Ukraine
Associated Press Reports on US Plan to Train Fascist “Azov” Battalion in Ukraine
Posted in Bandera, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Symbology, Ukraine, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?
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Ukrainian Hitlerist Icons Celebrated in Weston-on-Trent in Derbyshire, England
O P I N I O N / U K / U K R A I N E
by J. North
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Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Youth Association (CYM Great Britain) held a remembrance day at the Tarasivka camp at Weston-on-Trent in Derbyshire. They advertised the event on their website (http://cym.org/uk) and with a poster replete with (ultra)nationalist imagery.
Posted in Bandera, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, Events, Human Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ukraine, United Kingdom
Tagged Bandera + Ukraine, fascism in Ukraine, J. North, Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian far right + UK
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Telling the Stories of the Forgotten Jewish Refugees of Ukraine
O P I N I O N
by Sam Sokol
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While antisemitism in France and other western European nations generates the headlines, the Jews of Ukraine are facing the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the Jewish world in 2015. Thousands of Jews have been made homeless by the military conflict that has decimated their communities in Donetsk and Luhansk while both sides of the conflict bandy about casual accusations of antisemitism at their enemies for propaganda purposes, falsely turning the issue into a Jewish one.
Posted in News & Views, Ukraine
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Scholars Issue Public Letter on Ukrainian Holocaust Revisionist Participation in 9-11 March 2017 Paris Conference
UKRAINE | FRANCE | DOUBLE GENOCIDE REVISIONISM | DOUBLE GAMES
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The following open Letter of Concern appears on the Academia.edu page of Professor Tarik Cyril Amar and others.
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To the Organizers of the Symposium “The Holocaust in Ukraine. New Perspectives on the Evils of the 20th Century,” Paris, March 9-11, 2017:
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Genocide, France, Free Speech & Democracy, History, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged Double Genocide revisionism, Holocaust conference in Paris, Holocaust in Ukraine, Jan Gross, Tarik Cyril Amar, Ukrainian Holocaust, Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, Volodymyr Viatrovych
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Ukraine Updates
Eduard Dolinsky’s New York Times Op-Ed is a Game Changer in Rising Western Consciousness
On Twitter
State-sponsored and elite-endorsed messaging extols the “heroism” of actual World War II perpetrators and ethnic cleansers as well as increasingly overt “East-European style antisemitism”
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Efforts, masquerading as history, patriotism, political science, mainstream media, and even Holocaust studies, are enabled by the current geopolitical backdrop and a Western tendency to silently “give them all a pass”
See: Josh Cohen in Foreign Policy (2 May 2016); Semen Doroshenko in (Ukrainian website) Politnavigator (26 Feb. 2017); Andreas Umland in New Eastern Europe (7 March 2017); Sam Sokol in the London Jewish Chronicle (9 March 2017); Report in JTA (27 March 2017); Eduard Dolinsky in the New York Times (11 April 2017)
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
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Ukrainian City Naming Street in Honor of Waffen-SS Hauptsturmführer
OPINION | UKRAINE | GLORIFICATION OF NAZI COLLABORATORS
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During the last two years a notable number of streets in Ukraine have been named after World War Two-era Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with the Nazis and were involved in the Holocaust as well as the mass ethnic cleansing of Poles in Western Ukraine. Josh Cohen explained in a recent Reuters column that it is part of Ukraine’s post-Maidan Government attempt to create a new national memory for Ukraine:
In 2015, Ukraine passed a law honoring the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its military wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN-UPA). Since then, other streets have been named after the group and its leaders, and the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINM) is drafting a law to posthumously exonerate OUN-UPA members convicted of murdering Polish and Jewish civilians during and after the war.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Symbology, Ukraine
Tagged Dmitro Paliyiv, Josh Cohen, Kalush, OUN Ukraine, UPA Ukraine, Waffen SS Galizien
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Ukraine Hearing on Street Naming for Nazi SS Leader is Postponed to 30th
UKRAINE | GLORIFICATION OF NAZI COLLABORATORS
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As reported on 7 October, the city of Kalush in Western Ukraine has named a street for Hauptsturmführer Dmitro Paliyiv, a key founder of the Ukrainian Waffen-SS Galizien division. The division enjoyed a visit from Heinrich Himmler during World War II.
