East vs. West: Get Over It (Reprise)

   The latter part of Sunday, July 27th had me eating the words I had written just a few short paragraphs prior, and I quote (as un-narcissistically as possible):

  The implication here is 'East vs. West,' and this division is seen again and again in Ukrainian social and cultural consciousness. I wish someone would tell these people that the world is round; if one looks east and one looks west, eventually you come to stare each other in the face. Everything comes full circle...

   Only hours after writing this pronouncement, I experienced an embodiment of the oppression underlying the East/West/More West division that penetrates Ukrainian culture. I paid a visit to the occupier-prison on вулиця Лонцького.

   Built in 1923, for the next 70 some-odd years, four different occupier-regimes used this prison to incarcerate, torture, and execute Ukrainian political prisoners. The KGB finally shuttered the prison in 1996, and after a decade plus of battling it out with the State, historians managed to open the site as a museum and memorial in 2009. The site remains virtually unchanged since its institution by the Poles in the early 20's, and serves as an eerie reminder of the political and cultural oppression endured by Western Ukrainians throughout the tumultuous 20th century.

   The prison is an unassuming structure just off of вулиця імені Степана Бандери, ironically. Without the historical plaque marking the entrance, one might pass by assuming it is just another apartment building. Only a small portion of the building is open to the public, while the rest of the space is occupied by the Lviv Headquarters of the Municipal Police Department.

   One enters through a red door with a huge bolt and a peephole, and steps into a tiny room with a desk at which are seated two police officers all decked out in black fatigues, complete with body armor, combat boots and semi-automatic weapons. Talk about militarization of the police, for real. I don't know whether to feel protected or threatened.

   Being hospitable, the officers invite me to join a tour that had just started, and they even offer me a brochure. They guide me through another large, heavy door with a bolt on it (no peephole this time), and it slams shut behind me. Darkness...

   Man, this trip. Churches and prisons...

   The room I have entered is windowless. The walls are unadorned concrete slabs, the floors unfinished wooden planks. A woman in her mid-to-late 50s in an adjoining room beckons me to join her, as екскурсія зараз починає.

   We gather in a room with plaster walls freckled with peeling (lead?) paint. This room has three large windows, opaque window panes, and iron bars on the outside. A side door opens out onto the prison yard: a gravelly plot of land overgrown with weeds. Mass executions by firing squad took place in this yard. Sometimes the hulking wood and iron gate of the yard was opened out to the street, and the public was allowed to come in, to rifle through the piles of executed corpses, in an attempt to claim the bodies of their loved ones.

A memorial to the victims dedicated at the opening of the museum in 2009.

   The guide, herself a historian, is very knowledgable. She describes how the Poles erected the prison to quarantine and execute Ukrainian citizens who did not comply with Polish cultural assimilation policies. The Poles destroyed Ukrainian schools, outlawed the Ukrainian language, and systematically exterminated anyone who resisted. Indeed, the Polish regime did not allow family members to collect the remains of the executed to provide them with a proper burial. Instead, during their reign, the corpses were piled into the basement of the building to decompose.

The man, the myth, the legend. Celebrated Ukrainian Nationalist (or terrorist, depending on whom you ask) Stepan Bandera.

   By the 1930's, the Poles had receded back to the West, but the Bolsheviks had risen to power. Ukrainian Nationalist movements began to spring up in Western Ukraine; during this time movement leaders like the famous patriot Stepan Bandera were incarcerated at the тюрма. When the Russians came to power, they took over the prison, and by extension they inherited the detainment records compiled by the Polish regime. They used these documents to target the families and friends of people affiliated with nationalist movements like the Організація Українських Націоналистів (ОУН).

   Next came the Nazis. At first, the Germans tolerated Ukrainian nationalists because the latter directed their energy towards undermining Soviet leadership and power. However, when the Nazis invaded Lviv in 1941, they issued a decree calling for all political agitators in the city to be 'made an example of.'

This video is called "Nazi Pogrom in Lemberg," which is the German name for Lviv.

   The Germans executed prisoners en masse in the aforementioned prison yard. The bodies were piled high and left in the yard until film crew arrived. The carnage was recorded, and then released as propaganda news reels to the Ukrainian public. The message: unmistakable. Clips of this footage can be viewed inside one of the prison cells during the tour. Hearts and minds, indeed.

Nazi propaganda footage. Those meticulous Germans documented everything.

