KIEV—As DH readers know, the government of Ukraine led by Volodymyr Viatrovych’s “Ukrainian Institute of National Memory” (UINP) has been engaged in a breathtaking campaign to whitewash the troubling backgrounds of two major World War Two fascist organizations, the OUN and UPA. While these organizations and their leaders are glorified by Ukraine for their fight against the Soviets, along the way they were also involved in mass atrocities against Jewish and Polish civilians. Moreover the OUN-UPA ideology was deeply antisemitic, and was based on Ukrainian Integral Nationalism (kind of a fancy way of saying: fascism). Viatrovych also seeks to glorify Ukrainian World War One-era nationalist leader Symon Petliura whose troops engaged in mass pogroms during the Russian Civil War which killed between thirty-five and fifty thousand Jews.

While not necessarily directly related to whitewashing agenda of “Historical Memory Commissar” Viatrovych, Ukraine has also seen an upsurge in major antisemitic incidents including the desecration of Holocaust memorial sites and monuments, frequently with the use of swastikas and other Nazi iconography.

After long remaining silent, Western leaders and major Jewish organizations seem to have finally noticed what’s going on. Fifty-seven US Congressmen recently signed an Open Letter condemning Ukraine, noting that much of this Holocaust revisionism is state-sponsored. The US Holocaust Museum also decried anti-Roma violence in Ukraine while noting that “he continuing effort led by the leadership of the government’s Ukrainian Institute of National Memory to praise certain leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and cleanse their murderous records raises doubts regarding the government’s intentions.” Meanwhile the World Jewish Congress has sharply critiqued Ukraine for the upsurge in desecrations of Holocaust memorials.

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