The sign says “A Russian occupier is buried here”. The tomb was excavated by villagers near Kharkiv. It is not easy to establish whether the pity of the gesture is accompanied by something mocking or vengeful in the sentence on the paper tombstone. The fact is that the burial was not denied. And this is always a fleeting human trait in the triumph of the inhuman. The title of a novel came to mind, the masterpiece of the great Argentine writer Ernesto Sabato: “Above heroes and tombs”.
But who are the heroes in the fury of the violence of history, in Argentina and everywhere? Who are the heroes in the river of blood shed by wars? The tombs remain. And there remains the strange, disconcerting, imperishable silence of those who come out of the war, of those who fall out of time. In 2003, speaking to two thousand children, Sabato explained that the only way not to resign himself to the graves scattered by the war is
Keep the flame of this pain of humanity burning in the soul, dear children, and be faithful to it.
If we can keep this determination steady, it will be unshakable.