Mennonite Weekly Review

Zaporizhia, Ukraine — Over the past decade or more, Mennonites have been returning to Ukraine to rediscover their history and to assist their former neighbors to develop a financially sustainable, caring and just post-Soviet society. The Mennonite return has been mirrored by a warm Ukrainian embrace of the Mennonite story.

An artist’s depiction of the design of the monument to be placed in Zaporizhia, Ukraine.

On Oct. 10 the International Mennonite Memorial Committee for the former Soviet Union and the city of Zaporizhia will unveil a monument, “To Mennonite Victims of Tribulation, Stalinist Terror and Religious Oppression.”

The monument will be located on the main square of the one-time village of Khortitsa, center of the first settlement of Mennonites in czarist Russia.

It will remember the one-third of all Soviet Mennonites who perished, most with no gravesite. It also honors those who survived in poverty, terror and religious persecution. The memorial will be a witness to reconciliation, not violence.

Mennonite Memorial 2009 is a project endorsed by numerous Canadian, American, Latin American, German, Russian and Ukrainian programs, societies and churches. The Memorial Committee, formed in 1999, has erected a number of plaques and monuments in southern Ukraine. It works closely with Ukrainian partners, officials and local village communities.

Peter Klassen of Fresno, Calif., co-chair of the committee, calls the memorial project “its most significant collaborative undertaking.”

The 2009 Mennonite Heritage Cruise will feature this event in its program and act as a central registering agency for North American participants in the memorial weekend.

Events scheduled for Oct. 9-11 will include the opening of an exhibit in Zaporizhia’s main museum; an unveiling of the monument; a naming by descendants and friends of those who perished and a lighting of candles in their memory; a worship service with Mennonites, Ukrainian and international visitors from four continents; Ukrainian and Mennonite choirs and a performance of Mozart’s Requiem, directed by Howard Dyck.