TARAS HUNCZAK Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during the Soviet and Nazi Occupationsby Taras Hunczak
"The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones ... "
--William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
In their attempts to understand Ukrainian-Jewish relations, scholars face several obstacles, the most troubling of which is the reliability and paucity of historical evidence. Because the available sources dealing with the subject are incomplete and often contradictory, it is impossible to reconstruct an objective record of the past. Furthermore, one frequently finds unconfirmed reports and stereotypical judgments which suggest that the matter of Jewish-Ukrainian relations is as much psychological as it is historical. As a result, various writers, using fragmentary and frequently questionable evidence, have created negative stereotypes whose emotional overtones have kept the Jewish .md Ukrainian communities in a state of permanent confrontation.
One should also bear in mind that relations between Jews and Ukrainians were almost never free of outside interference - there was .,Iways a third factor, a dominant power which often exercised a decisive influence. In previous centuries it was Poland and tsarist Russia, while in the twentieth century, particularly in the 1930s and during World War II, Ukrainian-Jewish relations stood in the shadow of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. These states exacerbated local social and economic tensions by fostering ideological intolerance and political confrontation.
Apart from these easily definable problems, an invisible wall separating the two communities, based on mutual suspicion, religious prejudice, ethnocentric beliefs and values, and popular myths, prevented Ukrainians and Jews from reaching a genuine understanding. The result has been virtually no communication, with neither group able to rise to a higher moral level so as to understand and empathize with the other's problems and aspirations. Seemingly victims of their own history, both groups are unable - or perhaps unwilling - to free themselves from the past.
This Ukrainian-Jewish dilemma was characterized very perceptively by Howard Aster and Peter Potichnyi, as "two solitudes" in close proximity, yet never neighbours in the real sense of the word. 1
Milena Rudnytska, political activist and member of the Polish parliament, commented on the estranged relations between Jews and Ukrainians:
[In Galicia] during the interwar Polish period, both the Ukrainian and Jewish communities lived their secluded lives separated by a wall of mutual resentments. It is strange that even political leaders who co-operated with each other in Warsaw maintained neither political nor personal contacts in Lviv. They did not even sit behind a common table in order to explain and decide upon mutual grievances and mutual claims. 2
World War II brought not only an unprecedented tragedy for the Jewish people but also severe trials for the Ukrainian people. From the moment the war began, Ukrainians in the western regions found themselves without political leadership, as the political parties, which had enjoyed considerable support in the 1930s, dissolved themselves. The resulting power vacuum was gradually filled by anew, dynamic, and rapidly growing force - the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), whose central objective was to create an independent and sovereign Ukrainian state. It was this organization which eventually championed Ukrainian political aspirations during and after the war. 3
In April 1941 the OUN held its second congress in Cracow. One of the congress resolutions concerned Jews:
17. In the USSR the Jews are the most faithful supporters of the ruling Bolshevik regime and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in Ukraine. The Muscovite-Bolshevik government exploits the anti-Jewish sentiments of the Ukrainian masses in order to divert their attention from the real perpetrator of their misfortune in order to incite them, in time of upheaval, to carry out pogroms against the Jews. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists combats the Jews as the prop of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime and simultaneously educates the masses to the fact that the principal enemy is Moscow. 4
The late Philip Friedman, a respected scholar, concluded that this passage reflected "the classical Nazi anti-Jewish equation of 'Jews- Bolsheviks'."5 Friedman, however, oversimplified the problem when he reduced the popular perception of "Jews-Bolsheviks" to a facile Nazi anti-Jewish equation.6 It is possible that the OUN's resolution could have reflected the views of some Ukrainians, irrespective of Nazi ideology. But what counts most is whether the popular perception (which is deeply buried in many other peoples, particularly in Eastern Europe) was founded in fact.
The popular perception of Jews as agents of Bolshevism resulted in violent mass outbursts against the Jewish people during the initial stages of the German war against the Soviet Union. The violence was more likely a response to a situation - the aftermath of Soviet rule - than to the OUN's political resolution. As Philip Friedman pointed out, the OUN resolution warned "against pogroms on Jews, since such actions only played into the hands of Moscow." 7
In the course of its two-year struggle against the Nazis, the OUN modified its ideology in several important respects. The changes were formally accepted at the Third Congress of the OUN, held in August 1943, which not only adopted the principle of democracy as the basic tenet of the future Ukrainian state but also modified its stand on the national minorities in Ukraine. The anti-Jewish resolution of the earlier congress was annulled and replaced by a provision calling for equal rights for all national minorities in Ukraine. 8
The ideas of democracy and equality for all national minorities were restated with even greater clarity in the constitution of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council, established in July 1944. 9 The new organization was to be the revolutionary government directing both the OUN and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UP A) in their struggle for Ukrainian independence. The OUN's position vis-a-vis the Jews was disseminated through such official underground party organs as the journal Ideia i Chyn (Thought and Action), which published an article instructing OUN members "to liquidate the manifestations of harmful foreign influence, particularly the German racist concepts and practices" against Jews. 10
This shift in orientation seems to have had practical consequences for Ukrainian-Jewish relations. According to a German report of March 1942:
In Zhytomyr, Kremenchug and Stalino several followers of Bandera were arrested for trying to win over the population to the idea of political independence of Ukraine. At the same time it was established that the Bandera group supplied its members and the Jews working for its movement with false passports. 11
There is also information suggesting that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Jews entered the ranks of the UPA as physicians, dentists, hospital attendants, pharmacists, and craftsmen. Unfortunately, this evidence is not reliable, and one must rely on testimonies that cannot be verified. 12 What is certain is that some Jews served the UPA in various technical capacities, particularly as physicians. 13
It seems that the number of Jews in the UPA was large enough to establish special camps where they could work at their trades. According to Friedman, one such camp, near Poryts, Volhynia, contained 100 Jews. A larger camp with some 400 Jews was located in Kudrynky, some twenty miles from Tuchyn, also in Volhynia. At the end of the war seventeen Jews from the Kudrynky camp survived; the rest apparently perished. 14
Neither the Ukrainian underground movement nor any other organizations thus cultivated anti-Semitic programs or policies. They readily accepted Jews into their ranks and sheltered them from Nazi persecution, despite the popular perception of Jews as promoters of communism.
