Remembering Price of Victory.

Frankly speaking, I can't be objective when talking about upcoming May 9 60th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany to be marked in Russia and throughout the fmr. Soviet Union. Without exaggeration, the 1941-1945 Soviet-German War (aka "Great Patriotic War") touched nearly everyone in the fmr. Soviet Union and became the bloodiest chapter of the WWII. If you are from the former USSR and even if you are born after the World War II, you are likely to have a parent, grandparent or other family member or someone your family knew who went to the war. You or your family could know someone who experienced bombing raids, evacuation, starvation or German Occupation. Possibly you know someone who worked day and night for the War effort at numerous armament factories or GULAGs--the dreaded Soviet slave camps--producing guns, bullets, cannons, tanks, mines, guns, airplanes, military uniforms and other crucial war and life necessities. Many of these "soldiers of the home front" were women and children slaving away on these factories and surviving on substinent food rations. Some of your family members or family friends could have ended up on the German occupied territory and were taken away to Nazi held Europe to be slaves for the Third Reich. Some of them could have perished in Holocaust and other Nazi mass murders. Overall, estimated 27-30 million of Soviet Citizens, soldiers and civilians perished in this war. Most of those who survived the war, remain physically or emotionally scarred for the rest of their lives.

Among millions and millions of war stories, is the story of one 17 year old Russian-Ukrainian Jewish kid, a child of Stalin prison system survivor, who escaped advancing Germans from Kiev with his family in 1941 and went to the Central Asia on a long, arduous and overcrowded train ride. One year later, he went to the officer school to become an Infantry lieutenant in just 6 months. Then a new 19 year old lieutenant went to the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. A few months later, he lost a leg to a flying piece of cannon while crossing Dnieper River near Kiev--the city he left a couple years ago. The young officer was lying unconscious on the river bank slowly passing away and loosing blood, but miraculously he was found among a number of bodies, picked up by the sanitary team and transferred to the hospital. After undergoing a number of operations in various military hospitals, he married a young woman he met 2 years earlier during evacuation and had two boys with her. One of this boys is my dad. The story of my grandma and grandpa made me one of tens of millions for whom this terrible War became an integral part of family history.

It was painful for me to see politicization of the May 9th anniversary. First, it's disgusting to see that once again Russian leadership tries to rehabilitate Stalin whitewashing his crimes and strategic blunders before and during the War. Once again the Stalin-era myth of treacherous 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as a "necessity" to secure USSR Western borders is being proclaimed by Putin and his cohort. The mayors of several Russian cities plan to erect Stalin statues--the very dictator whose policies of "Great Terror" of 1937-1938 destroyed top Soviet Military leadership paving the way for 1941 military disaster. 1945 Yalta conference that sealed the fate of Eastern Europe and forced these countries to exchange Hitler for Stalin is hailed again as the great achievement of Soviet Diplomacy for which Eastern Europeans should be 'grateful'. Such ignorance of historical facts and recycling of the Stalinist myths continues to poison atmosphere between Russia and Eastern Europe and impedes the development of normal relations between them.

However, politicization of this special date is not limited to Putin side. Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, while rightfully reminding the world that May 9 for Baltic States was not a liberation but exchange of one murderous tyrant for another, praised Latvians who served in Waffen-SS Latvian legions as fighters for Latvian Independence against Soviet re-occupation. Although Latvian Waffen-SS legion was formed in 1943 after the Holocaust in Latvia had largely ended and young Latvians were drafted into this unit mostly involuntarily to fight the advancing Soviet Army, there were reports by Simon Wiesenthal center that about 1/3 of the legionnaires could have been involved in the Holocaust earlier as members of Nazi auxiliary police units. Other Baltic officials dispute claims that some of their countrymen participated in Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities claiming that it was all Stalin propaganda to justify mass repressions against Baltic people. With all due respect to the terrible suffering of Baltic Nations under the Stalin thumb, mythologizing history and rushing to deny historically based claims and facts to portray themselves exclusively as noble victims of ruthless foreign invaders is ultimately a self-defeating delusion creating a false self-image. Substituting facts with wishful thinking whether in Russia or Baltic States distorts the truth making the normal and healthy relations between the parties impossible at a time.

Overall, May 9 need to be about the memory of millions of Soviet citizens (military or civilian) perished in this horrible war. Remember those fallen in Stalingrad, Kursk, Moscow, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and other sites of bloodiest WWII battles covering space between Moscow and Berlin and between North and Caspian sea. Remember the Soviet Citizens perished in Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities. Remember those who were taken against their will to work in Nazi held Europe as slave laborers. Remember how Stalin regime callously sacrificed millions of the Soviet soldiers to satisfy his vanity (i.e. race to Berlin to be there before Americans would, sending untrained or poorly trained conscripts with average 1 rifle per 4 soldiers on German tanks in 1941-1942). Remember more then 5 million Soviet POW's branded as "traitors" by Stalin condemning them to languish and die in Nazi concentration camps without Red Cross assistance because German Nazis had a perfect excuse not to allow Red Cross to visit "non-existent" POW's. Remember how those POW's who managed to escape and wanted to rejoin the Soviet Military faced lengthy interrogations by dreaded NKVD-- Stalin secret Police--and often ended up exchanging Nazi Camps for Soviet gulags or were sent to penal units. Remember the soldiers who heroically fought in poorly armed penal units composed from former GULAG prisoners and military personnel often sentenced there for trumped up offenses. They faced armed to teeth German soldiers in front of them and NKVD units behind them to shoot any retreating soldiers. Remember that decision by Roosevelt and Churchill to ally with monster and mass murderer Stalin to defeat another monster and mass murderer Hitler was necessary although it was very tragic. Remember, that while heroism and achievements of American, British and other allied forces against Nazi Germany are indisputable, 3/4 of Nazi Military casualties were on the Eastern Front. Remember the fallen Soviet soldiers who heroically fought German Nazi War machine and condemn the Soviet regime that often needlessly sacrificed them without qualms and rebuilt the tyranny on their backs throughout USSR and Eastern Europe.