By the action ‘A night in a prison of Lutsk’ people traditionally commemorate executed prisoners on 22 and 23 of June 1941. The youngest participant Mykola Boshchuk is 10 years old. When a student, dressed in a uniform of NKVD, came and screamed at his father, Mykola burst into tears.
It is not the first time the historical reconstruction is held in the ex-torture chamber (in XVII century – monastery of Brygidki).
In June 1941 about 2000 people were shot in prison. They were tossed by grenades. Some hundreds of Volynian could stay alive. Residents of Lutsk remember: when the Germans came into town and saw what the ‘soviety’ had done with prisoners, they were shocked. Soviet men organized a college of Culture and Art in prison… Now there is a monastery of UOC KP.
More than two-tens residents of Lutsk agreed to spend a night in a torture chamber. Among them there are members of youth organizations ‘National Alliance’, ‘Plast’, reporters, businessmen, and even children. The action started at 21:00, 22 June (from the discussion of “‘Russkiy mir’ in Lutsk” with the participation of a historian Serhii Hodalevskyi and a monastery deputy priest Nykodym), and finished at 6 a.m. next day. At dawn the order of execution was announced…and loud ‘Shche ne vmerla Ukrayiny’ from the participants of reconstruction was burst into song.
Text: Olena Livitska
Photo: Iryna Kabanova
