October 16 marked the 116th anniversary of the birth of the famous human rights activist, one of the founders of the Ukrainian and Moscow Helsinki Groups, Major General Petro Hryhorenko.
Petro Hryhorenko was born in the village of Borysivka, Prymorske district (now the village of Prymorske urban community, Berdiansky district), Zaporizhzhia region, into a peasant family. In a man’s life, two completely different periods can be clearly observed. At first he was a Soviet general who went through the war and firmly believed in the ideals of the party, but later he became an ardent oppositionist of the Soviet regime.
Indeed, Petro Hryhorenko had a successful military and teaching career. However, this all lasted only until 1961. After all, on September 7, at a party conference in the Lenins district in Moscow, a man criticized the political system in the USSR. After this, Petro Hryhorenko was sent into exile in the Ussuri region to serve in the Far Eastern Military District.
Of course, after the experience, Petro Hryhorenko publicly spoke about the absence of any historical truth and justice. In particular, the man began to become interested in the problem of punished peoples and became an active participant in the movement for the return of the Crimean Tatars.
“Do not consider your business only domestic. Seek help from the global progressive community and international organizations. What they did to you in 1944 has a very specific name. This is pure genocide – one of the most serious types of crimes against humanity…”,- said Petro Hryhorenko.
Thanks to the hard work of Petro Hryhorenko, the problem of the Crimean Tatar people went beyond the borders of the Soviet Union.
The Crimean Tatars even tried to protect Petro Hryhorenko from any retribution and secretly monitored the general’s house and himself. Although Petro Hryhorenko himself knew nothing about this.
In 1977, Petro Hryhorenko was forced to go to the United States for treatment, and a few months later he was deprived of Soviet citizenship.
Petro Hryhorenko died on February 21, 1987 in New York, and was buried in the Ukrainian cemetery of Bound Brook (New Jersey) in the USA.