Thank you for your letter concerning the World War II photograph and accompanying caption that were included in our February 22 article about wartime rape.  Prompted by your comments, and by those of many other readers whose response was similar to yours, our editors directed a reexamination of the photograph's history, the circumstances in which it was taken, and the accuracy of the caption identifying its content.  The April 19 issue of TIME includes a box in the Letters column summarizing our findings.

As will be apparent, the debate and uncertainty surrounding the photograph are sufficient for us to conclude that its inclusion in the February 22 article was inappropriate.  We are, of course, profoundly sorry that this picture and its caption marred what we felt was an otherwise valuable article.  We wish to reassure you, moreover, that it was not our intention--nor would we ever wish it to be--to single out Ukrainians for negative attention: as the article made it clear, wartime rape has, sadly, affected just about every nation in the world.

We appreciate your patience as we sought to resolve this issue, and we are grateful to you for your help in alerting us to it in the first place.

Sincerely, Winston Hunter