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This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: Once again we set forth political developments against the scenario presented in Serpent’s Walk.
In that Nazi tract, the SS go underground in the aftermath of World War II, build up their economic muscle, buy into the opinion-forming media, infiltrate the American military, and–following a series of terrorist incidents in the U.S. which cause the declaration of martial law–take over the United States.
Central to this takeover is the use of the Nazi-controlled opinion-forming media to fundamentally revise history in a pro-Hitler fashion. Just such a revision is underway in Ukraine.
It is impossible within the scope of this post to cover our voluminous coverage of the Ukraine crisis.
Previous programs on the subject are: FTR #‘s 777, 778, 779, 780, 781, 782, 783, 784, 794, 800, 803, 804, 808, 811, 817, 818, 824, 826, 829, 832, 833, 837, 849, 850. Listeners/readers are encouraged to examine these programs and/or their descriptions in detail, in order to flesh out their understanding.
In Ukraine, political history is being stood on its head. Both former president Yuschenko and current president Poroshenko have visited the site of the Babi Yar massacres, among the most notorious incidents of the Holocaust. They did so, however, in order to honor the UPA/OUN/B cadre who participated in the murders! The OUN/B was heavily involved with staffing the executioners roster.
The deep politics surrounding the Ukraine crisis are such that we should not be surprised by such developments. “ABSTRACT: In the wake of the Orange Revolution, Ukraine has witnessed a substantial growth in organized anti-Semitism. Central to this development is an organization, known as the Interregional Academy of Human Resources, better known by its Ukrainian acronym MAUP. It operates a well-connected political network that reaches the very top of the Ukrainian society. MAUP is the largest private university in Ukraine, with 57,000 students at 24 regional campuses. MAUP is connected to the KKK; David Duke is teaching courses in history and international relations at the university. Funded by Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran, MAUP’s printing house publishes about 85% of the anti-Semitic literature in Ukraine. Until very recently, Ukrainian President Yushchenko and Foreign Minister Tarasiuk served on its board; former President Kravchuk still does. . . .”
In FTR #781, we noted that, under Yuschenko, the wartime history of Ukraine was stood on its head, Serpent’s Walk style. In FTR #794, we noted that Poroshenko has basically engaged “Team Yuschenko” in the formation of his government.
Program Highlights Include:
- The preposterous claims (by the UPA and its defenders) that the UPA contained a significant Jewish membership is tantamount to saying that the SS had significant Jewish participation.
- The point that this kind of political inertia will lead to the Holocaust being relegated to “maybe it happened and maybe it didn’t”–and finally Holocaust denial as established historical truth.
- The above items ARE Serpent’s Walk in action.
- The manner in which documented World War II history is couched in relativistic terms like “so and so says,” or “according to one article,” or “journalist so and so has written.”
- The Nazi-style political and racial doctrine of the OUN/B, with which its cadre were imbued and which led to atrocities like that at Babi Yar and the liquidation of the Lvov ghetto.
- The extermination of the Jewish ghetto in Lvov by the Einsatzgruppe Nachtigall (Nachtigall Battalion) is historical fact, not “Russian propaganda.” The organization’s political officer was SS officer Theodor Oberlander, later the (West) German minister for expellees, forced to resign when his role in the massacre was revealed. Oberlander (also spelled “Oberlaender” in some sources) is discussed on pp. 191–192 of T.H. Tetens’ The New Germany and the Old Nazis. Note that Lvov was also known as Lemberg (the Polish name of a city that was part of various countries at various times, including Ukraine, Poland and the former Soviet Union.) “Nachtigall” translates into English as “Nightingale,” the name for the unit commanded by Oberlander, as discussed in the Tetens text.
- A street in the Lvov district was named in honor of the group.
- The new law outlawing criticism of the OUN and UPA was proposed by Yuri Shukhevych, the son of Roman Shukhevych, who commanded the UPA!
- Although it does not appear to have occurred to the author of the first article (or many other observers) the installation of the direct politically evolutionary progeny of World War II-era Nazi butchers on Russia’s borders has not gone unnoticed by Putin and other Russians. This had much to do with the overwhelming support the people of Crimea gave to re-unification with Russia. It would be impossible to exaggerate the galvanizing effect that the awareness of the presence of World War II Nazis at Russia’s borders has had on Russian public sentiment.
- A march by Pravy Sektor demanding a resumption of the war in Eastern Ukraine. This took place as separatist rebels withdrew from some positions. Dmytro Yarosh, head of the organization, is a member of the Ukrainian parliament and an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian army.
- The presence in the orbit of the MAUP organization of Joran Jermas, aka “Israel Shamir,” one of Julian Assage’s most important aides.
- Review of the entrenched nature of the Ukrainian fascists in pre-World War II America.
