I read an article about Odessa in relation to genocide in WW II that had a photo of this plaque at the Odesa-Sortuval’na train station, and thought I’d go see the plaque. What’s not at all apparent from the photo is the condition of the station.
I thought initially the station must be closed down, because the street leading to it was pot-holed and the surface was badly decayed. Windows are broken and patched with cardboard. What place does remembering 75-year-old genocide take in a country where the infrastructure is deteriorating like this?
The catacomb museum.
The memorial across the street from the Catacombs is in an overgrown lot. The diagonal line is a telephone line which is hanging at eye level at its lowest point.
I like the design of a single soldier and vehicle in the mountains – this communicates the isolation of partisans. The flowers are plastic.
The lawn is strewn with discarded plastic flowers and plastic drink bottles.
I looked at the faces on the memorial and wondered how the partisans of the 1940s would want to be remembered today. What place does the Ukraine of 2018 have for their memory?
