The plaque is installed at a former entrance to the inner prison of the NKVD UkrSSR central body (4 Irynynska Street, Kyiv), according to the SBU press center. This is where in the 1930s through 1950s people were brought who constituted a threat to the totalitarian regime which reigned over Ukraine. For many, this place meant the tragic end of their path of martyrdom and self-sacrifice.
“The masters of these premises – Stalin’s NKVD and the Nazi SD – had one craving in common: to choke our nation’s spirit of freedom, to turn the people into an obedient servant of their imperial ambitions,” said the SBU director Vasyl Hrytsak at the formal unveiling of the memorial plaque.
Volodymyr Viatrovych, head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, emphasized that the plaque is important not only as a commemoration of the victims: “It has a particular value for the SBU officers who guard democracy and will never again turn into an organ of repression.” He also added that this memorial is a symbol of reform in the SBU and its transformation into a European security service.
Similarly, his Holiness the Patriarch of Kyiv and all Rus’-Ukraine Filaret stressed that the memorial to the victims of political repressions must become a reminder that truth will always overcome.
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav noted that today hundreds of thousands of people who lost their friends and family found a place where they can mourn the innocent victims of repressions and pray for their souls.
