Over the past few years the last week of November has heard the mournful echo of an unprecedented 1932-1933 tragedy, the Holodomor, which was a famine artificially engineered in Ukraine by Stalin’s dictatorship. A considerable role in organizing “The Inextinguishable Candle,” an annual Holodomor commemorative action, belongs to the newspaper Day, one of Ukraine’s first printed media to have made efforts to clear the people’s memory of the Soviet regime’s logjams.
Back in 2003, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna wrote that the Ukrainian Holodomor, which had claimed millions of human lives in our country, was not on the list of natural and manmade disasters at the Geneva-based International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum. On October 20, 2005, the newspaper suggested in a letter to the Red Cross head office that the 1932-1933 Holodomor be put on this list. A copy of the letter and a request for assistance were also sent to the then Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Borys Tarasiuk. The minister answered: “Ukraine’s permanent representative at the UN has been instructed to establish contacts with the Red Cross Museum in Geneva in order to thoroughly consider this question.”
Maybe, our diplomats were not persistent enough, for no reply came from the Red Cross office. The mission management remembered to “establish contacts” as late as at the end of 2007, when they were organizing a Holodomor exhibit in Geneva, the opening of which was to be attended by the president’s wife Kateryna Yushchenko. Two meetings of the museum director and the then ambassador of Ukraine on the eve of the visit produced no tangible results. Little wonder. When Ukraine’s First Lady addressed the diplomats accredited in Switzerland, telling them about the sufferings, pain, and death of millions of Ukrainians, those present began to exchange embarrassing glances because they could not understand the interpreter appointed by the Ukrainian mission. Can this really improve Ukraine’s international image?
Fulfilling the newspaper’s assignment, I met Roger MAYOU, Director of the Red Cross Museum. I would like to stress that Mr. Mayou immediately agreed to an interview with the Ukrainian press once he learned the topic of my questions. It is gratifying that Western officials now have a better understanding of the importance of our appeals.
The International Red Cross Society, as the world’s largest humanitarian organization, embodies the eternal truths of humanism and propagates the everlasting ideals of humanity, such as mercy, care about people, and mutual help. What role does the Red Cross Museum play in this?
“The Red Cross Museum was founded by a former delegate of the International Red Cross Committee in order to show and tell about the activity of Red Cross delegates, volunteers, and employees, i.e., the people committed to helping and serving those in need. Ten years ago we decided to update a part of the permanent exposition to show visitors the Red Cross’s present-day humanitarian actions. Our aim is to preserve the legacy of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement and propagate the ideas of human solidarity. Last October the museum marked its 20th anniversary. We are planning to update the exposition and reconstruct the museum by mid-2011.
“We want the museum visitor to be emotionally shocked — and his emotions will open the door to deeper comprehension of the information.”
Going through the exposition, the visitor follows the inscriptions on the wall, which begin with 1863 and end with 1991. It is the so-called martyrology, a list of sufferings, ordeals, wars, epidemics, massacres, and natural calamities that humankind has experienced. You called the Wall of Time. Please tell us in detail about this concept and the grounds on which inscriptions are made on the Wall of Time.
“The idea of putting up the Wall of Time belongs to the museum founder and the year with which the Wall of Time begins is the year the Red Cross was founded. It is professional historians who were and still are dealing with this exhibit. Wall of Time captions display information on the military conflicts that have caused the death of more than 10,000 people, the epidemics and disasters that have claimed more than 1,000 human lives, and the events associated with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement.
“All information is displayed according to UN terminology-and here we come across a knot of contradictions between geopolitics and the Red Cross. One should be as neutral as possible in using certain terms. From the viewpoint of a non-historian or a non-politician, some terms can be interpreted as euphemisms. For example, the 1973 coup d’etat in Chile has been classified as “internal disturbances.” We should therefore wait before putting a new line, as far as events of the recent past are concerned. The Wall of Time is a reflection of history, and history is not made and analyzed in one or two years. We should update the terminology and, no matter how brutal it may sound, find out what the death toll is. You could see that the Wall of Time indicates the number of the dead. It sometimes takes many years of historical research to find out precise figures. We only put fully confirmed historical information on the Wall of Time, so we think that it is better not to hasten.”
You took part in the international conference “Can the Ukrainian Holodomor Be Considered Genocide?” on November 28, 2008, in Geneva. Your report was about the problems of genocide.
