Mass grave at Zhovkva monastery: the mystery continues (09/29/02)

Mass grave at Zhovkva monastery: the mystery continues

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

ZHOVKVA, Ukraine - Not everybody who has seen the bodily remains and viewed the unearthed passageways and chambers beneath the Basilian Monastery in Zhovkva where the bodies entombed for at least 45 years were discovered is certain that those buried there met their fate at the hands of Soviet officials.

Some believe it is premature to make any conclusions because much of the evidence, even at a superficial glance, points to the possibility of Nazi German involvement, and that the skeletons that were found might belong to local Ukrainian Jews.

Just over three months since monks uncovered what became 228 sets of human remains while remodeling the basement of the 400-year-old Ukrainian Greek-Catholic monastery, local prosecutors are still examining the bones to determine the cause of death. They are not saying whether they have a theory as to how the deaths occurred.

"We are currently conducting tests to determine whether these were violent deaths and whether the holes were made by bullets, and cannot say more until our investigation is completed," explained Petro Peleshko, an investigator in the Zhovkva procurator's office.

Monks found the large quantity of human bones in a 15-meter-long corridor they unearthed while expanding the basement located beneath their monastery to build a social hall for parishioners of the church that adjoins it. During construction they happened upon what looked like evidence of an encased doorway with the vestiges of hinges still attached to the wall. Upon breaking the concrete and moving the sand behind it, human bones began to tumble out.

Law enforcement officials were called, and when they had completed the digging they had uncovered a four-meter-high hallway and two antechambers filled to the ceiling with layers of human remains separated by layers of sand and mortar.

Apparently, the remains had been set into the mass grave from the main floor immediately above, a layer at a time, and then covered with concrete and a tile floor. The bones, for the most part, had few obvious indications of a possible cause of death; only 11 had what appeared to be bullet holes in the skull, while another six appeared to have been struck in the head with sharp objects. Most distressingly, however, was that 87 - more than a third of the bodily remains - were those of children, two of them yet unborn.

The local Memorial Society of Lviv, which publicized the discovery and has worked with the Basilian monks and cooperated with law enforcement officials in the investigation, has pushed the theory that evidence found with the bodies, including coins, newspaper clippings and photos, points unwaveringly to Soviet responsibility for the massacre.

"This was the work of the NKVD, we have evidence that shows that this is undeniable," explained Mr. Hryniv, president of the Memorial Society and a former member of Parliament.

In a sealed room in an obscure government building not far from the monastery, Mr. Hryniv showed the thousands of bones - what is left of the bodies of those who died violently and were interred unceremoniously a half-century ago - now loosely gathered to resemble the individual skeletons they once were. He pointed out a display case covered with glass in a corner of the room beneath which were displayed several news clippings containing photographs of May Day demonstrations showing a banner with a portrait of a Communist Party Politburo member who was appointed only after World War II. There is also a separate photo of Stalin wearing a great coat of a fashion he wore only after the war. In addition there are two Soviet coins and a lithograph signed in 1942 by its creator.

Mr. Hryniv proposed two theories as to how the massacres occurred, both of which incriminate post-World War II Soviet law enforcement officials from the area.

Mr. Hryniv explained that between 1946 and 1949 the Basilian Monastery was transformed into a Ministry of Internal Affairs garrison. Law enforcement officers stationed there were utilized to ferret out Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) sympathizers and supporters, as well as Nazi collaborators in what were deemed cleansing operations to root out a "bourgeois nationalists."

Among the mass arrests were a good many people who had been forcefully evicted from their homes and moved westward, either to eastern Poland or the Transcarpathian region of western Ukraine in what was known as Akcja Wisla (or Operation Vistula). He suggested that some of those who were transplanted attempted to return and were arrested. Mr. Hryniv proposed that police officials and intelligence officers persuaded many of them to become spies and informants lest they face prosecution on various charges. He said that those who absolutely refused might have been shot to keep the project secret.

Another theory, which he said he preferred, holds that the remains belong to local people who had been targeted for arrest and removal to Siberia during the cleansing operations. Much pressure was put on the security officials to complete their lists and ship the prisoners out in a timely manner. Yet many times those targeted for exile could not easily be found because they were already in hiding. Mr. Hryniv speculates that some officials in the garrison, in order to show they had completed their assignments, claimed they had arrested all on their lists so that the trains or truck convoys could go on their way according to schedule.

