Exhibition Opening
9.4.2016
The exhibition “The Destruction of the Polish Elite. Action AB – Katyn” has been presented at Luhansk National University today.
It has been prepared by the Institute of National Remembrance, Poland. Ukrainian version was supported by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance.
Co-organizers in Starobilsk are Poland Consulate General in Kharkiv and SE “Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University”.
The exhibition is devoted to the 75th anniversary of Katyn Massacre. Stalin version of communism and Hitlerian Nazism are very similar. Polacks and Ukrainians have felt their criminal nature. Both totalitarian regimes have started achieving their goals by killing the most intelligent, self-sufficient and undisposed to conformism peoples.
In the spring of 1940 NKVD of the USSR destructed about 22 thousands of Polish citizens – Polacks, Ukrainians, Jews, Germans and representatives of other nationalities lived in the Republic of Poland. This event is known as Katyn Massacre named for the first found place of victims disposition in Katyn not far from Smolensk.
4 302 persons were deprived of life in Kharkiv. At the occupied territory Nazi carried out so-called AB Action aimed at beheading Polish nation. This action was at the same time as the Katyn Massacre. “It is very important to remember that terror not to scare someone but to stay humane. And this is memory that differs us from those who could not be called humans. We must remember that terrify events to prevent them happen again”, – told the Advisor to Chairman of Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance Oleksandr Zinchenko.
Documents and photos from Polish, British, German and Soviet archives presented at the exhibition describe the fates of Polish citizens – victims of two totalitarian regimes.
“This event is very meaningful for Luhanshchyna because we pay tribute to people who have died innocently. This brings us hope that the youth will value peace and international friendship after learning such tragic pages from the history of Ukrainian and Polish people. We are going through hard time now but we believe that together we will build the European state governed by the rule of law”, – emphasized the Rector of Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University Serhii Viktorovych Savchenko.
