One of the greatest tragedies of the Ukrainian people is that because of their long time status as stateless and oppressed, their history has been written in most instances by the oppressor and/or his agents. Ukraine has been independent for almost a score. Still certain states, i.e. the Russian Federation which has proven to be a legitimate successor in interest to both Czarist Russia and the U.S.S.R. have not been able to come to grips. Still others who have since befriended Ukraine, i.e. Poland refuse to edit its prejudicially written original account. And even those agents who themselves for many years were stateless and often oppressed, continue to seek out new demons to escape blame for a not so blameless past and to keep the fire of remembrance burning for their own tragedies, i.e. the Jews.
On October 28, 2008 the Russian Federation’s permanent representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin held a press conference at the UN in New York to boast about Russia’s success in thwarting Ukraine’s attempts to place the Great Famine of 1932-33 on the agenda of the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly. He proceeded to denounce attempts by Ukraine to politicize the Great Famine of 1932-33. In the course of his denunciations he gratuitously proffered evidence of Ukraine’s contemporary political mindset pointing out that Ukraine is today rehabilitating notorious Nazi collaborators like the General of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Roman Shukhevych.
On May 5, 2009 the permanent mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations held a briefing entitled “The Outcome and Lessons of World War II and the Present” at the UN headquarters in New York. The event was opened and presided over by Ilya Rogachev, deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the UN. In his opening remarks Rogachev said:
“Despite the tragic lessons of World War II, we oftentimes witness the revival of practices conducive to the escalation of modern forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia. Unfortunately, a number of countries have recently been pursuing and undisguised policy of presenting as heroes those who participated in Nazi crimes;
Quite recently, we have witnessed the profane action or inaction by the Ukrainian authorities… Open glorification of… the Ukrainian Insurgent Army fighters, who tainted themselves with the crimes against those who fought in the ranks of the anti-Hitler coalition, declaring notorious Nazi Roman Shukhevych as a hero of Ukraine, demolition and desecration of monuments to Soviet soldiers are all links of the same chain of practices aimed at re-writing the history of World War II and inculcating blatantly pro-fascist ideology in the minds of the current and future generations.”
On January 25, 2010 the International Council of Russian Compatriots met at the UN to conference their achievements and address their problems. The proceedings deteriorated into mudslinging against Russia’s neighbors in particular Latvia, which had the audacity to insist on a working knowledge of Latvian as a prerequisite for citizenship and Ukraine where Russians have experienced a diminishing of Ukrainian government funding of their cultural and linguistic resources. Gratuitously the compatriots from Ukraine smeared Bandera, Shukhevych and the OUN-UPA as fascist Nazi collaborators whom the Ukrainian government is attempting to rehabilitate with honors.
In November 2009, John Himka. an historian from the University of Alberta submitted a paper to the 41st national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Boston on The Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Holocaust. Himka organized his paper with a discussion of his sources and material about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army’s (UPA) involvement in the murder of Jews. To his credit Prof. Himka did acknowledge that his paper was paid for with a fellowship from the Holocaust Memorial Museum. This goes to motive. Simply put, Himka for his remuneration had to produce one or more demons.
On February 7, 2010 Himka’s colleague from the University of Alberta David Marples published an article in “The Edmonton Journal” on Ukraine’s honoring of Stepan Bandera in which quite suddenly and with no substantiation or reference he asserted: Members of the OUN-B spearheaded pogroms in Lviv in the summer of 1941 when about 4,000 Jews were killed.
And most recently the notorious journalist Mark Ames, known equally well for his work in the United States and in Moscow wrote an article in “The Nation.” His purpose was to criticize the outgoing orange President of Ukraine Victor Yuschenko and included amongst the President’s sins the honoring of Ukrainian nationalist Bandera. Ames wrote, Bandera’s forces participated in the mass killings of Jews in Lviv and other parts of Western Ukraine where Jews once thrived.
