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Thread ID: 9508 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-09-03
2003-09-03 20:55 | User Profile
** Hitler's SS Murderers - Heroes of Ukraine?
Russia, Israel and all other democratic countries that still remember the nightmare of WW2 were abhorred by the decision on March 19 of the city council of Ivano-Frankovsk, Western Ukraine, whereby the former members of the Ukrainian Galitchina division of Hitler's SS received the same rights and privileges as the Soviet Army veterans who fought against fascism. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Duma of Russia as well as a large number of political and public figures, both in Russia and elsewhere, issued angry condemning statements.
Background:
The 'Galitchina' SS division is the most significant example of the collaboration of Ukrainian nationalists with Hitler's regime. The most active was the contribution to it of V. Kubiyovich, the head of the so-called 'Ukrainian Central Committee', his deputy, K. Pankivsky, and Gruppenfuehrer SS Otto Vehter, the governor of the district of Galicia.
The creation of the division was solemnly announced on April 28, 1943. Before this happened, a decision had been made by a meeting of party leaders and highly placed functionaries of the police and SS to omit the word 'police' in the name of the division-for political and psychological reasons. Beginning October 1943 and then as long as the 'Galitchina' SS division existed, its commander was Oberfuehrer Fritz Freitag, previously an officer of the German security police.
Major Geike, the chief of staff of the 'Galitchina' SS division, wrote in his memoirs, 'Heinrich Himmler's order was very precise that there must be no mentioning in the division of the independence of Ukraine. The use of the words 'Ukraine' or 'Ukrainian' was a punishable offence. The officers and men of the division were ordered to call themselves Galicians instead of Ukrainians'.
Despite that 'Galitchina' was named an infantry SS division, the first complement of 'volunteers' was distributed among SS security police detachments. This is exactly the fact all the nationalist historians of the division and even some foreign authors are doing their best to conceal. Actually, beginning June 1943, 'Galitchina' was nothing if not a police division consisting of five police regiments, its commander a police general, officers recently transferred from SS security police. Finally, this division, even before its complement was full, was used exclusively in punitive operations.
On February 28, after a skirmish with guerrillas, the 4th Police Regiment of the 'Galitchina' SS division occupied the Polish village of Guta Peniazska near the town of Brody. Beside the guerrillas, the Galicians killed every local resident, over 800 in all. Also the SS men from the 'Galitchina' SS division participated in the killings of Poles in five Polish provinces.
The 14th 'Galitchina' Grenadier Division was indeed an infantry group only from March through July 1944 until it was completely defeated and dispersed by the Soviet Army near the town of Brody. As soon after that as in the fall of 1944 the division was reorganised to become once again an SS police unit. Early in October 1944, having been transferred to Slovakia, 'Galitchina' was used in the suppression of an anti-fascist uprising. After this operation was completed, the 'Galitchina' SS division, instead of returning to frontlines, was transferred to the provinces of Shtiriya and Karintiya where it was used against Yugoslavian guerrillas.
In March 1945, an agreement was reached between Ukrainian nationalists and Hitlerites concerning the creation within the Wehrmacht of the Ukrainian National Army (UNA) to be commanded by P. Shandruk, a former Petlyura's general. The 'Galitchina' 14th SS division was renamed the 1st Ukrainian Division of the UNA. Yet the days of Hitler's Wehrmacht and the nazi regime were numbered. On May 9, 1945, the division marched over to the British sector of occupation.
Politicians and general public are very vocal naming the decision of the Ivano-Frankovsk city council 'shameful treachery', 'blasphemy' or 'a dangerous precedent aiming at the revision of the results of the World War 2 and the Nuremberg Tribunal'. Indignant are 'The Russian Coalition', the Communist Party of Ukraine and Andrei Derkach, one of the leaders of the For United Ukraine pro-governmental coalition. There is a public outcry demanding that the government of Ukraine annul the offensive decision arguing that unless it is done, Russian-Ukrainian relations are likely to be hurt. The common opinion is that 'In a situation like this, no one can pretend nothing has happened. The reputation of Ukraine as a democratic jural state has been seriously hurt'.
And what is the reaction to this of the country's leaders? Anatoly Kinakh, the Prime Minister of Ukraine once called 'pro-Russian' by Moscow mass media, unexpectedly supported the initiative of the Ivano-Frankovsk administration by saying this was Ukraine's internal affair and 'all decisions must be made in accordance with justice and history', adding that 'those troops were fighting for the independence of Ukraine'. Yet really, there is nothing unexpected in his position. The justification of nazi criminals is just another logical step on the way Ukrainian leaders have long since entered, the talk of the rehabilitation of the members of the 'Galitchina' SS division, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) having started not just yesterday.