This perception naturally encouraged anti-Semitic attitudes and played into the hands of the Nazis, who hoped to enlist the various peoples of Eastern Europe - not just Ukrainians - in anti-Jewish campaigns. It was German policy to make violence against Jews appear to be initiated by the local population. An Einsatzgruppe A report described the policy:
... Native anti-Semitic forces were induced to start pogroms against Jews during the first hours after capture, though this inducement proved to be very difficult. Carrying out orders, the security police was determined to solve the Jewish question with all possible means and determination most decisively. But it was desirable that the German security police should not put in an immediate appearance, at least in the beginning, since the extraordinarily harsh measures were apt to stir even German circles. It had to be shown to the world that the native population itself took the first action, reacted naturally against the oppression by Jews during several decades and against the terror exercised by the Communists during the preceding period. 15
Thus, the people of Eastern Europe were to act as pawns in the hands of their German masters,16 and in some instances the people obliged. At the outset of the Soviet-German war this was relatively easy as the retreating NKVD, the Soviet secret police, left behind prisons full of mutilated corpses of Ukrainian youth. From reports of Sicherheitspolizei und SD, the German security police, a picture of horror emerges: in Stryi, 150 dead; Lviv, 5,000; Dobromyl, 82; Sambir, 520; Lutske, 2,800; Zolochiv, 700; Lublin, 100; Kremianets, 100-150; Dubno, a "severe blood bath" (ein schweres Blutbad); Ternopil, 600; Vinnytsia, 9,432. 17 It is obvious even from this incomplete list that the Soviet authorities perpetrated on Ukrainian soil a crime against humanity deserving of a Nuremberg trial. 18
The Germans, for their part, were quick to accuse Jews of acting as co-conspirators and perpetrators, while some Ukrainians accused Jews of participating actively. In some cities where the Soviet NKVD had committed mass murders, acts of violence occurred against Jews.
The perception of some Ukrainians was not without substance, since the rather significant level of Jewish participation in the Communist movement and in the subsequent Soviet government is a matter of record. Leonard Schapiro, a distinguished British specialist on Soviet affairs, wrote:
By the time the Bolsheviks seized power, Jewish participation at the highest level of the Party was far from insignificant. Five of the twenty-one full members of the Central Committee were Jews - among them Trotsky and Sverdlov, the real master of the small, but vital secretarial apparatus of the Party .... But Jews abounded at the lower levels of the Party machinery - especially in the Cheka and its successors, the GPU, the OGPU and the NKVD. . . . It is difficult to suggest a satisfactory reason for the prevalence of Jews in the Cheka. It may be that having suffered at the hands of the former Russian authorities they wanted to seize the reins of real power in the new state for themselves. 19
The perceptions of Jews by Ukrainians and other non-Jews of Eastern Europe were not new, and the events immediately preceding World War II only exacerbated them. To date, however, there is no thorough study of this important and highly complex question, and it is therefore impossible to render a final judgment about the nature of Jewish and Ukrainian behaviour during World War II. It would be just as outrageous to suggest that the Jewish people as a whole are responsible for the criminal acts perpetrated against Ukrainians by Jews who actively supported the Soviets, as it would be to maintain that Ukrainians as a whole are accountable for the anti-Semitic actions of a few.
Related to this problem is the oft-repeated charge of Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. The issue of ethical behaviour under the domination of foreign power is an old problem. 20 For the majority of people subjected to such occupation, collaboration has always been a question of survival.
During World War II collaboration acquired a pejorative connotation reflected even in its lexical meaning - "co-operation with the enemy." For the definition to apply, however, the enemy must be clear. Western states such as France, Holland, and Belgium lost their national sovereignty as a result of German conquest and occupation; in their case the enemy was readily identifiable. In Eastern Europe and in the territories under Soviet control (apart from the Russian Republic), large segments of the population viewed Soviet authority as an extension of the Russian imperial state and the Soviet Union was therefore a supranational union that masked an occupying power.
Given the high level of national consciousness reinforced by Stalin's tyrannical rule, the population of the non-Russian republics viewed the Soviet government as the enemy and looked to foreign powers, including Germany, for national deliverance. 21 Within this context, a collaborator would be anyone who co-operated with the Soviet authorities. To be sure, the Soviet Union was on the side of the victors, who defined collaborators as those who co-operated with the other side - with either Germany or Japan. These being enemy states, the very concept of collaboration acquired a pejorative connotation. In such circumstances, power becomes the ultimate source of justification.
