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November 15, 2018 Kyiv hosted seminar “Holocaust: Facts, Memorialization, Lessons”, organized by the “Babyn Yar” Holocaust Memorial Center and its partners – United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and UNESCO. Dr. Iegor Vradii, “Tkuma” Institute Deputy Director for research work, and Dr. Igor Shchupak were invited to participate in the event.

The seminar consisted of three thematic sessions (“Facts”, “Memorialization”, “Lessons”) and the final part. In each session 2-3 speakers presented reports, which then were followed by a general discussion of the topic.

During the 1^st session (moderator – Andrii Rukkas, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Department of History of Central and Eastern Europe, Kyiv National University) participants discussed, in particular, the “legitimacy” of using the term “collaboration” in relation to the cooperation of a part of Ukrainians and certain organizations with an occupation regime. Dr. A. Rukkas noted the lack of unity in the understanding of terminology concerning memory policy, and drew attention to key concepts, where the term “collaboration” is of great importance.

Prof. Vladyslav Hrynevych (Doctor of Political Sciences, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Research Fellow at I. Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies, NAS of Ukraine) during a deep theoretical analysis of the problem, questioned the “legitimacy” of using the term “collaboration” with relations to events and phenomena in the occupied territory of Ukraine, noticed the features of coexistence with the German invaders in Eastern Europe, drawing attention to the imperialist nature of the Second World War (at certain stages); the situation of colonies of empires and so on.

Dr. Iegor Vradii emphasized the discreteness of the behavior of people during the occupation and the domination of totalitarian regimes, which was manifested in rescue, participation in murder, indifference in various conditions and in different situations. Dr. Igor Shchupak suggested to pay attention to the presence of:

- actions aimed at supporting the repressive nature of the occupation regime and carrying out genocide;

- voluntary collaboration with the occupiers (or forced collaboration);

- motivation for collaboration with occupants, etc.

During the 2^nd session “Memorialization” (moderator – Oksana Dovgopolova, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Department of Philosophy and Methodology of Cognition at the Odessa National University) included presentation by Sofiia Diak, Director of the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv, who spoke about the history of creation and prospects of development of "Space Synagogue" in Lviv. Presentation by Olha Honchar, Director of the Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes “Territory of Terror” (Lviv), was very interesting.

During the 3^rd session “Lessons” (Moderator – Vladyslav Hrynevych), interesting dialogue with the participation of historians, political scholars, philologists, and journalists took place, in particular with – Iryna Zakharchuk, Professor of the Department of Ukrainian Literature at Rivne State University; Andrii Kulikov, journalist, co-founder of “Hromadske Radio” and others. Dr. Shchupak on the example of Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine” spoke about the importance of a critical attitude to our own national history; the need to get rid of ethnocentrism in history and to understand the common features of genocide; the need to study the Holocaust in the context of Ukrainian and world history, etc.

At the end of the seminar, the organizers indicated the opportunity to publish the discussion materials.

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