1. We begin with an article noting that current Ukrainian president Poroshenko and former president Yuschenko visited the site of the Babi Yar massacre and placed wreaths honoring the OUN/B, whose ranks supplied the bulk of the executioners for the massacre.
For Kiev, winning the public relations war against Vladimir Putin would seem to be a no-brainer. For a year now, the Kremlin has conducted a thinly-disguised war of aggression in eastern Ukraine resulting in the deaths of thousands. Yet Kiev seems intent on squandering any international public support it might have had amidst a bizarre crackdown on free speech and censorship of controversial historical debates. Through its crackdown, Ukraine has actually played into Putin’s propaganda war and facilitated Russia’s PR efforts.
At issue is Ukraine’s contentious World War II past, some of which isn’t particularly flattering. With the support of Nazi Germany, militias affiliated with the extremist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) allegedly committed a pogrom in the western city of Lviv. Writing in the London Independent, journalist Patrick Cockburn notes that while “Ukrainian politicians and historians have denied complicity... surviving Jewish victims, other witnesses and contemporary photographs prove that Ukrainian militiamen and mobs of supporters carried out the pogrom, though the Germans oversaw it and committed many of the murders.”
One scholar, John Paul Himka, has concluded that the pogrom was mostly conducted by the OUN under German supervision. According to Himka, the OUN sought to demonstrate to the Nazis “that it shared their anti-Jewish perspectives and that it was worthy to be entrusted with the formation of a Ukrainian state.” . . . . the OUN fought the Soviets and strived for an independent Ukraine, many [of its] leaders were influenced and trained by Nazi Germany. Indeed, the OUN could be characterized as a far right terrorist group which hoped to consolidate an ethnically homogenous Ukraine and a totalitarian, one party state.
Wartime Controversy
“The truth is that the official policy of the OUN was openly anti-Semitic, including approval for Nazi-style Jewish extermination,” writes Eduard Dolinksy of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee. Dolinksy adds that it was only at the end of the war, when it became clear that Germany would be defeated, that the Ukrainian right changed its position. The OUN in fact played an important role in pogroms which spread across Western Ukraine in the summer of 1941, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews. After the Nazis dissolved the militias, many members linked up with the Ukrainian police and helped carry out the Holocaust throughout Western Ukraine.
Then, for good measure, the OUN assumed control over the Ukrainian Insurgent Army or UPA in 1943. . . . The Times of Israel notes “according to some historical accounts the group murdered thousands of Jews in the 1940s” [other historians, as well as supporters of the UPA, dispute this, claiming there were many Jews who themselves served in the ranks of the organization]. A recent article by Reuters claims the UPA shuttled victims into labor camps where they were subsequently executed. Furthermore, it is claimed the UPA was also guilty of conducting ethnic cleansing of Poles in 1943–44. The massacres in Eastern Galicia, which formed part of an overall UPA strategy aimed at creating a homogenous Ukrainian state, resulted in the deaths of 100,000 people.
Criminalizing Dissent
Amidst escalating war in the east, Ukraine desperately needs allies and popular foreign support. Given the desperate stakes, one would think that Kiev would come to terms with some of the unsavory aspects of its World War II past. Yet strangely, political elites are running hard in the opposite direction in an effort to coddle the extremist right. At issue is a highly controversial law recently signed by President Petro Poroshenko which honors the OUN and UPA.
Under the new law, it would be a crime to question the likes of the UPA. Specifically, legislation stipulates that Ukrainians and even foreigners [including Americans?–D.E.] who “publicly insult” the memory of wartime partisans “will be held to account in accordance with Ukrainian law.” The bill does not specify the penalty for questioning Ukraine’s wartime past, nor does the state explain which body will enforce the legislation. On the other hand, it is possible that any private individual could bring a case to court.
Though certainly distressing, Kiev’s approval of the retrograde law comes as little surprise. Former President Viktor Yushchenko, in fact, honored Ukrainian nationalists at a memorial in Babi Yar, where the most horrific massacre of Jews took place throughout the Holocaust. Not stopping there, Yushchenko then bestowed the highest government honor on none other than Stepan Bandera, a leader of the OUN.
Rehabilitating Extremist Right
Perhaps, Yushchenko’s efforts helped to rehabilitate Bandera and others in the minds of many. As recently as 2013, radical nationalists were visibly active during Ukraine’s Maidan revolution. Indeed, rightists brandished a host of OUN and UPA flags on Maidan square while belting out partisan wartime songs [for a fuller discussion of such curious rightist symbolism, see my earlier article here]. If anything, the UPA’s popularity has soared ominously since the Maidan.
