LETTER TO THE EDITOR (10/20/02)

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Of complicity and evidence

Dear Editor:

On Sunday, September 22, Dr. Kuropas wrote an article about the book "Koba the Dread - Laughter and the Twenty Million" by British writer Martin Amis (Miramax Books, New York, 2002). The book, written with exceptional lucidity, knowledge, and objection presents to the reader a short overview of the entire communist regime. I quote: "There has never been a regime quite like it, not anywhere in the history of the universe." It also presents true portraits of its leaders: "The cruelty of Lenin and Stalin, which was not medieval so much as ancient in its severity" ... "with unchanging black abyss of oppression and terror."

Mr. Amis in his book writes frequently about Stalin's anti-Ukrainism, but especially about the genocidal Terror-Famine with deep understanding and sincere sympathy for Ukrainian peasants.

Dr. Kuropas' column is well-written with his usual flair and thorough knowledge of the topic in the book. I would like however, to take issue with one of Dr. Kuropas's statements.

In one of his paragraphs he writes: "Even after collapse of the Soviet Union there is a palpable reticence a kind of 'let sleeping dogs lie' mentality to revisit the Soviet Unions both here and in Ukraine. Why? The decision to bury the past in Ukraine is based on the increasingly apparent, albeit disconcerting reality that practically every Ukrainian family had someone, somewhere, somehow, who was complicit in the debasement of other Ukrainians."

In other words Dr. Kuropas accuses the entire Ukrainian population of the former Soviet Union of clandestine complicity with Soviet Communist government. There is no doubt that great numbers of Ukrainians did conspire and "cooperate" with the Soviet secret police and other Soviet government agencies, just like many did in East Germany and other satellite countries. However, the statement "that practically every Ukrainian family was complicit in debasement..." may be perceived by millions of Ukrainian families, who lost their loved ones and suffered during the Communist regime, for example the UPA, as irresponsible and insulting. Can Dr. Kuropas prove his allegation with facts, documents, statistical data, etc.?

The "let sleeping dogs lie" mentality, which Dr. Kuropas thinks exists both here and in Ukraine, is professed primarily by the higher echelon in the present-day Ukrainian government, who make it difficult for inquiring historians and journalists to get to the source, because they may be exposed and accused of crimes against their fellow men. Also, the younger generation of Ukrainians is truly unaware and not cognizant of the horrific crimes of the former Soviet government and all the facts being suppressed. That's why books like the one mentioned above should be translated and made available to Ukrainian readers.

G. Myroslaw Burbelo, M.D.
Westerly, R.l.

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