As a result, collaboration or co-operation with the occupying power became a worldwide phenomenon during World War II. Most leaders in the Philippines, for example, collaborated with the Japanese in establishing the Republic of the Philippines on 14 October 1943. 22
Collaboration, however, was much more complex in Europe than in Asia. Apart from those who collaborated with the Germans in order to gain power, financial advantage, special privileges, or to lighten the burden of occupation, some in Western Europe found the Nazi ideology attractive. Western European fascist movements had wide support and affected Western societies profoundly, particularly during the German occupation. France, for instance, not only espoused collaboration as its national policy under the Vichy government but also produced several political parties whose goal was co-operation with Germany, and made German victory a cornerstone of their political programs. 23
In differentiating between ideological and non-ideological collaborators, Bertram Gordon used the terms collaborator and collaborationist. In France collaborationists were committed to the victory of the Third Reich and actively worked toward that end. 24 In Ukraine there were no collaborationists seduced by Nazi ideology or by the seemingly irresistible Griff nach der Weltmacht (grasp for world power). Unlike the French, Belgians, Dutch, and Russians, Ukrainians did not establish fascist organizations and youth movements that promoted collaboration with Germany.
Although Ukrainians were not collaborationists, there were certainly many collaborators among them who volens-nolens co-operated with the Germans. They paid taxes, delivered grain quotas, went to Germany as labourers, and filled administrative posts. Even more significantly, Ukrainians joined various indigenous auxiliary police formations, 25 and the Galician Division was formed with the intention of being the nucleus of a Ukrainian national army.
What is important, however, is that Ukrainian co-operation was not intended to serve German interests. Documents of the period leave no doubt that the objective of all Ukrainian political groups was to promote Ukrainian national self-interest. 26 Moreover, it was precisely for that reason that the OUN challenged the right of the German occupation authorities to make political decisions on Ukrainian territory. 27 John Armstrong has argued that Ukrainian "collaboration" was pragmatic: the Germans were against the status quo, while the OUN was determined to establish an independent Ukrainian state, regardless of German political plans for Ukraine. 28
Thus, while the OUN was a factor in promoting collaboration among Ukrainians before the war and during the first phase of the Soviet-German war, it was also the first to oppose German policy actively,29 thereby negating the very idea of collaboration. The high point of the Ukrainian resistance to German domination was the organization of the UPA, which took up arms against the Nazi occupiers. 30
Non-political collaboration, whether voluntary or involuntary, active or passive, was, of course, an entirely different matter. Stanley Hoffmann suggests that there were almost as many forms of collaboration as there were practitioners. 31 Moreover, in any occupied country, collaboration was an inescapable fact of life. Although Jews were condemned to extermination, they, too, were forced to collaborate by forming Judenrats (councils responsible for helping enforce Nazi orders affecting Jews) and the ghetto police. 32 The ghetto police in particular were forced to perform functions which must have posed some serious dilemmas. Isaiah Trunk described their activities:
... They were burdened with the most inhuman tasks ... to help the German enemy tighten the noose around the necks of Jewish victims .... The police collected cash contributions and taxes; they assisted in raiding, guarding and escorting hungry, mentally exhausted people on their way to places of forced labor .... The ghetto police sentries formed the inside guard at the ghetto fences .... The Jewish police carried out raids against and arrests of inmates destined for shipment to labor camps .... In the final stages of the ghettos the Jewish police were called upon to assist in the "resettlement actions". In short, the ghetto police came to be identified with the inhuman cruelty of the Nazi ghetto regime. 33
The so-called Ukrainian police were also an arm of the German government, since they functioned on the orders of the German authorities and in the interests of the German state. Unlike the Jewish ghetto police, however, whose authority was restricted to Jews, the Ukrainian auxiliary police, at the behest of the Germans, could participate in the persecution of Jews; some even participated in their execution. Like other nations, Ukrainians had their share of scoundrels whose behaviour besmirched the good name of the Ukrainian people, although they in no way represented Ukrainians as a whole. The government merely availed itself of the services of criminal elements, which can be found in every society.
Nonetheless, in both the civil administration and in the indigenous Ukrainian auxiliary police there were decent, and even heroic, people who risked their lives to help Jews. One such individual was Senytsia, mayor of Kremenchuk. With the help of Romansky, a Ukrainian Orthodox priest, Senytsia was able to save Jews by having them baptized and providing them with false documents. 34 An equally interesting case is that of Mr. Wawryniuk who, as a Ukrainian police officer in Lviv, hid a Jewish woman, Clara Zimmels-Troper, in his house. His courageous and selfless act saved her life. 35 These are but two examples for which this author has documentary evidence of Ukrainians in official positions helping Jews survive the Holocaust.
While the Germans pursued their policy of extermination of Jews and Gypsies, the Ukrainian nation was also locked in a struggle against the further depletion of her economic and human resources. According to Soviet data, the Germans destroyed and burned 714 towns and 28,000 villages, leaving some ten million inhabitants of Ukraine without any shelter. Five to seven million civilians and prisoners of war also lost their lives at the hands of the German authorities.36 Other Ukrainians lost their lives fighting in the German Army, the Red Army, in Soviet partisan groups, and in the UP A. Ukrainians were obviously not disinterested bystanders; whether they wanted to or not, they participated in the tragic drama of World War 11. 37
Many Ukrainians, particularly members of the OUN, perished in concentration camps. 8 In addition, an estimated 2.3 million Ukrainians were taken to Germany, where they worked as forced labourers under the most adverse conditions on the farms and in the factories, which were frequently bombed by the Allies.39 Among the workers were children, whom the Germans exploited as much as adults. In fact, the plight of children was one of the most tragic chapters of the war. The object of the German policy of Heu-Aktion in the territories of Eastern Ukraine was to apprehend 40-50,000 youths between the ages of ten to fourteen, who were earmarked for lithe German trades as apprentices to be used as skilled workers after two years' training." Similar action was taken in Galicia, where the objective of the German authorities was to obtain 135,000 labourers. Youths under seventeen were to serve as SS auxiliaries while those over seventeen were to be detailed to the Galician Waffen-SS Division. 41 Ukrainians therefore experienced a full measure of tragedy at the hands of the Nazis. 42
Yet in the midst of this inferno there were men and women who risked their lives and the lives of their families to save Jews. The precise number shall probably never be known because most records note those who were discovered and executed by the Germans. Of those not discovered by the Germans very little is known, because many Jews did not consider it proper to come forth to identify their saviours. This author knows of at least two survivors who did not make depositions or public statements, despite repeated urgings to do so.