Even more disturbingly, a number of OUN-UPA apologists currently hold important government positions in Kiev, and Poroshenko has done nothing to confront the radical right. In fact, the President has gone out of his way to follow in the footsteps of his reactionary predecessor Yushchenko by once again laying a wreath in honor of the OUN at Babi Yar. In addition, Poroshenko has labeled the UPA as “defenders of the fatherland” and established an official holiday in honor of the partisans.
Needless to say, Putin and Russian media have made a lot of hay out of Kiev’s backward politics and the emergence of so-called fascist hardliners. But while the new laws have raised a predictable response from Russia, the legislation has also reportedly led to hackles in Poland. Szczepan Siekierka, a leader of a civic organization dedicated to the memory of Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists, is particularly concerned. Speaking with the Christian Science Monitor, Siekierka remarked “it’s hard to see reconciliation and forgiveness when the Ukrainians treat the UPA criminals and Bandera like national heroes. Accepting one extremism now will lead to the acceptance of other extremisms in future.”
Kiev Draws International Fire
Predictably, Kiev’s new legislation has drawn international fire from a variety of quarters. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has protested the new legislation, noting “as Ukraine advances on the difficult road to full democracy, we strongly urge the nation’s government to refrain from any measure that preempts or censors discussion or politicizes the study of history.” The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has echoed such sentiments, noting that “broadly and vaguely defined language that restricts individuals from expressing views on past events and people, could easily lead to suppression of political, provocative and critical speech, especially in the media.”
Perhaps, the new legislation could even harm Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union. Dolinsky writes “modern Ukrainians need to realize and comprehend this difficult and tragic history in order to become a truly European nation. Such laws as that recently signed by President Poroshenko can only harm the Ukrainian people.” For their part, some scholars have expressed grave dismay over developments in Kiev. Recently, a group of forty historians from western universities even signed an open letter of protest.
Still others worry about the chilling effect upon scholarship. Writing in the History News Network, academic experts declare that “the danger is that a prohibition on ‘insulting’ the ‘fighters’ or questioning the legitimacy of their ‘struggle’ is tantamount to a ban on critical research. The law does not specify what constitutes ‘insulting’, raising the question as to what scholars of modern Ukrainian history are allowed to write and say, and what they are not.”
The Search For Ukrainian Identity
Controversy swirling around the historic role of the OUN and UPA highlights Ukrainian soul searching and the quest for a modern national identity. Though Ukraine has its right wing agitators and even mainstream apologists, the country has by and large practiced tolerance and inclusiveness since gaining independence in 1991. Unfortunately however, backward legislation may serve to obscure such history. According to the Christian Science Monitor, recent political controversy demonstrates that “the debate over Ukrainian fascist history isn’t simply a he-said-she-said between Moscow and Kiev, but a deeper problem of how to square Ukraine’s sometimes sordid past with its efforts to find a modern identity.”
While the recent World War II flak poses thorny questions for many in Ukraine proper, the imbroglio may prompt some soul searching within the wider foreign Diaspora, too. In the wider metropolitan New York area, the Ukrainian community numbers more than 100,000 people. In Manhattan’s East Village, sometimes known as “Little Ukraine,” locals expressed opposition to Russian influence while holding fundraisers in support of Maidan protest. Though the East Village has become gentrified in recent years, the neighborhood still sports landmarks such as the Association of Ukrainian-Americans; the Ukrainian National Home; the Veselka restaurant; a Ukrainian Church, and the local Ukrainian Museum.
In the wake of Maidan protests in Kiev, Ukrainian-Americans took to the Brooklyn Bridge in support of demonstrations back home and even sang the national anthem on the subway. Indeed, EuroMaidan encouraged the growth of civic pride and patriotism, with many brandishing Ukrainian flags and embracing native folklore, crafts, music and food. The Kremlin’s subsequent annexation of Crimea united Ukrainian-Americans like never before in opposition to Russian aggression. Along Second Avenue in the East Village, local residents set up an improved shrine honoring the EuroMaidan movement with signs attacking Washington for not standing shoulder to shoulder with Kiev.
Tackling Difficult Questions
Uniting the Ukrainian-American community against external threats is one thing, but looking inward and trying to define the new soul of a nation is quite another. Perhaps, as Kiev’s political class increasingly moves to coddle extremist constituencies, the foreign Ukrainian community will undertake serious reflection. Hopefully, the wider Diaspora will not only condemn right wing politics and legislation but also build upon and expand modern concepts of Ukrainian identity. Rather than appease World War II apologists, Ukraine should recognize the historic role of Jews in the country. Today, many are sorely under-informed about such contributions and may not even be aware of such literary giants as Shalom Aleichem, for example.
