cineSOURCE magazine

Twilight in Ukraine
by Doniphan Blair

Perhaps the only Ukrainian flag in West Oakland is at cineSOURCE studios. photo: D. Blair

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IT'S A LITTLE ODD WATCHING SPRING
arrive in California—taking hikes, celebrating Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom—while there are almost no Ukrainian flags on the streets and respected California intellectuals, from Medea Benjamin on the left to Eric Weinstein on the right, recommend we ditch Ukraine to the Russian wolf.

When I started studying the Holocaust in the 1980s, the first piece to emotionally destroy me was the televised version of “The Wall” (1982), from John Hershey's book of the same name (1950) about the Warsaw ghetto uprising. I saw it on a black and white television in the front room of the San Francisco commune where I lived.

Director Khachatur Vasilian (lft) and producer Alex Denysov of the Ukrainian short 'Human', now on the festival circuit, see cineSOURCE article. photo: D. Blair

After about an hour, a strange feeling welled up in my chest. It burst at the line, “I just don’t understand why no one does anything,” or something like that. I started crying and then convulsing due to the pain in my chest. Evidently, I was releasing a lifetime of repressed feelings, which I had absorbed from my mother, an Auschwitz survivor, who didn't talk about it. Nor did anyone else when I was growing up in a Jewish neighborhood of New York in the 1960s.

I sobbed in place as "The Wall" continued its descent into depravity. Someone put a hand on my back, but not much was said. My friends were undoubtedly in shock, too, both from watching "The Wall" and not having seen me or many other men in such a state.

Eventually, one grows accustomed. I did, as I studied at the Holocaust Library of Northern California and attended conferences, starting with the international survivor gathering in Washington D.C. in 1983, although a piercing detail or a poignant juxtaposition of regular life with hell would still devastate me.

One perspective I found particularly tragic, which I heard about from my mother but also read about and saw in newsreels, was that of the Jews of Eastern Europe before the war, trying to build a regular life, few suspecting what was coming.

Ukrainian flags on Kyiv's Maidan Square with names of fallen soldiers, including from the International Brigade. photo: D. Blair

That’s what I feel like now about Ukraine.

Fourteen months into the mass murderous war, we have entered a twilight world between a clarion call against evil and the human tendency to become oblivious. As this invasion and war fade into the background, just as Russia's 2014 invasion and war did, we grow accustomed and accepting.

Putin is relying on the Russian capacity to withstand and inflict pain, a sort of society-wide sado-masochism, which he assumes will last longer than western interest in supporting Ukraine. Indeed, from Ron DeSantis and Victor Orban on the right to hard leftists or pragmatic leaders across the global south, many agree: We have to accept the Ukrainian genocide, they say, as an ugly but legitimate means of Russia reestablishing their "community" and strategic defense. This rationalization parallels those made by both fascists and communists after Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

Yes, most Californians and progressives worldwide support Ukraine but not quite enough. The Ukrainian flag flying in cineSOURCE's window is the only one I have seen in West Oakland, a four-square-mile area full of hipsters and liberals.

A flyer protesting 'endless wars' and 'bloated Pentagon war budget' produced by progressives who want to end support for Ukraine. photo: D. Blair

It is only when an overwhelming majority of Americans and people worldwide visibly support Ukraine that Putin and his enablers inside and beyond Russia will see that their path to a functional future is not through imperialism and genocide.

As the descendant of a Holocaust survivor, I can tell you: The attending trauma of surviving, the guilt of standing by and the psychosis of participating in the destruction of Ukraine will be immense and difficult for our descendants to digest.

Which is why I beg of you: Please join me in doing what we can to help Ukraine.

If you want to start by flying a flag, see cineSOURCE's Ukrainian flags. We got them by partnering with an incredible aid group composed of young, California-based Ukrainians, Support Ukraine with Us, to which you can also contribute directly.

Bold action in the face of daunting difficulties can redeem us.

Posted on Mar 31, 2023 - 10:23 PM