Victims of the communist repressions remembered in Odessa

On 3 November Odessa residents, together with representatives of the authorities, gathered at the Second Christian Cemetery in Odessa at the place where the last earthly remains of 174 victims murdered in 1937 have been reburied.

They paid homage to all those executed, tortured in prisons and sent to labour camps.

Priests from the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Kyiv Patriarchate gave a joint service for the victims of the totalitarian regime.

Flowers were laid on the same day at the memorial plaque to victims of the repression by the Deputy Mayor Tetyana Fidirko, the Head of the Department for Internal Policy of the Odessa City Council Nataliya Chaichuk, the Chair of the City Council Commission on Restoring the Rights of those Rehabilitated Zhanna Zaiva, and representatives of Odessa Memorial and the Association for the Victims of Political Repression.

There are presently 78 victims of repression still living in Odessa. The city authorities are endeavouring to provide them with different types of social assistance. According to instructions issued by the Mayor of Odessa Edward Hurvits in 2007 each former victim will receive a monthly municipal pension amounting to 100 UAH.

It was stressed at the gathering that the authorities would continue to do all that was needed to immortalize the memory of all victims of the repressions.