On Tuesday of this past week, a Russian missile struck a crowded pizzeria in the city of Kramatorsk, Ukraine. One of those killed was an award-winning writer, Victoria Amelina. Here is an auto-biographical piece she wrote, “Expanding the Boundaries of Home: A Story for Us All.” A taste:
Popular lyrics about love, peace, and brotherhood are always easier to utter than the true story. But only true stories include all of us in a grand narrative that makes up a country and allows us to be truthful with each other and regain each other’s trust.
On the contrary, silence creates cracks so deep that it is hardly possible to feel at home. When such stories as of Holocaust or Holodomor are not fully revealed, we’re bound not to trust each other. Who were you? The hungry one or the one taking all the food in 1933? The one who shot Ukrainian activists in 1941 or the one who searched for their loved one among the decomposing bodies? The scared one watching from the window when Jews were taken away or the one who took them? The one who wrote to the KGB about your neighbor or the one who really helped Ukrainian dissidents? There were silences instead of the much-needed stories. And where there’s a lack of true stories, there is a lack of trust. We are bound to believe the propaganda and draw all the wrong borders again and again, never feeling completely home.
Read the complete piece here.