Dec. 14, 2009 issue
Memorial to victims of Soviet terror unveiled
Ukraine monument honors 30,000 who died during years of Stalin’s persecution
By Anne KonradZAPORIZHIA, Ukraine — Susanna Hildebrand’s husband disappeared in 1929.
Harvey Dyck of Toronto, project organizer, speaks at the dedication of a monument to victims of Soviet oppression. Peter Klassen of Fresno, Calif., is in the background. — Photo by T. Dyck
During the 1933 famine, she picked up a few cobs of corn on the road and was arrested. Sentenced to seven years in jail, she died in prison.
Paul Ens of Khortitsa village was at home recovering from an operation in 1937 when he was arrested at 3 a.m. Hustled onto a truck filled with Mennonite men, he was never seen again.
Hildebrand and Ens were two of 30,000 Mennonites who perished in the Stalinist terror.
On Oct. 10 in Zaporizhia, about 300 Ukrainians and foreign visitors dedicated a monument to “Soviet Mennonite Victims of Tribulation, Stalinist Terror and Religious Oppression.”
The memorial consists of three life-size silhouettes: a woman, a man and two children. The base quotes the words of Scripture, “Blessed are those who mourn.” Inscriptions are in English, German, Russian and Ukrainian.
“This monument bears enduring witness to the suffering of many thousands who cannot speak for themselves,” said Peter Klassen of Fresno, Calif., co-chair of the International Mennonite Memorial Committee.
Harvey Dyck of Toronto, committee co-chair and project organizer, recalled Martyrs Mirror author Thieleman van Braght’s admonition that stories of the martyrs should not be lost.
“The story of 30,000 Soviet Mennonites should not be lost,” Dyck said. “It chronicles a tragic past and opens us more fully to the suffering and heroism of Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, peoples of Siberia and Central Asia, and people around the world.”
The monument symbolizes the heartache of a generation of survivors and the worldwide commemoration of the Soviet Mennonite tragedy. It is the first within the former Soviet Union to memorialize all Russian Mennonites. A place to mourn and contemplate, it draws attention to the human costs of a totalitarian system.
Comments
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May I make one correction? The candle-lighting service was held in the evening following the outdoor service, not in the one-time Mennonite church since renovated into the Palace of Culture.
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