In New York meanwhile, the expat community seems to follow familiar scripts. At the Ukrainian Museum, which supported the EuroMaidan movement by displaying patriotic posters in windows, curators have by and large played it safe by pushing rather narrow definitions of Ukrainian identity. Rather than tackle the tangled history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations, for example, the museum tends to concentrate on folk art and themes such as historic Ukrainian resistance to Russian expansionism. At the height of the EuroMaidan movement, one exhibit displayed — apparently without irony — a photo of a colorful “Cossack” protester on the Maidan [needless to say, many Jews of Ukrainian ancestry may have fearful associations of such Cossack history]. On their way out, patrons may purchase kitschy folkloric items in the museum gift shop.
Just a few blocks south of the East Village lies the Lower East Side, a neighborhood which absorbed waves of Jewish immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Many of the immigrants hailed from Czarist Russia, prior to modern Ukrainian independence. Later, many of the Jewish arrivals moved out of the Lower East Side and assimilated into the wider culture. Arguably, however, many of the immigrants’ descendants could be considered just as Ukrainian as more recent arrivals in the East Village. To be sure, memory or associations of Ukraine may seem quite distant and abstract to the great grandchildren of Lower East Side migrants. On the other hand, it is not unheard of for Americans of Italian or Irish descent, for example, to express sympathetic ethnic ties to the mother country. Maybe it is time for Ukraine to take a hard look in the mirror and ask itself why Jewish descendants are not clamoring for the same.
2. About the participation of the OUN/B in the massacres at Babi Yar.
“The Nazis Even Hitler Was Afraid Of” by George Eliason; OpEdNews; 3/16/2014.
. . . . During WW2, Babi Yar was the single most horrific act of holocaust at the time. Even today, the Banderite response to Babi Yar is “I am proud of the fact that among 1,500 Polizei executioners in Babiy Yar there were 1,200 OUN men but only 300 Germans.” This quote is from a Rivne city official named Shkuratiuk, and appears in the book Organized Anti-Semitism in Contemporary Ukraine: Structure, Influence and Ideology by Pers Anders Rudling.
The atrocities at Babi Yar, and the accompanying brutality, were left to SS Nachtigall and the polizei. Both were Banderite. The reason was simple. The brutal work of genocide at this level made even hardened German SS uncomfortable. This fact is even obscured in the Holocaust Encyclopedia at the United States Holocaust Museum.
During the period September 29–30, 1941, the first massacre at Babi Yar killed over 30,000 Jews. Over the next few years the genocide piled up. Victims from the Roma (Gypsies) alone numbered almost 200,000. Banderite apologists have offered a range of rationalizations, from “Ukrainians suffered too” to the surreal “Bandera’s men stepped back and the Jews did it themselves.” No kidding. Babi Yar was racial suicide. . . .
3a. About the history of anti-Semitism in the OUN/B and its outcroppings during World War II.
. . . . In May 1941, the OUN(b) had issued a blueprint for the nationalist uprising that was to accompany the German invasion. The outbreak of violence would ‘permit the liquidation of undesirable Polish, Muscovite, and Jewish activists’34 and to ‘shoot the Muscovites, Jews, and NKVD men.’35 The violence was interconnected as the OUN(b) used the NKVD mass murders as a pretext for pogroms across Western Ukraine, holding Jews collectively responsible for Soviet atrocities.36 OUN(b) fliers proclaimed ‘Know this! Moscow, Magyars, Jews —these are all your enemies. Exterminate them.’37 Current research show that there were over 140 pogroms in 58 cities in Western Ukraine following the German invasion, in which between 17,000 and 35,000 Jews were killed.38 OUN(b) propaganda presented Bolshevism being a tool of Jewry. This stereotype was not only embraced by the OUN. During the recruitment of the Waffen-SS Galizien, Volodymyr Kubijovyc, one of the initiators of the ˇ Waffen-SS Galizien publically called upon its volunteers to help ‘exterminate the Jewish-Bolshevik pestilence.’ . . . .
3b. Illustrating the historical fact now being denied and re-written by the current Ukrainian government, the program reprises a section of AFA #14. Note that the ABN/OUN/B milieu was part of the Reagan administration and the GOP, and was active in the U.S. in working to deny war crimes by the OUN and UPA.
The extermination of the Jewish ghetto in Lvov by the Einsatzgruppe Nachtigall (Nachtigall Battalion) is historical fact, not “Russian propaganda.” The organization’s political officer was SS officer Theodor Oberlander, later the (West) German minister for expellees, forced to resign when his role in the massacre was revealed. Oberlander (also spelled “Oberlaender” in some sources) is discussed on pp. 191–192 of T.H. Tetens’ The New Germany and the Old Nazis. Note that Lvov was also known as Lemberg (the Polish name of a city that was part of various countries at various times, including Ukraine, Poland and the former Soviet Union.) “Nachtigall” translates into English as “Nightingale,” the name for the unit commanded by Oberlander, as discussed in the Tetens text.
