‘Hitler Wanted to Kill Me because I’m Jewish. Putin Wants to Kill Me Because I’m Ukrainian.’
Three years on in the Ukraine war, lessons from a genocide survivor.
Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.
When I was reporting in Ukraine a couple years ago, the war crimes investigators I spoke to were all talking about the possible genocide case being built against Russia in the International Criminal Court and at home. Even two years later though, I don’t think the world quite sees the war as a genocide. But perhaps it should.
Genocide was recognized as a crime by the UN general assembly in 1946. A UN convention defines genocide as consisting of mental and physical crimes “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” including a deliberate attempt by the enemy to obliterate cultural heritage and reproductive capacity.
At the time, I wrote in a long-form story for The Guardian: “There is a growing body of evidence that Russians are trying to erase the Ukrainians through mass killing, forced Russian citizenship and the relocation of Ukrainians to Russia. Investigators are still discovering graves in Bucha, near Kyiv, and Izium in the east. They are finding signs of systematic, intentional murder: hands tied behind backs, bullet holes to the back of skulls.”
I also reported a story for The Atlantic about how Russia was taking Ukrainian children forcibly over the border, compelling them to speak Russian and to forget their culture — aka “Russifying” them — and then adopting them illegally into Russian families while the kids still had families at home. This forcible transfer of children is a component of the UN’s definition of genocide.
Then there is the use of rape as an element of genocide. Tetiana Pechonchyk from Zmina, a Kyiv-based media and human rights advocacy organization, told me that she’d heard about cases of women being told by Russian soldiers while they were being assaulted: “We will rape you until you won’t want to see men anymore.” In Rwanda, rape was often accompanied by mutilation as a way to forcibly sterilize the “less than human” enemy. In Bosnia, during the 1992-1995 war, Serbian soldiers held women at “rape camps” — places such as hotels or encampments where women were imprisoned until they became pregnant with their enemies’ babies.
“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group” are both listed as acts within the genocide convention.
Pretending that Ukraine is a part of Russia is and always has been an essential piece of Putin’s twisted Mother Russia ideology. Putin views Ukraine as a Soviet-era creation, denying its long history as an autonomous region. The “existence of a separate and independent Ukraine,” writes the journalist Yaroslav Trofimov in his book, Our Enemies Will Vanish — a meticulously reported account of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion — is “an existential threat to Russia’s foundational narrative.” Hence the will (and accompanying propaganda) to obliterate an entire country and its people.
With the third anniversary of the Russian invasion this week, I want to share with you an address by a Holocaust survivor published today in The Kyiv Independent. Roman Shvartsman, the chairman of the Odesa Association of Jews, spoke these words at the Yalta European Strategy Special Gathering in Kyiv on Feb. 24:
Ladies and gentlemen,
A month ago, the German Bundestag commemorated the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I had the opportunity to speak there as someone who lived through oppression, brutal violence, and endless suffering during World War II. I told them: (Adolf) Hitler wanted to kill me because I am Jewish. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin wants to kill me because I am Ukrainian.
You swore: “Never again.” This “never again” has arrived. If you are serious, you must support Ukraine differently than you have before. Even if you have already done a lot, we now need action.
I don’t need to tell you about the suffering of Jews and Ukrainians under German occupation. Babyn Yar is widely known today as a symbol of this abuse, but there were around 2,000 such sites in Ukraine. People in the West know little about this.
These were ordinary people carrying out shootings, beatings, burnings and mass killings. And those who survived the war often returned to their civilian lives, undisturbed.
Germany now does a lot to remember. “Never again” accompanies every memorial service, but this “never again” is missing a second part. After the unprecedented murders, after humanity stared into the abyss of National Socialism, simply saying “never again” is not enough.
“Never again” needs a second part: “Never again” defenseless victims. “Never again” crimes against humanity.
This is a lesson the world must learn from the horrors of the 20th century. The UN Charter enshrines this commitment, yet human rights are trampled every day, borders are forcibly redrawn, and entire nations are threatened.
We (Ukraine) are a country under attack from our large neighbor for 11 years. The war has not lasted three years, but 11. Russia wants to conquer and destroy us as an independent state. We are bombed day and night, our energy system is destroyed, and our culture is under attack. There is real terror and the killing of civilians in Russian-occupied territories.
And why? Because we want our freedom. Because we want to be part of a free Europe, not a Russian colony.
Many countries have pledged their support. At the United Nations, 141 countries condemned the Russian invasion and called for the withdrawal of Putin's forces. We were hardly ready for war, but the war continued, and people kept dying.
We were told that time had not run out. But what was that time when we hardly received any weapons? The time after the first Russian invasion was not used. Where was the military support from Germany, which emphasizes “never again?”
When Putin gathered his troops around us, when he said we were “Little Russia,” when he announced he wanted to divide the world into zones of influence again, most countries refused to believe it. They were comfortable in their prosperous societies, enjoying cheap Russian gas, and denying that it could ever be their turn.
While defense spending in Europe was cut, the American people were paying for Europe’s security. We shouldn’t be surprised when the man who won the election told Americans: “We will not do it anymore. Europeans have to defend themselves.”
I think we must care for the democratic world together — Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States. But now the oldest and most powerful democracy in the world has elected a leader who is turning everything upside down. Victims are being labeled as criminals.
We, Ukrainians, were shocked to see (U.S. President Donald) Trump negotiating with Putin as if nothing had happened. And we, the occupied, are told we should never have started this war.
We cannot understand what the American president says and writes. But Europe, with its 450 million citizens and powerful economic space, must finally realize that the era of comfort and prosperity is over. Freedom is not free.
Perhaps now we have Munich in 1938, the Hitler-Stalin Pact and Yalta. If we allow this to happen, the war will not end with Putin conquering Ukraine. If Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, the threat of war for all of Europe will grow.
That is why I tell my European friends: the war will come to you. Just as the calculations didn’t work in Munich, they won’t work this time if you abandon Ukraine. You are poorly armed. You cannot defend yourselves without Ukraine.
That is why I tell you: Ukrainians are protecting you every day, year after year, for years. This is also your front, which Putin has opened in Eastern Europe. Finally, realize this. Have the courage now, or your free societies will also perish.
Dear guests, I am an old man. I was in the ghetto. I looked the devil in the eye. I tell the democratic world: don’t be afraid of him. You give too much power to evil. If you stand together and overcome your fear, you can defeat the devil.
Thank you for listening.
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Thank you for sharing Roman’s words. I reread it twice. I have never been ashamed to be an American, I am hugely proud of this country. This week, the U.N. vote aligning us with Russia, was a first.