Ukraine Continues to Whitewash Wartime Crimes

Henry Srebrnik, [Calgary] Jewish Free Press
 

Professor Ilana Sabatovych, of the University of Canterbury, in Christchurch, New Zealand, asserts that “the revolutionary character of mass mobilisation movements, together with the uncertainty of the link between democracy and nationalism, may lead such movements to impact negatively on democratisation.”

In “Does Nationalism Promote Democracy?,” published in the April 2018 issue of the journal Contemporary Politics, she contends that the mass protests in Ukraine in 2014, known as the “Maidan Revolution,” did not lead to democratisation but rather to political polarisation and so to an increase in right-wing populism.

So anti-Semitism, too, has been on the rise. Although its 300,000 Jews are not threatened with destruction, Ukraine increasingly exhibits outbursts of anti-Semitism in its political culture and glorifies Second World War Nazi collaborators.

In its annual report on anti-Semitism, published in January by Israel’s the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs, Ukraine was singled out for the alleged increase in attacks there.

But the director of Ukraine’s Institute of National Remembrance, Vladimir Vyatrovich, told Radio Liberty that “It is a pity, but the results of the influence of propaganda are felt even by documents of certain Israeli institutions.”

In December, Israel’s foreign ministry condemned the “malicious” anti-Semitic graffiti daubed on Jewish institutions in Odessa, and urged Kyiv to take “decisive measures” against neo-Nazis.

The offensive markings were spray-painted on several Jewish sites, including a Holocaust museum.

All the graffiti were accompanied by the Wolfsangel symbol, widely used in Nazi Germany and popular among Ukrainian neo-Nazis today.

A similar symbol is used by the Azov Battalion, founded when war broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014, as well as by several other Ukrainian far-right organizations.

Andriy Biletsky, founder of Azov, has a history of far-right activities. In 2016, he launched the National Corps, the political wing of the battalion, and he now sits in the Ukrainian parliament.

The country also continues to whitewash the massive collaboration of many Ukrainians with the Nazis in World War II.

Ukraine’s parliament in 2015 passed a law that in effect glorifies partisans affiliated with the Second World War Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its military wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

The law states that those who “publicly exhibit a disrespectful attitude” toward them will be prosecuted.

It did not mention their xenophobic, anti-Semitic ideology, which described Jews as a “predominantly hostile body within our national organism.”

The law even bans books imported from Russia if they contain “anti-Ukrainian” content.

Nazi collaborators accused of complicity in the murder of Ukrainian Jews have received honors from state authorities for their fight against Russia.

On Oct. 14, thousands of Ukrainian nationalists marched through the capital to mark the 75th anniversary of the creation of the UPA.

It was supported by the right-wing Freedom, Right Sector, and National Corps political parties.

Journalists reported seeing some marchers giving Nazi salutes. Since 2015, the anniversary has been marked as the Defender of Ukraine Day public holiday.

In June of 2017 Lviv held a “Shukhevychfest,” an event named after Roman Shukhevych, featuring music and theatre shows. A celebration of the 110^th anniversary of his birth also took place in Kyiv.

Shukhevych was head of a Ukrainian battalion called Nachtigall that began a series of pogroms in June of 1941that murdered approximately 6,000 Jews in Lviv. 

In 1942 Shukhevych established the UPA. Yet Viatrovych recently described Shukhevych as an “eminent personality.” 

Last October, the western municipality of Kalush was sued for deciding to name a street for Dmytro Paliiv, a commander of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the 1st Galician, comprised of Ukrainians.

Vyatrovich has defended the displaying in public of the symbol of the Galician SS division. 

Responsible for countless murders of Jews, Nazi Germany’s most elite unit was comprised of Ukrainian volunteers.

Displaying Nazi symbols is illegal in Ukraine but the Galician SS division’s symbol is “in accordance with the current legislation of Ukraine,” Vyatrovich has contended.

Desecration of Ukraine’s Holocaust sites and memorials has also become a problem. At Babi Yar, in Kyiv, the Nazis killed over 33,000 Jews in September 1941.

Now, Jewish leaders in Ukraine have criticised President Petro Poroshenko’s decision to involve two supporters of the OUN, Bohdan Chervak and Volodymyr Viatrovych, in plans to commemorate the Babi Yar massacre.

Earlier anti-Semites are also being honoured. A statue of Symon Petliura, a Ukrainian nationalist who is blamed for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews during the Russian Revolution, was unveiled last October in Vinnitsa. The city already has a street named for him.

The estimates of Jews killed in pogroms during Petliura’s 1918 and 1921 reign, run from 35,000 to 50,000.