estonia's standard
of living was equal, if not higher, than Finland's at the time.

Czechoslovakia's experiment with democracy was, with some blemishes,
the poster child of the Versailles settlement.

Most Eastern European pre-war regimes were racist and anti-Semitic. In
most countries, political opposition was harassed by the powers-that-be.
The rights of ethnic minorities were also routinely ignored. In Poland the
Communist Party was outlawed. Being marginalized, it looked to Moscow.
The Kremlin, in turn, killed off or imprisoned members of the party who
didn't follow the Stalinist party line. The fate of other parties in the
region was no different or better.

I could go on and on. (And JB, this is not to repeat propaganda the "Soviets
saved the Eastern European from themselves" - I am just stating well-known
facts for anyone who takes the time and effort to learn something about the
past in this region. The entire history of presenting the fate of Eastern
Europeans as docile victims is just plain stupid and an insult to the
historical record).

But there remains an historical question: Should Russia today apologize for
the Soviet occupation of East Central Europe? I ABSOLUTELY believe so.
Russia today is not the Soviet Union and this should be made perfectly
clear. However, making an apology for the Soviet empire after the war
should come with present day sensitivities and concerns in mind.

Russia should apologize when the captive nations recognize the Soviet war
effort.

Russia should apologize when ethnic Russians living in the Baltic
republics - and elsewhere - have their civil rights respected. Russia should
apologize when laws in the former empire are passed that deny former Nazi
collaborators the right to march. Allowing such marches is nothing less than
acts of hate and an attack on the most basic human rights - and insult to
memory of the Holocaust against the Jews.

Russia should apologize when the Soviet sacrifice is historical acknowledge
in history textbooks.

Russia should apologize when those victims of communism beyond Russia's
present day borders, but when they acknowledge the sacrifice of ethnic
Russians during the war.

Russia should apologize, but no to the likes of Poland's Alexander
Kwiasniewski. Kwiasniewski is an "old comrade" of Poland's communist
regime. He is a politician who speaks out of both sides of his mouth at the
same time. His role in Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" is nothing less than
disgusting. Poland wants Ukraine in the EU not for reasons of freedom and
democracy, but for reasons of Poland's current economic woes. Poland's
inter-war record concerning ethnic minorities is a monstrosity.

Russia should apologize, but make damn sure that East European communists
make their own case to close the post-war and post-Cold War chapters of
history. Laying everything at Moscow's doorstep has nothing to do with
history - only about present day politics. (It was not only the Kremlin that
promoted communism before, during and after the war).

But there are issues that Russia today doesn't have to apologize about.

Russia doesn't have to apologize for the state of inter-state European
politics before the war. The Soviet Union was ignored during the Treaty of
Versailles. The Versailles legacy created weak states in Eastern Europe that
France (primarily) and Britain (secondarily) were supposed to protect. Both
failed in this mission.

Russia doesn't have to apologize for Munich. Nazi Germany, France, and Italy
(along with Poland and Hungary) destroyed the strongest democracy in
Eastern Europe - Czechoslovakia - in 1938. Appeasement signaled weakness
in the European state system - those same weaknesses created geopolitical
appetites.

With a Britain detached and weak, France divided internally, and Poland
pursuing a surreal "great power" foreign policy under the influence of the
delusional and alcoholic Foreign Minister Beck, the Soviet Union engaged
Nazi Germany as a state interested solely in geopolitical interests
(certainly not ideological interests).

The European inter-state system was in collapse - everyone and anyone
small fell victim to that collapse. That system was supposed to protect the
small. Those who had the power to confront and take advantage of this
inter-state chaos did so as any realist would.

The Nazi-Soviet pact made days before the war officially started was a pact
made in hell - but that is where Europe found itself that moment. The
historical record stands, but is not given fair a hearing - Stalin wanted to
may a deal with the West. The West dragged its feet every step of the way.
Stalin didn't start the war and the record tells us that he believed that
war with Germany was inevitable.

He made a deal with Hitler, but the Soviet Union still incurred unimaginable
losses when war came. This deal does not in anyway excuse the Soviet
Union's ideological inhumanity against small nations it liberated from the
Nazis and later occupied. It is not an excuse, but way of understanding
of how history was played out.

Back to today. It is very interesting that the leaders of the victorious
countries of the Western allied effort didn't meet together on May 8. Bush
was in the Netherlands to remember the sacrifice of over 8,000 Americans
who died on the Western front to liberate Europe from the Nazi scourge.
France, Britain, and Germany remembered the war 60 years during very
muted ceremonies.

There was no Allied solidarity to found. (As juxtaposition and with no
malice intended, where are all the 27 million graves of Soviet citizens to
be found across the European continent and the former Soviet Union?).

