Ukrainian’s have, with the rare but notable exceptions besmirching the historical record of most nations, seldom been particularly exclusive in their approach to who has a right to call this country their home and who does not. In this connection it is worth mentioning two items touching on the tragedy of one of Ukraine’s traditional minority communities, the Germans. I could not fail to be struck by the mention in the article on the late pianist Sviatoslav Richter, one of the greatest musicians of this century, that his father was shot by the Stalinist NKVD as the Nazis approached Odesa only because he was an ethnic German. Then I read the material on the joint Ukrainian-German efforts to reintegrate into Ukrainian society Germans who were themselves or whose ancestors were exiled during World War II. They still lack Ukrainian citizenship, one of the disadvantages of the zero option incorporated into Ukraine’s law on citizenship: if you legally resided here on a given date, you are a citizen; if not, you are not.
Germans first came to Ukraine in the late Middle Ages when the Polish kings noticed that Germans living under the Magdeburg Law tended to prosper. Quite sensibly, the kings invited Germans as colonists, including to Ukraine. In the eighteenth century the Russian Empire also imported Germans, mainly as farmers, and they also did well. Maybe it had something to do with the Germans’ legendary gifts for organization and hard work. This is hardly the point. The point is that a people, who had put down roots in Ukraine for centuries and then were violently and unjustly uprooted from it, are suffering privations in their quest “to go home.” The problem is completely analogous to that of the Crimean Tatars. In both cases, one is proud to be able to state that, despite limited resources, the Ukrainian government has done what it can to reintegrate those returning, and there is no doubt that, just as it has been done with the Tatars, the citizenship problems of Ukraine’s Germans will be addressed. Germany, with greater resources, is putting substantially more money into addressing the problem than Ukraine can afford. Still, reintegration is a long and difficult process for both the returnees and their new hosts.
Despite the continuing shortcomings in the programs to help Ukraine’s Germans, I consider the effort itself a piece of good news. And in a country with so little good news in the sociopolitical sphere, it deserves to be highlighted. For all its shortcomings in other areas, shortcomings I have cited more than once, the fact remains that Ukrainians are quite capable of doing the right thing, and for that they deserve praise.