They continued their searches, however, and after nabbing those whom they initially had failed to find executed them so that no evidence of their less than exemplary work existed.

At least one person, a journalist who has written about other gruesome finds of the same sort, told The Weekly that the way the bodies were buried does not bear the signature of the work of Soviet officials. He said that, on the contrary, there is much evidence to suggest that the killing was done by German SS troops moving through Ukraine during World War II.

Danylo Kulyniak, a Kyiv journalist who wrote a vaunted series of articles on the first discoveries of Soviet massacres in 1990 in the village of Yablunia, near Ivano-Frankivsk, said there are too many inconsistencies in the manner in which the bodies were disposed of and in the manner of death to attribute the deaths to Soviet mass murder.

"How come the bodies are not clothed, and why were there no gold teeth found?" queried Mr. Kulyniak.

The journalist explained that Germans took all they could from their murdered victims, leaving bodies bereft of clothing and valuables, while the Soviets were inclined to bury the bodies as they were. He said that only in a few cases were people murdered by Soviet NKVD or state militia officers found with gold caps and fillings missing, and these were generally isolated incidents of simple theft.

More importantly to Mr. Kulyniak, Soviet exterminators did not, as a rule, eliminate women and children, and especially on a large scale. He said that while teenagers were often killed for various violations, including cooperation with the UPA and OUN, young children of families that were a threat to the Soviet state generally were taken from their families and placed in special schools.

The journalist explained that he tends to favor a theory that includes a more commonplace series of events for Nazi Europe during World War II in which Gestapo liquidators rounded up the local Jews and then exterminated them.

"There is a synagogue not far from the site, one of the biggest and most beautiful in Ukraine, and around it, as usual, was a large Jewish ghetto. I do not exclude that mass extermination occurred using auto exhaust gas or Zyklon B, and then the remains were interred in the monastery basement" explained Mr. Kulyniak, who was born in Zhovkva, but lived there only a few years before being transplanted to the Kherson region with his family.

Mr. Kulyniak also noted that the Belzec concentration camp was located near Zhovkva, and the skeletal remains may be related to events that occurred there, although he admitted such a connection would be more difficult to make.

The Ukrainian journalist also presented two theories that would incriminate Soviet officials. In the first, he suggested that perhaps the remains of Jews eliminated by the Germans were rounded up after the war and entombed beneath the monastery as part of a clean-up process. He explained that Soviet military and militia commanders understood that the local population could easily fail to differentiate deaths that occurred at the hands of Soviet or Nazi forces. Therefore, the local Soviets were inclined to cover up the grisly tracks of their enemy as well as their own.

However, Mr. Kulyniak also proposed that perhaps the deaths came as a result of more natural causes. He suggested that perhaps an epidemic of typhus, which was common in the immediate post-war period, had swept a local temporary detention facility where people awaiting exile to Siberia were incarcerated. The bones found this past summer might be the remains of those who succumbed and were buried en masse.

Mr. Kulyniak mentioned that he does not believe it necessary to discard the alternative theories presented by Mr. Hryniv of the Memorial Society. He said that in order for the truth to be discovered all possibilities should be identified and considered before final conclusions are drawn.

Both men agreed that the lack of bullets and human hair remains at the site points to the fact that the victims were killed elsewhere and that their bodies were later deposited in the cellar beneath the Basilian Monastery. This also would explain why no clasps, jewelry or buttons have been found at the site.

However, Mr. Hryniv maintains that the fact the bodies were buried in an unconventional spot and manner is a serious piece of evidence that must be considered in support of his theories. He explained that German SS officers rarely hid their handiwork. Just the opposite, they usually exposed it because they believed in the righteousness of their cause, such as the elimination of Jews, or wanted to intimidate the local population into subservience.

"It is the Soviets who knew they were committing crimes against humanity and, therefore, tried to hide their atrocities," explained Mr. Hryniv.

He explained that the skeletal remains found beneath the Basilian Monastery, if found to be the work of Soviet police authorities, would be the best example of the war of terror the Soviet Union waged against Ukrainians.

"These were not members of the underground, these were not combatants against the Soviet regime, they were not members of the UPA or the OUN, these were mothers and children," explained Mr. Hryniv. "And this is the best evidence that it was a war against the civilian population."

Mr. Kulyniak, while admitting that any one of the theories could eventually prove true - if the truth is ever determined - said that for the moment a proper investigation must be completed.

"We may even need to bring in international experts to let the world decide what happened here," explained Mr. Kulyniak.

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