On June 1, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland signed a Memorandum on Cooperation in the field of national memory during the visit of the Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki and his team to Kyiv.
The document was signed by the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, Oleksandr Tkachenko, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, Piotr Gliński.
“Polish people have declared their solidarity with our country and proved it by their actions to the whole world. I am deeply grateful to them for this. However, our cooperation does not stop here, but only expands further: we have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the field of national memory. Why is this so important today? Settlement of history is not only a humanitarian issue, but also a security one. We remember and we forgive. This formula for historical memory and future cooperation between our countries can be a way of sincere understanding without amnesia, but also without resentment and vengeance, “said Oleksandr Tkachenko.
The Memorandum envisages the cooperation of states in the search, exhumation, burial, commemoration, legalization, reconstruction and legal protection of places of honor and burial. It is planned to creat a Ukrainian-Polish working group that will implement joint agreements.
The working group, which will include experts and representatives of relevant institutions of the states, will be headed by the deputies of ministers of culture of both countries. Implementation of the Memorandum will begin after the end of the three-month period after the abolition of martial law throughout Ukraine. The first task of the group will be to establish the procedure, competence and deadlines for submitting applications and considering cases in the field of national memory.
