At the beginning of February, the annual conference of the historical and search organization “Search-Dnipro,” which is a part of the National Civic Association “People’s Memory Alliance,” was held in Dnipropetrovsk. The results of 2011 were summed up there: search organization members from Dnipropetrovsk found and reburied 130 Red Army soldiers, 18 German soldiers, and two civilians. Besides, 207 people, who have been trying to find their relatives for more than half a century, have turned to the organization.
“My father, Mykola Pylypenko, was drafted twice,” says Oleksandr Pylypenko. “We lived in the village of Novi Sanzhary in Poltava oblast. Dad was mobilized for the first time in 1941.”
The Germans advanced rapidly. Soviet army units were disbanded. Many soldiers, who did not even have uniforms, went back home, so did Mykola Pylypenko. It was in 1943 that he was sent to the front again.
“Many people died while crossing the Dnipro River, but my father managed to reach the Right Bank. Near Myshuryn Rih he was sent to a landing company which was supposed to take strategic points by storm, though my father did not have a clear idea of how to fight. My father was killed there: a tank ran over him when he was in a trench. Locals said that our troops were sent to fight unarmed; they were told they have to take their weapons away from Germans. Eleven thousand soldiers died then.“
Oleksandr was five when his father died: “The post-war time was hard for us. As a student, I was always hungry. But my mother managed to maintain us, even though we were poor. But the main thing is, we found him.”
In the 1950s the Pylypenkos went to look for their father’s grave. Somebody told they saw a common grave where the battle took place. They said there was a wooden pillar with names of the fallen soldiers carved on it, and Pylypenko name was also there. And though the last name was misspelled, relatives believed that someone did it on accident during carving.
“We have not looked for our father since then,” Oleksandr Pylypenko goes on. “But my mother refused to accept the fact, she would not believe that her husband rested in peace at that memorial. Whatever reasonable arguments we gave her, she pointed her hand in one direction and said that her husband would surely send us a message from over there. And she was right. Last year we received a phone call from a search organization. They said they had found my father’s remains. He was identified by his shaving razor that had his name engraved on it. We reburied him near that memorial. After all, my mother was right, she did have some kind of foresight.”
There is a variety of search organizations in Ukraine. They differ by national origin (Russian, Polish, German) and by the goal (unfortunately, “black archeology” is thriving due to the government’s passiveness). The search organizations in Germany are dedicated civic initiative associations that do not depend on governmental funding, but enjoy its active support. It is very different from Ukraine, where it is hard to count the number of search units, while the Germans set up a single association for worldwide operations.
GERMANY PLANS TO FINISH THE SEARCH ACTIVITIES BY 2015
“Different countries have different approaches to who should take care of war graves and the ways it should be done. In Italy and the United States it is the government that takes care of this. In Ukraine the organization operates on community basis and replenishes its funds from donations. People who lost their relatives in the war, take pains to keep the graves neat and well-tended to, and the cemeteries being well-maintained, so the organization operates in all those countries [and there are 45 of them. – Author], where our soldiers fought during the First and Second World Wars,” says Hans-Ulrich Schrader, director of the Ukraine’s Mission of the German National Union.
As a result of war activities during 1941-44, about two million Germans were killed on the Eastern Front. The number of fallen Germans in Ukraine reaches 400,000, of which 100,000 were prisoners of war. The German National Union has been operating in our country since 1992-93. But it should be mentioned that it is not an easy job. German archives store data about the approximate burial site of Wehrmacht (properly organized German cemeteries), but the locations of common graves are still obscure.
“Locals, witnesses of those events, and some Ukrainian search organizations, which are trying to find Soviet soldiers and find German ones instead, help us look for the sanitary landfillings,” says Schrader. “However, problems start to emerge in villages and small towns where the graves are situated. The land in Ukraine is privatized, and cemeteries are often located on private land, and not all of the owners give permission for excavations.”
The German National Union plans to complete its activities in Ukraine by 2015. At least the scale of searches will be significantly reduced, since the ones who are interested in finding missing soldiers the most (their children), are passing away. Thousands of Germans already know where their relatives are buried, and are not worried about the conditions of graves: private organizations take care of the cemeteries.
UKRAINIANS FIGHT AGAINST THE LAWLESSNESS
Can Ukrainians talk about the work they have done with the same pride? Judging by numerous examples of vandalism that are highlighted in the press, and the fact that recreation centers are built on the sites of mass burials, one of the key signs of a civilized country – respect for the dead, is missing in Ukraine. All the search works in Ukraine are based on relatives and searchers’ initiative, who are not just looking for unburied soldiers, but also actively fight against the sacrilege against cemeteries. For example, now “Search” branches are actively helping Irpin dwellers to win back the land on which splendid forests are growing. These forests might have been a battlefield during World War II, so there also might be mass graves.
Disparagement of graves, despite the cultivation of the memory of soldiers, is rooted back in the Soviet time. “The popular slogan back then was, ‘No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten,’” recollects Volodymyr DOROFIEIEV, deputy head of search organization Soyuz “Narodna pamiat” (Union “Popular Memory”). “However, tens of thousands of bodies still lay unburied in old shell holes, dugouts, and shelters, or just in silage trenches, and merely under fallen leaves and moss. Those were officially reported as ‘unaccounted for.’”
In late 1991 “Obelisk,” an Association of youth search associations of Ukraine, was created. This promoted the creation of numerous local associations. Starting from the late 1990s, due to changes in the Ukrainian legislation, “Obelisk” was reorganized into a consultative and methodological search center. The local associations on the oblast level, which were able to get re-registered, were left on their own. Trophy hunting was becoming a priority. Everything that was in demand in black markets was sought after.
“In 1966 the Governmental Inter-Agency Commission was at last created,” continues Dorofieiev. “But the search program, developed by it for 2001-10, was never implemented. The many-million budget also vanished into thin air.” However, there have been some positive developments since 2000, too. For example, many burial grounds were granted the status of cultural memorials, and organizations started to cooperate more extensively to seek legal protection. Nowadays it may look as though government were trying to regulate search activities, yet searchers themselves complain about the absence of governmental control over the implementation of legal recommendations.
For better efficiency, a nationwide organization has also been created, which was supposed to represent the searchers at the top levels of the legislative and executive branches. However, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine doubts the effectiveness of the newly-fledged organization.
“I hear about searchers’ congresses almost every year,” says Bohdan MOTSIA, director of the Department of supervision over the safety of national cultural and tourist heritage. “But I have never seen a single registered document or any search results. The searchers working under the National inter-agency commission for commemoration of victims of wars and political repressions at the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine are more or less coordinated. But at the oblast level, local organizations only squabble and divide the territory. I do wish this time around something came out of this organization at last. This will make it easier for us officials to supervise them.”
Why does Ukraine need search organizations? One might think they are only another burden on state budget. But if the state does not find it hard to finance absolutely absurd projects (which are not infrequent), it is a must to invest into memory. The more so that perhaps your neighbor is still hoping to find their father or grandfather, who never came back from the war.
