Why is Israel arming Ukraine’s neo-Nazi
militias?
Not content with reaching
out to racists and white supremacists, Israel in the case of Ukraine, is also
reaching out to neo-Nazi militias. This is the answer to those who say that Ken
Livingstone’s suggestion that the Nazis supported Zionism was anti-Semitic.
Even today, when Zionism has achieved its state, when Israel is a military
superpower, the self-described Jewish state demonstrates that it will ally with
any far-Right force – not only at state level as is the case with Hungary’s Viktor
Orban and Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki – but even in the case of common
and garden thugs in the neo-Nazi militias of Ukraine.
Given the choice between
the interests of the Jewish state and the Jews, Zionism will always choose the
latter. This is what racial nationalism is about. As Israel’s first Prime
Minister David Ben Gurion wrote on the 7th December 1938, shortly
after Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht pogrom, in regard to the emigration of
10,000 Jewish children from Germany to England:
‘If I knew that it would be
possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England,
and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, [Land of Israel - TG] then I would opt for the second
alternative. For we must weigh not only
the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel. (Zionist
policy and the fate of European Jewry 1939-42, Yad Vashem Studies,, Vol. 12.)’
One wonders why those pursuing
the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign in the Labour Party find it so hard to understand the
difference between opposition to a state that calls itself ‘Jewish’ and Jews.
The articles below, from The Forward, Electronic Intifada, Ha’aretz and The Nation give the background to the relationship between Israel and
Ukrainian neo-Nazis and the wider support given to the far-Right in Ukraine by
the western democracies.
Not only has the Azov
battalion, a neo-Nazi para military group has been incorporated into the Ukrainian
National Guard but Israel and the West is continuing to ply them with arms
supplies. In the battle against Russia
every and anything goes.
Tony Greenstein
Ukraine’s far-right is like a hydra, with ugly
heads that pop-up far too frequently. Just within the last few weeks, an
American-born cabinet minister thanked a group of violent neo-Nazi “activists”
for their services.
January 19,
2019 Michael Colborne The Bullet
Members of
the Azov Battalion, in Kyiv [May 2016]
I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told Ukraine doesn’t really
have a problem with its far-right. It’s all Kremlin propaganda; you’re
personally helping Putin by talking about it; other countries have far-right
problems too, so why single out Ukraine? I’ve heard it all.
But I expect to hear even more lines like this in the New Year, all
because I’m going to point out the obvious: Ukraine really does have a
far-right problem, and it’s not a fiction of Kremlin propaganda. And it’s well
past time to talk about it.
 |
| Members of the Azov Battalion, in Kyiv [May 2016], |
Ukraine’s far-right is like a hydra, with ugly heads that pop-up far too
frequently. Just within the last few weeks, an American-born cabinet minister thanked a group of violent neo-Nazi “activists” for their services, a soldier
was photographed wearing a Nazi death’s head patch right behind President Petro
Poroshenko and almost 1,500
neo-Nazis and friends threw a two-day Hitler-salute-fest.
Out of the Margins
Violent far-right groups have been around in Ukraine for years, albeit
in marginal numbers. But over the last year they’ve grown not just in significance
but in aggressiveness. I know because I’ve been on the receiving end myself.
At a march in November to commemorate people who’ve fallen victim to
transphobic violence, I watched as a march of barely 50 participants was shut
down by some 200 far-right extremists. I felt their wrath myself as two of them
assaulted me in separate incidents afterwards.
I’m far from the first person who’s fallen victim to Ukrainian far-right
groups, nor anywhere near the most serious. Their members have attacked Roma camps multiple times, even killing a Roma man earlier this year.
They’ve stormed local city council meetings to intimidate elected officials. They’ve
marched by the thousands through the streets to commemorate WWII-era nationalist formations who
took part in ethnic cleansing. They’ve acted as vigilantes with little to no negative reaction from state authorities.
Members of Ukraine’s far-right also offer themselves up as thugs for
hire – sometimes with deadly consequences. This summer, anti-corruption
activist Kateryna Handziuk was the victim of a horrifying acid attack. In July,
several extremists – who apparently were paid by corrupt local police to carry
out the attack – doused her with sulfuric acid, burning her over 40 per cent of
her body. She died from her injuries in November.
Ukraine’s notorious Azov movement keeps growing. Since it was created in 2014 to fight Russian-led
forces in the east, it made news by accepting openly neo-Nazi members into its
rank. Now the Azov Battalion has become an official Ukrainian National Guard
regiment. In 2016 the group formed a political party, which, they
claim, now has tens of thousands of
members. Earlier this year they unveiled a paramilitary force that doubles as a street gang.
Even as their party polls barely a per cent, Azov is trying – as one of
their higher-ups has told me personally – to build a far-right “state within
the state,” running everything from nationalist study groups and mixed martial
arts training to free gyms for youth and programs for the elderly. They’re also
trying to turn Kiev into a capital of the global far-right, inviting neo-Nazis and white supremacists from around the world to
visit.
Whatever group they’re part of, Ukraine’s far-right is increasingly
nonchalant about the use of violence. When I was covering the march in Kiev on
November 18, one of them walked up to me and sprayed me with a quart-sized
bottle of pepper spray. Another then sucker-punched me in the face just yards
away from onlooking police – hard enough to smash my glasses and cut me up.
Yes, I’m still mad about what happened to me. But I’m even more mad
about a peaceful assembly of barely fifty people being cancelled because some
violent hooligans decided it should be. And what makes me angriest of all is
that many prominent people in Ukraine, and beyond, that keep wanting to tell
you that the far-right isn’t that big a problem.
It’s Time…
But it’s time to talk about why extremists in this country are able to attack people in broad daylight as police stand by. It’s time to talk about
why some of them are receiving state funds and taking
part in official police patrols in
some cities. It’s time to talk about why a group that denies it has neo-Nazi
leanings can help host a two-day neo-Nazi music
festival with barely a peep from anyone.
It’s time to talk about why Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, up for
re-election in March, is happy to flirt with hardline nationalist rhetoric and hasn’t bothered to condemn incidents
like last month’s attack on a peaceful protest.
It’s time to talk about why so many mainstream figures in Ukraine and
abroad don’t seem too bothered by any of this. Yes, every country has its
extremists, but not every country has public figures that (repeatedly) defend the actions of violent vigilante groups like the notorious C14 – or, like Ukraine’s American-born health minister Ulana Suprun, sully
a (deserved) positive reputation by hobnobbing for photos with the group’s leaders on social media.
And no, I haven’t forgotten that Ukraine is still mired in a
Russian-orchestrated war on part of its territory, and that Moscow likes to use
Ukrainian nationalists in its propaganda – part of its longstanding practice of
painting all Ukrainians, nationalists or not, as “Nazis” (not true), or as
supporters of Nazi-era collaborationist movements that were active in some
parts of Ukraine (also not true). I also don’t doubt that the Kremlin itself
funds or supports some of the far-right agitation here so that it can use them
for its own purposes.
That’s why I know what I’m going to hear next. I’ll probably be told
that I’m part of Putin’s hybrid war (really?), that I work for the Kremlin (um,
no), or that I’m doing the Kremlin’s work (also no). But I didn’t invent
Ukraine’s far-right, and I certainly haven’t helped them gain the prominence
they’ve got heading in 2019.
The problem is real. It’s time for Ukraine to talk about it and take it
on. •
Michael
Colborne is a freelance journalist originally from western Canada, based in
central and eastern Europe. He writes about international social and political
issues, with a focus these days on nationalism and the far-right. He tweets at
@ColborneMichael.
Israel
is arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine
 |
The Azov Battalion uses the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol as its logo. Its founder Andriy Biletsky (center) has moved to ban “race mixing” in the Ukranian parliament. (Azov/Twitter)
|
Israeli arms are being sent to a heavily armed
neo-Nazi militia in Ukraine, The Electronic Intifada has learned.
Azov Battalion online propaganda shows
Israeli-licensed Tavor rifles in the fascist group’s hands, while Israeli human
rights activists have protested arms sales to Ukraine on the basis that weapons
might end up with anti-Semitic militias.
In a letter “about licenses for Ukraine” obtained by
The Electronic Intifada, the Israeli defense ministry’s arms export agency says
they are “careful to grant licenses”
to arms exporters “in full coordination
with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government entities.”
The 26 June letter was sent in reply to Israeli lawyer
Eitay Mack who had
written a detailed request demanding Israel end all military aid to the
country.
Azov’s official status in the Ukrainian armed forces
means it cannot be verified that “Israeli
weapons and training” are not being used “by anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi soldiers,” Mack and 35 other human
rights activists wrote.
They had written that Ukrainian armed forces use
rifles made in Israel “and are trained by
Israelis,” according to reports in the country.
The head of the Israeli arms export agency declined to
deny the reports, or to even discuss cancellation of the weapons licenses,
citing “security” concerns.
But Racheli Chen, the head of the agency, confirmed to
Mack she had “carefully read your letter,”
which detailed the fascist nature of Azov and the reports of Israeli arms and
training.
Both the defense ministry letter and Mack’s original
request can be read in the original Hebrew below.
Israeli rifles in Ukraine
The fact that Israeli arms are going to Ukrainian
neo-Nazis is supported by Azov’s own online propaganda.
On its YouTube channel, Azov posted a video “review”
of locally produced copies of two Israeli Tavor rifles – seen in
this video:
A photo
on Azov’s website also shows a Tavor in the hands of one of the militia’s
officers.
The rifles are
produced under licence
from Israel Weapon Industries, and as such would have been authorized by the
Israeli government.
IWI markets the Tavor as the
“primary weapon” of the Israeli special forces.
It has been used
in recent massacres of unarmed Palestinians taking part in Great March of
Return protests in Gaza.
Fort, the Ukrainian state-owned arms company that
produces the rifles under license, had a
page about the Tavor on its website at the time of writing this article.
But the page was removed after
publication of this article.
The Israel Weapon Industries logo also appears on its
website, including on the “Our
Partners” page.
Starting as a gang
of fascist street thugs, the Azov Battalion is one of several far-right
militias that have now been integrated as units of Ukraine’s National Guard.
Staunchly anti-Russian, Azov fought riot police during
the 2013 US
and EU-supported
“Euromaidan” protests in the capital Kiev.
The protests and riots laid the ground for the 2014
coup which removed
the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.
 |
| This photo from Azov’s website shows an officer of the neo-Nazi militia armed with a version of Israel’s Tavor rifle. The Tavor is made under license from Israel by Ukraine’s national arms maker Fort. |
When the civil war began in eastern Ukraine against
Russian-backed separatists, the new western-backed government began to arm
Azov. The militia soon fell under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian interior
ministry, and saw some of the most intense frontline combat against the
separatists.
The group stands accused
in United Nations and Human
Rights Watch reports of committing war crimes against pro-Russian
separatists during the ongoing civil war in the eastern Donbass region,
including torture, sexual
violence and targeting of civilian homes.
Today, Azov is run by Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s interior
minister. According to the BBC, he pays its fighters, and has appointed one of
its military commanders, Vadym Troyan, as his deputy – with control over the
police.
Avakov last
year met with
the Israeli interior minister Aryeh Deri to discuss “fruitful cooperation.”
Azov’s young founder and first military commander
Andriy Biletsky is today a lawmaker in the Ukrainian parliament.
As journalist Max Blumenthal
explained on
The Real News in February, Biletsky has “pledged to restore the honor of the white
race” and has advanced laws forbidding “race
mixing.”
According
to The Telegraph, Biletsky in 2014 wrote that
“the historic mission of our nation in this
critical moment is to lead the white races of the world in a final crusade for
their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led untermenschen.”
At a military training camp for children last year, The
Guardian noticed
that several Azov instructors had Nazi and other racist tattoos, including
a swastika, the SS skull symbol and one that read “White Pride.”
One Azov soldier explained
to The Guardian that he fights Russia because “Putin’s a Jew.”
Speaking to The Telegraph,
another praised Adolf Hitler, said homosexuality is a “mental illness” and that the scale of the Holocaust “is a big question.”
An Azov drill sergeant once told
USA Today “with
a laugh” that “no more than half his
comrades are fellow Nazis.”
An Azov spokesperson played that down, claiming that “only 10-20 percent” of the group’s
members were Nazis.
Nonetheless, the sergeant “vowed that when the war ends, his comrades will march on the capital,
Kiev, to oust a government they consider corrupt.”
After Azov’s founder Andriy Biletsky entered
parliament, he threatened
to dissolve it. “Take my word for it,”
he said, “we have gathered here to begin
the fight for power.”
Those promises were made in 2014, but there are early
signs of them being fulfilled today.
This year the battalion has founded a new “National Militia” to bring the war home.
This well-organized gang is at the forefront of a growing wave of racist and anti-Semitic violence in Ukraine.
Led by its military veterans, it specializes in pogroms and thuggish enforcement of its political agenda.
Earlier this month, clad in balaclavas and wielding axes and baseball bats, members of the group destroyed a Romany camp in Kiev. In a YouTube video, apparently shot by the Azov thugs themselves, police turn up towards the end of the camp’s destruction.
They look on doing nothing, while the thugs cry, “Glory to the nation! Death to enemies!”
 |
Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman (left) met with the Ukranian prime minister last year to discuss deeper military ties. (Ukranian Government Portal)
|
Israel’s military aid to Ukraine and its neo-Nazis
emulates similar programs by the United States and other NATO countries including
the UK and Canada.
So obsessed are they with defeating a perceived threat from Russia that they seem happy to aid even openly Nazi militias – as long as they fight on their side.
This is also a throwback to the early Cold War, when the CIA supported fascists and Hitlerites to infiltrate from Austria into Hungary in 1956, where they began slaughtering Hungarian communist Jews and Hungarian Jews as “communists.”
Recent postings on Azov websites document a June meeting with the Canadian military attaché, Colonel Brian Irwin.
According to Azov, the Canadians concluded the
briefing by expressing “their hopes for
further fruitful cooperation.”
Irwin acknowledged receipt of an email from The
Electronic Intifada, but did not answer questions about his meeting with the
fascist militia.
A spokesperson for the Canadian defense department
later sent a statement claiming that their “training
of Ukrainian Armed Forces through Operation Unifier incorporates strong human
rights elements.”
They said Canada is “strongly opposed to the glorification of Nazism and all forms of
racism” but that “every country must
come to grips with difficult periods in its past.”
The spokesperson, who did not provide a name, wrote
that Canadian training “includes ongoing
dialogue on the development of a diverse, and inclusive Ukraine.”
The statement said nothing about how alleged Canadian
diversity training goes down with the Azov Battalion.
Also part of Colonel Irwin’s meeting was the head of
Azov’s officer training academy,
an institution named after right-wing Ukrainian nationalist Yevhen Konovalets.
Konovalets is one of the group’s
idols, whose portrait frequently adorns its military iconography.
Konovalets was the founder of the Organization of
Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which later allied itself to Nazi Germany during
its invasion of the Soviet Union.
The OUN took part in the notorious
1941 Lviv massacre, when the Nazis invaded Soviet territory.
During the pogrom, thousands of Jews were massacred in
the now-Ukrainian city.
US aid to Nazis
Canada is of course not the only NATO “ally” to be
sending arms to Ukraine.
As Max
Blumenthal has extensively reported, US weapons, including rocket-propelled
grenades, and training have been provided to Azov.
Under pressure from the Pentagon, a clause in the
annually renewed defense bill banning US aid to Ukraine from going to the Azov
Battalion was repeatedly stripped out.
This went on for three
straight years before Democratic lawmaker Ro Khanna and others pushed it
through earlier this year.
For his trouble Khanna was smeared
in Washington as a “K Street sellout”
who was “holding Putin’s dirty laundry.”
Despite the ban finally passing, Azov’s status as an
official unit of the Ukrainian armed forces leaves it unclear how US aid can be
separated out.
In 2014, the Israel lobby groups ADL and the Simon
Wiesenthal Center refused to
help a previous attempt to bar US aid to neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine.
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A now-deleted photo from an Azov website showed US-licensed RPGs were going to the neo-Nazi militia.
|
The ADL argued that “the focus should be on Russia,” while the Wiesenthal Center
pointed to the fact that other far-right leaders had met at the Israeli embassy
in Ukraine – as if that somehow absolved their anti-Semitic views.
Attempts by some in Congress to bar US military aid to
Nazis in Ukraine may explain military aid from Israel.