4a. The largest university in Ukraine is controlled by the MAUP organization, an institutional disseminator of anti-Semitic doctrine. David Duke teaches at the institution. Former president Yuschenko is on the advisory board, as was Leonid Kravchuk, another president of Ukraine.
ABSTRACT: In the wake of the Orange Revolution, Ukraine has witnessed a substantial growth in organized anti-Semitism. Central to this development is an organization, known as the Interregional Academy of Human Resources, better known by its Ukrainian acronym MAUP. It operates a well-connected political network that reaches the very top of the Ukrainian society. MAUP is the largest private university in Ukraine, with 57,000 students at 24 regional campuses. MAUP is connected to the KKK; David Duke is teaching courses in history and international relations at the university. Funded by Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran, MAUP’s printing house publishes about 85% of the anti-Semitic literature in Ukraine. Until very recently, Ukrainian President Yushchenko and Foreign Minister Tarasiuk served on its board; former President Kravchuk still does. This paper is a study of anti-Semitism in Ukraine, of its intellectual roots, influence and strength. It traces the Soviet, Christian, German and racist political traditions and outlines the political ambitions of organized anti-Semitism in post-Orange Revolution Ukraine.
4b. In addition to David Duke, Joran Jermas, aka “Israel Shamir,” is part of the MAUP constellation. Jermas/Shamir is a top aide to Julian Assange and, along with his son Johannes Wahlstrom (a bird of the same political feather) is in charge of WikiLeaks’ operations for the Scandinavian countries, Russia and Belarus.
It was Joran Jermas who offered Julian Assange the opportunity to host WikiLeaks on the Pirate Bay website, funded by Swedish fascist Carl Lundstrom.
“Anti-Semitism International: Ukraine University of Hate;” adl.org; 11/3/2006.
MAUP: A University of Hate
- MAUP is the main source of anti-Semitic agitation and propaganda in Ukraine. It organizes anti-Semitic meetings and conferences, regularly issues anti-Semitic statements and publishes two widely-distributed periodicals, Personnel and Personnel Plus, which frequently contain anti-Semitic articles.
- At the same time, MAUP is a bona fide university (its English name is the Interregional Academy for Personnel Management), with more than 50,000 students enrolled at campuses in various locations. Business, political science and agriculture are among the subjects taught.
- The anti-Semitic activities are directed by MAUP’s President, Georgy Tschokin, and a number of his colleagues. Tschokin is also the leader of the far-right Ukrainian Conservative Party.
- MAUP has revived the notorious blood libel. In March 2006, MAUP leaders led by Tschokin paid their respects at the grave of Andrei Yuschinsky, a Christian boy whose death in 1911 led to the false conviction of Mendel Beilis, a Jew, who was eventually acquitted. The charges were based upon the notorious accusation of Jewish ritual murder.
A MAUP publication alleged that Yuschinsky was “murdered by Jews with ritual purpose”. Tschokin is also campaigning for the Orthodox Church to canonise Yuschinsky.
- White supremacist David Duke has close links with MAUP: he “teaches” a course on history and international relations, has been awarded a doctorate for a thesis on Zionism and was a key participant in MAUP’s June 2005 conference on “Zionism: Threat to World Peace”. In October 2006, Duke addressed a MAUP audience on the subject of “Zionist” influence in the US media and signed copies of his book, “The Jewish Question Through the Eyes of an American.” Duke opened his speech by declaring: “The powers of globalism and Zionism are reaching out and they are trying to control the lives, the values, the culture and the foreign policy of every nation on earth”.
- MAUP runs a number of kiosks in Kiev which specialize in anti-Semitic literature, including one located across the street from the “Hillel” club for Jewish students. Titles on sale include: “The Zionist protocols: sources and results”, “Jewish syndrome” “Jews and economic life” and a book describing the infamous 1941 massacre of Jews at Babi Yar as “the third influential legend of the zhidovskoy catastrophe”.
- On November 22, 2005, Tschokin issued a statement of solidarity with Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s threat to wipe out Israel. The statement blended traditional Christian anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism: “We’d like to remind that the Living God Jesus Christ said to Jews two thousand years ago: ‘Your father is a devil!’…Israel, as known, means ‘Theologian’, and Zionism in 1975 was acknowledged by General Assembly of UNO as the form of racism and race discrimination, that, in the opinion of the absolute majority of modern Europeans, makes the most threat to modern civilization. Israel is the artificially created state (classic totalitarian type) which appeared on the political Earth map only in 1948, thanks to good will of UNO…Their end is known, and only the God’s true will rescue all of us. We are not afraid, as God always together with his children!”