These are issues Goebblels' progeny in the "commentariat" ignore -
particularly the likes of Gessen, Lipman, Albats, Washington Post and the
Moscow Times (just a to name a few of the major offenders).

This is not surprising. The past does not necessary divided former Allies,
but the present does. Bush spins war commemorations as a substitute for
America's lost war in Iraq and its dangerously open-ended war on terrorism.

France spins the war as way to promote illusorily pan-European
consolidation - via the upcoming and very questionable popularity of a
European constitution.

Britain is simply lost. Tony Blair is finished. As soon as he was he
returned to power, the bookies started forecasting his impending
resignation. Lying about the war in Iraq has injured him to the degree that
has questioned his ability to rule as an effective leader. Lying about going
to war undermines democracy.

Germany - the country that has come to the grips of the war better than no
other - is grappling with the issue that truly liberates it from its
horrific past - economic success. Since the 1960s, Germany remembers
the war's end as liberation so long as it is prosperous from that defeat.
Hard economic realities in the fore can confront Germany's amazing
sensitivity to human and civil rights - no different what has happened to
the countries part of the victorious Western coalition.

With so much disarray in the West, there is the meeting in Moscow on May 9.
On the face of it, this is actually very odd. Western media and pundits go
to great lengths to demonize Russia today. But, amazingly enough, Russia
today helps to recreate some kind of purpose for the West looking out at the
rest of the world and history.

Russia needs to own up to what the war means, but so does everyone else. The
West betrayed democracy in Europe time and again - before, during and after
the war. The Soviet Union was democratic only in one way during all these
times- all who died were equals under the precepts of a hideously inhumane
ideology.

Why so many expect Russia to change its Soviet history so quickly mystifies
me. Changing historical renditions take time - sometimes a long time. All
the Western allies have had to deal with history - Russia should be allowed
the same without dismissing those who gave everything to defend themselves,
their families, and even their country, as they understood it at the time.

The US, France, the UK, Germany are allowed to deal with history in their
own way. Why can't Russia be allowed do the same? -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Important Disclaimer: What is found above are personal views on Russia
and Russia-related issues and do not reflect any opinions other than of
the writer(s) associated with this private endeavor.
By Peter Lavelle, plavelle@untimely-thoughts.com
http://www.untimely-thoughts.com/?art=1642
===============================================================
15. THE MAN WHO REALLY DEFEATED HITLER
Sixty years on, it's time to reinstate Georgi Zhukov and remember
his role in defending Russia from the Nazis, writes Shane Kenny.

By Shane Kenny, Irish Times, Dublin, Ireland, Sat, April 30, 2005

The new German film Downfall, depicting Hitler's final days in his Berlin
bunker before he committed suicide 60 years ago today, has received wide
international acclaim. In the film, desperate Wehrmacht officers want to
contact the Russian Marshal Georgi Zhukov to negotiate surrender. This
was the military leader who, more than any other in the second World War,
became Hitler's nemesis.

An international hero at the end of the war, he featured on the front page
of Life magazine, in newspapers and on newsreels. But Zhukov is now a
neglected figure in the West. The descent of the Iron Curtain and the Cold
War meant that the Western Allies' role in the defeat of Nazi Germany
received more attention and was celebrated in books and films about the
Battle of Britain, El Alamein and D-Day. But the real truth of the European
theatre is that it was essentially fought and won on the eastern front.

I first visited Moscow as part of the Irish government's official
delegation in 1995 to attend Boris Yeltsin's commemoration of the 50th
anniversary of what Russians call the Great Patriotic War. With the fall of
communism, Zhukov, who had become a Soviet-style "non-person" due to
false charges of plotting to take over the revolution, and Stalin's fear of
his popularity with the people and the Red Army, was finally celebrated as
the major Russian hero of the victory over Nazi Germany.

Born into dire poverty in 1896, Zhukov was decorated twice in the tsarist
army during the first World War. He became a soldiers' Soviet leader during
the 1917 revolution and joined the Communist Party in 1919. He survived
Stalin's great purge of the military in 1938, though he was a target of the
debauched and murderous internal security chief Lavrenti Beria. When Hitler
launched his attack on Russia on June 22nd, 1941, Zhukov, aged 45, had
been chief of staff of the Red Army for just five months.

Stalin received more than 80 warnings of the impending Nazi invasion in
1941 but dismissed them as "disinformation" concocted by Churchill and
others to embroil him in a war with Hitler. Zhukov wanted the Red Army be
put on full alert, but Stalin refused. Finally, an ineffective, garbled
warning was permitted on the evening before the invasion.

