‘Ukraine’s glory has not yet faded, nor is its freedom.
Fate will still smile upon us, young brothers.
Our enemies will disappear like dew in the sun,
And we too, brothers, will rule in our own land.’
It is the text that goes with the melody that comes from the instruments of music association Almeers Harmonie, Wednesday at 3 minutes past 8 . In addition to the national anthem, ‘Sjtsje ne vmerla Ukrajiny’ (Ukraine has not yet perished) in the crowded civic hall of the town hall of Aalsmeer, the Ukrainian national anthem will be played this evening.
This year, among the traditional flower wreaths, there is also one of sunflowers, the national symbol of a country at war. ‘I could hardly do otherwise’, says mayor Gido Oude Kotte earlier that day in his office. ’77 years ago we fought a dictator in Europe. And now again.’ Just before the two minutes of silence in the evening, the mayor repeats that message to the public: ‘Today we take responsibility in Aalsmeer by not looking away. Today we choose to commemorate together. Together with those who have fled to us.’
Aalsmeer is hosting about 135 Ukrainian refugees, double what the government has asked for. There is a connection with the country; Many Ukrainians have already found work at the world-famous flower auction of the Noord-Holland municipality. Oude Kotte actually planned to invite the Ukrainian refugees to the May 4 commemoration, with an interpreter. After deliberation, he decided not to. It would be too emotional, too painful.
War runs like a red thread through Anna’s life
For example, for Sydorenko Anna (75), who, before she has even introduced herself, wipes away the tears that well up behind her glasses with a handkerchief. Emotions are very high this Wednesday morning, says Anna in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel in Aalsmeer, where she was cared for with daughter and granddaughter.
They have been in the Netherlands since 13 March. The three of them still tried to get through the war by sleeping at night in the car in the parking garage of their home in Kyiv. “But then it became clear that this war will not be over soon,” says granddaughter Kateryna Gromova (33). “We decided to flee by car.”
War, Anna says, runs like a red thread through her life. Her father lost a leg as a soldier in the Soviet army during World War II. She and her family always commemorated them on May 8, a day before the official Russian celebration of Victory Day on May 9, a relic from Soviet times. She always skips that one. “The ceremony with all the tanks is too cheerful,” Anna says. “So many people died in the Second World War in Ukraine.”
Fled from Stalin
At her kitchen table in Aalsmeer, the Dutch-Ukrainian writer Marianne Knecht tells how her mother’s life was irrevocably changed by the Second World War. Her mother was deported by the Germans from Ukraine, then still part of the Soviet Union, to a labor camp near Frankfurt. There she met her future husband and Knecht’s father, an Aalsmeerder.
Fearing the Stalinist regime, her mother decided to accompany him to the Netherlands after the war. ‘Together with thousands of other women’, says Knecht. She wrote the novel in 2007 serfs about these women. ‘Stalin saw them as defectors and did everything he could to get them back. My parents had to get married before the end of 1945, otherwise my mother would have to return to her own country.’
With the war in Ukraine, those memories surfaced again. In the run-up to May 4, Knecht wrote a letter to the mayor about her parents’ story. According to the mayor, this makes her the driving force behind linking the Remembrance Day to the current situation in Ukraine. Oude Kotte asked Knecht to give a 4 May lecture. In it she reflected on the crucial decisions her parents made during the war. “Think carefully before making a choice. Even if the consequences are unknown and it is a gamble like a Russian roulette.’
Her mother died almost twenty years ago. She would have been proud of her daughter, Knecht thinks. “But I’m glad she’s not going through it. Because then she would also see her country being destroyed. By the Russians, of course.’
Commemorating in wartime
That the Ukrainian national anthem sounds tonight in the town hall in Aalsmeer gives Anna ‘goosebumps all over her body’, she says. But she couldn’t be there. ‘The Dutch then ask me about my story and I have to cry again. I do not want that.’ Granddaughter Gromova couldn’t manage it either. ‘I do everything I can to get distracted. I help Ukrainians here, try to help Ukrainians in Kyiv, I want to get to work as soon as possible. I’ll do anything as long as I don’t have to think about the war. I can’t do that if I remember for two minutes.’
Every year on May 8, her family lights a candle for all victims of the Second World War. This year they light the candle in their hotel room in Aalsmeer, Wednesday evening at 8 o’clock, at the same time as the Remembrance Day in the town hall. ‘This year we also commemorate the people who have died since February 24, 2022,’ says Anna. “Not a second goes by that I don’t think about the current war,” says Gromova. “Every day I wake up fearing that a friend has died.”
The chorus of the Ukrainian national anthem:
‘We will give our souls and bodies for our freedom.
And we will show that we, brothers, are of the family of the Cossacks.’