In the UK, cheerful Christmas letters written by John Crook, a British WWII POW, were discovered. He had been kept at Stalag Luft VIII-B Nazi camp (Opole Province, Poland), notorious for its harsh conditions. In his letters, John Crook had described prisoners celebrating Christmas. According to ‘The Independent’, they were published on December 21.
Poland’s last bas-relief of Joseph Stalin will disappear from the town of Cybinka, Lubuskie Province. Currently, the memorial plaque, which is depicting the Soviet dictator and saying, ‘Our action is righteous. We won’, is situated near the cemetery, where Soviet officers are buried. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance spoke up for the removal, and the Russian Embassy – against, ‘Rzeczpospolita’ informs.
The ‘Stalin Centre’ was established in the city of Penza, Russia. The opening took place on the anniversary of Stalin’s birthday (December 21). The institution is to research Stalin’s working experience and popularize it. Conducting academic researches, arranging cultural and educational events, and also agitating are among the key areas of the Centre’s activity. Academic conferences, open film screenings and public discussions are to be conducted there. The Centre is to establish the ‘Stalin Prize’ especially for history students. According to the ‘Interfax’, the institution was founded by Russian communists.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) is cutting offensive words (e.g. ‘Negro’, ‘Eskimo’, ‘Indian’, ‘Mohammedan’) from the titles and descriptions of its paintings. It is planned to change 220,000 descriptions. It is the first project aimed to remove offensive words from a European museum, ‘The Telegraph’ informs.
Timothy Snyder, an American historian and a Yale university professor, has claimed that Hitler was a racial anarchist. In the researcher’s opinion, the dictator aimed to plunge the world into a ruthless racial struggle. He did not intent to create a powerful German state. He just used the nationalist sentiments of the German people. Timothy Snyder has spoken on it in his interview for the Radio Liberty.
The ‘Personality vs. Totalitarianism’ exhibition opened in the Teacher's Training College attached to Ivan Franko Lviv State University on December 14th. During the presentation carried out by Lyudmyla Levchenyuk, the exhibition coordinator, visitors learned about eight personalities, whose life stories evoked emotional responses and meditations in lots of the visitors, and also the memories of their relatives and acquaintances.
In Poland, historians and politicians plan to set up a monument to the Poles who died of the Holodomor in Ukraine (around 80,000 people), according to ‘Ukrinform’.
Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ is to be published in Germany for the first time since WWII ended. In addition to the original text, the edition will contain 3,500 annotations made by scholars. It will consist of two volumes totalling 1,948 pages. The book will be launched with an initial print run of 4,000 copies. It will be released in January 2016. One copy will cost €59, ‘The Guardian’ informs.
‘The Resistance to the Genocide’ exhibition opened in the Lviv Museum of the Liberation Struggle of Ukraine, commemorating the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holodomors. Former political prisoners, repressed, representatives of the Lviv State Regional Administration and the community attended the event. At the exhibition, one can take a look at some photos and documents from the archive of the Security Service of Ukraine and read the stories of people, whose life was affected by the Holodomor. The materials on display debunk the myths, which tell us that Ukrainians did not struggle with the Soviet system before and during the Holodomor of 1932–1933.
On November 26th, a meeting with Zenoviy Mazuryk, a vice-president of the Ukrainian National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), took place at the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion. He talked on the international conference entitled ‘Problems and development perspectives of Post-Soviet countries museums’, which was held in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Students from different Ukrainian cities and former political prisoners gathered in Lviv for the dialogue named ‘Memories of the Totalitarian Past: a Meeting between Youth and Political Prisoners’. The ‘Territory of Terror’ Memorial Museum and the ‘Foundations of Liberty’ NGO organized the event on November 23rd.
The second anniversary of the beginning of Euromaidan was celebrated in Lviv. In particular, a popular assembly and a commemorative service honouring those who perished during Euromaidan were held near the monument to Taras Shevchenko. Also an oak was planted there as a symbol of Ukrainian people’s spiritual strength. The ‘Post of Maidan’ worked in a few tents, where anyone could write a letter to Ukrainian soldiers who fight in the East of Ukraine or to comrades with whom one took part in the Revolution of Dignity. At the Lychakiv Cemetary, people also prayed for deceased revolutionaries and fighters. And in the evening, an automobile procession commemorated the perished heroes of the Ukrainian revolution as well, ‘ZIK’ informs.
WWII veterans from Japan and the United Kingdom together with their families took part in a reconciliation meeting. It was held at the British embassy in Tokyo, ‘The Guardian’ informs.
Experts of Oxford University and the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh (The United Kingdom) discovered that the half of natural history specimen held in collections of world greatest institutions is wrongly labeled. Museum experts often cannot distinguish between very similar plants and animals. That is why there is a high probability of museum visitor reading a wrong label, ‘The Telegraph’ informs.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a resolution which recognized the genocide of Crimean Tatars (# 2493a). 245 deputies out of 338 deputies registered in the session hall voted for it, ‘UNIAN’ informs.