15 OCT. UPDATES: JTA report; ALSO: Up to 20,000 participated in annual October 14th Kiev march to glorify the fascist UPA; Nazi salutes reported by Radio Free Europe
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged far right + Ukraine, glorification of neo-Nazis in Ukraine, Kalush (Ukraine)
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World Jewish Congress Laments “Deplorable” Ukrainian Monument for Petliura
UKRAINE | ANTISEMITISM | GLORIFICATION OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
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The following press statement appeared on the World Jewish Congress website on 17 October 2017:
NEW YORK—The World Jewish Congress has denounced the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa’s “disgraceful and deplorable” move to celebrate nationalist leader Symon Petliura, whose Ukrainian People’s Republic killed tens of thousands of Jews in pogroms under his leadership in 1918-1921, and urged the local authorities to pull a monument unveiled over the weekend in his honor.
WJC CEO and Executive Vice President Robert Singer said in a statement:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, News & Views, Ukraine, World Jewish Congress (WJC) and ORT
Tagged antisemitism in Ukraine, Petliura, Robert Singer, Vinnitsa (Ukraine), WJC
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Regional Leader of Ukraine’s Svoboda Party Threatens Jews who Disagree with a Public Monument for Pogrom-meister Petliura
UKRAINE | ANTISEMITISM | FREE SPEECH | GLORIFICATION OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
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As reported last week, in connection with a protest from the World Jewish Congress, authorities in Ukraine recently inaugurated a statue to Symon Petliura in the city of Vinnitsa. Petliura (1879—1926) was a Ukrainian whose troops killed tens of thousands of Jewish civilians in a devastating series of pogroms in Ukraine during the Russian Revolution and the civil war that followed it.
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Free Speech & Democracy, News & Views, Ukraine
Tagged Petliura, Svoboda party in Ukraine, Ukraine's far right, World Jewish Congress (WJC) and ORT
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Will Ukraine’s President Poroshenko Correct Abuse of Holocaust Photo?
UKRAINE | DOUBLE GENOCIDE | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED
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Ukraine’s “pro-Western” president Petro Poroshenko, who in 2014 proclaimed the founding of a Hitlerist fascist group as a national holiday, and in 2015 tweeted photos of himself in a uniform making a joke of fascist leader Stepan Bandera, whose hordes were responsible for the murders of (at least) tens of thousands of Jewish and Polish civilians on the basis of ethnicity, has just “done it again.”
“To be ‘pro-Western’ one must share Western values, not just geopolitical foes.”
—DefendingHistory.com
On Friday, Poroshenko tweeted a photograph which he claimed represented citizens of Western Ukraine being deported to Siberia in 1947. His tweet translates: “Today is the 70th anniversary of mass deportations of populations of western Ukraine to Siberia and northern regions of the former USSR. We remember.”
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine + antisemitism, Ukraine + Holocaust Obfuscatin
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Ukraine’s Minister for Infrastructure Announces He’ll Actually Build — “The Road to Bandera”
OPINION | GLORIFICATION OF PERPETRATORS | UKRAINE | STEPAN BANDERA
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As Ukraine’s Orwellian-sounding Ukrainian Institute of National Memory continues building a cult around such antisemitic World War II era nationalists as Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych — their forces were responsible for the murder of (at least) tens of thousands of Jews and Poles — some frankly surreal aspects come sharply into view. The latest though really takes the cake.