- MAUP continues to boast of its ties with Iran. In March 2006, Tschokin received the Iranian Ambassador, Saed Ahmed Musavi Maleki, and negotiated a student exchange scheme between MAUP and Iranian universities. According to the MAUP website, the two men also discussed the building of a Ukrainian cultural center in Iran. MAUP representatives participated in an April 2006 conference held in Tehran under government sponsorship, entitled “Al Quds and the Protection of the Rights of the Palestinians”. There are widespread allegations that MAUP receives funding from the Iranian regime.
- MAUP continues to maintain close ties with individuals in the Ukrainian political establishment. Of special concern is the relationship between MAUP and Levko Lukyanenko, a former dissident and former Ukranian Ambassador to Canada, who is a prominent member of the political bloc led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Lukyanenko has blamed the terrible Ukrainian famine of the 1930s on a “Satanic” government controlled by Jews and has falsely claimed, in attacking the former Soviet regime, that both Lenin and Stalin were Jewish.
- MAUP’s June 2005 anti-Zionist conference was attended by anti-Semites from all over the region, as well as Duke, French Holocaust denier Serge Thion and Israel Shamir, a Russian Jew who converted to Christianity and is notorious for publishing anti-Semitic essays on the internet. The Palestinian Authority representative in Ukraine, Walid Zakut, was also reported to have attended.
- MAUP’s anti-Semitic activities can be traced back to at least 2002. MAUP’s leading figures have been at the root of attempts to bar Jewish organizations in Ukraine and, more recently, a call to ban “The Tanya”, a classic work of Hassidic Jewish literature, on the grounds that it promotes racism against non-Jews.
5. Illustrating the direct line of succession from the World War II period to the present in Ukraine, the laws banning criticism of the OUN or its UPA military wing (involved with the Lvov [Lemberg] massacre) were drawn up by Yuri Shukhevych, the son of Roman Shukhevych, the head of the UPA!
The Telegraph has a report on Ukraine’s ‘history laws’ that make it illegal to criticize Ukraine’s fascist Nazi collaborators. The article contains much of the expected “some people say these groups were involved with [insert historic crime here], but others disagree”-back and forth when a topic like this gets reported on. But it also contains this little fun-fact: The MP in the Radical Party that wrote the “freedom fighters” law, Yury Shukhevych, is the son of Roman Shukhevych, the former head of the UPA:
“Ukraine’s ‘History Laws’ Purge it of Communist Symbols but Divide the Population” by Tom Parfitt; The Telegraph; 6/30/2015.
Lionising nationalists and removing Soviet monuments helps protect Ukraine from Russian aggression, supporters say — but others see praise for Nazi collaborators and an assault on the past
Almost blind and 82 years old, Yury Shukhevych leans heavily on a stick topped with an ornamental axe-head. “It’s a Hutsul axe from the Carpathians,” he says, with an impish smile. “You could cleave a head in two with this.”
His stooped body and eyes squeezed almost shut do not suggest much of a warrior, but Mr Shukheyvch has pedigree. His father, Roman, was the head of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a nationalist group that fought both the Germans and the Soviets during the Second World War, collaborating for a time with the Nazis.
For some in Ukraine, members of the UPA were heroic freedom fighters who resisted all intruders in an attempt to preserve a national homeland. But for others in this deeply divided country of 45 million people, they were traitorous fascists, bent on mass murder and ethnic cleansing.
Now the argument is being stirred anew after Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president, approved a series of controversial new “history laws” last month. Under one law, Ukraine is to be purged of communist symbols, including hundreds of statues of Vladimir Lenin. Under another, UPA veterans – and other 20th century “fighters for Ukrainian independence” – acquire a special status, making it illegal to express “public contempt” towards them or deny the legitimacy of their struggle.
The contentious laws feed into a wider battle for identity and survival as government troops fight pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbas region, where a ceasefire is disintegrating.
‘Let the Russians not tell us who are our heroes’
Mr Shukhevych, an MP with the nationalist Radical Party since October, drafted the law on freedom fighters. He says his father and comrades resisted Moscow’s dominance and as a result were subjected to a Soviet – and now Russian — smear campaign.
“Let the Russians not tell us who are our heroes,” he says. Fighting together with the Germans against Soviet forces during the war was a temporary and pragmatic move for Ukrainian nationalists, Mr Shukhevych adds, and they did not sympathise with Nazi ideas. . . .
“This is all Russian propaganda,” he says. . . .
6. Right Sector just had a march in Kiev with all of their usual fanfare including the white supremacy symbols. The message of the marchers? Drop the Minsk cease-fire and wage full-scale war in the East.
“Ukraine Crisis: Rally in Kiev Urges War on Eastern Rebels”; BBC News 7/04/2015.
About 1,000 Ukrainian pro-government fighters and far-right supporters have marched through the centre of the capital, Kiev.
Many burned tyres and wore balaclavas; some carried white supremacist flags.