Philip Friedman suggests that some idea of the Ukrainians who risked their lives to save Jews may be gained from the official German posters which named those executed and gave reasons. The posters show that from October 1943 to June 1944, at least 1,541 Ukrainians were sentenced to death. Many of them were executed for belonging to the OUN and UPA, but approximately 100 had concealed or helped Jews. According to Friedman, the number was substantial, for it reflected a much greater participation. 43
After the war some efforts were made to gather testimonies about those who saved Jews. Eleven Ukrainians were listed by Joseph Schwarz, who gathered testimonies from Jewish survivors. Among the more spectacular stories was that of Oleksander Kryvoiaza of Sambir, Western Ukraine, who helped save fifty-eight Jews. 44 Roman Biletsky and his father Levko rescued and hid twenty-three Jews in Zavaliv. 45 A Ukrainian forester tells how a group of twenty-five Ukrainians and five Poles helped 1,700 Jews who hid in the forests. Some others hid in the monastery of the Ukrainian Studite order. 46 There were many individual Ukrainians who, on penalty of death, tried to help Jews. Relying on memoirs, Philip Friedman enumerates several such cases. 47
The following letter illustrates individual heroism in defense of Jews:
With regard to the question of attitudes of the Ukrainian population toward the Jews during World War II, I would like to put on record the following facts concerning our family:
1. A Ukrainian priest Kouch ... in Przemyslany (Peremyshliany), near Lviv, baptized in 1942 my brother and myself in order to provide us with Christian (aryan) papers. He did such things so en masse that he himself was arrested by the Germans, deported to Auschwitz, where he was killed.
2. A Ukrainian family Sokoluk (from the village Borshchiv, near Przemyslany) was hiding us (my mother, my brother and myself) for about three monthsfrom June to September 1943 - after the liquidation of the ghetto in Przemyslany and thus saved our lives. They did this completely gratuitously. 48
In the archives of Israel's Yad Vashem this author was able to identify several other Ukrainians who helped Jews by concealing them or providing them with food. Jona Oliver from Mizeche told of several Ukrainians who were helpful. In addition to Danylo Rybak, Oliver mentioned M. Pachybula, who hid J. Bronsztejn, and another Ukrainian (unfortunately no name is given) who concealed Izie Bronsztejn and five other Jews. 49
Hermann Zenner, in a lengthy memoir, told of what he observed in Kolomyia, Rohatyn, Horodenka, and Tluste (Tovste). He also recounted his experiences with Franko Solovy, a Ukrainian farmer from Dobki who not onll hid Zenner but also helped him to maintain contact with his family. 5 Such self-sacrificing individuals reaffirm one's faith in humanity. What impelled a Ukrainian brother and sister, Orest Zahajkiewicz and Helena Melnyczuk, to hide Egek and Eda Schafler? Wherein lies the "soul of goodness?" 51
The role of the Ukrainian Church and Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky constitutes a special chapter in the history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations. Sheptytsky's courageous stand against the persecution of Jews was probably unequalled in Europe. When the Nazis began to implement their policy of genocide against the Jews, Sheptytsky sent a letter to Heinrich Himmler in February 1942, protesting vigorously against it and the use of Ukrainian auxiliary police. 52 Himmler disliked Sheptytsky's letter and his office returned it to Lviv for appropriate action. The Germans were in a quandary, for Sheptytsky's arrest would have created an explosive situation in Galicia. To retaliate they terminated the activities of the Ukrainian National Council in Lviv, of which Sheptytsky was honorary chairman. 53
The problem did not rest with the Germans alone. Some Ukrainians, particularly members of the indigenous police, also participated in the persecution and murder of Jewish people. It was basically to them that Sheptytsky addressed his November 1942 pastoral letter, entitled "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (Ne ubyi). Read in all churches instead of the Sunday sermon, the epistle threatened with divine punishment all individuals who "shed innocent blood and make of themselves outcasts of human society by disregarding the sanctity of man." 54
In his efforts to help Jews, Sheptytsky became directly involved in rescue operations. Using his high office and church organization, he enlisted some 550 monks and nuns in saving the lives of 150-200 Jewish children. 55 The metropolitan's immediate partners in this undertaking were his brother Klymentii, who was the archimandrite of the Studite monasteries, and his sister Josepha, who was mother superior of the nunneries.
