Aid supplies to protect cultural heritage distributed to cultural institutions in Ukraine

Aid from the Cultural Heritage Response Unit’s logistics network of the DAI, THW and other partners consisting of about 10 tonnes of packaging material and supplies for the protection of collections, libraries, monuments and museums in Ukraine has been distributed to 13 cultural institutions.lt.

Following the latest delivery of packaging material and supplies, which reached Kyiv at the beginning of September, the materials have been distributed among 13 institutions in Kyiv, the Donetsk region as well as the region of Sumy and Chernihiv, as the Heritage Emergency Rescue Initiative (HERI) has announced. The aid supplies – including sandbags, fire extinguishers, archiving boxes, bubble wrap and other materials – are intended to help colleagues in Ukraine safeguard the country’s cultural heritage. The delivery is one of several that have reached Kyiv this year; further deliveries are planned. Summary reports by the HERI Initiative and international support agencies are published regularly on the Maidan Museum’s website.

In all, since the launch of relief efforts, eight articulated lorries loaded with 242 pallets – approximately 35 tonnes – of aid supplies have been dispatched to Ukraine through the Cultural Heritage Response Unit’s logistics network with the assistance of the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW). The supplies have been made possible firstly by substantial donations of money and material that were raised and collected by the Cultural Heritage Response Unit (KulturGutRetter) and its partners, and secondly by the support of the Federal Foreign Office. Further aid supplies are being made ready for dispatch. Thanks to the Heritage Emergency Response Initiative (HERI), the supplies have been handed over to the staff of various cultural institutions, who use them to protect and secure collections, archives and buildings. HERI was founded in March 2022 in response to the destruction of and threats to Ukraine’s cultural heritage. The initiative helps to preserve cultural heritage and carries out damage assessment

A logistics network for cultural heritage preservation in Ukraine

The German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and the Cultural Heritage Response Unit (KGR) with its partner THW have joined forces with Blue Shield Deutschland e.V., the DGKS (a registered association for cultural heritage protection) and the team from the Guidelines for the Protection of Cultural Property (SiLK) with the emergency response organisations (Notfallverbünden) in Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne, Halle/Saale, Weimar, Dresden and Berlin, to set up a logistics network for the rapid and efficient delivery of aid supplies to Ukraine. The Cultural Heritage Response Unit is coordinating the transport logistics and forwarding the transport data to the THW logistics centre in Hilden, Germany.

Embedded in the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (EUCPM), the logistics network is able to operate reliably and long-term. The aid initiative is integrated in measures taken by the Safeguarding Cultural Heritage in Ukraine network, which was established by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media in conjunction with the Foreign Office.