Since the Museum establishing and until collapse of the USSR in 1991 the exhibition was intended to embody the Soviet narrative about the Second World War history. In particular, among a wide set of the propagandistic clichés was a vision of the Ukrainians` participation in battles of this war. In those times interpretation of war to Ukrainians was given just place among a row of representatives of “victorious Soviet people” where Russians “obviously” had leading role. Otherwise they, who struggled for own statehood were branded as accomplices of the Nazism. There were no place for Ukrainians in prevailing ideological course beyond couple of these antipodes.
At the same time, tens of thousands of Ukrainians fought against anti-human regimes on all the theaters of operations in Europe, Asia and Africa. Due to the Ukrainian Institute of national Memory data, about 45 thousand of Ukrainians fought in rows of the Armed Forces of Great Britain and Canada, approximately 80 thousand in the US army and up to 6 thousand in different French military units.
The Museum workers started to speak about this aspect of the Ukrainian military history in a new exhibition, created in a first decade after Ukrainian independence was renewed. Among the first museum items highlighting destinies of Ukrainians in Allied forces was a dog tag of an ethnic Ukrainian John Shubunka, transferred him personally during the visiting the Museum. This artifact evidencing the contribution of our compatriots into victory of the Allies immediately became a valuable part of the Museum collection.
The dog tag 1917 pattern, so-called P1917 – round-shaped, with single hole for the chain and personal data on its surface made with help of chemical etching.
The item “told” that John Shubunka served as the United States Seventh Fleet sailor, in the Navy Reserve (due to the “USNR” abbreviation) during 1942-1945. According to the «T. 5/9/44» marking, on May 9, 1944 he was vaccinated against tetanus (supposedly after being wounded). John also was a Protestant. Due to the P1917 dog tags registration rules religious denomination could be marked as “C” (Catholic), “P” (Protestant) or “H” (Hebrew).
Names and destinies of people such as John Hubunka, ethnic Ukrainians, forced runaways in search of better life, conscious representatives of national centers beyond native lands who stand to protect humanity, despite years of tabooing returned into a space of the historical memory. Of Ukrainian society. They are forming national context of military history, stolen and distorted by invaders within centuries.