Ukrainian War Museum

During the last few months of my time in the Army, I had the pleasure of visiting Ukraine. I was on my first trip to Europe (other than minor layovers before, during, or after a deployment), and I had a friend I planned to visit in Berlin. When I messaged him, he said that in the last few weeks he had been moved to Ukraine as the US government was When I messaged him, he said that in the last few weeks he had been moved to Ukraine as the US government was increasing their focus on the area, what with the Russian incursion at the time. “Well, I guess I’m going to Ukraine,” I told him.

Now at the time, one could argue that Ukraine wasn’t the safest place in the world. Granted, the majority of the fighting was restricted to the Eastern portion of the country, and there was no longer any conflict in the capital city of Kiev. Regardless of any level of “danger”, I had a few things going for me: I was sick of the Army’s crap, I thought the US State Department was incredibly overly cautious, and as a Green Beret, I thought I was tough shit. So I made that minor detour to Ukraine.

For the most part, Ukraine didn’t feel vastly different than the US, but I felt I could stay in a much nicer hotel for the money over there. Ukrainians are also a bit more serious about their coffee than we are in the US. I think Kiev is the first place that I’ve noticed so many coffee shops that are ran out of the back of someone’s car. The subway trains also stood out sharply in my mind. The cars were jam packed, but maybe didn’t have as much seating or as many dangling loops to use as handholds as we have in the states. I quickly noticed that everyone in the train faced towards the side of the train and stood with an extra wide stance. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but when the train lurched towards its next stop and I stumbled in the train, I realized everyone was standing that way to brace for the train’s starts and stops.

If one thing stood out to me more than anything else in Ukraine, it was the war museums. First off, the World War 2 museum is not the World War 2 Museum, but the Ukrainian Museum of the Great Patriotic War. At first glance, you might think that’s some sort of propagandized naming, but looking closer, you’ll understand why they call it such. Estimates of the lives lost in Ukraine are 4 million, including 1 million Jews. Hitler sought total destruction of the Slavs, meaning his forces pursued much more aggressive tactics in Ukraine than in Western Europe. More so than the western Allies, Ukrainians were fighting for their very survival, for Hitler wanted to eradicate them to make room for his master race.

This true fight for survival may be why this museum differed so much from what I was used to seeing. As an Army officer, I’ve always been interested to see our nation’s military museums, and we often visit and take tours during the various military schools we attend. It was striking how truly different the Great Patriotic War museum’s focus was comparatively. Before picking up the translation to all the placards on the various exhibits in the rooms, you notice that much of the machinery and tools of war are arranged in artistic arrays. Rifles, machine guns, and ammunition flow along until they meet with the wing of an aircraft that was recovered from some wreck. But the wing isn’t so much on display as it is a canvas on which the story is hung.

And that’s where the real difference was, at least for me. The museum was filled with the stories and memorabilia of the people affected by the war. You could find letters and belongings from Soldiers and farmers and common folk. As a visitor to the museum you were presented stories about the people who lived and fought and perhaps died in the war. Oftentimes, the tools of war were used more as a backdrop, or formed into artistic sculptures to remove some to the pain and destruction with which their creation was intended.

In contrast, more often than not, the central focus of history, military, and war museums in the US is on the tools of the trade. Grandiose displays of the aircraft used in the airborne landings of Operation Overlord and various vehicles used in ground combat provide the majority of the exhibits. Glass cases show the evolution of combat equipment used in whatever time period the museum explores. When stories of people are presented, they are stories of the most significant leaders of the time: Presidents, Secretaries of War, and the senior ranking generals making the highest level decisions of the war. More often than not, the story of the Soldiers and junior officers get missed except when told in casualty figures.

Cognitive dissonance perhaps best describes my feeling when I consider the differences between the US museum and the Ukrainian museum. There’s often a view when studying the Cold War or the Soviet Union that the Soviets put little value on the individual, yet I’m greeted with a museum that celebrates the individual more so than the machinery or the great leaders of the War. By contrast, many museums in the US seem to place less value on the individual and more on the tools that were created to achieve success on the battlefield.

Regardless of the reasons or the politics involved, I was obviously quite stricken by what I saw as a very different manner of presenting the story of World War II and those involved. Or, in this case, the story of the Great Patriotic War for the people of Ukraine.