One of the boys saved by Sheptytsky, Kurt I. Lewin, son of the Rabbi of Lviv, described the rescue operation:
This labor of saving Jews was possible only because of the cooperation of a small army of monks and nuns together with some lay priests. They gathered the Jews into their monasteries and convents, orphanages and hospitals, shared their bread with the fugitives, and acted as escorts with total disregard of the danger of Jewish company .... Some of them, taught and guided by the Metropolitan Andreas, reached a new height in spiritual life, spread the teachings of their great Prince of the Church among the people, and followed his path in all things. They were the ones most active in giving aid and comfort to the hunted fugitives. Others, never completely free of their anti-Jewish prejudice, nevertheless helped Jews because of their abhorrence of German cruelty. There were those who were indifferent, but being summoned to help, obeyed that summons with eagerness and selflessness. All of them, regardless of motive or attitude, equally shared the grave peril, and helped to provide Jews with shelter and food. But most important of all, they gave moral support to those whom they hid, and hunted Jews deprived of every human right and stripped of any sort of protection, were made to feel wanted and thus allowed to regain their faith in humanity. And those monks, nuns and priests kept their faith by their silence. For two long years no outsider knew about the Jews who were hidden in each and every cloister, and even in the Metropolitan's private residence. 56
Among the fifteen Jews hiding in Sheptytsky's residence were Kurt Lewin's brother, Isaac Lewin, and David Kahane, who spent three years teaching the monks Hebrew and working in the metropolitan's library. 57 Isaac Lewin, whose memoirs recount his meetings with Sheptytsky, recalled a conversation in which the metropolitan told him:
I want you to be a good Jew, and I am not saving you for your own sake. I am saving you for your people. I do not expect any reward, nor do I expect you to accept my faith. 58
The respect Sheptytsky earned for his work is indicated by Rabbi David Kahane:
[Sheptytsky] was one of the greatest humanitarians in the history of mankind [and] certainly the best friend the Jews ever had .... If the Metropolitan was willing to risk his priests, nuns and churches, he was moved by true undiluted Christianity, by love of our Jewish people, and by a sense of national responsibility. He realized that the enemies of the Ukrainian people would lose no time in blaming the actions of pogrom mobs and militia scum on the entire Ukrainian nation. It was therefore the holy and sacred duty of every nationally-conscious Ukrainian intellectual and priest to save as many Jews as possible. 59[/quote]
Kurt Lewin admired Sheptytsky's moral fiber, leadership, and commitment to Christian principles: "World War II was an opening to the madness of the world which you see today and it's a privilege for me and for you to be able to see a man [like Sheptytsky]; it's like touching the stars and being inspired by it .... It's a ray of humanity at its best, a ray of religion and faith at its strongest."60
Besides Sheptytsky's efforts to help Jews, there were many initiatives by individual Ukrainian priests. Father Marko personally saved forty Jewish children. 61 Philip Friedman lists several others who helped Jews in a variety of ways. Indeed, even in the far-off city of Marseilles, a Ukrainian priest, Valentyn Bakst, hid Jews in his church and provided them with forged "Aryan papers," while serving the spiritual needs of Ukrainian dock workers. 62
The story of Jewish-Ukrainian relations during World War II is therefore a multi-faceted one. Problems between the two groups have their roots in past social, economic, and political relationships, which shaped the perceptions and attitudes of Ukrainians and Jews, placing them in adversarial positions.
Both groups developed collective stereotypes of each other, often of a semi-mythical nature, which not only influenced but perhaps even determined their attitudes and behaviour. It is unfortunate that such stereotypes have been reinforced by writers and scholars who lend them authority and respectability. 63 What seems to be missing in most writings on the subject is restraint, attention to details, historical context, and an understanding of the political aspirations of the other side. Probably no one will ever write a complete history of the tumultuous events of World War II, but we can contribute to it by eliminating misconceptions and distortions which render impossible a balanced view of the past.
Notes:1 Howard Aster and Peter J. Potichnyj, Jewish-Ukrainian Relations: Two Solitudes (Oakville, Ont., 1983).
2 Milena Rudnytska, "Pomer dr. Emil Zomershtein, kolyshnii lider halytskykh zhydiv," Svoboda Gersey City), 5 July 1957.
52 Part I: 1. Occupation
3 For a history of the OUN and its role during World War II, see John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 2d rev. ed. (Littleton, Colo., 1980).
4 OUN v svitli postanov Velykykh Zboriv, Konferentsii ta inshykh dokumentiv z borotby 1929-1954 r. (n.p., 1955),36.
5 Philip Friedman, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during the Nazi Occupation," YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 12 (1958-9): 265.
6 The identification of Jews with Communism stems originally from the period of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War (1917-21). Seethe study by Arthur E. Adams, Bolsheviks in the Ukraine: The Second Campaign, 1918-1919 (New Haven, 1963), 142.
7 Friedman, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," 265.
8 OUN v svitli postanov Velykykh Zboriv, 107-20. See part 3 of this volume, document 9, for a translation of the Third Congress resolutions. .
9 Ievhen Shtendera and Petro Potichny, eds., Ukrainska holovna vyzvolna rada: dokumenty, ofitsiini publikatsii, materiialy, vol. 8 of Litopys Ukrainskoi povstanskoi armii (Toronto, 1980), 36-7.
10 Friedman, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," 284.
11 Tatigkeits-und Lagebericht Nr. 11 der Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in der UdSSR (Berichtszeit vom 1.3. - 31.3.1942), 20, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, R70/31.
12 The problem of reliable evidence and testimonies is discussed in Friedman, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," 284-7.
13 Mykola Lebed, head of the OUN-B in 1941-3, stated: "The majority of doctors in the UP A were Jews whom the UPA rescued from the destructive Hitlerite actions. The Jewish doctors were treated as equal citizens of Ukraine and as officers of the Ukrainian Army." See Mykola Lebed, UPA: Ukrainska povstanska armia (n.p., 1946), 35-6.
