The first memorial for the more than 100 million victims of communism broke ground Wednesday Sep. 27 in Washington, D.C. The memorial will be located two blocks from Union Station and will be completed by June 2007.
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOCMF) chairman Lee Edwards, Ph.D. explained the need for a memorial saying, "We hear voices of those who were tried and shot as an enemy of the people, of the wives who were taken to a camp as a member of an enemy's family, of the children who grew up in orphanages and joined criminal gangs… We cannot, we must not, we will not forget those who died and are still dying under communism."
"For today we proclaim that Communism is indeed dead, but we will never forget those that Communism murdered during its brief life on this planet," said Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Ca.) at the ceremony. Congressman Rohrabacher authored and pushed through the House of Representatives the bill that authorized the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to design, build, and maintain this memorial in Washington, D.C.
The Victims of Communism tragically number "more than 100 million, struck down in an unprecedented imperial communist holocaust through conquests, revolutions, civil wars, purges, wars by proxy, and other violent means," says the website of the VOCMF.
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation organized the effort and gathered sponsors to build the memorial. The foundation modeled the memorial after the Goddess of Democracy statue raised by student protestors on Tiananmen Square in China in 1989. Student sculptors at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing built the Goddess of Democracy statue in the spring of 1989, using the Statue of Liberty in New York City Harbor to inspire them.
Congressman Rohrabacher said of the statue: "It is fitting that this be the statue for the Victims of Communism, because it represents the one country of the world that still languishes under the tyranny of Communism. And that country, of course, is China."
Thomas Marsh is the sculptor of the bronze replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue that will stand at the center of the memorial. He also designed the memorial.
On the front of the statue's pedestal will be engraved "To the more than 100 million victims of Communism and to those who love liberty." The back of the pedestal will be engraved with "To the freedom and independence of all captive nations and peoples."
Edwards, chairman of the memorial foundation, pointed out that the memorial, while mainly to remember those that died under communism, will also "serve to remind visitors that 1/5 of the world's population still lives, and not by their choice, under communism."
Son Tung of the Vietnamese American Committee agreed: "But it would be wrong for those who think that communist ideas are no longer around. More than a billion people are still suffering under communist regimes, including 80 million Vietnamese. Therefore, this monument also serves as symbol of the cause we are still fighting for."
The memorial effort was initiated years back by former U.S. Ambassador Lev E. Dobriansky, who conceived the Captive Nations Week in 1959. For many years Ambassador Dobriansky lead the intellectual fight with those "who did not want to admit the nature of communism and did not want to confront the evils of communism," praised Rohrabacher.
The ambassador's daughter, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Paula Dobriansky, spoke at the ceremony:
"Communism corroded the human experience of the 21st Century. The sheer number staggers and chastens us. Over a 100 million people died as a direct and often intended consequence of decisions made by Communist rulers."
Many ambassadors and representatives of foreign nations also attended the ceremony. Including ambassadors and deputy chief ministers (DCMs) of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Romania, Slovakia, and the Ukraine.
L.A. Isufi, chairman of the Albanian Republican Party, commented during an interview: "Actually, I am very happy, and yet not happy, because it deserves a much bigger ground, a more prominent place. Because this is a real holocaust, 100 million people! And for 70 years, millions and millions of them suffered, and are still suffering."
When former prisoner in the Gulag Mikhail Makarenko was once asked, who were the victims of communism? He replied: "Everyone, everyone who lived in the 20th Century was a victim of Communism."
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation garnered support from ethnic communities, foundations, individuals and foreign governments. The ethnic communities in America provided financial support lead by the Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Polish, and Hungarians. In addition to a number of individual donors, foreign governments from the Republic of China on Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Poland also provided sponsorship.
The VOCMF is a non-profit educational organization that works to honor those who successfully resisted communism and to educate about communism's crimes against humanity.
For the website of the VOCMF, visit this link: http://www.victimsofcommunism.org/
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