For those unfamiliar with Ames his loyalties are brought to light in previous writings, among them an analysis of the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia. Ames sided with Russia.
Do you discern a pattern here? Still, inasmuch as of all the aforesaid only Himka has attempted to substantiate his assertions, let’s deal with some of his work in the area of Bandera, Shukhevych and the OUN-UPA. In passing I should mention that in private communications, Marples relies on the scholarship of Himka for his assertions.
Himka was a notorious Soviet apologist and remains a Ukraine detractor. One of his favorite targets is the Great Famine of 1932-33 wherein he attempts to minimize its significance by reducing the number of victims. In his current assault on the OUN-UPA and its leaders Himka has chosen to rely on eyewitness testimony. That is a significant factor in itself because in juridical evidentiary proceedings, eyewitness accounts, while still afforded some evidentiary weight, are considered the most unreliable, often tainted by memory lapses, embellishments, etc. However that serves Himka best and even there the evidence he produces fails to impugn.
In one of his publications written for the purpose of showing that on July 1, 1941, the OUN spearheaded a pogrom in Lviv, Himka offers the testimony of one Rosa Wagner who gave her account in 1945 in Cracow at the request of the Jewish Historical Institute. Wagner provides a narrative of what transpired involving herself and other Jews in July 1941 in Lviv when the Germans invaded and the Soviets were forced to flee. Himka himself dates the events on July 1, 1941.
Wagner describes her own and her family’s personal fears and the persecution suffered at the hands of the Nazis and the local residents of Lviv. She describes her oppressors as young Ukrainian street thugs, mob and bandits. Not a single reference by the witness to the OUN. This clearly does not satisfy Himka so he distorts, suggesting that Rosa had no way of knowing that her oppressors were led by the recently formed Ukrainian militia consisting of men directed by the OUN. Himka offers as corroborating evidence a Ukrainian Militia identification card belonging to one Iwan Kowalyschyn. The card is neither authenticated nor signed or dated by an issuing officer. Other eyewitness accounts label the persecutors of the Jews in Lviv at that time as being Polish. Himka simply dismisses that label as erroneous.
While there is divergence in various accounts of the Lviv incident as to the identity of the perpetrators, the indisputable facts are that the Soviets left a gory landscape, prisons replete with corpses of their Ukrainian prisoners accumulated over almost two years from the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact until the Nazi invasion of Western Ukraine. What is also indisputable is that many Jews served in the Soviet secret police during that period of Soviet rule in Western Ukraine. Naturally, Himka fails to mention the Jewish complicity which may have pointed to the motive of any number of oppressors.
Such is Himka’s scholarship throughout his writings on the OUN-UPA and the Holocaust, at least that which I have reviewed. His aforementioned November 2009 paper on the UPA and the Holocaust relies strictly on eyewitness testimony. No documentation is offered. The reliability factor is even more questionable in the UPA paper since in the Rosa Wagner testimony at least Rosa described events she herself witnessed. Without exception the “eyewitness accounts” impugning the UPA are not eyewitness at all, rather hearsay, i.e. my friend told me that in the village the UPA murdered Jews etc. In instances of direct account the narrative consists of battles between the UPA and Soviet partisans or the Polish Armija Krajova which includes people who happened to be Jewish. While being Jewish in and of itself, certainly, was not reason to be killed, being Jewish was not immunity from being attacked when you sided and fought with the enemy.
This article is not a scholarly attempt to refute all allegations of complicity by the OUN, UPA, Shukhevych or Bandera in the Holocaust. It is, however, an impeachment of the impugning alleged scholarship that really is not scholarly at all. Allegations of complicity by the OUN, UPA, Shukhevych or Bandera in the Holocaust at this point in time are moot since none of the above was afforded as much as mention as in the Nuremburg proceedings. Soviet Prosecutor Rudenko certainly had access to Soviet archives, eyewitness accounts and other evidence. Case closed!
Askold S. Lozynskyj is a New York attorney and former president of the Ukrainian World Congress.
