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Memorializing Babyn Yar Linköping University - Department of Social and Welfare Studies (ISV) Master´s Thesis, 30 Credits – MA in Ethnic and Migration Studies (EMS) ISRN: LiU-ISV/EMS-A--19/06--SE Memorializing Babyn Yar: Politics of Memory and Commemoration of the Holocaust in Ukraine Galyna Kutsovska Supervisor: Peo Hansen TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................... iv List of Abbreviations and Acronyms......................................................................................... vi Explanation of Definitions and Terminology ...........................................................................vii List of Illustrations.................................................................................................................. viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1 Background: The Holocaust – a Politically Charged Topic in Soviet Historical Culture ...... 1 Research Questions and Purpose ............................................................................................ 3 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 4 Choice of Case Study ............................................................................................................. 6 Contribution of the Study ....................................................................................................... 7 Structure of the Thesis ............................................................................................................ 8 CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: MEMORY ............................................ 8 Collective and Institutional Memories ................................................................................... 9 Sites of Memory and Sites of Forgetting .............................................................................. 11 Europeanization of the Holocaust Memory .......................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 3. DEBATES ON THE HOLOCAUST MEMORY IN THE PUBLIC DISCOURSE OF UKRAINE ................................................................................................ 16 Memorialization of the Shoah in Soviet Ukraine ................................................................. 16 Integration of the Holocaust Memory into Modern Ukraine ................................................ 21 Holocaust vs Holodomor: Competition of Victims .............................................................. 23 OUN as National Heroes of Ukraine .................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER 4. BABYN YAR: CONTESTED MEMORY SITE ......................................... 30 Memorialization of Babyn Yar ............................................................................................. 31 Babyn Yar: Site of Mutual Remembrance ........................................................................... 36 Debates on the BYHMC ....................................................................................................... 55 Babyn Yar: Transnational Symbol of the Holocaust in Ukraine .......................................... 60 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION............................................................................................... 64 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................... 69 ii ABSTRACT Recently in the West, interest in the memory of the Holocaust considered as a commonly shared dark past has increased. In Ukraine the commemoration of the Holocaust is affected by the ongoing nation-building process, with a focus on the collective memories of the Holodomor (the Famine of 1932-1933) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). At the core of the debates around the Holocaust remembrance lies the memorialization of Babyn Yar, a multilayered memory site where Jewish and non-Jewish collective memories compete. Public and political actors vie for its memorial space in order to promote their own views through recognition of their respective tragedies. The memorialization and landscape of Babyn Yar is therefore transformed together with changes in the memory politics of the Holocaust. This thesis studies the contemporary politics of memory and commemoration of the Holocaust in Ukraine with a focus on Babyn Yar and its memorial objects. Through the illustrations of the memory site this project analyzes the memorial space and grounds and explores the struggles over the collective memories in Ukraine. KEY WORDS: Holocaust in Ukraine, Babyn Yar, politics of memory and memorialization, collective memory, sites of memory, Europeanization of memory, politicization of memory, transnational memory, nation-building, Holodomor, OUN. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Throughout the writing of this thesis I have received a great deal of assistance and support. First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, professor Peo Hansen, whose expertise was invaluable at every step when writing this work, from formulating the research idea and the questions, to analyzing the findings of this study. Thank you for the discussions, competent guidance, sound advice, and encouragement. The books that you have lent me for the past two years have provided me with profound knowledge of the subject of my interest. I wish to thank my teachers at the Master’s program in Ethnic and Migration Studies. It was a pleasure to learn from your knowledge and experience. I am also grateful to my teacher and director of the Master’s program, professor Stefan Jonsson, who was also the examiner of this thesis. Thank you for your support in my academic endeavors, valuable recommendations, and constructive feedback. I would like to acknowledge the expertise and guidance that I received from professor Paul Robert Magocsi throughout my fellowship at the University of Toronto. This opportunity provided me with the necessary resources and inspiration to explore my research interest, including the writing of this thesis. My Master’s studies would not have been possible without the financial support from Dr. Alex Rovt and the IBE Trade Corp. I am grateful for their scholarship to pursue my professional goals. I would also like to thank my friends and peers who helped me to improve parts or the whole of this thesis. Thank you for your useful comments and suggestions. Finally, my friends and family deserve more thanks than I can express here. Without your support and encouragement this thesis would still be an unformed idea. You enabled me to push further and provided encouragement when I really needed it. Your love and support are much appreciated. AUTHOR’S NOTE The translations of the texts from Ukrainian, Russian, and Hebrew into English, including inscriptions on memorials, are made by the author. All the illustrations are produced by the author, unless otherwise stated. The responsibility for content, errors, and shortcomings in the text is the author’s alone. iv Remembering means life. (Sally Perel, Holocaust survivor and author) The best that can be achieved is to know precisely what it [the past] was, and to endure this knowledge, and then to wait and see what comes of knowing and enduring. (Arendt, 1968/1995: 20) Illustration 1. Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust. Jewish Museum Berlin. v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics SU Soviet Union FSU Former Soviet Union UkSSR Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic WWII World War II GPW Great Patriotic War UN United Nations EU European Union US United States USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum BYHMC Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center POWs Prisoners of War OUN Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists UPA Ukrainian Insurgent Army UINR (UINM) Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (Ukrainian Institute of National Memory) JAC Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee JDC or Joint American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee NKVD People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs Cheka All-Russian Extraordinary Commission vi EXPLANATION OF DEFINITIONS AND TERMINOLOGY Throughout this Master’s thesis several Soviet and Ukrainian terms are used to reflect cultural and historical memories of the Holocaust and World War II (WWII) in Ukraine. These terms are transliterated and translated into English, as commonly used in the Soviet and Ukrainian public discourse. Among them are the following terms: The Great Patriotic War (GPW) (Velikaja Otecestvennaja vojna in Russian; Velyka Vitcyznjana vijna in Ukrainian) – is a term in the historiography of the Soviet Union and post- Soviet states that describes the war of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) against Nazi Germany during the period from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. The Holodomor or The Great Famine (holodomor means a hunger, a famine in Ukrainian) – was an artificially made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933 that killed about three to seven million Ukrainians. Some historians of Soviet Ukraine, especially those in the diaspora, consider the Famine as a genocide and call it the “Ukrainian Holocaust,” following the definition established by the Ukrainian-American historian Omeljan Pritsak in 1983. Babyn
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