When the Crime Ends, the Struggle for Truth Begins

The German-Ukrainian Historical Commission's 2026 conference and the importance of preserving historical memory

On September 28–29, 2026, the 11th Annual Conference of the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission took place in Chemnitz, Germany. Entitled “Competing Narratives in the Entangled Histories of Ukraine,” the conference brought together historians and researchers to examine how Ukraine's past has been interpreted, contested, and shaped by different political, national, and imperial narratives.

Among the participants was Dr. Igor Shchupak, historian, Director of the Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies “Tkuma” in Dnipro, a representative of the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission, and Historical Consultant to the Museum of State Terror.

The conference explored questions of colonialism, national identity, historical interpretation, and collective memory. These discussions are particularly relevant to the work of museums and institutions dedicated to documenting historical violence.

For the Museum of State Terror, they raise a fundamental question:

What happens to the memory of a crime after the crime itself has been committed?

When Violence Ends, the Struggle for Truth Begins

The history of state terror does not end with executions, deportations, imprisonment, or mass killings.

Often, another struggle begins — the struggle to establish what happened, identify the victims, uncover the perpetrators, and preserve evidence that those responsible attempted to destroy.

State violence is frequently accompanied by censorship, falsified documents, official denial, and the systematic suppression of testimony.

The Holodomor of 1932–1933 was followed by decades of Soviet denial and silence. Yet people continued to preserve evidence of the catastrophe. Among them was Oleksandra Radchenko, whose diaries documented the suffering of Ukrainian villagers during the famine.

During Stalin's Great Terror, thousands of families were deliberately misled about the fate of their relatives. Execution dates were falsified, burial sites concealed, and the truth withheld for decades.

The Holocaust offers another example. Nazi authorities attempted to destroy evidence of mass murder. After the war, Soviet commemorative practices frequently obscured the Jewish identity of the victims, presenting them primarily as Soviet civilians.

In each case, the crime was followed by another form of injustice: the attempt to deprive victims of their history.

Who Has the Right to Tell the Story?

Historical memory is never shaped by documents alone.

Governments, political movements, historians, witnesses, families, and communities all influence how the past is understood and remembered.

Sometimes, the struggle for historical truth takes place between victims and the state responsible for their persecution.

At other times, it unfolds within societies reluctant to acknowledge uncomfortable chapters of their own history.

Recognizing crimes committed by individuals or organizations associated with national movements, for example, can challenge established narratives of heroism and resistance.

But acknowledging such crimes does not diminish the legitimacy of a nation's struggle for independence, nor does it justify aggression against that nation.

Historical research must be willing to confront difficult evidence, even when it challenges deeply held beliefs.

The defense of historical truth cannot depend on replacing one selective narrative with another.

The People Who Preserved the Truth

Behind many historical discoveries are individuals who refused to remain silent.

They kept diaries, hid photographs, preserved letters, collected testimonies, searched for missing relatives, and demanded access to archives.

Some risked imprisonment or persecution. Others spent decades trying to recover a single name, a burial location, or the true circumstances of a loved one's death.

Their efforts remind us that historical memory is not simply inherited. It is preserved, recovered, and defended through human action.

The work of historians such as Dr. Igor Shchupak, and international scholarly cooperation through institutions like the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission, contributes to the critical examination of historical narratives and the preservation of evidence.

Beyond the Crime

For the Museum of State Terror, this understanding of history is central to our mission.

We seek to document not only the crimes committed through state power, but also the attempts to conceal, deny, justify, or distort them.

We are interested in the experiences of victims, the mechanisms of repression, and the courage of those who preserved testimony despite efforts to silence them.

From the Holodomor and the Holocaust to the Soviet Gulag and contemporary violence against civilians, each history presents distinct circumstances, responsibilities, and human experiences.

Yet all raise an essential question: who has the power to determine what future generations will know about the past?

The history of state terror does not end when the violence stops. It continues in the struggle to uncover the truth, preserve the evidence, restore the names of victims, and confront the silence surrounding their suffering.

This struggle, too, is part of history — and it deserves to be documented and remembered.