100 DAYS OF WORK IN CONDITIONS OF FULL-SCALE WAR

100 days since the full-scale Russian attack on Ukraine.

100 days of struggle and new challenges.

During all this time, our Museum team continued to work, combining professional responsibilities with volunteering. We are happy to share our achievements and small victories in recent times.

From the first days of the war, the director of the museum Olha Honchar, initiated the establishment of the Museum Crisis Center, also the first project of the newly created organization «The Museum Emergency» was launched. The Museum Crisis Center is aiming to support museum workers in times of war crisis. As of today, in cooperation with NGO «Insha Osvita» and «New Museum», we have managed to help 604 museum workers from 10 Ukrainian regions for UAH 1,300,170 in total.

The Museum Crisis Center Facebook page

Thanks to our foreign partners, in particular the Swiss ALIPH Foundation, the Territory of Terror Museum received humanitarian aid in the form of packaging materials, office equipment, fireproof cabinets for documents, video surveillance systems, etc.

Also, thanks to the support of the House of Europe in cooperation with the NGO “New Museum”, we have significantly strengthened the security of our funds and buildings.

However, it is not only foreign organizations that support the museum. The Museum of Ethnography, Arts and Crafts named after Klymentii Sheptytsky, Heritage Emergency Response Initiative, and State Museum of Natural History (Lviv), are our reliable partners who make us stronger, support us, and help us.

Humanitarian aids from ALIPH Foundation

We continue to record the stories of witnesses to the terror of the Soviet and Nazi totalitarian regimes in the framework of the oral history project #unheard; we continue to present the digital platform “Lost Childhood” https://lostchildhood.org.ua/, which contains stories of those who were repressed as children, suffered severe trauma of deportation.

Recording of the testimonies of Volodymyr Badyak, one of the respondents of the #Unheard project

In April, our longtime partner, the Luhansk Regional Museum, was forcibly evacuated to Lviv. Together we have launched a new future project – we will create of so-called “Collection of the Victory” – artifacts from the forefront line.

Directors of the Territory of Terror and Luhansk Regional Museum Olha Honchar and Olesia Milovanova with the first exhibit of the “Collection of the Victory”

Even though our exhibition is temporarily closed for visitors for security reasons, we do not want to lose contact with our friends and partners. Therefore, we organized several scientific and educational events and thematic tours around the city, and for the Lvivians and guests of the city, our employees conduct weekly tours based on museum topics. For now, we have conducted 17 such excursions. There is also a street exhibition “Lost Childhood: Heard and Unseen” next to the museum`s main entrance.

 

Exhibition “Lost Childhood” on the square in front of the entrance to the Museum | Exhibition “Lost Childhood” on the square in front of the entrance to the Museum

In addition, despite the war, a student of Ivan Trush Lviv State College of Decorative and Applied Art, Daria, continues to work on a diploma project, restoring the mural in our office on the Sholom Aleichem street. These are Art Nouveau and Jewish paintings.

Restoration of frescoes in the museum office

We are actively working on the information front, talking about the war in Ukraine, cultural heritage, and the work of museums. During this time, we have appeared in 58 media outlets, including The Guardian, The New York Times, BBC World, Bloomberg, The Art Newspaper, Vogue UA, and others.

 

We participate in working meetings with UNESCO, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, and Ukrainian and international cultural figures, thus together we look for resources and solutions to support the museum industry during the war.

Presentation of the online platform “Lost Childhood”

We made a trip to the city of Hamburg and presented the work of the museum during the war in the MARKK museum as part of the “Ukrainian Days”. The museum publications “The transit prison 25” and “Yanivska Forced Labor Camp” were presented at the London Book Fair.

The director of the Territory of Terror Museum Olha Honchar at the  in the MARKK museum in Humburg presenting the work of the Museum diring the war as part of the “Ukrainian Days” | Head of Information and Education Department Olha Mukha at the London Book Fair

We thank everyone who stays with us, continues to send help in the form of necessary materials, supports us on social networks, and in every way promotes the activities of cultural institutions.

We believe that in such difficult times, every case and even the smallest detail is important. That is why we continue our joint work.

 

Moving to victory together!

Territory of Terror Museum Team, May 2022