Everyone Is against Fascists, but Not against Galicians
Late in January last year, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine submitted the draft law 'On the Restoration of Historical Justice as Concerns the Struggle for the Independence of Ukrainian State in 1939-1956' to the Supreme Rada, that is, Ukrainian parliament, for consideration and approval. The draft law provided for the rehabilitation of the members of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA). The authors of this draft law called the events of those years 'the ideological armed resistance of Ukrainian nationalists to the totalitarian regime of the USSR and the struggle of Ukrainian patriots against communists, soviet guerrillas and Hitler's invaders'. According to the draft, the members of the OUN and UIA must be acknowledged as the participants of the Great Patriotic War, those of them who were imprisoned in soviet camps rehabilitated as the victims of political repression.
Somewhat earlier, during his meeting with Ronald Smith, the Ambassador of Great Britain in Ukraine, Nikolai Zhulinsky, the then Vice-Prime Minister of Ukraine in care of humanitarian issues, a frenzied nationalist, said Ukraine was more than any other country interested in the fair assessment of the activities during WW2 of the 'Galitchina' SS division, a structural subdivision of the OUN-UIA. He said he was sure these activities would be reassessed in the future and that the members of the division were young people 'opposing Stalin's regime and striving for the independence of Ukraine'.
Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly tried to exonerate the former SS men. The first upsurge of this followed the appearance of Julian Handy's documentary 'The SS in Great Britain' run by the British ITV television company during Christmas season the last year. It was about former SS men from the 'Galitchina' division now residing in England. The author of the documentary maintained that the members of the Ukrainian police detachments who later joined the 'Galitchina' SS division, had participated in the murders of thousands of Jews in the city of Lvov in June 1941. In February 1944, the members of the 'Galitchina' SS division killed over 800 peaceful Polish civilians in the village of Guta Peniazska. The members of another Ukrainian unit, 'The Ukrainian Self-defence Legion', later also to join the 'Galitchina' SS division, participated in the suppression of the Warsaw uprising in 1944 and assisted in capturing downed British and American fliers. Those they caught they gave over to the Gestapo. The author of the documentary demanded a careful investigation and the punishment of the former members of the 'Galitchina' SS division guilty of genocide against Poles and Jews.
That documentary made a lot of noise in Great Britain, Ukraine and Poland. There was nothing unexpected about what was written in Ukrainian newspapers. They all rose to the defence of the 'innocently persecuted "Galitchina'. The notorious Ukrainian columnist K. Bondarenko wrote, 'Normally, Alexander Zlenko, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, should have summoned the Ambassador of Great Britain on the same day and handed him a note of protest'. He then continued, 'How long shall we despise our historical memory and our veterans, not just the members of the 'Galitchina' division but also the veterans of OUN-UIA, all those who fought for our independence'.
West-Ukrainian newspapers call the members of the 'Galitchina' SS division 'the heroes of Ukrainian history'. Naturally, the Poles have a rather different opinion of the deeds of the 'Galitchina' SS division. The article that appeared in the Rzeczpospolita newspaper was titled 'The Undisturbed Sleep of SS Men'. The Polish government made a statement to the effect that the nazi criminals must be extradited and tried in Poland. The Secretary of the British parliamentary commission on war crimes, Lord Jenner said there was a need for a careful investigation and the punishment of those guilty. Regretfully, these events of a year ago went as much as unnoticed in Russia.
The Successors of Nazis Learn the Methods of Their Predecessors
One of the arguments of the successors of the 'glorious' OUN-UIA and the 'Galitchina' SS division is that for the most part the materials exposing their activities were published during the soviet rule when the evidence of their crimes was used for ideological purposes, which included 'the suppression of the national self-identification of the Ukrainians'. In the meantime, there is a sufficient number of books published well after that and free from the communist party ideology of the soviet times. What happened with the authors of these books is another confirmation of the well-known fact that 'nothing is as strong as word'.
Late in October 1999, Prof. Vitaly Maslovsky, Doctor of History, was found dead on the staircase of the building where he had lived. Mr. Maslovsky's head was bashed in and his neck was broken. He was 64. Prof. Maslovsky was among the best-known historians of Ukraine in the 20th century. Among other things, he studied the activities of OUN-UIA and the sources of nationalist ideology and practices. In 1990, following the publishing of his book 'Earth Accuses', Prof. Maslovsky was fired from the Institute for Social Studies of the West-Ukrainian branch of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Professor Maslovsky was killed after his last book 'With Whom and Against Whom Ukrainian Nationalists Fought in WW2' was published by the Moscow Slavic Dialogue publishers, its circulation meagre, just 1,000. In that book, its author made public the self-incriminating evidence provided by the leaders of the Ukrainian 'integral nationalism'. Also there were authentic documents of the OUN-UIA, confirming the collaboration of that organisation with Hitler's SS and of its punitive operations against peaceful civilians. In 1997 and 1998, excerpts from the book were published in the Lvov Vilna Ukraine newspaper of the socialist party. The reaction of the opponents was frenzied. Just before he died, Prof. Maslovsky had completed a manuscript on the history of the Holocaust. In it, he continued disclosing the crimes of the OUN-UIA, and quoted some previously unknown historical documents.
