Lviv 1942

my father's family is Ukrainian, and very proud. I was taught this pride from early childhood. We suffered under the Tzar, starved under Stalin, murdered by Hitler, and re-enslaved by the USSR. I yearned for knowledge of the old country... the same place my father would visit in his final years... at the end of 2007 i found a number of sites, groups and newsletters devoted to all things Ukraine. I also began reading of an item hidden from my known history... The bloody pogrom of 1942 in the city of Lviv, my ancestors home. First, it was the communists murdering the Ukrainian separatists. Then the Nazi's murdered the Polish University professors, artists and intellectuals, followed by the Nazi's whipping up the city's population against the Jewish population for the previous murders committed by the retreating communist forces. Everyone suffer horribly. Most of all, the name of Ukraine. To this day, the anger about this time period divides. I have a hard time puffing my chest out about my heritage upon learning about this. I painted a number of canvases depicting the pogrom and atrocities. I haven't shown them in a gallery setting, but am posting one here for commentary and karma. I think it has to be akin to the feeling modern Germans have about the sins of their fathers.