23rd of August is the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in 1939, the Nazi-Soviet agreement who opened the gate to Second World War.
Although for Romania August 23 also means something else – the turning of arms against Nazi Germany, in 1944 – 23 August brings back the memory of millions those who fell victim to totalitarian regimes, including the inmates of Nazi concentration camps, death camps, Soviet gulags and Stalinist prisons.
”On the occasion of the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, observed annually on 23 August, the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS) is launching the latest edition of its international public education campaign, ‘Remember August 23’”, ENRS announced in a press release.
The campaign featured interviews, educational materials, a short animation, and expert articles that explore how unspoken fears, silence, and emotional wounds can persist for decades after the fall of a totalitarian regime.
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”This year’s campaign tells the remarkable story of Dr Stefania Perzanowska, a physician who established a hospital inside the German concentration camp at Majdanek, while her husband, Dr Zygmunt Perzanowski, had already been murdered by the Soviet NKVD in the Katyn massacre. Through the fate of one family, the campaign explores how Nazism and communism devastated the lives of millions of Europeans – and why these stories continue to matter today.
The campaign opens with a short film introducing Dr Perzanowska’s story and continues throughout August with a series of educational and multimedia materials exploring her life, the moral dilemmas of medicine under totalitarian rule, and the ordinary objects that, in extraordinary circumstances, became instruments of survival”, states the above cited document.
About Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact
On 23 August 1939, the ministers of foreign affairs of Germany, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and the Soviet Union, Vyacheslav Molotov, signed a non-aggression treaty in Moscow called the Ribbentrop-Molotov or Hitler-Stalin Pact. Its most important component was an additional secret protocol assuming the division of Central and Eastern Europe between the two totalitarian states.
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As a result, Germany and the Soviet Union attacked Poland, respectively, on 1 and 17 September. This signified the start of the Second World War. Shortly thereafter, Poland ceased to exist as a state, being divided between Germany and the Soviet Union.
In subsequent months, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and France were invaded, while Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as part of Romania (what is now the Republic of Moldova, as well as several territories that are part of Ukraine today) were illegally annexed.
More about Remember August 23 campaign, in a short video to be watched here.
Pictures courtesy of ENRS Poland, Portal Rheinische Geschichte, Traces of War
