The Eichenfeld marker unveiling will be attended by a special memorial tour group from Canada including relatives of the Nikolaipol massacre victims. The tour, to be rescheduled to 2001, will be led by the distinguished Mennonite historian John B. Toews, and will visit other historic Mennonite sites in southern Ukraine. It will consult a larger international advisory board of leading figures broadly representative of Mennonite and other interested groups in Brazil, Canada, Germany, Paraguay, Russia, Ukraine, the USA and elsewhere. Tax receiptable donations should be made out and sent to the Anabaptist Foundation - Canada, William Riediger, Treasurer, Apt. Although it is important to remember this tragedy, and honour these victims, it would not be appropriate to clothe this reminder in anything that might hint at celebration, however solemn.
Gravestones celebrate a life.
This remembers a death. A very solemn image that has affected me for many years is the photographs of other Mennonite victims of violence, in what is now Ukraine. They repose on the lower parts of their coffins, often slightly tilted , perhaps to benefit the camera. I have tried to capture a similar sense of grief, dignity and remembrance. This stone slab represents the coffin these people never had and the dignified public viewing which they did not receive.