Posted in Bandera, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, News & Views, Ukraine
Tagged antisemitism in Ukraine, Holocaust Denial in Ukraine, Stepan Bandera, The Road to Bandera, Vladimir Omelyan
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Defending History Calls on Ukraine’s President to Publicly Rebuke Senior Official for “Dog Whistle” Advocating Antisemitic Violence
OPINION | GLORIFICATION OF PERPETRATORS | UKRAINE
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In response to a protest from the World Jewish Congress, after the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa unveiled a statue celebrating nationalist leader Symon Petliura — whose troops killed tens of thousands of Jews in pogroms between 1918 and 1921 — a regional official from the extremist Svoboda party threatened Jewish citizens. In a Facebook rant, the Svoboda official warned Jews opposed to the Petliura statue to fall in line or face the consequences. The Svoboda official stated that “the only time we comfortably coexisted with kikes is Koliyvishchyna,” a reference to an 18th century pogrom against Jews in Ukraine.
Related: Ukraine’s Minister for Infrastructure Plans to Build Actual “Road to Bandera”
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, History, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
Tagged antisemitism in Ukraine, Boghdan Chervak, Maxim Zalizniaks, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, OUN, Petliura, Petro Poroshenko, Roman Shukhevych, Stepan Bandera, Ukraine, Vinnitsa
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More Fake News, Again from Ukraine and Once More — About the Holocaust
UKRAINE | US | MEDIA WATCH
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While much is said in some American media outlets about “fake news” in the US, the smallness of the matters being discussed might come into focus when compared with Ukraine, which is of late producing rather much fake news about the Holocaust and elementary points in World War II history.
As we reported back in October, Ukrainian media outlet Radio Svoboda — the Ukrainian arm of the US Government-funded arm of RFERL — posted a picture from the US Holocaust Museum. It is an image of Polish Jews being deported to a death camp. There was just one problem. Radio Svoboda claimed the picture was from 1949 of Ukrainians being deported to Siberia. In fact, so effective was Radio Svoboda’s forgery that President Poroshenko himself tweeted it claiming it showed Ukrainians being deported. To Poroshenko’s credit, his office took it down almost immediately after we pointed this out.
Posted in Double Genocide, History, Media Watch, Museums, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
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Arkady Vaispapir, Hero of Sobibor Revolt, Dies in Kiev at 96
OBITUARIES | UKRAINE
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KIEV—The last surviving organizer of the revolt at Sobibor death camp Arkady Vaispapir, has died at th age of 96.
Vaispapir belied the unfortunate stereotype of Jews going quietly to their deaths. during the Holocaust. He was a Red Army soldier who was wounded in battle, captured by the Nazis and sent to Sobibor. Realizing they were doomed and with nothing to lose, Vaispapir and other Jewish inmates, led by a Jewish Red Army lieutenant named Alexander Pechersky staged an effective and full-scale revolt against their SS guards.
Posted in News & Views, Obituaries, Ukraine
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Ukraine Report Claims America’s USAID Program is Financing Glorification of Fascist Groups that Took Part in the Holocaust
It sounds like something straight out of the wackiest conspiracy sites on the internet — but it may be true. The US Government — through its main foreign aid agency the US Agency for International Development (USAID) — may indeed be inadvertently funding the Ukrainian Government’s far-reaching project to whitewash and glorify the Hitlerist World War II era nationalist OUN and UPA organizations, whose hordes were responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jewish and Polish civilians.
Updates on Twitter: @DefendingHistor
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine, United States
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Ukraine’s “Institute of National Memory” Publishes a Holocaust Whitewash Book for Nation’s Educational Program
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KIEV—As the Ukrainian Government continues its increasingly unrestrained state-sponsored Holocaust revisionism campaign led by Volodymyr Viatrovych’s Institute of National Memory (UINP), questions surrounding the Holocaust in Ukrainian education in post-Maidan Ukraine are increasingly coming up. Thanks to new research by the head of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, Eduard Dolinsky, some clear answers are taking shape. And the signs are, in some critics’ views, a cause for concern.
According to a new book released by Viatrovych’s institute, it appears that the government is determined to present what can only charitably called an alternative view of “history”. Entitled A Compilation of Methodological Recommendations for Commemorative Observances in General Educational Etablishments, UINP’s 220 page book reduces the history of the Holocaust to a mere footnote.