14 According to Friedman, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," 286, B. Eisenstein-Keshev claimed that the OUN-B liquidated the Jews in the camps at the approach of the Soviet army. Freidman expressed some reservations about Eisenstein-Keshev's account: "The report of B. Eisenstein-Keshev is not sufficiently documented and both its figures and events are subject to question. In the middle of June 1943, the UPA was compelled to disband this camp not because of the advance of the Soviet Army, as Eisenstein-Keshev erroneously states, but because of an attack by a German motorized batallion under the command of General Huentzler. Conceivably, the Jewish inmates left behind fell into the hands of the Germans and were exterminated."
15 Einsatzgruppe A, "Comprehensive Report up to October 15, 1941," in Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10 (Washington, D.C., 1949-54),4: 155-6, 159.
16 Referring to the policy of setting neighbour against neighbour, the Nuremberg military tribunal declared: "Certain Einsatzkommandos committed a crime which, from a moral point of view, was perhaps even worse than their own directly committed murders, that is, their initiating the population to abuse, maltreat, and slay their fellow citizens. To invade a foreign country, seize innocent inhabitants, and shoot them is a crime the mere statement of which is its own condemnation. But to stir up passion, hate, violence and destruction among the people themselves aims at breaking the moral backbone even of those the invader chooses to spare. It sows seeds of crime which the invader intends to bear continuous fruit even after he is driven out." See ibid., 435.
HUNCZAK: Ukrainian-Jewish Relations 53
17 Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD Berlin, der 12Juli 1941. Ereignismeldung UdSSR, No. 20, Bundesarchiv, R58/214, 4, for the situation in Stryi. SS Brigadier General Erwin Schul, commander of Einsatzkommando 5 (of Einsatzgruppe C), testified at Nuremberg that 5,000 inhabitants were murdered in Lviv. For his testimony, see Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, 4:518-21. A report of 16 July 1941 states that about 20,000 Ukrainians disappeared from Lviv during Soviet rule. At least 80 per cent of them were members of the intelligentsia. The number of those murdered is estimated at between 3-4,000. See Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, Ereignismeldung UdSSR, Nr. 24, Bundesarchiv, R58/214, 10. For pictures of those murdered, see The National Archives, Washington, D.C., T3121 617/8308287-8308296. In Dobromyl among those murdered were four Jews. Also in the Dobromyl area several hundred people were murdered in the salt mines, which were filled with bodies. See Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, Ereignismeldung UdSSR. Nr. 24, Bundesarchiv R58/214, 10-11, 13, 15. The figures for Lublin, Kremianets, and Dubno can be found in Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD Berlin, den 20. Juli 1941, Ereignismeldung UdSSR Nr. 28, Bundesarchiv, R58/214, 7-9. The German report most likely referred not to Lublin, which was under the Nazis in 1939-41, but either to the villages of Liuby or Liublynets, both in Volhynia. The report also indicated that, following the Soviet occupation in September 1939, some 2,000 Ukrainians lost their lives, and about 10,000 Ukrainians disappeared from Ternopil. In Vinnytsia, an international team of physicians examined a mass grave unearthed in 1943 and confirmed that the victims had been murdered by the NKVD in 1937-8. Their findings are contained in Amtliches Material zum Massenmord von Winniza (Berlin, 1944).
18 For eyewitness accounts as well as reports from various parts of Western Ukraine, particularly from Sambir (Ivano-Frankivsk), where the NKVD tortured and murdered 1,200 Ukrainians, see Milena Rudnytska, ed., Zakhidnia Ukra ina pid bolshevyknmy, IX. 1939-VI. 1941 (New York, 1958),441-92.
19 Leonard Schapiro, "The Role of the Jews in the Russian Revolutionary Movement," Slavonic and East European Review 40 (December 1961): 164-5. A recent Soviet publication provides some information on Jewish participation in the Soviet government; its reliability is unknown. See Avtandil Rukhadze, Jews in the USSR: Figures, Facts, Comments (Moscow, 1984), 23.
20 For a very perceptive and concise treatment of this problem, see David Daube, Collaboration with Tyranny in Rabbinical Law (London, 1965).
21 This explains why, in 1941, the Ukrainian population welcomed the German army, particularly in the territories of Western Ukraine.
22 Jose Veloso, a former member of the Philippine Congress, wrote a first-rate analysis of the problem of collaboration, putting it within the context of an occupied country's political, social, and economic realities. See "Collaboration as a National Issue: A Grave Government Problem," Lawyer's Journal (November and December 1945). He concluded that (1) anyone who did not actively fight the Japanese collaborated with them of necessity, obeying the law of self-preservation; (2) collaboration helped the people survive oppressive foreign rule; and (3) collaboration was not treason because "service to country in any form and under any circumstances is patriotic, so long as it is for the good of the people. The final judge as to whether the service is loyal or treasonable is the people concerned and they alone, because to them it was rendered" (p. 177). Nevertheless, collaboration was a much more complex matter in Europe than in Asia.
54 Part I: 1. Occupation
23 For a thoughtful article on this subject, see Eberhard Straub, "Der verdrangte Sundenfall: Die franzosische Kollaboration und ihre historische Voraussetzungen," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 19 November 1983.
24 Bertram N. Gordon, Collaborationism in France during the Second World War (Ithaca, N.Y., 1980).
25 See Starkenachweisung der Schutzmannschaft, Stand vom 1. Juli 1942, Abschnitt C, Geschlossene Einheiten, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, R.19 vol. 266; also Hans-Joachim Neufeldt, Jurgen Huck, and Georg Tessin, Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei, 1936-1945 (Koblenz, 1957), 3:17, 51, 55, 64-5.
