The experience of war has revealed many historical traumas within Ukrainian society, which are re-emergingin a wave of pain and often aggression within public debate.

One of the reasons for this is the lack of proper reflection, as well as the silencing of the traumatic experiences of our past: the hundreds of thousands of lost and mutilated lives of our grandparents’ generation. These are stories about surviving the Second World War, occupation, the Holocaust, the Holodomor, repression, and the violence of totalitarian regimes, which are kept silent to this day. Still, they have their witnesses.

Since 2021, the NGO After the Silence has been searching for such people, recording oral history interviews, giving voice to their experiences, and preserving memories that were once hidden and taboo.

Discover the work of the initiative and a few of the heroes and heroines of its historical research in a new episode of the project Look at This! To share your family’s story or learn more about your region, you can visit the new space of After the Silence, which will soon open in Lviv.