THE EASTERN FRONT was a cruel, bloody contest. It is not widely
appreciated that Hitler's surprise attack on Russia was conceived as a war
of extermination as well as territorial conquest. He intended the complete
destruction of Leningrad and Moscow, with the annihilation of their
civilian populations. The capital was to be flooded as an artificial lake,
drowning men, women and children.

The first battles were catastrophic for Soviet forces. There was chaos and
demoralisation. About 1,200 aircraft were destroyed on the ground in the
early hours of the attack, and whole armies were surrounded and captured
within weeks. The Germans advanced hundreds of miles into Russian
territory. After a briefing from Zhukov on the unfolding disaster, Stalin
stalked out of the defence commissariat with Beria and Malenkov, muttering
disconsolately to them: "Lenin founded our state, and we've fucked it up".

The battle for Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, led to a blazing row between
Stalin and Zhukov, who wanted Russian forces withdrawn from the city before
they were surrounded. Stalin shouted that Zhukov's plans were "nonsense!".
Angrily, Zhukov resigned as chief of staff, but a wily Stalin did not wish
to alienate him. He made it clear he would remain a member of the Stavka -
the inner war command. Kiev fell in mid-September and more than a half a
million men were killed or captured. When I interviewed Zhukov's eldest
daughters Era and Ella in Moscow, they said sadly their father "was proved
right".

Leningrad, surrounded by the Germans in early September, seemed
certain to fall. Stalin summoned Zhukov to the Kremlin and described the
situation as "hopeless". Zhukov disagreed and volunteered to take command
immediately. Flying over German lines, he arrived in the city, as Irish
military commentator Col Ned Doyle says, "like the wrath of God". He
immediately countermanded the scuttling of the Baltic fleet, and had the
ships brought close to the city where their 16-inch guns could pound
German positions.

The major criticism of Zhukov is that he recklessly sacrificed his troops -
but the eastern front was a battle against extermination, and Soviet
military doctrine, unlike the West's, had not changed because of the
slaughter of 1914-1918. The end, regardless of human cost, justified the
means. Zhukov was ruthless towards panic-mongers and cowards, ordering
the arrest and execution of officers, soldiers and commissars to illustrate
where failure would lead. His defences at Leningrad saved the city, but
more than a million people died from starvation, cold, bombing and
shelling. Zhukov would return in January 1943 to break the blockade.

In October, the Germans were rapidly advancing on Moscow. Stalin called on
Zhukov to save the capital. Over the telephone, Stalin asked: "Are you sure
we'll hold Moscow? I ask you this with pain in my heart. Speak honestly, as
a communist." Zhukov answered, "We'll hold Moscow all right."

When Zhukov took over, British historian Prof Richard Overy estimates there
were just 90,000 defenders left out of 800,000. Zhukov said: "I assumed
command at a time when the front lines had actually reached the suburbs of
Moscow." He asked for 200 tanks and reinforcements. There were no tanks
and a shortage of ammunition - but reserves came from Siberia. In freezing
temperatures, his counterattack, started in early December, threw the
Wehrmacht back 130 miles from the city.

Zhukov had also mobilised every last civilian resource. "Everyone who was
able to shoulder a rifle or hold a spade, or could work in one of the war
plants came to the defence of Moscow," he said.

After this success, Stalin took direct command again, and, rejecting
Zhukov's advice for another concentrated attack on the Germans before
Moscow, he ordered a general offensive along the entire frontline. It was a
disaster, and half a million men were lost.

A familiar pattern was echoed by the near-collapse of the Red Army in the
south as the Germans pushed towards the Caucasus oil fields in summer
1942. Stalingrad was in imminent danger of falling. Stalin called Zhukov
again to the Kremlin, and made him deputy supreme commander, second
only to himself, telling him the situation at Stalingrad was critical: "How
soon can you leave?"

This battle, the most famous engagement of the eastern front, was a
great psychological and military victory, but afterwards German forces on
the eastern front still numbered about six million, backed by powerful
panzer corps and the Luftwaffe.

The most critical battle was to follow in summer 1943 - the battle of the
Kursk Bulge. South west of Moscow, the Russians held a salient in the
German lines, and Hitler determined to destroy it with a pincer attack.
Zhukov said later, "the Germans wanted to get even for their defeat at
Stalingrad." Zhukov decided on deep defensive lines to "bleed white" the
German attack, and then a massive counter-offensive to roll them back.

Stalin tried to interfere, pushing for a pre-emptive strike, but Zhukov
held him off. Hitler put the cream of the Wehrmacht into the attack, over a
million men and the latest Panther and Tiger tanks. He confessed to Gen
Heinz Guderian that his "stomach turned over", thinking of the offensive.
He knew it was his last great gamble.

