Think Humanely

Below you’ll find a powerful video – as evidenced by the crowd being brought to tears – from Kseniya Simonova, a 24-year-old Ukrainian woman. The video is a tribute to the loss and destruction of human life in Ukraine during World War II. Ukraine had more casualties than any other European nation. 1 in 4 of its people were lost. More than two million were taken to Germany to serve as slaves. Roughly 28,000 villages and 700 cities were destroyed. And as is the case with all wars, there was also a tragic cultural toll. Andrew Gregorovich notes

when Hitler’s German Army started its retreat from Ukraine, orders were again given to loot and remove to Germany all art works (including a Rembrandt self-portrait), folk art collections, rare books, engravings, libraries, sculptures, and museum collections. These treasures totaled in the hundreds of thousands of items. The cultural wealth of Ukraine was nearly stripped from the country. According to Soviet sources a total of 151 museums, 62 drama theaters and 600 movie theaters were destroyed by the Germans.

Anything that could not be moved was to be destroyed and many libraries were dumped outside and burned. The German occupation destroyed a total of 19,200 libraries in Ukraine.

For those unfamiliar with some of the specifics or cultural references made in the video, here is a succinct summary by Tracy McVeigh in her article on this impressive woman:

Simonova’s sand story portrays the human loss after the German invasion in 1941. The opening scene shows a couple sitting on a bench under a starry sky. Warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated to be replaced by crying faces. Then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again, but war and chaos return and a young woman becomes an old widow, before the image turns into an obelisk – the Ukrainian monument to its Unknown Soldier.

Note that this video is taken from the television show Ukraine’s Got Talent. Also note that she won. Try to imagine for a moment a contestant on the American version of this program not only being allowed to detail the loss of life in Iraq or Afghanistan, but receiving praise from judges, becoming a huge audience hit, and actually winning – especially when previous finalists and winners have included a juggling act, clothes-changing magic act, an Elvis impersonator, and a country singer covering an Aerosmith song.

Thanks goes to Glenn Greenwald, from whom I first learned of Kseniya Simonova.