For the third time, our company, which has been working for several years on the project “GULAG. Witnesses,” is organizing the “Return of Names” event in Toronto at the Raoul Wallenberg Monument. Wallenberg, risking his life during the Holocaust, saved tens of thousands of people but was later arrested and disappeared in Stalin’s prisons.
This year in Russia, on the eve of the event, several providers blocked access to the “Return of Names” website. Every year, on October 29 or 30, in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities, including many cities worldwide, people gather to honor the memory of the victims of Soviet repression by reading their names aloud. Russia is demonstrating a revival of the core elements of the Stalinist regime, with its cult of the infallible leader, “unerring” organs of power, destruction of enemies, and the threat of anyone falling into the gears of the repressive machine from which it is almost impossible to escape. After the closure and designation of “Memorial” and other organizations as foreign agents, the state policy of commemorating the victims of repression is being revised. The mass nature of these crimes is no longer acknowledged.
The “Return of Names” event is now in its third year against the backdrop of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. And this war is not just a struggle for territory or political interests. It is a war of the totalitarian past, which Russia is reviving, against the future, where Ukraine defends not only its independence but also a key system of values, centered on human freedom and dignity.
#ReturnOfNames
#RaoulWallenberg
#StalinistRepressions
#HumanRights
#UkraineWar
#MemorialSociety
#MemorialOrganization