Zhukov's plan succeeded beyond his imagination. The offensive was blunted
and the counter-attack pushed the Germans as far as Kiev. After Kursk, the
Wehrmacht was broken as an offensive force - it was only capable of
defensive retreat.

IN SPRING 1945, Zhukov took direct command of the attack on Berlin.
Russian diplomat/historian Vassily Istratov says it was his "worst victory":
Zhukov made mistakes on the approaches to the city and got bogged down
for days. On April 30th, he rang Stalin to tell him Hitler had committed
suicide.

"He got what was coming to him!" said Stalin gleefully. "Too bad he wasn't
captured alive." After bitter street-by-street fighting which destroyed the
city, the garrison finally surrendered on May 2nd.

Zhukov, representing the Allies, chaired the formal unconditional surrender
led by Marshal Keitel on May 9th and, with Eisenhower and Montgomery in
the Control Commission, ran occupied Germany.

He and "Ike" became friends. When Eisenhower visited Moscow in August
1945 at Zhukov's invitation, ecstatic crowds greeted them both. The same
year,

Eisenhower said "To no one man does the United Nations owe a greater
debt than to Marshal Zhukov . . . one day . . . there is certain to be
another Order of the Soviet Union. It will be the Order of Zhukov, and that
order will be prized by every man who admires courage, vision, fortitude,
and determination in a soldier." Ironically, this became true after the fall
of communism.

Zhukov was invited to the US, but his visit was cancelled. He pleaded
illness, but it was Stalin's paranoia and jealousy that stopped him. In
1946 he was arraigned before a kangaroo court of the central committee
and accused of plotting a coup.

Turned into a "non-person", erased from history books and banished to
military backwaters, he returned to power as minister for defence under
Khrushchev after playing a central role in the arrest of Beria following
Stalin's death. But Khrushchev too grew to fear Zhukov's popularity and
sacked him from both government and the army in 1957.

The defeat of the Nazi regime cost the lives of more than 25 million people
in the East. Sixty years later it is time to acknowledge the terrible price
they paid, and the role of Marshal Georgi Zhukov in Hitler's downfall. -30-
===============================================================
16. WORLD WAR II - 60 YEARS AFTER: FOR VICTIMS OF STALIN'S
DEPORTATIONS, WAR LIVES ON
An estimated 1.5 million people were sent into forced exile after Soviet
troops reasserted control over the areas of the Black and Caspian seas
beginning in 1943.

By Jean-Christophe Peuch, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
Prague, Czech Republic, Wednesday, May 4, 2005

As we mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, RFE/RL is
looking again at some of the factors that determined the course of the
struggle and shaped the new world that emerged from it.

Among the tragic events that unfolded on the sidelines of World War II
was the forced resettlement to Siberia, the Far East, and Central Asia of
hundreds of thousands Soviet citizens. Not only did Stalin's decision to
send entire peoples into exile result in innumerable deaths, it also sealed
the fate of entire populations for many years to come. Even today, some
of these peoples continue to suffer the consequences of the 1944
deportations.

PRAGUE -- Klara Baratashvili was not yet born when World War II ended.
But this woman in her fifties still vividly remembers what her father, Latif
Shah, used to tell his four children about what happened to him and his
people on the night of 15 November 1944.

"At 4 a.m., people were aroused from sleep and ordered out in the fields
without a single word of explanation," Baratashvili relates. "They remained
all night on the threshing floor. Later on, several Studebaker trucks drove
in and everyone was ordered to board them. People were authorized to
take only the bare minimum with them. Before leaving the house my father
had grabbed a few books and his personal notes. He had such faith in
communism -- he was almost a fanatic -- that he had taken [Josef] Stalin's
complete works with him. That was what he valued most."

Yet it was the Soviet leader who, a few weeks earlier, had sealed Latif
Shah Baratashvili's fate by ordering the deportation to Uzbekistan of
Georgia's entire Meskhetian population.

Except for a brief visit made in 1956, three years after Stalin's death,
Latif Shah never saw his native Georgia again. He died in Soviet
Azerbaijan in 1984.

Stalin's reasons for deporting more than 100,000 Meskhetians remain
unclear. Some historians have suggested he wanted to cleanse southern
Georgia of its Muslim elements in anticipation of war with neighboring
Turkey. Others say the Soviet leader suspected the Meskhetians -- and
other ethnic groups he ordered deported in the preceding months-- of
not being subservient enough.

Officially, the Soviet historiography justified the war deportations by
alleging the exiled peoples collaborated with the enemy during the
German occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and the Caucasus in
1941-42.

