Holocaust

Collection of testimonies from educators about Russian aggression and the war in Ukraine

Since the full-scale invasion of russia, the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies tries to continue its educational activities, as well as all the time supports our colleagues, educators from the whole country. Our space was filled with numerous stories about the new and difficult experience that we all have to live through. We could not stay aside from these stories, and that is why in September we started a new project to collect testimonies from Ukrainian teachers and university lecturers, graduates of the programs and projects of the UCHS, about the current Russian-Ukrainian war. We are implementing this project with the support of the Documenting Ukraine program by the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

Our goal is to record personal testimonies about the experienced events of February 24, 2022: how the war began for Ukrainian educators, how they felt, what instructions as teachers they received and whether they did, what dilemmas they had to solve, how their personal and professional experiences were related, what events (evacuation, hiding, filtering, occupation, etc.) they lived through. And also how this experience inevitably influenced the study and perception of some topics from history, some works of literature, especially those related to the Second World War, or war and genocides in general. 

So far, we have recorded 7 interviews about different experiences: from living behind the front line to being detained by invaders and going through interrogations. An important condition of the project is that our storytellers remain anonymous, because we must respect their personal life and safety. Also, due to security issues, we do not collect any interviews from those colleagues who currently live in the temporarily occupied territories. The project materials are not yet available to researchers, but over time we will develop a policy for their use.
We are sincerely grateful to all our storytellers for their testimonies and courage to share their experiences and continue our project.

Photo: from the page of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine