Dr. Vladimir Melamed 

JEWISH POGROM IN LVIV, NOVEMBER 22 – NOVEMBER 24, 1918

JEWISH PREDICAMENT VERSUS UKRAINIAN AND POLISH EXPECTATIONS   J

On November 22, 1918, upon the retreat of Ukrainian troops from Lviv, the Jewish Pogrom erupted in the city. It took place in the traditional Jewish quarters and lasted for three days. There were murders, arsons and looting in Old Jewish quarters situated in the City District III, Przedmieście Żółkiewskie. It was the area of compact Jewish dwelling from the medieval times. Mostly poor and religious Jews had been living there for ages. This district was a traditional home to the Jewish peddlers, craftsmen, small shopkeepers and petty merchants, all in all it was a typical Yiddish-speaking, apolitical, non-emancipated milieu. Many big and small synagogues, including the historic Temple of Progressive Jews, were also located there. 

The causes for the pogrom as for any pogrom were as always sparked by external instability. The Jews had been blamed for the siding and helping the Ukrainians in the battle for Lviv in the course of unfolding Polish – Ukrainian war for East Galician, 1918 -1919.  Following the proclamation of West Ukrainian National Republic on November 1, 1918, the Jewish Rescue Committee declared on behalf of the Jewish population its neutrality in the ensued Polish – Ukrainian confrontation. The Committee also established a unit of Jewish Militia about 200 men strong under the command of a Jewish-Austrian officer. 

In the course of warfare, Lviv became a warzone. The frontline divided the city on the Polish and Ukrainian-controlled districts. The Jews obviously resided on both sides of the frontline, but the old orthodox and densely populated Jewish quarters largely situated in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the town. The recently established Ukrainian National Council, as well as ordinary Ukrainians sought Jewish recognition and support to the Ukrainian cause.

 

The Ukrainians recognized to the Jews the right of Nation, provisioned guaranteed them the future parliamentary representation and offered to fill positions in civil service.  Though the direct military assistance had not been solicited by the Ukrainian authorities. The Jewish militia was recognized by both belligerent sides as a neutral force that was responsible to maintain order in the Jewish quarters and ensure safety of the Jewish population. The Polish military command and the fighting force largely had taken a hostile stand towards the Jewish militia, while the Ukrainian officers and soldiers saw it as a somewhat friendly force. 

Jewish neutrality was a protective public measure. But even if it not had been declared, the overall Jewish indifference to the Ukrainian strife for independence would still be dominating attitude.  

Among the Jewish political spectrum only the leadership of the East Galician Zionist Organization manifested sympathy and understanding to Ukrainian national cause, but the other Jewish political establishments, public figures and by-and-large the Jewish population of Lviv construed the Polish – Ukrainian struggle to have been not their war. They persistently attempted to preserve the Austrian-time status quo, notably staying in accord with a ruling power. In the state of this existential situation – Polish – Ukrainian ethno-political conflict there was no ruling power. Perhaps following a perception from a collective memory the Jews continued to associate Poland and Polishness as a ruling power and per se  had legitimized the new independent Polish state and it  claim on East Galician ethnic Ukrainian territory.  The Poles also out of a collective memory did not trust the Jews to be loyal subjects.  They regarded the given Jewish neutrality as an actual betrayal or at least the lack of loyalty. 

According to the Jewish daily Chwila (The Moment), 73 people lost their lives and 463 were wounded in the course of the Pogrom and its aftermath, wrote this newspaper in the article entitled, “The Truth about the Lviv Pogroms.” (Chwila, January 29, 1919). It is believed that perpetrators comprised the town mob, as well as Polish militants and regular soldiers. In the course of the later official investigation it was determined that Polish defenders of the city and civilians in all likelihood joined took part in the anti-Jewish atrocities. The Polish military units that entered the city after the retreat of the Ukrainian forces did not act to restore the order, neither had they ensured safety to the Jews until the second day of the upheavals. The Polish military command eventually issued such order but the soldiers in the streets received tit with delay or claimed or disregarded it. 

The principle questions for all the investigative commissions remained germane to the clarification whether the regular Polish military personnel, officers and soldiers, were the accomplices of the November Pogrom (November 21, 22, 23 of 1918) and on the other hand weather the Jews could be officially exonerated from suspicion and charges of anti-Polish activity in the November War for Lviv. Largely the Polish officials, especially in the aftermath of the Pogrom remained highly skeptical of the Polish involvement, as long as the soldiers and officers were concerned. Invariably, Polish public opinion tended to reject any factual materials regarding complicity of the Polish military personnel and continued to hold the Jews accountable for ‘anti-Polish actions and for siding with the Ukrainians.’

In the aftermath of the November Battle for Lviv the Poles largely held the Jews accountable for the neutrality as if it was the betrayal of the loyalty to the Polish state. A Ukrainian discontent towards the Jews would soon become an imminent reaction implying the lack of political support on the part of the Jewish leadership. In the aftermath of the Battle for Live, the Ukrainian resentment, a sense of a definitive Jewish indifference to their cause, perhaps excluding a few positive examples, had become a dominating public attitude towards the Jews of Lviv. 

With this bitter premise, on the last day of the Ukrainian holdout (November 21, 1918), the daily Dilo (the Deed) published a program article, “The National Minorities in Ukrainian National Republic.” It was a discourse of the ensuing political agenda vis-à-vis the Jewish population in East Galicia. 

The indifference of Jews to the Ukrainian national cause would not avert us (the Ukrainians – V.M.) from the recognition to the Jews the rights of a nation. However, the public opinion and the mood of the citizenry does matter. The Jews shall not forget that such public opinion, the mindset and perception of the Ukrainians do matter, no less than the legitimate rights. 

The Ukrainian side has done all feasibly friendly steps for the Jews. Presently, a corresponding Ukrainian revision of how to perceive and treat the Jews depend solely on them. 

(Dilo. November 21, 1918. 1) 

The interwar, post-November, Polish and Ukrainian historiographies comprise largely the memoirs written by the active participants of the Polish-Ukrainian War. Multiple analytical publications also appeared in the 1920s and 1930s. On the contrary, the Jewish historiography on the November War for Lviv and specifically on the November Pogrom is minimal. Besides the articles, largely of apologetic content, there were two monographs written by Dr. Abraham Insler, the former member of the Polish Sejm (parliament).

We can argue that typology of the political activities of Jewish Councils, Committees and Jewish Militias in the war-afflicted region were neither precautionary conciliatory nor were they well-determined in terms of siding with one or another of the conflicting sides. Their politics remained intrinsically Jewish, but what else it could have been. 

The November 1918 Jewish Pogrom in Lviv has reflected the regional multiple subjectivity. In this tripartite interaction the Poles and Ukrainians were two competing subjects, while the Jews remained as they were before the object bounded by the two subjects in power. In ethno-political sense, the Ukrainians were not the actual perpetrators of the Pogrom, they withdrew troop from the town and had been neither in no position, nor of interest of taking a revenge. Ukrainian authorities, at least in the beginning of the takeover of Lviv, have had expectation for public and political support and then they accepted the Jewish neutrality as feasible act of self-preservation. 

At a later time, when the warfare ranged across East Galicia, the Ukrainians had also not noticed the assurances of official recognition and support from the Jews. They attributed this politics to Jewish irresoluteness, defining it “a self-centered Jewish politics’. 

The Poles from the beginning of the battle for Lviv regarded the Jews as not being loyal but prone to side with the Ukrainians. It is difficult to say if the Jews ever had given instances of Ukrainian support during the 21-day of Polish-Ukrainian war for the city. The Polish military newspaper of those days Pobudka (The Waking Up Call) consistently published, hardly believable reportages of the Jewish treacherous acts against the Poles but in favor of the Ukrainians. 

Admittedly, the winners, namely the Poles have had their revenge once they took control over Lviv. The Ukrainian newspapers had been closed down, many Ukrainian public and political figures were kept incarcerated in internment camps. A Revenge could not be taken on the Ukrainian population of the city as the whole, even given the fact that the Polish periodicals call them bandits and rebels. The Ukrainian armed forces still were an equal fighting side, positioned on the outskirts of the city. 

The Jews traditionally had been marginalized, for the Poles they were expendable and cheap allies. The very ideation that the Jews could have taken a political side on their own or even show sympathy to a non-Polish political entity was then not conceivable. The town mob, lumpenproletariat and so-called low-life strata streamed outburst of hatred on the defenseless peopled who were wrongfully blamed on what they did not do and did not intend to do. Thus ended the Polish – Ukrainian battle for Lviv followed by the Jewish Pogrom. `

See this essay on Collaboration in the Holocaust by Dr. Vladimir Melamed 

• August 2007
• East European Jewish Affairs 37(2):217-248

DOI:10.1080/13501670701430560  

ORGANIZED AND UNSOLICITED COLLABORATION IN THE HOLOCAUST 

The Multifaceted Ukrainian Context 

Author: Vladimir Melamed 

DOI: 10.1080/13501670701430560 

Publication Frequency: 3 issues per year 

Published in: journal East European Jewish Affairs, Volume 37, Issue 2 August 2007, pages 217 - 248 

Introduction 

The lethal intentions of the Nazi Final Solution to the Jewish Question through mass murder adds a special dimension to the common and banal phenomenon of collaboration between sections of the population of a defeated state and the victorious occupiers.1 The scope and finality of Nazi genocidal policy towards European Jewry, the vicious suppression of any resistance or defiance, and the systematic German extermination of certain racial and social groups, complicates the question of any form of cooperation with the occupation. Even the most pragmatic collaboration can be tainted with accusations of complicity in genocide. There is a further complication when elements of the population participate directly in acts of violence. This is illustrated by the extensive historiography that deals with Ukrainian collaboration in aspects of the Holocaust.2 

The debates surrounding Ukrainian collaboration are often polarized and, as a consequence, usually fail to do justice to the complexity of the problem. This essay seeks to explore the wider context. It will explore the preconditions, roots and local peculiarities of a spectrum of collaboration experiences: routine cooperation, active collaboration, and active participation in acts of violence. An important aspect is the difference between spontaneous and unsolicited activity by individuals and service-rendered group collaboration. Special emphasis will be placed on differentiating between alleged spontaneous outburst of popular anger and events that are actually the result of pre-planning and instigation. It is also essential to factor in differences of time and place. 

This essay is based on a broad range of sources, but relies especially on the oral testimonies of victims and onlookers, memoirs and the periodical press of the time. At its core are three questions. To what extent was unsolicited collaboration at the beginning of the German invasion a genuine anti-Jewish phenomenon? To what extent were the events rooted in pre-war historical developments and Ukrainian-Jewish relations? How have the events been seen in the post-Holocaust recollections and assumptions of Jewish survivors and non-Jewish witnesses? 

Political Antisemitism and everyday anti-Judaism were not new phenomena in pre-war Galician Ukrainian society. In the relatively stable Polish state - albeit one where the Jewish Question was very much to the fore - overt outbursts were restricted to rhetorical denunciations, economic rivalry and hostile attitudes at a mundane level. Right-wing Polish Antisemitism was assumed to pose the greatest threat to Jewish society in interwar Galicia. Latent Ukrainian Antisemitism of this period was based on the perception of the Jews as "others" (ne svij), while in public discourse it ranged from associating Jews with "Judeo-Bolshevism" to the accusation that Jews promoted Polish cultural expansionism. It is a reasonable hypothesis that, for the average Ukrainian, a distinct brand of "otherness" characterized Jewish society as a whole. In Soviet Ukraine, by contrast, latent economic and political Antisemitism had to exist underground, as it was not tolerated by the Soviet regime. Nonetheless, envy and resentment towards the Jews, as well as memories of perceived wrongs during the political events of 1917-21 and the 1930s provided fertile grounds for an eventual outburst against the Jews. 

In the time of the Holocaust, the phenomenon of marginalization and "otherness" would well serve to the Nazi regime in exploiting the regional historical and geopolitical Antisemitic paradigms. As the German propaganda always emphasized, it was the war against the Jews, Bolsheviks and England. Whilst the latter two were to be fought on the frontline, the first were to be dealt at the home front, on everyday occasion. To build a "new order" meant to eliminate the Jews from every German-controlled territory. In so doing, the German administration counted on the input of the local population as on their share in the war effort. This German disposition towards the Jews in Ukraine did not differ much from that of Central Europe, except for the emphasis on the Jewish close association with the Soviet regime. Nolens volens, a "psychological distance" between the marginalized and outlawed Jews on one side and dependent from the German Ukrainian population on the other, became the cause and the effect of the unfolding, in the Final Solution, collaboration - organized and individual.3 

Theoretical Discourse 

The Nazi "new order" destroyed the centuries-old historical balance of Ukrainian-Jewish relations. It transformed the latent pre-war issues into borderline and existential situations. The German conquest created conditions where generic Antisemitism as a pro-German orientation within Ukrainian society - which perceived Jews as Soviet or Polish sympathizers - and people who sought economic gain converged with Nazi ideology and accelerated the tragic resolution of the Jewish question. Under such circumstances, the German administration directed the local population towards cooperation and collaboration with the regime to facilitate the Final Solution. The Nazi regime patronized two levels of collaboration: official or service-rendered group 

perpetration; and individual unsolicited, sometimes spontaneous, denunciations and betrayals. Both soon became routine and mundane practice. 

Jewish and Ukrainian memoir literature illustrates how a selective memory of the past may generate nationally aimed paradigms of collective guilt and responsibility. Whereas a common Jewish recollection often holds Ukrainians equally or sometimes guiltier than Germans, a Ukrainian memory rather avoids touching a Jewish component or refers to the Jewish plight as a tragic and inevitable historical reality. 

David Kahane's Lvov Ghetto Diary, for example, historically knits Ukrainians into a narrative composed of a dreadful array of pogroms, mass killings and other anti-Jewish atrocities. The outbursts of anti-Jewish atrocities are in correlation with key historical developments in Ukrainian politics. Kahane draws parallels between Khmel'nytskyi, Nalivaiko, Gonta, Petliura and the modern proponents of Antisemitism, but excludes Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi and the clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from this list.4 The Diary treats the latter as friends of the Jews.5 

Kurt Lewin, the son of the last Lviv Chief Rabbi Ezekial Lewin, survived the Holocaust in the Greek Catholic monasteries. Whilst he does not, on the whole, hold Ukrainians collectively responsible, he distances himself from personalizing perpetrators, collaborators and bystanders. Kurt's father, Ezekial Lewin, was killed in the Prison Action, a Lviv pogrom, on 2 July 1941.6 When the extermination of the Lviv Jewry entered its last phase in Autumn 1942, Kurt and his brother Izak were rescued by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts'kyi and his brother Klementii Sheptyts'kyi. Under a false identity they were placed into the Greek Catholic monasteries in eastern Galicia. Having lived for some time with the ordinary Ukrainian monks, Kurt recollects: "The monks resented the persecutions of Jews, they resented the bestiality of the German regime, but, overall, they remained Antisemitic towards Jews in general."7 

The post-war writings of Kost' Pan'kivs'kyi and Volodymyr Kubijovyccaron illustrate a symptomatic avoidance, if not indifference, to the Jewish plight in the Holocaust which partially could be explained by their personal situation. During the war, Pan'kivs'kyi and Kubijovyccaron held official positions in a German-allowed Ukrainian civil administration of Lviv and Kraków respectively. While providing a meticulous account of everyday life, they leave the Holocaust behind the scenes.8 Direct reference to Jewish affairs is also rarely present in the memoirs of the former active members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).9 Some indirect references, which occasionally shed light on the implementation of the Final Solution, are found in the German-censored Ukrainian newspapers of Lviv and Kraków, Lvivs'ki Visti and Krakivs'ki Visti. In most instances the post-war literature of the Ukrainian Diaspora has not reflected on the Jewish Holocaust, though it is not alone in marginalizing the significance of 

collaboration during the Holocaust.10 In the words of John-Paul Himka, "the subject of Ukrainian collaboration in the Nazi-directed genocide of the European Jews is a minefield."11 

In retrospect, the phenomenon of collaboration in a given territory, over a certain time-period, should be understood through the prism of the local vis-à-vis the general factors related to the Nazi policy of annihilation. We should keep in mind the irrelevance of collective responsibility or collective guilt that is associated with any nation, regardless as to the quantitative figures of participation in the genocide against Jews. It does not take many to kill a lot; yet, even along with the worst complicities there always were instances of rescue and aid. 

Indeed, territorial, national, and political aspects did play a role when it comes to the typology of perpetration and collaboration. People who took part in the first wave of Jewish pogroms should rather be seen as perpetrators, for it is improbable to regard all these atrocities as pre-planned and masterminded by the Germans. 

The tragedy of Jedwabne, a small Polish town in Bialstrokystok province, which was under the Soviet administration from September 1939 to the end of June 1941, is a striking instance of a massacre perpetrated by the local population against the Jews. On 10 July 1941, the Polish population of the town murdered its Jewish inhabitants en masse. At the time, this massacre was not part of the German anti-Jewish action.12 There is no doubt that, had the German troops not invaded and occupied this town, the local population would not have risen against the Jews; but the fact of its readiness to kill is nonetheless astonishing. 

There is no distinct borderline between cooperation with the German occupying authorities and actual participation in the Final Solution. Cooperation, to this end, may be defined as a certain established and accepted consensus between the occupying authorities and the occupied population. To keep such a relationship functioning, two active components must have been present - internal and external. The internal component deals with the volition on the part of a subdued society to cooperate. The external component introduced the governing administration and its disposition towards the people and institutions of the occupied or controlled country. As Jan T. Gross put it: 

Whether there had been a Hacha, a Quisling, a Pavelic, a Pétain, or a Tiso was indicative primarily of a German will, not of the will of the French, the Czechs, the Croats, the Slovaks, or the Norwegians. And this meant also that pointing out the absence of collaboration - as, for example, in an often quoted phrase "certainly, Poland did not have its Quisling" - is of only limited heuristic value. It merely tells us that the Germans, locally, had not made the offer.13 

Whilst a positive German disposition and preservation of the incumbent political institutions in a given country or territory laid the foundations for efficient cooperation, the lack of these preconditions did not necessarily limit either the intentions on the part of certain groups to cooperate or their willingness to assume that Nazi Germany was the only power in which they could place their expectations. 

Present-day perceptions of collaboration with Nazi Germany in the Final Solution differs significantly from those of wartime. During the period of subjugation and well after it, many of those who collaborated conceived their rapport with Germans as a necessary cooperation, required not only to make everyday life bearable, but also, in retrospect, as an act of national preservation. With regard to the situation in western Ukraine, Shimon Redlich has noted: "The demarcation line between the German-supervised Ukrainian auxiliary militias, Ukrainian serving in the German army and the Ukrainian underground was ever so thin."14 

The will to collaborate is correlated with the degree to which one retained an allegiance to one's state. The average Pole or Frenchman living under German occupation was regarded as genuinely Germanophobic. Loyalty to their virtual statehood and real émigré governments remained intact. The average Ukrainian of the dismantled Polish state was de facto relieved of his formerly Polish and latterly Soviet loyalties. A nationally minded Pole or Frenchman would not associate the reinstatement of independence with Nazi Germany. The Ukrainian case was not as straightforward. In the initial stages of German occupation, a politically minded Ukrainian could envisage eventual positive changes with advent of the German "new order." In relation to the Ukrainian case, Michael Burleigh has observed: 

Collaboration was not as straightforward a case of treason as in western Europe, since most Ukrainians had little or no loyalty to earlier Polish or Soviet governments. Collaboration represented a chance to restore a statehood they had only briefly experienced before under German auspices during the First World War.15 

Historical Settings: Galicia and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine 

The German authorities restructured Ukrainian territory with no regards to its historical background, national aspirations and eventual statehood. Thus, Galicia became part of the Generalgouvernement in August 1941, whereas western (historic) Volhynia became part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine together with the rest of the Soviet right-bank (central) Ukraine. The Reichskommissariat Ukraine (RKU) was established on 1 September 1941, according to 

Hitler's order of 17 July 1941, on the introduction of civil authorities in the occupied eastern territories.16 The Reichskommissariat also comprised the portion of the Belorussian territory, which until September 1939 had been part of Polesie province of Poland (later known as Brest and Pinsk oblast) and the rest of occupied Ukrainian territory. As the frontline moved eastward, the borders of the Reichskommissariat were being expanded. In September 1942, its territory included the following administrative units (Generalbezirke): Wolyn and Podill'ia, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovs'k, Mykolaïv and Tavriia.17 

Unlike Slovakians and Croatians, Ukrainians were not considered in Berlin as candidates for a satellite nation state. Whereas Slovakia's and Croatia's nationalistic parties were able to secure a semblance of statehood by aligning their polity with that of the Nazis, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was never viewed by the Nazi government as an eventual government of a prospective Ukrainian state.18 Ukraine, with the exception of Galicia, which was perhaps nostalgically regarded by Berlin with a sentimentality that harked back to the bygone days of Austria-Hungary, was perceived as a genuine Soviet territory with all relevant implications. In pre-war German politics, Ukraine had been given more considerations than after the war against the USSR began.19 German ostpolitik in general and its Ukrainian component in particular featured a disparity between the SS and Party leadership on one side and Ostministerium on the other. It was Reichskommissar Erich Koch rather than Reichsminister Alfred Rosenberg who exercised real power over the Ukraine.20 

Obviously, the local population was not aware of the perplexities in inter-German state and party relations and saw all German officials alike - as a solid and powerful establishment. Regardless of his affiliation, a German official would always prioritize all-German goals over any local necessities. The message to the local Ukrainian administrations was unequivocally clear: it is the war effort that comes first, and whatever lays beyond that must be postponed until after the war. It was equally true in the case of Generalgouvernement or Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Governor Hans Frank made that very clear in his anniversary of the German invasion of Poland speech: "Poles realized that they had no options but to be loyal to us, and Ukrainians had already proved their loyalty toward us."21 Any improvisations on the part of the local elites which went beyond the circle of German-perceived loyalty would have been considered as a threat to the German "new order" and were not to be tolerated. 

The very fact that eastern Galicia, which had always been perceived as a Ukrainian Piedmont, was attached to German-occupied Poland and made the fifth district of the Generalgouvernement, rather than having been given a special status as a nucleus of a prospective Ukrainian state, frustrated and disappointed Ukrainian society. That was an obvious setback to the cause of a Soborna Ukraïna (United Ukraine). 

The newly imposed Reichskommissariat administrative structure and the dissolution of the self-proclaimed Ukrainian state could not fail to have a negative impact on the eventuality of a Ukrainian statehood.22 Ukrainian society came to realize that neither Kyïv nor Lviv would become the capital of Soborna and Nezalezhna Ukraïna (independent Ukraine) and that independence was rather a sort of voluntary delusion, than a German deception. 

Surprisingly, at the beginning of the German invasion, especially at a popular level, a sort of euphoria of freedom was felt in the air. The Polish state ceased to exist and so ended the Soviet occupation of eastern Galicia and western Volhynia. Aron Etlenger, a Jewish survivor from Tluste in eastern Galicia, recalls the joy and enthusiasm of nationalistically oriented Ukrainians. These young people called themselves Sichovyky.23 They chanted: "We will shoot and stab with knives, We will have a Pole strangled, and a Jew stabbed."24 Aron also witnessed Ukrainian nationalists attacking Jews in the streets. 

Two years later, in 1943, this kind of folklore became more relative to the contemporary political situation. In 1943, Arkadii Fishman (a Jewish survivor from Olevsk) lived in hiding on a farm, with a Ukrainian family. He remembers from this time that leaflets were distributed by Banderites.25 Jews were not mentioned. The message read "Hitler-Kaput; Stalin-Khomut" (this phrase has an equal in German and Ukrainian, meaning "down with Hitler and Stalin").26 

The future German invasion of the USSR, was to some extent, a fact known to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.27 The Abwehr (German Intelligence Service) and SD (Security Service) recruited cadres for the special Ukrainian-German military units. The Kraków-based OUN maintained permanent contacts with German-occupied Poland (western Galicia) and Soviet-annexed eastern Galicia. In the spring/summer of 1941 these interactions reached their apogee. 

Something was in the air, recalls Boris Arsen, a Jewish survivor from a small Galician village Chesnyki. In 1940, he was out on vocational training in Stanyslav (Ivano-Frankivs'k). After the German army invaded the Stanyslav region, Boris Arsen returned to his home village Chesnyki. Upon his return, he was immediately arrested by the local Ukrainian militias allegedly for his pre-war association with the Ukrainian political left (Young Ukrainian Socialists - Kameniari). He was severely beaten by the militiamen. "When they beat me, they kept saying: 'Kiss this soil for you shall sense that it smells of Mother-Ukraine'." One of those who mercilessly beat him was a fellow villager, Sheremeta, regarded as a moderate family man.28 

Boris Arsen endured all possible hardships and he eventually survived by living under a false identity. A fellow Ukrainian provided Boris with his own identification papers. This young 

Ukrainian did not survive through the war. He perished as a result of helping Jews. Boris moved away from the area where he was known and established himself as a young, nationally oriented Ukrainian somewhere in the Ternopil' region. Apparently legitimate identification papers, a perfect knowledge of the Ukrainian language and familiarity with Ukrainian traditions secured his life for the time being. 

His brother was not that fortunate; he perished at the hands of UPA's (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) soldiers in 1944.29 Boris Arsen connects his brother's death to the UPA's avenging retreat: "In 1944, when the Soviet Army approached Ternopil', Shukhevych issued an order 'to annihilate all potential adversaries of Ukraine'."30 In his village Chesnyki, UPA soldiers killed 53 people. Boris's brother was hiding in a bunker: "They pulled him out of the forest bunker, tied him to a horse, and let the horse run on the field. This is how he died. Those perpetrators were from the UPA's security service, called Sluzhba Bezbeky (SB)."31 John Armstrong has written about this phase of OUN (B) activity: "The OUN-B remained the dominant political element in the UHVR (Main Ukrainian Liberation Council), and the notorious SB (Security Service, or political police) continued to operate."32 

Given the amount of suffering endured by Jews at the hands of Germans, any German allies were viewed as foes by Jews, especially if they were local folk. In Jewish eyes, Ukrainian-German cooperation meant their lives could be made miserable or even terminated by many means. The oral histories of Jewish survivors reveal the patterns of unsolicited collaboration, denunciations, mockery and arbitrary killings, all perpetrated with no perceptible German order. The opposite patterns of compassion and humanity existed, but to a lesser extent. Jewish survivors, after more than 50 years, still cannot understand why, when their memory flashes out forever scored moments of betrayal. 

Klara Garmel, a Jewish survivor, was born in 1926 in Iarun', Zhytomyr oblast. At the age of 14 she was raped by a Ukrainian policeman. She escaped from the Iarun' ghetto and lived under a false identity, posing as a Christian orphan girl. For a short time, she found refuge with an elderly handicapped Ukrainian woman in Korets, in western Volhynia. The woman treated Klara humanely. Her son, a Ukrainian policeman, occasionally visited the house. One conversation between mother and son prompted Klara to leave the house: 

Son: Mother, today they were killing Jews in Rivne, but Jewish kids fled to villages. 

Mother: If one had sneaked into my house, I would have him strangled. 

Having found a new place she asked to be baptized in order to obtain good identification papers. The priest who baptized Klara was apparently aware of her true nationality, although he concealed that.33 Klara's next shelter was with a Ukrainian farmer, who in Klara's words was a Banderovite.34 She eventually became a wife to him, gave birth to a baby, who soon died. Klara remembers that she was absolutely safe living with this man. 

The story of Simon Feldman, a Jewish survivor from a small western Volhynian town Boremel (born in 1933) is an account of life-and-death situations. Ukrainian militias killed his father in the first weeks of the German invasion, allegedly for his pre-war "communist" activity. No Germans were involved. Simon Feldman recalls: 

In June 1941, all of a sudden, Ukrainians appeared with guns and rifles; they wore blue-and-yellow colours. They were taking over the town. The Ukrainian nationalists blew up the bridge to cut the retreat of the Soviet soldiers. Ukrainians were very well armed. Then the first Wehrmacht unit passed though the town not harming anyone.35 

Then Simon's father and 10 other Jews were arrested and locked up in the cellar: 

Two or three weeks after the invasion, on a Friday afternoon, the Ukrainians took my father and another man out and shot them behind the Polish Cathedral. All those, who made arrest, and who shot him were not Germans, they were local Ukrainians. The Ukrainians made them dig their graves, told them undress, and shot them on the spot. Then they covered them with dirt.36 

Simon remembers that sometime later a Ukrainian policeman came by and conveyed to them the last words of his father: "G-d, what is going to happen to my wife and son." His father was 39 years old. 

The story of Liudmila Blekhman (born in 1929) - which is discussed below - a Jewish survivor from Miropol' in Zhytomyr oblast, reflects the organized collaboration of the local auxiliary police and the acts of voluntary cooperation on the part of their former neighbours in the central Ukraine (eastern Volhynia). 

In theoretical terms, the patterns of collaboration in the territory of central, former Soviet Ukraine could to a much lesser degree be attributed to Galician geo-political factors. The typology of pre-war Ukrainian grievances vis-à-vis Jewish endorsement of Polish statehood, cooperation with the Soviet regime in 1939-41 and speculations about involvement in the 

NKVD37 (which carried out mass killings) did not find reasonable grounds in central Ukraine. Though, it must be said, a certain anti-Soviet and anti-Jewish disposition was never entirely alien to this region of the former Pale of Settlement. 

The memories of Liudmila Blekhman persistently emphasizes on the critical role of the Ukrainian auxiliary police, as well as unexpectedly hostile and treacherous behaviour of former Ukrainian neighbours in Mirapol: 

Selections and killings were carried out only by Ukrainian policemen; there were no Germans in the actions. The policemen followed German ordershellip. They got drunk before and during the actionshellip. It was a mass killing action going on in Mirapol. They [policemen] had a table with [strong beverages] bottles on it at the Potocki park. Periodically policemen were running up to the table, had a shot of rum, and went on to shoot peoplehellip. One policeman complained: "I got my finger swollen, I have killed fifty by now, the finger needs rest." They carried out the action. 

The ultimate shock came not even from the police, but from her former neighbours: 

In the roundup action the Jewish men decided to break through the police cordon and let people escape from the main square. Ukrainian policemen fell in disarray so bold and unexpected was that act of Jewish defiance. In meantime people started running away. Liudmila and her sisters dropped into a peasant house. The first reaction of a Ukrainian woman was yelling in the open window: "Mr. Policeman, a Jewish kid had run up into my house, I saw them!" hellipOur Ukrainian neighbours, whom we before the war befriended with, had plundered our house. This is what we were hearing: "Mil'ka, Mil'ka, get this fine coat! Mil'ka, Mil'ka, come here, here is a good Singer sewing machine." [hellip] When they led us to the square for selection, the locals were standing on both sides of the street. They attempted to extract our small bags; they threw rocks at us. [Liudmila concludes this part of the story with an appeal to herself:] I shall never forget how many traitors were there. I shall never forget that enormous evil.38 

Notwithstanding these memories, it must be conceded that the notion of a Ukrainian anti-Jewish mainstream is of quantitative rather than of qualitative nature. A collective spree of killing and looting did not exempt the possibility of individual morality and compassion. We cannot categorically exclude a human component that may have been activated in the Ukrainian women and their attitudes towards the Jews who remained outside the scenes of murder. 

The story of Kalman Shmirgold (born in 1923), a Jewish survivor from another small western Volhynian town Berestechko, depicts Ukrainian nationalists, allegedly the UPA soldiers, in a somewhat different light. Kalman had to leave his hiding place near a small village. With no place to go, he simply started walking down the road. A sled with Ukrainians (in his words Banderites) passed him by. They stopped to check his papers. Kalman's fake identification of Mykola Konopka did not convince them: they recognized him personally. 

Banderites: Hey, we know you, we used to go to school together. 

Kalman: Yes, you know me, we went to school together. You can kill me. I was kicked out of my hiding place. There is nowhere I can go to. 

Kalman broke into tears and asked for his life to be spared: "Help me, maybe tomorrow I will be of some use to you." The Ukrainians discussed this between themselves, then ordered Kalman on the sled. He thought they were taking him to a nearby police precinct and that would mean eventual death. When the sled passed by the hill, the Ukrainians ordered him out. He started climbing up the hill, not daring to turn back, expecting a shot at every minute. No shots were fired. They had set him free.39 

Another rare occasion of unsolicited and organized patterns of collaboration allows for an exceptional story of aid, protection and rescue. Although initially driven by the personal and intimate relations between a Jewish woman and a Ukrainian man, it eventually gained a broader Ukrainian-Jewish context. The young Jewish woman Faina Liakher from Peremyshliany survived the war under the protection of the OUN and Greek Catholic Church. Before the war, she befriended Volodymyr Zaplatynskyi, an OUN operative. The relationship with Zaplatynskyi brought her into the circle of young, nationally minded Ukrainians. As a gymnasia (high-school) student, she was much closer to Ukrainians than to Jews or Poles. When Zaplatynskyi was arrested and tried for anti-Polish activities, Faina remained loyal to him, testifying on his behalf. Sometime in 1941, before the German invasion of the USSR, Volodymyr Zaplatynskyi intimately told her: "Hardships are awaiting Jews, but you and your family have nothing to worry, we will protect you."40 

For several years in the war, the Liakhers stayed in Peremyshliany under the OUN-fostered protection. The Ukrainians of the local administration and the OUN members in the German service patronized them. From the pre-war years Faina felt a certain attachment to the Ukrainian Christian rite that originated in the years before the war, so when conversion to Greek Catholicism remained the only window for survival, she did it consciously, without hesitation. But she never dared to reveal this fact to her parents. 

This means of protection, though, had its limits. All members of Faina's family - brother, father and mother - perished under different circumstances in 1943. It was no longer safe for Faina to work under a false identity with the Ukrainian administration in Peremyshliany. In agreement with the Greek Catholic hierarchy, the local OUN leadership decided to send her to the Univ monastery.41 In January 1944, Faina arrived clandestinely in Univ. She became a nun and lived in the monastery as Sister Maria until the end of the war. Since then she continues to live in the Peremyshliany monastery. The author of the present paper spoke to her in July 2005. Sister Maria continually emphasizes how the OUN's protection over her family was extraordinary and exceptional.42 It may be added that the German records mentioned some instances when the Bandera movement provided some Jews with false papers.43 

Another and probably more typical example of aid to Jews were the activities of the Ukrainian clergy. One such person was Reverend Omelian (Emilian) Kowcz of Peremyshliany. Ida Karczag, a Jewish survivor from this Eastern Galician town recalls: 

This priest Kowcz was an extraordinary decent man. He decided to help as many Jews as possible. We learned from other people that he was issuing Christian papers for Jews. My mother and sister turned to him for such papers, and he for sure agreed. My sister explained to me the necessity to be baptized.44 

On one night, she and her brother were taken out of the Peremyshliany ghetto to the church. Father Kowcz baptized them and issued new birth certificates. Later, Ida was smuggled out of the ghetto and placed in the house of a Ukrainian woman in a remote from Peremyshliany village. She assumed an identity of a Christian girl and gradually learned Christian practice. Reverend Kowcz was eventually arrested for his connections with the Ukrainian and Polish underground. He died in 1944, in the Majdanek concentration camp. 

Ukrainian perceptions of Jews varied depending on their own political and social orientation. Thus, ultra-nationalist circles held the world Jewry responsible for the failed Ukrainian statehood and for the oppressed condition in which the Ukrainian people lived. Jews were solely aligned to negative connotations in pre-war nationalist ideology: 

In our struggle with Poland they reinforce the Polish front; in the struggle with Bolshevism they support the Bolshevikshellip. Politically they are enemies of the Ukrainian independence-minded national idea. Culturally they are hotbeds of denationalizationhellip. In addition to a number of external enemies Ukraine also has an internal enemy - Jewry [hellip]45 

Such a politicized and tendentious anti-Jewish perspective was not, by and large, characteristic of ordinary Ukrainians during the war. After several years of persistent German persecutions, after Jews had been outlawed and dehumanized, if not completely eliminated, the issues of the pre-war political alliances, cultural preferences and economic competition were no longer relevant. In 1943, for an ordinary Ukrainian, a living Jew was no longer the same pre-war Jew, but rather a shattered piece of the past. 

Mike Walsch is a Jewish survivor from a small village near Stepan' in western Volhynia. During the war he hid in the forests. When he and several other Jewish kids in hiding had met a peasant Ukrainian woman, they asked her for food. She surprisingly exclaimed: "Children, are you Jews, or are you people?" She gave bread to the Jewish kids.46 

The German occupation authorities instigated and promoted the local population to participate actively in the Final Solution. A Ukrainian historian, Iaroslav Hryccaronak, wrote: "it was a totally demoralizing situation when the German authorities provoked the local population to anti-Jewish pogroms." He maintains an outlook that is typical and quite logical for modern Ukrainian society on the  

Dr. Vladimir Melamed 

RUSSIAN COLONIAL WAR AGAINST UKRAINE 

Ukraine enters in the third year of war 

The Russian invasion in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and the ensuing Russo-Ukrainian war overwhelmingly undermined international geopolitical order. The Russian Federation has been implementing its everlasting imperial and expansionist doctrine, disguised with ‘a historic mission’ of protecting the so-called Pax Russica (Russian-ness, Ruskii Mir) over the former Soviet-era-incorporated and annexed ethno-national East-European entities. The internationally-recognized independence of these post-Soviet-era states (former Soviet republics) never have been a subject of serious consideration for the Russian Federation. It pursues a preferred Soviet pattern of “fraternal” client-states which will not  prospectively be seeking integration in European Union. 

The real Ukrainian sovereignty de facto meant its actual independence from Russia and as such by no means is compatible with contemporaneous Russian expansionism and as Kremlin call it "Russian security". 

Russia’s full scale war against Ukraine is not a territorial war, but it is a colonial war against Ukrainian Identity and Ukrainian sovereignty as a Nation. The perpetrators, namely the Russian State, are open of what they want to do and why: to erase Ukrainian ethno-national authenticity and to replace political independence with a colonial dependency. 

For Ukraine and Ukrainians a concession to occupation for the sake of peace means just another stage of war. The struggle will continue.  

Picture: Ukraine serves as 'a dam' between the 'see of the Russian Federation and the European Union. Source and credit: Taras Vozniak, Lviv, Ukraine 

February 24, 2024

STATE OF THE UNION 

President Biden at the State of the Union: 

If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not. 

But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking. They are not asking for American soldiers. 

In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine. And I am determined to keep it that way. 

But now assistance for Ukraine is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world. 

It wasn’t that long ago when a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” 

Now, my predecessor, a former Republican President, tells Putin, “Do whatever the hell you want.” 

A former American President actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader. 

It’s outrageous. It’s dangerous. It’s unacceptable. 

I say this to Congress: we must stand up to Putin. Send me the Bipartisan National Security Bill. 

My message to President Putin is simple.  

We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down. 

Respect free and fair elections. Restore trust in our institutions. And make clear — political violence has absolutely no place in America. History is watching.

Here's the simple truth: You can't love your country only when you win.

There are 1,000 billionaires in America.  

You know what the average federal tax rate for these billionaires is? 8.2 percent! 

That’s far less than the vast majority of Americans pay.  

Israel has a right to go after Hamas. 

Hamas could end this conflict today by releasing the hostages, laying down arms, and surrendering those responsible for October 7th. 

Israel has an added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population. But Israel also has a fundamental responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Gaza. 

This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined. 

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. 

Most of whom are not Hamas. 

Thousands and thousands are innocent women and children. 

Girls and boys also orphaned. 

Nearly 2 million more Palestinians under bombardment or displaced. 

Homes destroyed, neighborhoods in rubble, cities in ruin. 

Families without food, water, medicine. 

It’s heartbreaking. 

We’ve been working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for at least six weeks. 

It would get the hostages home, ease the intolerable humanitarian crisis, and build toward something more enduring. 

The United States has been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza. 

Tonight, I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters. 

Let me close with this. 

I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while. 

And when you get to my age certain things become clearer than ever before. 

I know the American story.