Ukraine’s Parliament removes skeletons from dark closets of nation’s history

Ukraine’s
Parliament has opened access to the archives of repressive Soviet agencies,
banned Communist and Nazi symbols and propaganda and granted special status to
all Ukrainian military organizations of the 20th Century that fought for its
independence. The lawmakers also established Remembrance and Reconciliation Day
in Ukraine on May 8 to commemorate victims of World War II.

The laws
were passed in a series of votes on April 9. The head of the Ukrainian
Institute for the National Memory, Volodymyr Viatrovych, one of the authors of
the bills, called them a “decommunisational package.”