Israel’s “deepening
military-technical cooperation” with
Ukraine and its fascist militias is likely a way to help its partner in the
White House, and is another facet of the growing Zionist-White
Supremacist alliance.
Israel has historically acted as a useful route
through which US presidents and the CIA can circumvent congressional
restrictions on aid to various unsavory groups and governments around the
world.
In 1980s Latin America, these included the Contras,
who were fighting a war against the left-wing revolutionary government of
Nicaragua, as well as a host
of other Latin American fascist death squads and military dictatorships.
It also included the South African
apartheid regime, which Israeli governments of both the “Zionist left” and
Likudnik right armed for decades.
As quoted in Andrew and Leslie Cockburn’s book Dangerous
Liaison, one former member of the Israeli parliament, General
Mattityahu Peled, put
it succinctly:
“In
Central America, Israel is the ‘dirty work’ contractor for the US
administration. Israel is acting as an accomplice and an arm of the United
States.”
Amid an alarming rise in anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism,
Israel now appears to be reprising this role in eastern Europe.
With
translation from Hebrew by Dena Shunra.Asa Winstanley is an associate editor with The Electronic Intifada.
Ukraine's
Invented a 'Jewish-Ukrainian Nationalist' to Whitewash Its Nazi-era Past
Ha’aretz 9 November 2017
Ha’aretz 9 November 2017
Opinion
Myth-making efforts by
the Ukraine to glorify the WWII role of one 'archetypal' Jew, Leiba Dubrovskii,
is part of Kyiv's war on memory: its eager attempts to erase anti-Semitism,
brutality and complicity with the Nazis from its wartime history
Activists of the Azov civil corp, Svoboda
(Freedom), Ukrainian nationalist parties and the far-right group Right Sector
rally to mark 'Defender of Ukraine Day', in Kiev, Ukraine. October 14, 2017 REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
For a practical
lesson in nationalism that whitewashes an inconvenient past, including ties to
the Nazis, racism, anti-Semitism,
involvement in the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing and other violence
against a country’s own citizens – look no further than Ukraine.
The Ukrainian
Institute of National Memory (UINP) and its patrons in the Poroshenko
government in Kyiv are allowing us to study the process of nationalist
myth-making in real-time.
President Poroshenko
has enabled nationalist activists like Volodymyr Viatrovych, head of the
Institute, to sculpt Ukraine’s history and memory policies. Part and parcel of
the Institute’s "decommunization" campaign to remove remnants of a
Soviet past simultaneously has been to lionize 20th century Ukrainians who
fought for Ukraine’s independence no matter how problematic their backgrounds.
 |
| Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine. April 6, 2016 Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg |
In particular, the
Viatrovych and the Institute have made whitewashing the image of World War Two
Ukrainian nationalists a priority, not a small feat considering their
documented ties to, and complicity with, the Nazis.
This nationalist
revisionism seeks to show that the main wartime nationalist organizations, the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its military wing, the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), were ultimately multi-ethnic,
"multi-cultural," and democratic.
Unsurprisingly, the
nationalists’ relationship with Ukraine’s Jews has proved the biggest challenge
to this reinvention of Holocaust co-perpetrators and ethnic cleansers as
tolerant internationalists.
Its promoters have
recently doubled down on these efforts, spurred on by the annual 'Defenders of
Ukraine' holiday, celebrating a fictitious foundation date of the nationalists’
army, the UPA.
The Poroshenko
government circulated instructions on the eve of the holiday, emphasizing the
need to "provide citizens with
objective information." But a historical addendum prepared by the
Ukrainian Institute of National Memory does the opposite by claiming that: "Jews and Belarusians also fought in
the ranks" of the UPA and that "many
Jews" joined them voluntarily to prove themselves "as serious fighters and doctors."
Much Ukrainian media
ink has been spilled in recent years glorifying the role of one Jew, who served
with the nationalists. His story encapsulates Ukraine’s war on memory, and its
eager attempts to write out anti-Semitism from its wartime history.
 |
Far right Svoboda (Freedom) Ukrainian activists mark 71 years of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) with a portrait of wartime leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. Kiev, October 14, 2013 REUTERS
|
Leiba-Itsko
Iosifovich Dobrovskii has been touted as a Ukrainian nationalist who also
happened to be Jewish. That was to make the point that Ukrainian nationalism
and Jewishness were not mutually exclusive. These days, we’d call the
re-engineering of facts about Dobrovskii a fake news story. But it is
instructive to trace its origins.
