More Effort Needed to Help Canadians Understand the Harms of Communism, Says Chair of New Ottawa Memorial

Ludwik Klimkowski, Chair of the Board of Tribute to Liberty, addresses the audience during the opening ceremony of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Ottawa on Dec. 12, 2024.Jonathan Ren/The Epoch Times

The destructive legacy of communism deserves more public awareness in Canada, not only for its historical impact but also for the harm it continues to inflict today, says the chair of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism, which was unveiled in Ottawa last December.

While the atrocities of the Holocaust are largely remembered and young Canadians are educated about them, comprehension of the legacy and ongoing impacts of communism remains limited, said Ludwik Klimkowski, chair of the “Memorial to the Victims of Communism–Canada, a Land of Refuge,” in a recent interview with Jan Jekielek, host of The Epoch Times’ program “American Thought Leaders.”

The memorial, made up of more than 4,000 metal rods arranged in two slightly curved, wall-like structures, aims to represent the many people who have suffered and continue to suffer under communist regimes, as well as Canada’s role in providing refuge to those who flee such oppression. It was unveiled in Ottawa on Dec. 12, 2024.

The Memorial to the Victims of Communism is official unveiled in Ottawa on Dec. 12, 2024. NTD

Klimkowski, who was born in communist-era Poland, said one of the main purposes of the memorial is to educate people on the destructive legacy of communism and to inform viewers that its various forms, such as Chinese communism or Soviet communism “is not only as bad” as Nazism, but that “it exists and continues to exist, and it continues to imprison and to kill.”

He says one reason communism is not well understood is that many who suffered under those regimes try to leave their past traumas behind when they settle in other countries.

Another factor, he says, is what he calls “unhealthy tendencies” to glorify and romanticize communist figures such as Che Guevara and turn them into “folk heroes.” Guevara was a Marxist revolutionary and guerrilla leader who played a key role in the Cuban Revolution.

“Would people know that he’s been perpetrating murder against the Bolivian peasants, and he’s personally responsible for the slaughter of thousands of innocents? We don’t,” Klimkowski said.

He added that many Canadians regularly enjoy sunny vacations in Cuba—where the Communist Party is the only legal political party—but they don’t see “what is happening in the background” where members of the Cuban resistance movement are being imprisoned by the regime.

Hurdles to Completion

Creating the monument was not an easy task, partly because the harms of communism are not widely known, Klimkowski said, noting that the project took 17 years to complete. He argued that some individuals in positions of power in Canada are “closely inclined” toward Marxist or Leninist ideology, making the monument’s symbolism a sensitive issue.

The project went through changes in both location and design. The original concept was much more vivid and explicit than the final version, Klimkowski said, noting that some Canadian officials expressed concerns about the impression it might convey as a national memorial.

The original design had drawn inspiration from a Toronto park monument honouring the victims of communism in former Czechoslovakia and around the world called “Crucified Again.” The sculpture, unveiled in 1989 in Masaryktown Park, depicts a tortured man crucified on a hammer and sickle, with bronze plaques that read: “Since 1917 Communists Annihilated 62 Million People.”

“Crucified Again” bears a resemblance in design to a national memorial in the capital of the Czech Republic, also called the “Memorial to the Victims of Communism,” which similarly honours those who suffered under the communist regime in former Czechoslovakia.

Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Prague. Nan PalmeroFlickr, CC BY 2.0

Klimkowski says his team, which included people from Korea, Vietnam, and central and eastern Europe–many of whom lived under communist regimes–wanted to create a place where people from different cultures that had similar stories could come together.

“We need this place of memory,” Klimkowski said. “We need this unified place where people from the Vietnamese community will be able to learn about my own Polish story, and the Ukrainians will learn from the atrocities of Falun Gong in China, and then [the] Chinese will learn from another community.

“And if we can have this one wonderful uniting memory-based place, then I think we as a society will be better for it.”

A ‘Living Calendar’

The monument’s design, known as the “Arch of Memory,” functions as a living calendar, Klimkowski says. Along its base are all 365 days of the year, allowing communities to mark dates they believe should be remembered.

For instance, he says, the Vietnamese community might highlight April 30 for the Fall of Saigon, which marked the beginning of communist rule in Vietnam in 1975. Latvians could commemorate the dates of Soviet mass deportations to remote regions of the Soviet Union, while the Chinese community might mark June 4 to honour the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.

“This is a memorial to those who still struggle; this is the memorial given to those who still want to escape,” Klimkowski said. “This is the memorial to those who are still sitting in prison.”

The Memorial to the Victims of Communism is official unveiled in Ottawa on Dec. 12, 2024. Jonathan Ren/The Epoch Times

The initial location of the memorial was “beyond symbolic,” he said, noting the monument was slated to stand near the Justice Building, in front of the Supreme Court of Canada, and beside the Public Archives and National Library Building—sites he described as embodying justice, the rule of law, and collective memory.

Had the monument been placed there, it would have given those who fled communism “a sense of closure,” he said, “because you know that you are protected by these three individual segments.”

But today’s location, west of the Garden of the Provinces and Territories in downtown Ottawa, still harbours significance, Klimkowski says, because it is “right next to the park that is devoted to all of us.” The current location may also increase its visibility, potentially exposing more visitors to its message.

“So even for the accidental witness of this memorial, today’s location, in my mind, is wonderfully better,” he said.

Communism and the Human Spirit

Klimkowski highlighted what he described as the effects of communism on the human spirit.

He contrasted the mindset of those living in free societies with that of people under authoritarian regimes, noting that North Americans, shaped by a Western liberal tradition, often do not expect communist regimes to carry out actions that are considered immoral or contrary to the rule of law.

“We are so embedded in the Magna Carta, the rule of law and the set of ethical values that we basically [think] there’s no reason for us not to obey what is commonly accepted, right?” Klimkowski said. “Well, except when you’re a communist.”

He noted that some regimes, such as the Chinese Communist Party, have implemented social credit systems in which individuals often face a choice between acting in line with their personal values or acting to protect themselves by benefitting the state, such as by infiltrating other countries, to improve their own score or that of their families.

“That’s a challenging question, but obviously the moral answer is: you just don’t do evil things, right?” Klimkowski said.

“And yet, if you live under that regime for 60 or 70 years or sometimes longer, the idea of moral cleanliness of your soul is getting more clouded every year.”