Mennonite memorial to be unveiled in Ukraine

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This article was published 18/06/2021 (1594 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TWO years of planning and fundraising by a group of local Mennonites will pay off next week when they watch an online dedication of a memorial in Ukraine made using the gravestones of some of their ancestors.

The memorial, located at the Khortitsa National Nature Reserve in Zaporizhzhia, features gravestones of Mennonites who lived and were buried in a church cemetery in nearby Chortitza in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The memorial was made from 15 of the more than 100 gravestones that were taken from the cemetery by the Soviet government in the late 1930s and used to build the foundation of a nearby barn. The gravestones were discovered by a local Ukrainian researcher in late 2019.

Winnipegger Werner Toews, 65, who helped lead a fundraiser to create the memorial, said the gravestones were taken by the Communist government in an effort to wipe out the memory of religious groups such as the Mennonites in Ukraine.

“The Soviets were trying to destroy the history of the Mennonites,” Toews, whose parents escaped from Ukraine after the Second World War, said. “They tried to cover it up.”

Toews, a retired police officer, became interested in the gravestones when he discovered some of the ones used to build the barn’s foundation belonged to his ancestors, including his great-great grandparents.

Together with Louie Sawatzky of Winnipeg’s Mennonite Benevolent Society, he spearheaded a campaign to raise nearly $20,000 from organizations and individuals to create the memorial.

“Very few of the stones are in pristine shape,” he said, noting the 15 gravestones have been arranged around a small square with an anchor in the middle — a symbol often used by Mennonites on gravestones in the Ukraine to signify they were “anchored in Christ.”

The other gravestones are being kept in a warehouse for possible use in the future, such as a memorial wall.

The church cemetery where the gravestones came from was turned into a sports field by the Soviets; a school and playground were later built over it. Toews estimates there are 200 to 300 graves underneath the school grounds.

Watching the unveiling of the memorial will be emotional for Toews, who has been unable to visit the site because of the pandemic.

“It’s very emotional for me,” he said of how the Soviets subjected people such as his parents to “terror” that resulted in lifelong psychological effects they “lived with every day.”

“But they didn’t destroy us,” Toews said. “In fact, by using the stones for the barn, they did us a favour. They preserved our history. Now I can say, ‘Yes,’ my relatives lived there. It’s like having my history unearthed.”

The dedication of the memorial will take place at 9 a.m. CT on June 24. Go to http://wfp.to/7MP and click on the “live” link at the top to view it.

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