Author: Lee Matz

Jews had lived in Brzeżany since the sixteenth century, making up the second-largest ethnic group in the town after the Poles. Berezhany is located between Lviv and Ternopil, the two cities that were my entry and exit points in Ukraine. It was said that the cemetery was as old as Berezhany itself, a testimony to the history of the community.

Reports from Ukraine: This feature is part of an original Milwaukee Independent editorial series that recorded news from cities across Ukraine, including Milwaukee's sister city of Irpin, in May 2022. It was the first and, at that time, only news organization in Wisconsin that traveled to the country since it was invaded. The purpose of this journalism project was to document personal stories and events that detailed or showed the conditions of the war at that time, and their connections to Milwaukee. mkeind.com/reportsfromukraine Because I did not attend high school in Milwaukee, when I returned after college I was...

What happened in Borodyanka is considered one of the biggest tragedies in Ukraine, and was one of the places in Kyiv Oblast most impacted by Russian aggression. The city had no Ukrainian military fortifications of strategic importance, and troops simply acted out of cruelty against the unarmed civilian population.