   I should mention that, while standing in said cell watching grainy, black and white footage of prison guards lugging corpses carelessly by any available extremity, I happened to lean against the plaster wall. The fingertips of generations pressed into the skin of my back, and for the second time today, tears came. Two баби rummaged through mounds of limbs, looking for a face.

   And again, regime change: the Soviets regain control of the site from the Germans. By this time the KGB had honed its program of imprisonment by psychological trauma. They were fond of not only locking up suspects, but also the suspects' family members who took no part in resistance activities.

   The Soviets corralled Ukrainians and gave them a choice: accept Soviet citizenship and be released, or stand by nationalist beliefs. Those who chose the latter were then forced to execute their compatriots before facing execution themselves.

   The historian-tour guide shared a story about a Greek Catholic priest who was imprisoned here during the 1950's. He was sentenced to 18 months for leading a congregation; the Soviets wanted to prevent Ukrainians from gathering in any way, shape, or form. The priest survived, and he recounted the torture that he endured while imprisoned. He recalled being stripped naked and forced to kneel in a barrel of ice water for days at a time.

   On the walls of his cell, two photographs: one at the beginning of his incarceration, the other after his release. Upon studying the photograph of the young priest, I noticed a facial feature common to many Ukrainians and people of Ukrainian descent: the furrowed brow.

   Well, I don't know if 'furrowed' is the right word. It's more like a really pronounced worry line between the eyes, above the bridge of the nose--an expression one would make after sticking themselves with a pin. Everywhere I go in Lviv people seem to have it. Shoot, I just started noticing mine a few months ago. Seriously, if you have any Ukie in you and you're over the age of 27, go look in the mirror. I guarantee you it's there.

   Having been in Україна only one short week, I am quickly learning first hand how prevalently suffering, turmoil, and to a lesser degree paranoia, frustration, anxiety, and fear are entrenched within the popular psyche. Is this facial trait a manifestation of a psychological reality?

   Long story short, the KGB finally closed the prison in 1996. As mentioned before, historians battled with government entities to preserve the site as a memorial and museum rather than turning it over to developers. Imagine the bad mojo that apartment building would have...

   In fact, the tour guide informed me that back in 2003, developers did indeed try to build on the property, right there in the prison yard. They brought in the heavy machinery and started to dig a foundation, until they began to unearth large quantities of bones. Apparently the developers had not obtained a license to do the work, otherwise, an excavation would have taken place before construction began. In any event, forensics experts came to determine whether the remains were of human or animal origin. The developers abandoned the project.

   The most disturbing part of the tour was seeing the cell where they kept the prisoners who had been condemned to death. While most of the 8x10 foot cells held up to 40 prisoners at a time, a condemned individual was kept for several days in solitary confinement, with no food or drink, and no light whatsoever. Complete sensory deprivation.

   Oppressive regimes didn't gender discriminate, mind you. They housed female inmates at this prison as well. Of course, with mention of women in Ukraine, collective consciousness often points to two things: bread and embroidery.

   Now, the embroidery created by the female inmates is interesting because of how resourceful they were. For a полотна, they used scraps of linen, fish bones served as needles, and they unraveled their own garments for embroidery thread. Moreover, some women took to embroidering images of the Virgin Mary--both an affirmation of faith and defiance in the face of socialist atheism.

   The bread story was familiar, as it was recounted to us as young school kids by the ancient-looking Sister Neonelia during one of her tangential monologues. She told of prisoners in a far-away land that were locked up for believing in God. She recalled how they tore crumbs of the bread that they were served for their meals and squeezed them into tiny pellets, one at a time. Eventually, when they had enough 'beads,' the prisoners strung them together to create a rosary. Lo and behold, preserved at the prison museum before my very eyes, a rye-bread rosary. Who knew--the old lady was telling the truth! Here, I just thought that she was guilting us into praying the rosary. That's right, Catholic guilt goes a long way...

   Overall, the visit to the prison was an informative, if not spiritually upsetting, one. Witnessing the historical remnants of Ukrainian trauma makes my earlier 'East vs. West... get over it' statement seem like Obvious Western over-simplification and ignorance. How does a nation heal from such a tortured past and unite, despite incessant foreign influence and oppression? What is it, exactly, that lies at the core of every Ukrainian, from the right-wing West-Ukraine nationalist, to the Kyivan Ukrussian, to even the ethnic Russians of Eastern Ukraine? Hopefully it is something beyond the pained facial expression that so many of us share in common.