National D-Day Memorial Foundation
Col. William A. McIntosh
P.O. Box 77
Bedford, VA 24523
dday@dday.org
540-586-3329 or toll-free 800-351-DDAY
Dear Col. McIntosh:
As a member of the Ukrainian-American community, I strongly object to the National D-Day Memorial Foundation’s
decision to display a bust of Josef Stalin in a public memorial honoring the heroes of World War II.
Under Stalin’s reign, Ukrainian political, social, economic and cultural institutions were decimated through his
totalitarian terror. Stalin’s terror included the 1932-1933 genocide of Ukrainian kulaks in which over 10,000,000
Ukrainian kulaks and peasants were intentionally starved to death. He gave the directive for massive purges of
Ukrainian religious leaders and intellectuals, executions, and the exile of millions to the infamous labor camps of
Siberia's "Gulag".
You have publicly stated that “the intent is not to portray Stalin as a hero, but rather as an ally”. Stalin was Hitler’
s ally until the point that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Stalin did not fight back against Hitler in order to liberate
Germany, he fought back to protect his own interests in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics.
Up to that point during WWII Stalin’s troops marched over a million Poles and Jews off to Siberia and murdered
22,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Forest. Stalin did not send a single soldier to storm the beaches of Normandy
in 1944.
To the millions of Americans of Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Belarusian, Armenian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian,
Estonian, Jewish and even Russian descent who lost their loved ones or were forced to flee their homelands
under Stalin’s rule, glorifying Stalin as a US “ally” is both blasphemous and insulting.
All over the former Soviet Union, statues and busts glorifying the most heinous murderer of all time – Josef Stalin –
are being torn down while your Foundation here in the United States is erecting a monument which legitimizes him
as an admirable leader. By doing so, puts him on the same par as Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt,
neither of whom committed genocide against their own citizens.
The National D-Day Memorial should honor the brave men and women and the leaders who fought for freedom
and against fascist tyranny during WWII, not a man who suppressed freedom and replaced it with terror in his own
domain. Out of respect of the millions of victims of Josef Stalin, we urge you to reconsider your plans to include a
bust of him in the National D-Day Memorial.
Sincerely,
Signed ______________________________________
Name ______________________________________
Address ______________________________________
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