Today an interesting and unique publication was brought to the Library. The book was handed over in two copies by the author herself - Yevhenia Yukhilevych, who spoke firsthand about the idea and concept of the work.

Yukhilevych Y. Ikhtamnet [Theyrenotthere]: Story about the war in letters of 1942 1945. Chronicle of the Russian-Ukrainian war of 2014–2018 Dnipro: PH “Cross-Print” 2019. 572 p.

The idea to publish letters from her father, a participant in the hostilities during World War II, to her mother, written between 1941 and 1946, came to Yevhenia Yukhilevych a long time ago, because she had heard about the war from her parents since childhood. But she never thought they would become so relevant today. Thus, the idea arose to draw parallels between two such different and, at the same time, similar wars with the beginning of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine.

The publication consists of two parts. The first is a letter from a Soviet officer, Adolf Yukhilevych, to his wife concerning the events of World War II and the first year after it. Arranged in chronological order, they are not all published, but selected on the following principle: iconic, informative and just interesting, so they can be considered as a diary. Some letters are abbreviated, not given in full, personal household details that are not interesting to the reader are removed from them. Valuable factual material is illustrated and supplemented by photographs, postcards and military documents from the archives of the author of the letters.

Adolf Yukhilevych (1902–1993), a Jew by birth, was born in Pavlohrad and lived in Katerynoslav-Dnipropetrovsk from 1921. An architect by profession, a member of the Union of Architects of Ukraine, he has designed civil and industrial buildings. In the first postwar years he worked on the design of mining settlements in the Donbass, and then until the end of his career - civilian facilities in Dnepropetrovsk. In August 1941, Adolf was mobilized to the Red Army, was a fortification engineer in the engineering troops. He fought on the Southwestern, Don, Steppe, Stalingrad and 2nd Ukrainian fronts. He was able to return to Dnipropetrovsk only in July 1946. In the "Book of Memory" dedicated to the soldiers of Dnipropetrovsk there is a record of the captain of the 418th sapper battalion Adolf Yukhilevych (book 3, part 1, p. 182).

The letters were addressed to his wife Maria Zak (1911–1975), a native of Katerynoslav, who at the beginning of the war managed to evacuate to Udmurtia, then to the Urals to Sverdlovsk. Otherwise, it would have met the fate of 11-13 thousand Jews of the city, who were exterminated by the Nazis in the beam of the Botanical Garden, anti-tank trench on the outskirts and other places of Dnepropetrovsk. After graduating from the Institute of Public Education (now Oles Honchar Dnipro National University), Maria taught chemistry at universities in Dnipropetrovsk and Sverdlovsk. The content of the letters goes beyond personal correspondence: they describe the events at the front, military life and everyday life, the history of cooperation with the occupiers of former colleagues and acquaintances, evacuation and occupation, the Holocaust. The letters contain many names of Dnipropetrovsk residents, so the text is accompanied by links to the author's comments.

The second part of the book, Ikhtamnet [Theyrenotthere], describes the events and course of the hybrid war in eastern Ukraine in 2014–2018. This is not a scientific-historical work, this is not political journalism, this is a reflection and impression of what was happening, which the author showed through the prism of her own worldview, experience, life position and beliefs. Chronologically, the second part of the book begins with the events of autumn 2013 and ends with the capture of Ukrainian warships in the Kerch Strait (November 25, 2018). The work is supplemented by photos from various Internet portals and from the author's personal archive.

The cover of the book uses drawings from the series "Album about the war" by contemporary Ukrainian artist Mykyta Shalenny.

The staff of “Tkuma” Institute and Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine” sincerely thank Yevhenia Yukhilevych for her valuable publication and contribution to the development of our Library. We wish you health and further creative success!

We invite everyone to get acquainted with the interesting publication. The book is available to readers in the reading room and can be published by subscription.