Feb 24, 2023 2 min read

Lessons can be learned from history

There is a historical footnote that should be added to Rich Lowry’s op-ed published in the Observer-Reporter Feb. 14. History does not repeat, but there are lessons that can be learned from it.

It is well documented by first-person interviews and by the observation of an American reporter who traveled through the area at the time that between 1922 and 1933, Joseph Stalin’s Russia murdered 40 million Ukrainians. Stalin and Russians believed the Ukrainians were an inferior people and culture. Ukrainians were purposely starved to death, worked to death in labor camps, exiled to Siberia in the winter with only the clothes on their backs, and outright murdered and dumped into mass graves.

There is a reason many in the eastern areas of Ukraine favor being part of Russia. Stalin moved Russians into newly-vacated homes and farms. At times they had to remove the starved families from the houses.

Russia and the Russians have not changed; Vladimir Putin is a 21st century incarnation of Stalin. Putin, like Stalin, aims to eliminate the Ukrainian language, culture and people.

The West knew in the 20th century and did nothing. The West must not let history repeat itself.

Martha L. McFadden

Washington