“Frankly, as an historian and not an expert in the legal definitions for the terms used by the UN and other international organizations, I find it rather difficult to clearly distinguish between such things as genocide, crime against humanity, and mass killing. More often than not, the aspiration for international recognition of a certain historical event as genocide or a crime against humanity is in fact caused by political, not historical, considerations. I think that history should be dealt with by historians, and politicians must not interfere with it. It is always risky to play with words when thousands of innocent victims stand behind each of the terms.
“A few years ago the museum staged an exhibition on Cambodia. Was there any genocide in Cambodia? In UN terms, the Cambodia mass killings are not classified as genocide. It is common knowledge that, on the orders of the Khmer Rouge leader, a Cambodian, about two million of his compatriots — urban residents, intellectuals, Buddhists, ethnic minorities, etc. — were slaughtered. Some experts believe this is a case of ‘autogenocide.’ But it is, above all, an unheard — of extermination of the Cambodian people.
“My report at the last year’s conference was based on the research of the well-known French historian Jacques Semelin, research director at the Centre d’etudes et de recherches internationales. He made an analysis of the terms ‘genocide,’ ‘crime against humanity,’ and ‘mass killing.’ In his opinion, a mass killing, a massacre, or a crime against humanity will not become more inhuman if called genocide. The Holodomor is a horror that the Ukrainian people had to suffer from, and it is a historically proven fact. But I personally do not have sufficient scholarly competence to discuss this matter.”
At the request of Ukraine’s UN permanent representative, the Red Cross Committee has sent copies of more than 117 archival documents (344 quires) on the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine. Why does the Red Cross Museum still not have any exposition on a disaster that claimed millions of Ukrainian lives?
“The Wall of Time does mention the famine. As Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, there is a caption, ‘USSR-Famine,’ on pages 1932, 1933, and 1934. The president of your country has privately visited our museum and, as you can see (the director shows me a photo of Viktor Yushchenko in which he is taking pictures of the Wall of Time inscriptions.-Author), he took interest in this matter.
“Six years ago the museum directors decided to make no changes to the Wall of Time. In other words, the Wall of Time reflects not only history but also the historical period during which it was created. The entries were made in the mid-1980s, when the Soviet Union still existed. Today, I must bear responsibility for the decisions that my predecessors made.”
As you said, “history is not made and analyzed in one or two years.” Archives are being opened and the veils of secrecy are falling. Numerous studies by Ukrainian and foreign researchers have finally proved the fact that Ukrainian peasants were exterminated by the famine. The Red Cross Museum ought to display true-to-life information. New historical realities also demand that the Wall of Time make corrections. What can you say about updating the exposition that is to open in 2012?
“We have planned to essentially change the current exposition. We would like to explain in more detail the mechanism of humanitarian actions and show — in historical context — the present-day humanitarian actions with respect to certain critical situations of today, as well as to give an improved historical coverage of events.
“The new exposition will retain the overall chronology, if only in a different way.
“As an historian by profession, I cannot put up with the fact that we are presenting history as something carved out on stone. As you aptly noted, archives are being opened and new documents are being found: history is being constantly updated with new evidence. As states disappear, so does the iron layer that denied access to the historical truth.
“I think the updated Wall of Time should be, first of all, interactive. By employing digital systems, we will be able to give the visitor a key to additional information. In other words, by pushing a button with the name of a certain historical event, one will be able to gain more detailed information in the shape of archival documents, photographs, and films.
“This is why I think that the line ‘USSR-Famine’ in its current form is a very shy and insufficient formula. It should be replaced with ‘Famine in Ukraine.’ And the sources of our information will enable the visitor to learn what exactly was going on in Ukraine at the time, who was the organizer, etc. I consider it our duty.”
The Ukrainian people is part of the European nation. In the current struggle for the historical truth, we are striving to have our own historical page in Europe’s collective memory and we want the memory of our compatriots killed by famine to be duly honored. I am sure the Ukrainian side will be able to offer assistance and archival materials to set up a thematic exposition and update the Wall of Time.
“As you know, last year the municipal library of Geneva hosted the exhibit ‘Destroyed by Famine: Unknown Genocide of Ukrainians.’ The city’s residents and guests could familiarize themselves with the documentary evidence furnished by the Ukrainian side. It is of paramount importance to plan an exhibit on this subject at the reconstructed museum, making use of materials from Ukrainian museums and archives.”
P. S. After sincerely thanking the museum director for his frank answers, I went out of the museum as a winner, with a feeling of great moral relief. We have achieved this: historically true information will be displayed on the Wall of Time. The Day will work, as it did three, five, and ten years ago, to open up to the world the history of Ukraine’s unprecedented tragedy.