26 For thought-provoking arguments on this controversial issue, see John A. Armstrong, "Collaborationism in World War II: The Integral Nationalist Variant in Eastern Europe," Journal of Modern History 40, no. 3 (September 1968): 396-410. Armstrong provides a history and analysis of the OUN and its programs in Ukrainian Nationalism, 2d rev. ed. (Littleton, Colo., 1980). See also Taras Hunchak and Roman Solchanyk, eds., Ukrainska suspilno-politychna dumka v 20 stolitti: dokumenty i materiialy (New York, 1983), 3:23-43.
27 The most direct challenge to the Germans was the unilateral proclamation of an independent Ukrainian state by laroslav Stetsko on 30 June 1941. The Germans considered this act a Ukrainian attempt at a coup d'etat. Stepan Bandera, head of the ~UN, when pressed by a German representative on 3 July 1941 to withdraw the proclamation of a Ukrainian state because the right to do so belonged to the German Army and the Fuhrer, replied that this right belonged to the ~UN. Personal archive, NSDAP Nr. 51, "Niederschrift uber die Rucksprache mit Mitgliedern des ukrainischen Nationalkomitees und Stepan Bandera vom 3.7. 1941," 11.
28 Armstrong, "Collaborationism"; see also Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism.
29 The reference here is to the OUN under the leadership of Stepan Bandera.
30 For the most comprehensive source on the UP A, see Litopys Ukrainskoi povstanskoi arm ii, ed. levhen Shtendera and Petro Potichny, 10 vols. (Toronto, 1976-).
31 Stanley Hoffmann, "Collaborationism in France during World War II," Journal of Modern History 40, no. 3 (September 1968): 375.
32 To be sure, members of the Judenrats collaborated with the Nazis, convinced that they were serving the best interests of the majority of the Jewish population. In their desperate situation, they had to face some very difficult ethical questions. These questions were similar to some asked by David Daube, namely, whether a group of women should allow one of their number to be defiled by an oppressor in return for a promise to save the rest. See Daube, Collaboration with Tyranny, 2, 69.
33 Isaiah Trunk, Judenrat (New York, 1972),499; see also 500-33.
34 For his subversion of the German policy, Senytsia was executed. See Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SO, Berlin, den 6. Marz 1942, Ereignismeldung UdSSR Nr. 177, 3. Bundesarchiv, Koblenz R58/221.
35 Clara Zimmels-Troper lives in Paris. On 8 March 1984 she made a notarized deposition about her survival. A copy of her deposition is in my archives.
36 Akademiia nauk Ukrainskoi RSR, Instytut istorii, lstoriia Ukrainskoi RSR: Ukrainska RSR u Velykii Vitchyznianii viini Radianskoho Soiuzu, 1941-1945 (Kiev, 1977), 7:512. Bohdan Krawchenko gives a somewhat different figure. In the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Newsletter, February 1985,16, he states that Ukraine lost 6.8 million of its population. For a study of the Ukrainian losses, in both wars, see Stephan G. Prociuk, "Human Losses in the Ukraine in World War I and II," Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States 13, no. 35-6 (1973-7): 40. For a more recent study of Ukraine's losses, see Wolodymyr Kosyk, "Ukraine's Losses During the Second World War" in The Ukrainian Review 33, no. 2 (Summer 1985): 9-19.
37 Ukrainians also fought in the armed forces of Canada and the United States, as well as in units organized by the London-based Polish government-in-exile, particularly the Polish forces under the command of Gen. Wladyslaw Anders.
38 For personal accounts of life in the concentration camps, see Petro Mirchuk, U nimets1cykh mlynakh smerty: spomyny z pobutu v nimets1cykh tiurmakh i kontslaherakh, 1941-45 (New York-London, 1957). See also Mykhailo H. Marunchak, Systema nimets1cykh kontstaboriv i polityka vynyshchuvannia v Ukraini (Rotterdam, 1947).
39 Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 (London, 1957),428-53. For the treatment of Ukrainian labourers, see Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (henceforth TMWC) (Nuremberg 1947-9), 25: 101-10; TMWC, 3: 416-511; TMWC, 15: 3-310; TMWC, 16: 548.
40 United States, Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, D.C., 1946), 3: 71-2.
41 Ibid. For further reports on Ukrainian juveniles who were forced into German service, see TMWC, 27: 12-18; TMWC, 14: 501-04; TMWC, 15: 203-05; TMWC, 25: 89-92. See also Zenon Zeleny, Ukrainske iunatstvo v vyri Druhoi svitovoi viiny (Toronto, 1965).
42 It is unfortunate that Jewish authors writing about World War II portray the Holocaust only in terms of the Jewish experience. They rarely mention the human losses suffered by Ukrainians, Poles, or Gypsies, thus reducing the profound tragedy almost exclusively to one people. This kind of writing is not only insensitive, but it also makes for poor history. On 20 April 1985, for example, American Gypsy representative James Marks protested that Gypsies were "excluded from the Days of Remembrance observances, even though 500,000 Gypsies were killed by the Nazis." See "Gypsies Protest Exclusion From Holocaust Rites in U.S.," New York Times, 21 April 1985. One gets the impression that Jews were the only ones that suffered and that now one should remember only Jews.