The legend of Leiba
Dobrovskii, Ukrainian nationalist Jew, originated not in World War Two but the
mid-2000s, when he was first briefly mentioned in a book in 2006 by historian
and activist Volodymyr Viatrovych.
Viatrovych made
reference to a "Jew” in the UPA,
who helped write leaflets for the UPA in 1942 and 1943 and eventually was
arrested by the Soviets. In 2008 the Dobrovskii legend grew, thanks to the
exhibition "Jews in the Ukrainian
Liberation Movement," staged by the Ukrainian Security Service
and the Institute for National Memory with the assistance of Viatrovych.
Drawing on Dobrovskii’s arrest file in the archives of the Security Service,
the exhibition highlighted his line-up picture and alleged role in the UPA,
while notably offering no more details.
At this point, the
myth of Jews happily serving with Ukrainian nationalists in WW2 began to be
reported in prestigious outlets like BBC Ukraine.
After the Maidan
revolution of 2014, and Viatrovych’s further rise within the Ukrainian
government, the Dobrovskii legend flourished. In 2015, at the prominent
Kyiv-Mohyla University, Viatrovych gave a lecture presenting Dobrovskii as the archetypal "Ukrainian
Jew"in the UPA. Another exhibition this past May again used
Dobrovskii in the same vein. Even the largest Holocaust Museum in Ukraine,
located in Dnipro, highlights Dobrovskii as a Jew "in the OUN-UPA."
 |
| Children play at the monument of the Unknown Soldier, a memorial to World War II veterans, in a memorial park in Kiev, Ukraine. Nov. 1, 2017 Efrem Lukatsky/AP |
With this October’s
holiday, his photo and brief story has appeared frequently in local
publications, including at the Wester funded Radio Svoboda operated by Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which also promotes the myth of a Nationalist International. Dobrovskii’s name and
picture have become symbols of the alleged tolerance and multi-culturalism of
Ukrainian World War Two nationalism.
However, when I
actually read Dobrovskii’s file, the legend of the Jew eager to join the
Ukrainian nationalists quickly evaporated.
Dobrovskii grew up in
the Kyiv region, finished law school, and was a Communist party member from
1929. As a Red Army soldier, he was captured in 1941 and changed his name to
Leonid Dubrovskii to appear Ukrainian.
In this guise, he got
out of captivity and went to north-western Ukraine, where he accidently met
local Ukrainian nationalists connected to the local collaborationist police and
administration, including the local mayor and later UPA member, Mykola
Kryzhanovskii. Noteworthy is that Kryzhanovskii was well-known for his
brutality towards Jews. Not suspecting that Dobrovskii was Jewish and
appreciating his education, the nationalists recruited him to produce
propaganda.
In contrast to the
shiny new nationalist legend, Dobrovskii actually concealed his Jewishness
to his nationalist 'compatriots' and was no enthusiastic supporter of Ukrainian
nationalism. In fact, he was scared that they would find out who he really was.
When asked in his
interrogation about the relationship between Jews and the nationalists in
general, Dobrovskii noted that "Jews could not formally"
join the Ukrainian nationalists. He feared nationalist retribution against his
wife and child. Dobrovskii also tried to feign sickness to avoid working for
the nationalists and on numerous occasions tried to avoid contact, but was
pressured to continue his service. On multiple occasions, soldiers came to his
home to bring him to meetings.
 |
A woman places flowers at a monument commemorating the victims of Baby Yar (Babiy Yar), one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. Kiev, Ukraine, September 29, 2017VALENTYN OGIRENKO/REUTERS
|
Dobrovskii had well-founded reasons for his
reluctance and fear. He felt that Ukraine’s nationalists, who deliberately
helped staff local police forces under the German Nazi forces, were complicit
in the genocide of the Jews.