An estimated 1.5 million people were sent into forced exile after Soviet
troops reasserted control over the areas of the Black and Caspian seas
beginning in 1943. In lighting-strike operations performed by Stalin's
NKVD secret police, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Karachais,
Kalmyks, Balkars, Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Hemshin,
Meskhetians, and others were deported to Siberia and Central Asia.

Germans, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Finns from
western and central Soviet regions were deported at the beginning of
the war with Nazi Germany.

Baratashvili remembers her father's account of his first months of exile
in Uzbekistan. "The [1944-45] winter was particularly harsh," Baratashvili
says. "Many people died of hunger and cold. Since there were no men
to sustain these people, many newborn children died because their
mothers did not have milk."

Because nearly all the Soviet male population was serving in the army, the
majority of the deportees consisted of women, children, and the elderly.
The men were arrested and sent into exile after the demobilization.

Mustafa Cemilev chairs the Qirimtatar Millyi Meclisi, or Crimean Tatar
National Parliament. This veteran dissident, who was deported as a child
and spent 15 years in Soviet jails for defending the cause of his people,
tells RFE/RL that nearly one-half of the Crimean Tatars' who were deported
in 1944 died, either during their resettlement or in their first two years
of exile.

"Some 380,000 Crimean Tatars were deported," Cemilev says. "That does
not include some 50,000 [soldiers] who were sent into exile after they
returned from the front. Many had died at the front and all those who had
survived were deported. But if we take this figure of 380,000 as a basis,
we can say that between 150,000 and 170,000 [Crimean Tatars] died
[during the first two years of exile]."

Following the 1956 de-Stalinization, most deported peoples were
authorized to return to their home regions, only to find out that their
property had been given to representatives of other ethnic groups sent
to resettle the depopulated areas.

The Soviet leadership had also taken advantage of the massive
deportations to redefine the administrative borders of the entire Northern
Caucasus region. Although these changes were partially corrected after
Stalin's death, they paved the way for the ethnic unrest that accompanied
the collapse of the Soviet Union, such at the brief war that pitted Ingush
against Ossetians in 1992.

Among those peoples who suffered lasting discrimination long after
Stalin's death were the Crimean Tatars and the Meskhetians.

The Meskhetians, who endured yet another exile after the ethnic clashes
that rocked Uzbekistan in the late 1980s, are still not allowed to
collectively return to Georgia and remain scattered across seven former
Soviet republics. Only a few hundred individuals, such as Baratashvili,
have returned so far.

Although they were exonerated of all alleged crimes in 1967, the Crimean
Tatars were not allowed to return home massively until 1989 -- only to face
a number of new hurdles.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine authorized former
collective farm workers to buy land. But this privilege was denied Crimean
Tatars who had previously worked in collective farms in Central Asia.
Cemilev says access to land is the biggest problem facing the returnees.

"Although 75 percent of Crimean Tatars leave in rural areas, they have
approximately half as much land as the Russian-speaking population,"
Cemilev says. "This problem is particularly acute in the south as a result
of the attempts made by the Soviet regime to bar the Crimean Tatars from
returning to these prestigious areas. Before the 1944 deportations, the
Crimean Tatars accounted for 70 percent of the population in these regions.
Now, they account for less than 1 percent. The lands are being distributed
or sold at cut-prices to oligarchs who live either in Kyiv or in Russia.
This generates tensions and permanent conflicts."

Some 150,000 Crimean Tatars still live in Central Asia, primarily in
Uzbekistan. Lack of money, administrative harassment on the part of Uzbek
authorities, and Kyiv's reluctance to issue them Ukrainian passports make
it difficult for Crimean Tatars to return home.

In Ukraine itself, the life of Crimean Tatars has seen no real improvement
in recent years. Ukrainian lawmakers voted in 2004 to restore social
benefits for Crimean Tatars. But former President Leonid Kuchma vetoed
the bill.

Cemilev, who holds a seat in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, the national
parliament, says President Viktor Yushchenko has vowed to reconsider his
predecessor's ban and increase the representation of Crimean Tatars in
local self-governments. But these promises have had no effect so far.

In Georgia, the leaders that succeeded former President Eduard
Shevardnadze are under strong pressure from the Council of Europe to
accelerate steps aimed at paving the way for the Meskhetians' repatriation.
But despite repeated pledges, the new government remains as noncommittal
on this issue as its predecessor.

Arguing that the presence of an estimated 300,000 displaced persons from
the separatist republic of Abkhazia make it difficult for Tbilisi to accept
any newcomers, Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili said in April
that the Meskhetian issue can be settled only "step by step." -30-
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