43 Friedman, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," 288. The originals of the German posters, or official announcements, are in the archives of the Foreign Representation of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council in New York. See also the Harvard University Refugee Interview Project, no. 500, 56, 7 and Nasha Strana Oerusalem), 2 November 1983.
44 See Friedman, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," 289.
45 For the story of the reunion of Roman 5iletsky with the survivors in New York, see "Pidhaietski zhydy v Niu Yorku viddiachylys ukraintsevi za riatunok," Svoboda, 24 February 1978.
46 See Petro Pik-Piasetsky, "Iak ukrainski lisnyky riatuvaly zhydiv," Svoboda, 9 April 1955.
47 Friedman, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," 290.
48 Letter from Ida Pizem-Karezag to this author, 26 February 1982.
49 See "Uwagi do zeznania Jony Olivera z dn.8.3.1962," Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 03/2233, 9-10,12.
50 See "Erinnerungen des Herm Hermann Zenner (Steinkohl), Chicago," Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 03/3389, 20, 25, 71, 124. In fairness to the reports read by this author at Yad Vashem, it should be stated that they tell mainly the story of Ukrainian persecution of Jews. The reports about righteous Ukrainians are almost an exception to the rule. That, of course, does not mean that all the reports are true. When they deal with specific individuals, be they saviours or persecutors, they are probably true. The historical value of the reports' generalizations is suspect, however, for the writers discuss situations they did not witness or things that it would be almost impossible for them to know. On the whole, the depositions or reports of the survivors are tinted with anti-Ukrainian bias. A classic example is the testimony of Jan Artwinski Oakob Grinberg): "We travelled on the road to Brody .... Before Brody we saw in one forest forty-three Jews who were hanged by their feet. Among them were women, men and juveniles .... It was the work of the Ukrainians [emphasis added]. The same thing would have happened to us had we met up with them." See "Protokol zeznania swiadka," Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 03/1556, 3.
51 For some perceptive observations on the subject, see Daniel Goleman, "Great Altruists: Science Ponders Soul of Goodness," New York Times, 5 March 1985, CI-2.
52 See Stepan Baran, Mytropolyt Andrei Sheptytsley (Munich, 1947), 114-5.
53 Kost Pankivsky, Roley nimetskoi okupatsii (New York, 1965),29-30. Kurt Lewin, who worked in Sheptytsky's library and archives in 1943-4, confirms that he saw the metropolitan's letter and Himmler's rude rebuke telling the metropolitan "not to interfere in affairs which did not concern him." See Kurt I. Lewin, "Archbishop Andreas Sheptytsky and the Jewish Community in Galicia during the Second World War," Unitas (Summer 1960): 137-8.
54 Sheptytsky's pastoral letter was published in Lvivski arkhieparkhiialni vidomosti 55, no. 11 (November 1942): 177-83. An original translation of the letter into the German (probably by the German Security Service) is in this author's personal archives.
55 Philip Friedman says that some 150 children were saved ("Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," 293), while Rabbi Kahane's figure is 200 children. See Leo Heiman, "They Saved Jews," Ukrainian Quarterly 17, no. 4 (Winter 1961): 328.
56 Kurt I. Lewin, "Archbishop Andreas Sheptytsky," 139-40. For other testimonies, see "Mytropolyt Andrei," Ukrainsleyi samostiinyk Oune 1966): 24-36; also Osyp Kravcheniuk, Veleten zi sviatoiurskoi hory (Yorkton, Sask., 1963), 97-104.
57 After the war David Kahane went to Israel, where he became chief chaplain of the Israeli Air Force.
58 Philip Friedman, Their Brothers' Keepers (New York, 1978), 135-6.
59 Heiman, "They Saved Jews," 325. When David Kahane speaks about the humanitarianism of Metropolitan Sheptytsky and his friendship toward Jews, there certainly is sufficient evidence for such a judgment. When, however, he speaks about political motivations in helping Jews, one must wonder what his source is. It is doubtful whether the basis of Sheptytsky's altruism was political.
60 The interview with Kurt Lewin was conducted by David Mills on 31 May 1968. The original tapes of the interview are in this author's archives.
61 See Heiman, "They Saved Jews," 331.
62 See Friedman, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," 294.
63 In this connection, one can note two highly respected Jewish authors, Raul Hilberg and Lucy Dawidowicz. In The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago, 1961),585, Hilberg wrote: "Little is known about the guard forces of Belzec and Sobibor, except that they numbered in the hundreds and that, again, they were mostly Ukrainian." What is the evidence for such a statement? Lucy Dawidowicz presents an entirely different problem, because she distorts a document. In "Babi Yar's Legacy," an article that abounds with anti-Ukrainian bias, she states: "According to an official report, Sonderkommando 4A - assisted by the staff of Einzatzgruppe C, two units of Police Regiment South and the Ukrainian militia - 'executed' a total of 33,771 Jews in two days." What Dawidowicz does is add "and the Ukrainian militia" to the list of those who slaughtered Jews in Babi Yar. By doing this, she distorts the historical record of that tragic event. See Lucy S. Dawidowicz, "Babi Yar's Legacy," New York Times Magazine, 27 September 1981, 54. From a German report on the subject, one learns: "Consequently, the Jews of Kiev were requested ... to appear on Monday, 29 September by 8 0' clock at a designated place. These announcements were posted by members of the Ukrainian militia in the entire city .... In collaboration with the group [Gruppen] staff and 2 Kommandos of the police regiment South, the Sonderkommando 4A executed on 29 and 30 September 33,771 Jews." See Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (Washington, D.C.), 4: 148
