During the war years, Ukraine suffered the biggest losses not only among the former Soviet republics but also among all other countries. According to different estimates, from eight to ten million people including five million civilians were killed. More than two million able-bodied men and women were taken to Germany for forced labor. The estimated 700 Ukrainian cities and 30 thousand villages were reduced to ruins.
Ukrainians contributed greatly to the victory over Nazism. For instance, on the side of the Allied powers, 45 thousand Ukrainians fought as part of the armies of Great Britain and Canada, 120 thousand – in Poland, six millions – as part of the Soviet army, 80 thousand as part of the army of the United States and almost 100 thousand people fought in the ranks of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army that operated in Ukraine.
The present-day Ukraine marks the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation on May 8, and the Day of Victory over Nazism in the Second World War on May 9.
The recent sociological survey has shown that 41% of the respondents believe that both dates should be celebrated while 31% insist that Ukraine has to celebrate only May 9 that marks the Day of Victory over Nazism. Almost 9% of the respondents support the idea of celebrating only the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation. And 10% of the respondents said that it makes no difference to them.
“For a ticket to the world without war, our ancestors paid some eight million human lives”, said President Zelenskyy on those memorial days.
He stressed, “They died so that we learn about such things only from books and not from personal experience, that we see them in movies and not in real life. They died for a ticket to the future for us, for our children and grandchildren”.
On the occasion of the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, the Foreign Office of Ukraine released a statement in which it said that today Ukrainians defend not only themselves but the entire democratic Europe.
The statement reads, “For many decades we hoped that war would never come to the Ukrainian soil. But in 2014, Russia began aggression against Ukraine and occupied part of its territories. Today, Ukraine defends not only itself but the entire democratic Europe, the Europe that appeared on the ruins of the Second World War, the Europe that is united by the main idea ‘Never Again’”.
The newspaper Voice of Ukraine