Dolinsky has revealed to the West the contours of the “history” to be provided to millions of Ukraine’s young people in the coming years. Its salient points become evident from a number of sample features:
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Ukraine
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Example from Ukraine: East European Holocaust Revisionism Feeds Directly Into Blatant Antisemitism
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KIEV—Evidence continues to mount that the noxious far-right, state-supported memory politics of Volodymyr Viatrovych’s “Ukrainian Institute of National Memory” are directly leading to growing antisemitism in Ukraine.
The mayor of a town in Western Ukraine says the current government is a “Muscovite-Yid.” What’s striking is how he cites how Vyatrovych’s Institute to embolden and legitimize his views:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, History, Human Rights, News & Views, Ukraine
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41 Ukrainian Jewish Leaders Issue Major Statement Countering PR Coverups for Glorification of Holocaust Collaborators & Rising Antisemitism
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.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, News & Views, Ukraine
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The Midnight Plane to Czernowitz: The 2018 International Yiddish Conference
OPINION | YIDDISH AFFAIRS | UKRAINE
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by Saul Chapnick
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from today’s TIMES OF ISRAEL
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Have you ever missed an anniversary, a birthday, or event and regretted it for years, or even a lifetime? I have. It was missing out in attending the 1908 International Conference on Yiddish Language that took place exactly 110 years ago this year at Czernowitz, a city that served as the regional capital of the Hapsburgs (modern day Chernivtsi, Ukraine).
You may ask even how was it distinctly possible that a man my age could have been around 110 years ago. For the past nearly thirty years, I have immersed myself in learning about Jewish life and infrastructure in prewar Europe, plus seeing what the role of Yiddish was, if at all, in that culture. For most Jews of this age, modern history began with the Holocaust and the creation of the third commonwealth, the modern-day State of Israel. Events like the Czernowitz Conference, or the Kishinev Pogroms, World War I or the Leo Frank affair are just not in our lexicon, even though they all occurred in the twentieth century, thus making them modern, not ancient, history.
As Jews, it is incumbent upon us to fulfill the obligation of “Zakhor,” “To Remember.” We are to look back at our history and internalize it in such a way to feel just like we were there, and feel what our brethren felt. This is just not reflected in our reading of the Passover Haggadah, but everything we do and say in life. To do “Zakhor” means we have a fuller understanding of ourselves in order to be able to navigate the future. Zakhor enables us to be more comfortable with self. That is why I went on a personal quest over the last 25 plus years to visit libraries, read books, make visits to Poland and Ukraine to meet with political leaders, rabbis, community leaders, and lay people so that I can learn and experience.
Czernowitz 1908 symbolized to me that turning point in Jewish history. A part of me felt that I did spiritually attend that conference, but realistically, I knew that it was a physical impossibility. Then, in July, Dovid Katz, a leading Yiddish scholar, posted in Facebook that he was invited to be the keynote speaker at the 2018 International Commemorative Conference of Yiddish Culture and Language at Czernowitz to mark the 110th anniversary of the very first conference.
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Posted in News & Views, Saul Chapnick, Ukraine, Yiddish Affairs
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The Question Fareed Zakaria Left Out of Interview with Ukraine’s President
OPINION | UKRAINE | MEDIA WATCH | COLLABORATORS GLORIFIED
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by Dovid Katz
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In this week’s (30 Sept.) edition of Fareed Zakaria GPS, the CNN host interviewed Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko. The conversation stressed Ukraine’s appreciable progress in spite of (in some sense — because of) Vladimir Putin’s aggression, revanchism and incessant mischief-making.
In a website supplement, the CNN host recently posted some tough questions on state corruption that he did indeed put to Ukraine’s leader. But did Fareed miss an opportunity to bring up something else, something that so much of the Western media is keeping under wraps to the point of rendering it strangely unmentionable?
Will a major Western journalist follow up with the Ukrainian president along the lines of:
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Media Watch, News & Views, Ukraine
Tagged Fareed Zakaria + Jewish issues, Fareed Zakaria Ukraine, Holocaust Obfuscation in Ukraine, Holocaust Revisionism, Petro Poroshenko + Holocaust, Poroshenko + anti-semitism
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