They called on the government to end the Minsk ceasefire accord and declare war on pro-Russian rebels in the east.
The demonstrators say the Russian government is bringing troops and equipment into Ukraine, a claim that Russia has always denied.
Many in the rally were from volunteer battalions and were dressed in their battle fatigues.
They said they had returned from fighting Russian forces and demanded an end to all diplomatic relations with Russia.
The ultra-nationalist Right Sector group called the march. Protesters also demanded the nationalisation of Russian-owned businesses.
More than 6,400 people have been killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine that began in April 2014 when rebels seized large parts of the two eastern regions. This followed Russia’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula.
The BBC’s David Stern in Kiev says Friday’s rally was a show of strength in the heart of Ukrainian officialdom.
But above all, our correspondent says, the demonstrators were calling for change. Both in the way that the conflict is being fought in the east and in the way that the country is being run.
Central to their demands is an end to the Minsk ceasefire agreement signed in Februarywhich they say is a charade because of Russia’s activities in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government, Western leaders and Nato all say there is clear evidence that Russia is helping the rebels in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions with heavy weapons and soldiers. Independent experts echo that accusation.
But Moscow denies it, insisting that any Russians serving with the rebels are volunteers.
Clashes between government troops and rebels have recently intensified.
...
7. So the folks that have repeatedly threatened to ‘march on Kiev’ when the war is over just marched in Kiev demanding more war. How helpful.
And in other news, on the same day of march in Kiev, the separatists in the East withdrew from some positions and had their own symbolic march, of sorts: they marched out of strategic positions and made renewed pleas for constitutional guarantees for semi-autonomous status in the breakaway regions as a path towards long-term peace:
’Death to the Enemy’ as pro-Kiev Fighters March in Capital”; i24 News; 7/04/2015.
About 2,000 pro-Kiev volunteer fighters and far-right group members rallied in the Ukrainian capital on Friday evening to demand the declaration of all-out war against the eastern gunmen.
Many in the rally were from volunteer fighting units wearing their fighting fatigues, balaclavas and burning tyres.
Calling on the Ukrainian government to end the Minsk ceasefire accords with Russia, some chanted “Death to the Enemy” and “Glory to Ukraine”.
Ukraine rebels withdraw from key frontline village
Pro-Russian fighters have withdrawn from a strategic frontline village, Ukraine’s military reported on Friday, although some troops doubted whether the surprise retreat and lull in fighting would last.
Lying just 10 kilometres (six miles) east of the Sea of Azov industrial port of Mariupol — the target of repeated rebel attacks — Shyrokyne has been one of the deadliest hotspots of the 15-month separatist conflict in the ex-Soviet state’s industrial east.
“The rebels withdrew to the east, leaving the settlement of Shyrokyne completely destroyed,” military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told reporters in Kiev.
But separatists warned that “unilateral demilitarisation” by their side may not be enough to establish a lasting peace.
“We are waiting for a similar step (from Ukraine),” separatist leader Denis Pushilin told Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
A top official with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said his Ukrainian monitoring teams had also not found any pro-Russian fighters in the village, Interfax reported.
Western powers, Russia and the OSCE have repeatedly urged the two sides to respect a February truce deal that demanded the immediate withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front.
But mutual mistrust has prompted daily exchanges of fire and turned Shyrokyne into an important staging post for rebel attacks on Mariupol — a port city the insurgents had vowed to seize in January before claiming to have changed their mind.
...
–Diplomatic tensions -
The insurgents’ retreat along the southern edge of the front comes in a week that has witnessed a marked de-escalation of fighting and drop in the number of daily reported deaths.
But diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Kiev remain high, with Russia on Friday accusing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko of refusing to agree final peace terms with the separatist command.
The Western-backed Ukrainian leader irked both Moscow and the fighters by unveiling draft changes to the constitution that gave sweeping powers to the regions but critically failed to address the rebels’ main demands.
His amendments, which Poroshenko on Friday asked parliament to approve within the next two weeks, refuse to add to the constitution the semi-autonomous status demanded by militants who now control land roughly the size of Wales.
Rebel parts of the mostly Russian-speaking Lugansk and Donetsk regions would like to see their right to partial self-rule spelt out in constitutional amendments that would be enormously difficult to overturn.
But Poroshenko’s draft only makes reference to an existing piece of legislation that gives insurgency leaders partial right to administer the areas for an interim period once a set of preliminary conditions are met.
The separatists fear that the law could be revoked or suspended by Ukraine’s strongly pro-European parliament.
For his part, Poroshenko is trying to avoid losing credibility with more nationalist Ukrainians who backed the pro-European protests last year and remain a powerful voice in the crisis-torn country’s fractured political system.
