Sergei Loznitsa is one of the greatest modern directors. Winner of prizes at prestigious film festivals around the world for documentaries and feature films. He dares to unbiasedly consider the most painful pages of history in his films, without adapting to the current moment. It is not surprising that his «Victory Day», «Trial» caused attacks by Russian jingoistic patriots, and the documentary «Babi Yar. Context”, which received the special jury prize “Golden Eye” (L’Oeil d’or) at the Cannes Film Festival, aroused the discontent of Ukrainian truth deniers. However, Loznitsa does not expose anyone, does not reproach. Bringing history to arm's length, he reflects. About the causes of an inescapable tragedy, about historical memory and about amnesia — a serious and dangerous disease of mankind.
Sergey Loznitsa. Photo: Stephane Cardinale — Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
You have been preparing the picture for more than eight years. It contains a well-known chronicle and unknown materials. A terrible pogrom in Lvov, footage of the explosion on Khreshchatyk by the NKVD before the departure of the Soviet army… What discoveries did you make for yourself during this work?
— In fact, I did not discover anything new about humanity for myself. Surprising actions that are committed against the tide. Against their own interest and desire to save their lives. That's what's amazing. Everything else is explainable. This also applies to our everyday life with you. For such concepts as «dignity», «honor», you must fight, be ready to die, like Hamlet, who found himself in the face of inevitability. The paradox is that it is from such situations that the human grows.
In 1941, people did not understand what was happening to them. Those who greeted the Germans joyfully as liberators did not understand that the Germans did not come to liberate, and this is not 1918, when German troops entered Ukraine for bread — not for human lives. In 1941, the soldiers who surrendered whole units into captivity did not understand what their fate would be. They hoped that the war was over for them, that the Soviet Union was over, that the Germans would come and restore some other worse or better life. Many memories testify to this colossal mistake. It is difficult to imagine a peasant (among those called to the front, the vast majority were peasants) who thought otherwise at that time. Of the 5 million Soviet soldiers who surrendered or were taken prisoner, in my opinion, 700-800 thousand survived, the rest died.
I read testimonies about how they were waiting — including Jews — for the Germans. After all, in 1918 there were no pogroms, the Germans tried to establish some kind of order. And people could hope that they would survive such power.
Another thing that strikes me in the archival materials I reviewed is the readiness of the population to accept the government that occupies the territory and imposes itself by force. How can you resist?
The civilian population is a hostage of any government. What chances did the people in the occupation have? To settle scores with life or join the partisans, which, in general, is also a movement to the edge of life. Or somehow cooperate with the authorities, adapting to the proposed conditions.
“We don’t know what news we’ll wake up with tomorrow, with peace or war, partly because we don’t want to remember what happened yesterday. These are related things. Your painting is about oblivion; It seems to me that oblivion has many faces. The state will say that not only Jews were killed, and at some point it will clarify that the blood of the victims is on the hands of the Zionists, it will fight against the “rootless cosmopolitans”, turn Babi Yar into a dump, flood it with pulp. But the layman categorically does not want to know what really happened. Viktor Nekrasov wondered: who destroyed these Jewish cemeteries near the crash site?
— Definitely related. If the people who lived in the neighborhood profited from what could be taken from the apartment, the owners of which were taken away to be shot, they will also try to erase from memory what was done.
One of the last Jewish pogroms in Europe took place in Kiev. A two-volume book by Pavel Polyan has recently been published: an anthology of poems about Babi Yar and a history of anti-Semitism in Soviet and pre-Soviet territory. In particular, there is a detailed description of the pogrom in Kiev in 1945. It all started, as usual, because of the housing problem. The Jewish officer returned from the front to his apartment, which was already occupied by Ukrainians or Russians, it does not matter. From the match of the quarrel, a terrible pogrom broke out. Naturally, they do not want to remember this.
If we are talking about Ukraine, then this topic is connected with other painful circumstances. The organization of Ukrainian nationalists did not have any special concept in relation to the Jews, it was the same as that of the National Socialists, and therefore they did not come out in defense of the Jews. Moreover, many members of the OUN (the organization was recognized as extremist and banned) served in the police. Now their descendants have to make a difficult choice. Much has been written about the tragic experience of that time. For example, I would recommend the fundamental monograph by the Canadian historian of Ukrainian origin John-Paul Khimka “Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust. Participation of the OUN and UPA (organizations recognized as extremist and banned) in the destruction of Ukrainian Jewry, 1941-1944. I hope this study will be published in Ukraine. Think of Timothy Snyder's Reconstruction of Nations. I know people who are trying to study the history of this period without prejudice, but it is very difficult in Lithuania, and in Latvia, and in Estonia, and Belarus, and in Ukraine, and in Russia. It takes courage to speak the truth and then live with that truth. This is a heavy cross.