WEBVTT

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Appeal from former prisoners –
child victims of Nazi persecution

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This is an appeal from the
Dnepropetrovsk Regional Chapter

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of the Ukrainian Association of Prisoners
and Victims of the Nazi Regime.

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As children of WW II, we appeal to you,

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as prisoners who endured
concentration camps and the Gulag,

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who suffered under two totalitarian regimes,

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we are appealing to Russian
and Belarusian mothers.

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I am Vera Ivanovna Lysenko,

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As a child, I was imprisoned in
a German concentration camp.

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I was in Russia, Bryansk region, with the partisans…

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Our partisan cell was captured by the Germans.

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This was 79 years ago.

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I was lucky: a German bomb
destroyed part of the wall of our house.

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A meter or two further in

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and I wouldn’t have survived.

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And that’s what happened:
80 years passed,

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Today I am 80 years old,
and again there is a war,

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a horrible war.

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I want to appeal to the women in Russia,

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not only Russian mothers are there,

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there are also Bashkirians, and in Mordovia, and Chechens…

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Women of Russia! Take your children back,

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I don’t want your children to wage war in my country!

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I am Mariana Alekseyevna Romashko.

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I was born in 1943. On October 25,

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we were driven from our home, and it was burnt down,

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and mama with her five children,
I was four months old…

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We lived through all the horrors
of the fascist concentration camps…

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I call upon all mothers in Russia and Belarus:

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Stop! Halt! End this horror!

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For you may think they are
peacekeepers here, your children,

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but actually, they are killing our children and grandchildren.

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We fear not only for our own children,

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but also for the children of others!

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For me, Ukraine became my second home country,

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Russia was my first home country.

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I was born there. I love Ukraine, though.

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For Ukraine, I would give everything.
Get your children out of here!

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They are saying: “We didn’t know
anything, we saw all that by chance…

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Mama, get us out of here!“

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But it’s too late to get all of you out,

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because some of you are
already buried in Ukrainian soil,

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and some have been taken prisoner.

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Our doctors treat you, bandage you,

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they help you.

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Women, you have to finally wake up!

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Your husbands, children, fathers,

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they are all here.

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For the past 30 years,
our organization has been doing

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educational work in the schools.

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And now it’s shaming to go there,

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because we have to talk about you. That you,

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a country that sees itself as a peacekeeper,

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are killing our children…

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So, it’s time for you to look up and realize:

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there is a fratricidal war going on here.

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Slavs killing Slavs.
What good is that supposed to do?

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Dear women of Russia, come together,

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show resolve, show courage,

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keep your children from dying
on holy Ukrainian land.

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You’ll never defeat this country.

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A country, where a young
minelayer ties mines to his belt

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and blows himself up,

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in order to stop the enemy’s tanks...

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You can’t defeat such a country.

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Glory to Ukraine!

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In 1942, my mother was taken to Germany.

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On January 7, 1945,
I was in a concentration camp,

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I was born in Bonn.

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Nobody ever said

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that Russia is bad.

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But now, in my old age,

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when I may be close to death,

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we have entered a time of war.

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Why has Russia invaded us?

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What have we done to you?

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The boys, especially,

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born in 1999, 2000, 2001,

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boys! Around twenty years old…

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Why are you sending
them here as cannon fodder?

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A person imprisoned as a
child in a fascist concentration camp

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in Germany is making this appeal to you.

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I am Leonid Gregoryevich Pereslavskyi.

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Next to me is my wife, Halina,
we’ve been married for 52 years.

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She is Russian, ethnically,
born in the Oryol region,

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Kromy district, in the village of Krasnyi Klin.

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Not-so dear Russians,
who brought this war to us,

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take back your children,
your grandchildren, your corpses!

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6,000 of you have already been killed here.

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You bomb our maternity clinics,

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in what you claim is a special operation

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in the Donbas region.

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For you that also means Kyiv,
and Kharkov, and Odessa,

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and Mariupol, and everywhere else,
and Transcarpathia,

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All that is what? Donbas?

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So, get out of our country and save your children,

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who are dying in huge
numbers here, in our Ukraine.

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Over 5,000 have fallen already,

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there is no one to retrieve their bodies,

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you are not retrieving your men, your boys…

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Come get them

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and bury them in your country!

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I am Russian, and I don’t want you,

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you Russians,

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to kill Russians and Ukrainians here.

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So, you should peacefully withdraw from here.

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Leave us alone. Get out of here.

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And tell those, who are of my age…

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You may have grandmas or grandpas

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who were captured and taken to Germany,

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or maybe they fought in WW II.

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So, why do you listen to Putin

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and march against us, waging war.

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The whole world is with us,

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and you’ll never defeat us.

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And if you don’t call back your

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warriors,

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those who remain will meet the same fate

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that the first 5,000 did…

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I am Petro Petrovich Khalap, born in 1945.

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During the war I was born in Germany.

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In 1942, my mom was captured and

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forcibly taken to Germany.

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I appeal to all women, to all
grandmothers: Wake up!

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Don’t let your children, don’t
let your grandchildren go

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To serve in this damned war.

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War brings only suffering.

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Putin and Belarus, they are not right.

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They don’t know what awaits them here.

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Ukraine will withstand. Ukraine will win.

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And it’s never going to happen that

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Ukraine comes begging to you

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on its knees for your forgiveness –

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why should it?

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You are the ones who are killing our children!

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We are all Slavs. Why have we become enemies?

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They were our brothers, the Russians and the Belarusians.

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This has always been true.

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Stop this war, I beseech you!

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I am Anna Grigorievna Varavva.
I was a child prisoner –

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born in 1944 in a
concentration camp in Zwickau.

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I have lived through
two totalitarian regimes,

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the Nazi regime and Stalin’s regime.

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I appeal to Russian mothers,
wives and grandmothers:

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End this madness!
Don’t let your children go!

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Stop a third world war!

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We beg you:

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save your children and save
our children and grandchildren.

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Glory to Ukraine!

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I am Tamara Viktorovna Vovko.

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I was born in the city of Paderborn,

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in a concentration camp.

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My mom was pregnant when she got there.

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I call upon the people
of Russia to join in the protests,

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not to remain silent,
to stop this sinister madness!

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I volunteer at this organization
of former child prisoners.

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I am a victim of the Stalin era.

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My mother went to jail,
she was pregnant.

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I was born in prison and

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spent the first year and a half of my life there.

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And now I’m asking all mothers,

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I am a volunteer here,

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and I’m begging all mothers of Russia:

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Take your children home.

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I saw that your children here are eating food

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with use-by dates in 2015…

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Your children will be poisoned,

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they have been sent into a genuine war,

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their faces are haggard. This must not be.

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Take your children back,
help stop this bloody war!

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This must not be: their corpses
must not lie in the road here,

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on Ukrainian soil.

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Get your children home.

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Russians, former child prisoners in
German fascist concentration camps,

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appeal to those who came
here to wage war.

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Now, based on your famous song

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“Farewell of Slavyanka”:

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“You ‘ll never be our brothers.

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The virus of slavery has
infected your soul.

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You’ve always cursed

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our belief, our freedom and our language.

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Goodbye, land of slaves,

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goodbye, land of lords.

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We remember the Gulag,

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we remember 1933…

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Goodbye, land of slaves,

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goodbye, land of lords.

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We remember the Gulag,

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we remember 1933…”

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Glory to Ukraine!

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To the heroes: Glory!

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No war!

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No war!

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No war!