In 1943, he noted, nationalist detachments "carried out the mass murder of the
Polish population" in western Ukraine. He described the radicalizing
influence of West Ukrainian nationalists on Ukrainian youth and observed that
they spread "enmity toward Jews,
Russians and Poles." He also observed nationalist violence and "terror" against Ukrainians,
including the murder of two church leaders by UPA.
He did not even believe in the nationalist
claims that they were fighting the Germans, remarking that they "did not kill a single local German [Nazi]
leader in the area" of Volhynia.
We might ask: Did Viatrovych and his supporters
think that no one would ever read Dobrovskii’s arrest file? Did they themselves
read the entire file? Did they arbitrarily choose to dismiss all evidence of
his fear of the nationalists, and of their brutality, as ‘Soviet distortions’?
In that case, one would think they would at
least mention and address a source that massively contradicts the myth they’ve
have been embellishing and spreading. Archives are not buffets from which
nationalist public relations activists can choose the most appealing morsels.
Instead, research requires contextualization, not to mention cross-checking.
 |
Ukrainian nationalists burn an effigy of Vladimir Lenin on the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution; the placard reads 'Change yourself – change Ukraine'. Kiev, November 7, 2017GENYA SAVILOV/AFP
|
Sadly, we know this is not the first time that
nationalist activists have spread a fake narrative about Jews and nationalists,
as in the case of Stella Krentsbakh/Kreutzbach, a fictitious Jewess who,
according to her 'autobiography', forged by a nationalist propagandist in the
1950s, thanked "God and the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army" for having survived the war and the
Holocaust.
Similarly, how is it that for almost a decade
now Ukrainian media and parts of academia have simply trusted the statements of
highly – and transparently – motivated nationalist activists without bothering
to check their story? The archives are open, after all. Are Ukrainian media and
western outlets like Radio Svoboda incapable or unwilling to check information
provided by a Ukrainian government body officially dedicated to the Ukrainian
historical record?
In a post-Maidan landscape where an independent
media and academy are vital to the integrity of Ukrainian democracy and its
integration in Europe, this case should force some reassessment of the degree
to which Ukraine’s public can access facts and not propaganda.
The Dobrovskii myth demonstrates two persistent
problems with the study of war and violence.
First, a rigid understanding of the
relationship between ethnicity, identity, and action: the prevailing assumption
that ethno-national identity is the decisive, if not only, determinant of
behavior. In Dobrovskii’s case, his assumed representative
"Jewishness" is exploited to whitewash nationalism, although all we
really know is that he was born a Jew. His decision to alter or hide this
aspect of his identity and join Ukrainian nationalists to save his life
certainly speaks to his circumstances which were as stark as is possible: war
and genocide.
 |
David Feldman, a rabbi from Odessa, stands at a mass grave of Jews slaughtered in Ukraine during World War II, in the village of Gvozdavka-1, Ukraine. June 7, 2007AP
|
But Dubrovskii’s
unfree choice was spun into an entire legend of Jew-friendly Ukrainian
nationalists, because of the pressing need to deny any foundational anti-Semitism.
But the same manipulation wouldn’t be used for other historical events in
Ukrainian history. Would the same revisionists take the participation of
Ukrainians in the Red Army as evidence of the "Ukrainian"
commitment to communism? Of course not.
The Dobrovskii case
also shows why we should stop romanticizing Ukrainian World War Two
nationalists.
Insurgencies
routinely use various enticements, threats, and pressures to bring vulnerable
populations under their control and into their ranks. That Dobrovskii, a former
POW without networks or friends and stranded far from home, would join the
nationalists out of fear and to survive is hardly surprising. Cases of
"defecting from" or hiding an ethnic identity exposing its bearer to
a lethal threat have nothing to do with the multiculturalism and tolerance of
those making the threats, but with hard facts of exploitation and – perhaps –
survival.
Shocking as this case
may be, Ukraine is hardly alone in its efforts to whitewash its past and
elevate controversial nationalist leaders. Throughout Eastern Europe, be it in Hungary, Poland,
or Lithuania, the struggle
to deal with a difficult, often anti-Semitic past in an honest, productive
manner in an uncertain present looms large for the future of the region.
Jared McBride, PhD, is a lecturer
in the history department at University of California-Los Angeles. He is
currently finishing a book about wartime violence in western Ukraine. Twitter: jaredgmcbride
