Professor Danylo H. Struk's letter to TIME as it appeared in The Ukrainian Weekly of 28-Feb-1993. | Professor Danylo H. Struk's letter to TIME as it appeared in TIME magazine of 15-Mar-1993. |
Following are the texts of letters to the editor of TIME magazine written in reaction to a photo accompanying the article "Unspeakable" published in the February 22 issue. | |
Shoddy research | |
Lance Morrow's article "Unspeakable" (Time, February 22, 1993) deals with the horror of rape as a policy of war. | Your article deals with the horrors of rape as a policy of war. |
Why then illustrate this article with a photograph which, though striking and horrible, describes an act, repulsive to be sure, quite outside of Morrow's text? | Why then illustrate this piece with a photograph of a Jewish girl raped in Poland, which, though striking and horrible, describes an act � repulsive to be sure � quite outside the text? |
I find the photograph on page 28 an attempt to stir needlessly old animosities between Jews and Ukrainians. | I find the photograph an attempt to stir needlessly old animosities between Jews and Ukrainians. |
The governments of Israel and Ukraine have made strides toward forgiving and forgetting with intent to forge harmonious future relations. | The governments of Israel and Ukraine have made strides toward forgiving and forgetting, with intent to forge harmonious future relations. |
It seems that someone at Time is not too keen on Jewish-Ukrainian rapprochement. | It seems that someone at TIME is not too keen on Jewish-Ukrainian rapprochement. |
How else can you explain the apparently Ukrainophobic attitude of the person who selected a picture, tangentially, at best, relevant to the text, but full of reprehensible innuendo and inaccuracies? | How else can you explain the apparently Ukrainophobic attitude of the people who selected a picture tangentially, at best, relevant to the text, but full of reprehensible innuendo and inaccuracies? |
What we have in the caption is a Russian name for the city which is placed in Poland where Ukrainians commit the atrocities! In 1945 the city was part of Soviet Ukraine, not Poland; it is called Lviv in Ukrainian, Lvov in Russian, and Lwow in Polish. So perhaps it really was not 1945, nor Poland, nor Lvov, nor a Jewish girl, nor Ukrainians? How does one know which of the five facts in the caption are really true? And what does it have to do with rape as a policy of war? Or is the point more in the emotional impact than in the accuracy? Such shoddy research brings little credit to Morrow's excellent article and to Time. | |
D. H. Struk |
Danylo H. Struk |