8. We conclude with a look at the entrenched nature of Ukrainian fascism in the United States, prior to World War II. Note the close relationship between the Ukrainian fascist milieu in the U.S. with the Third Reich, as well as prominent Americans, such as Henry Ford.
. . . . Now Coughlin really opened up. He revealed to the astonished priest [Pelypenko] that he was a coordinating link with all subversive groups in the county; that he was connected to the whole of the White Russian Nazi groups under [Nazi spy Count Anastase] Vonsiatsky, that he was in direct touch with Ukrainian terrorist groups in Detroit, and that he was linked to John Koos, the Nazi Ukrainian working for Henry Ford. (From American Swastika by Charles Higham, p. 129.) John Koos was the leader in America of the Ukrainian Hetman Organization (UHO). This was a Nazi group, based in Berlin, composed of ethnic anti-Communists and engaged in terrorist activities against the Soviets, as well as against pro-Communist or anti-Nazi individuals and groups everywhere else. Koos worked out of the Ford Motor Company factories in Detroit where he arranged for the hiring of thousands of Ukrainians to work the plants and to form a fifth column working directly for Henry Ford. The position of Koos was so secure in the eyes of the Reich that Hitler himself sent the message that Koos would be named Minister of Internal Affairs in Ukraine once it had been liberated by the Nazis. Koos received a medal awarded by Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi ideologist mentioned above. . . .
Dear Dave,
Nothing that transpired in the
Reagan administration would surprise me.
What do you have in your archives on the documentary, “Hellstorm”?
Is it legit or more rigt-wing produced propaganda? Some are promoting it as a postwar German genocide.
thanks,
maf
@Marilyn Ellen Frith–
I’m not familiar with the documentary. It appears to be propaganda.
This is not to say that abuses did not occur–hell, they always do in war.
The Soviet forces were very rough indeed, understandably so. One can go on and on about 27 million dead–the toll exacted against the U.S.S.R.
To gain something of a “worm’s eye view” of what the Germans did to the Soviets, consider that one brigade (probably around 7,000 men at that point in the war) belonging to the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (1st Waffen SS Division) commanded by general Jochen Peiper earned the nickname “The Blowtorch Brigade.”
The nickname was generated by the fact that the brigade burned 200 Soviet villages with the citizens locked in the buildings.
That was just ONE brigade. What the Germans experienced at the hands of the victorious Allies (including the Soviets) cannot be compared in any way.
The advent of the documentary is part of the “Serpent’s Walk” stratagem. In a couple of hundred years, the Third Reich will be portrayed as heroes, who tried to liberate the world from Jewish Bolshevik domination.
Just watch while it happens!
Best,
Dave
Wonderful info, dave...as always exopected from a valid source.
Wonder what your take on Dr. James Fetzer is–He is clever about disguising his antisemitism behind “meticulous research.”
Thank you so much for taking time and sharing with me. I am all in for telling truths, not lies.
Best and bless.
MAF....
@Marilyn Allen Frith–
Fetzer is–in the ‚most literal sense of the term–bad news.
Hypes the untenable “controlled demolition of the World Trade Center” disinfo and has flirted with Holocaust denial.
Best,
Dave
Agree regard Fetzer. Charlatans come in all shapes and sizes. Fetzer is a reallllly big one. lol
Ukraine just completed another round of elections and the results are, well, quite mixed. While Darth Vader’s electoral run could have gone better, his boss won and now Darth Sidious, a.k.a. Emperor Palpatin, is now is a city council member in Odessa. So that happened.
Also, Svoboda surged, coming in first in a few regions and second in Lviv:
“In the Ukrainian-speaking west, Svoboda radically improved its performance, coming in first in a few regions and second in critically important Lviv, Ukraine’s cultural capital. The ultranationalist party also won a surprising 10 percent of the vote in Kiev. These results raise concerns there could be a nationalist rebellion against Poroshenko if he’s seen as too soft on the separatists in the east.”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin gave a speech in Ukraine’s Rada during parliamentary hearings entitled, “The 75th anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy, history lessons and modern age” that included a specific mention of the role the OUN played in actually carrying out that massacre. As one might unfortunately expect at this point, it didn’t go over super well:
“In the opinion of the Verkhovna Rada first vice-speaker, certain remarks made by the Israeli president “were inappropriate to make on the days of mourning in parliament of the country fighting for its independence.””
Yes, it was apparently “inappropriate” for Israel’s president to give a speech mentioning the role the OUN played in the Holocaust during a parliamentary hearing on the 75th anniversary of one of the more notable Holocaust mass slaughters. Why inappropriate? because it’s not like “all” members of the OUN participated in the killing or “all” the mass murderers were members of the OUN. And therefore any memory of the OUN’s involvement in the Holocaust is just a Soviet myth! So says the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance completely non-ironically. Ironically.