SSuch photos were circulating on the web when the small Ukrainian town with the sweet name, Izyum (“raisin”), was liberated. A mass grave was soon discovered. A much bigger one than in Bucha. An exhumation team stands in the forest, shovels rhyme with pine, men draped in blue, a pause.
Before the war I didn’t know anyone from Izyum, in June I met a woman from there on the plane from Tbilisi to Düsseldorf, when Izyum had been occupied for a long time. She sat next to me and kept talking, as if trying to convince herself that she was alive. Everything about her was confused, her leopard jacket with big buttons, her red hipster sunglasses – gifts from an assistant – her excited gestures and her attempt to give food to her fellow passengers, like she used to do in Soviet train compartments.
No exception, because there is method
She told how Izyum came under fire, how bombs fell everywhere and her neighbor forced her into the car, and so they drove in any direction, only away. She was forced to board a bus near Donetsk – and suddenly she was in a filtration camp in Russia. There she was bought out by volunteers, came to Tbilisi, where she lived in a “hospice”, she meant, of course, “hostel”, for Ukrainian refugees. She screamed “hospice”, “hospice” several times, as if she knew what was happening in her isyum. Now she flew to Düsseldorf, since her relatives live there. One of millions of war fates. Perhaps a happier one given this mass grave. She talked about her house, her garden and the vegetable patch and then about her flowers as if they were going to bloom forever. She no longer benefits from it, the house is in ruins, the garden has been bombed. And she was on a plane for the first time in her life.
The exhumation in Izyum was only completed a few days ago: 447 people, almost half of them women, many tortured, with their hands tied. I don’t even want to name some things from this catalog of torture here. Only 22 of the victims were soldiers, all others civilians. Five children were also found in this tomb. Some families were identified, some body parts could not even be “put together”.
These men here are doing a difficult job and doing it voluntarily. I thought of my only “acquaintance” and her “hospice” when I saw this picture from Izyum. For the Russian army, this is no longer an exception; it has method. Reports from occupied territories like Cherson also show that ordinary people are disappearing there, not just activists. The forced referendums under guns not only mean repression – they also claim more victims.
An army of angels with spears
We’re seeing a lot of photos right now of crowds engaging in violence or fleeing violence. And mostly it is women who protest against violence, be it in Iran or in Dagestan. I think of the men who are being mobilized in Russia right now, I think of those fleeing and standing in huge lines at the border, fleeing but not protesting, apart from individuals who are then beaten, and I think again the dead in Ukraine and to these men here doing impossible work.
There are hundreds of photos of exhumations. Instagram is full of pictures that hardly any newspaper dares to publish. These images show what Russian conquest means: there is no other goal than annihilation. In Izyum, 80 percent of the infrastructure is ruined, there is no water and no electricity. The people in the photo make one last honor possible – the funeral. Without their work, identification and further medical and forensic investigations would not be possible.
A friend of mine posted on the web a picture of the same helpers and right next to it a fresco from the Mikhailovsky Monastery in Kyiv: an army of angels with lances, an amazing compositional resemblance, a false metaphor. But maybe the right one to honor these people.