The historian was active in the Russian Movement of the Western Ukraine. What he did enraged the apologists of the OUN-UIA. Before he was killed, Professor was repeatedly threatened in newspapers and personally. The activists of the Russian Movement who know well the situation in the city of Lvov believe the death of Prof. Maslovsky, which followed prolonged political persecution, was nothing if not a political murder.
Prof. Vitaly Maslovsky was not alone trying to expose the crimes of Ukrainian Nazis. The book of Viktor Polishchuk, 'The Bitter Truth About the Crimes of the OUN-UIA', was published in the Ukrainian language in Canada. Late in 1999, another book by the same author, 'The Proof of the Crimes of OUN-UIA' was published in Polish. This was the second volume of Mr. Polishchuk's monograph 'Ukrainian Integral Nationalism as a Variety of Fascism'.
Viktor Polishchuk wrote, 'In the first volume, the ideology, program and structure of Ukrainian nationalism are described. The second volume is the proof, on the basis of archive documents and various books, of the crimes committed by OUN-UIA, which included the 'Galitchina' SS division'. Regretfully, the circulation of these books is very small, just several thousand. The Ukrainian nationalist lobby in Canada and the followers of Ukrainian nationalism at home do everything they can to prevent the spread of these books while they continue threatening their author and the bookstores that accept them for sale. Anyway, what is a couple of thousand copies for Ukraine with her 50 million citizens?
The hard to get books by Prof. Maslovsky and Viktor Polishchuk contain the words of historical truth the population of Ukraine misses so much. If one is informed, one is armed. Yet the truth contained in these books based on irrefutable proof could much better disclose the criminal ideology and practices of the senior generation of Ukrainian nationalists, if translated into Russian and published in large numbers. The Russian Movement of Ukraine is concerned about the ongoing attempts at the exoneration of OUN-UIA. This is why the movement tries to find the financial and technical means for the publishing of these books.
The opponents of the revival of fascist ideology in Ukraine say, 'There is no way anyone can disprove the fact that the creators and members of the 'Galitchina' SS division served Hitler and acted on his orders. The international tribunal in Nuremberg condemned the fascist regime and all its criminal organisations, including the SS. Yet the attempts at revising the results of the Second World War continue. It is impossible to imagine that the governments of Norway, France or Russia could support the rehabilitation of those who fought under Quisling, Vichy or Vlasov. To these countries those who assisted Hitler forever remain collaborationists and traitors. And it had to be Ukraine of all countries, the one that suffered from the Nazi invasion like no other, that made fascist collaborationists 'heroes'.
The rehabilitation of criminals with the blood of thousands innocent victims on their hands can never be considered an internal affair of Ukraine. Russia must not and cannot remain silent when a neighbouring 'friendly' country, whose friendliness seems to be alleged without sufficient proof, makes plans to rehabilitate Nazi criminals, murderers and the servants of murderers. Everyone knows this has already happened in Latvia where the 'veterans' of Waffen-SS openly parade in all the regalia. The present stance of Ukrainian leadership makes one wonder about the true priorities of Kiev. A friend cannot possibly utter the words used in the Declaration of the 'rehabilitation' of the followers of the criminal fascist ideology condemned in Nuremberg.
More than half a century has passed since the great victory, yet the ghosts of the brown plague are too slow to go forever to hell where they belong. It is time we helped them do that.
Yana Amelina, Rosbalt News Agency, Moscow **
[url=http://www.rosbaltnews.com/2002/04/28/42760.html]http://www.rosbaltnews.com/2002/04/28/42760.html[/url]
2003-09-04 07:52 | User Profile
Quite distressing news to someone who is of both Russian and Ukrainian heritage :(.
The saddest part of the situation of course is the fact that the strong dislike that Ukrainians feel towards Russian nationalism is due almost entirely to the actions of the Jewish sadist murderer Lazar Kaganovich, who starved and butchered at least [url=http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php?showtopic=9544]10 million Ukrainians.[/url] Kaganovich's actions were sanctioned by the swarthy Georgian sadist Stalin who has also acquired an unjustified reputation as some kind of vanguard of Russian nationalism.
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Stalin called anti-Semtisim 'the worst of all crimes.' His endorsement of Russian nationalism during WWII was entirely incidental and driven by pure pragamatism; he realized that the Russian people *would not* fight for Jew Marx, and the Mongolo-Jewish mongrel Lenin, but *would[/] fight fo Russian bloood and soil. Shortly after WWII, Stalin renounced Russian nationalism as a staple of his ideology (for the obvious reason that he'd never been a supporter of Russian nationalism to begin with).