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as has the Ukrainian Galicia Division.
Why Did Himmler Want a Waffen SS?
If the Wehrmacht was the combat arm of the German forces, and Himmler's SS was dedicated to
running the concentration camps, then why were there combat units within the SS? Why weren't
non-German combat units such as the Galicia Division considered to be part of the Wehrmacht
rather than part of the SS? The suspicion in the mind of the impartial observer might readily
be that any unit that was considered part of the SS may in fact have performed some duties that
were uniquely SS, and thus was more likely to be guilty of war crimes than a Wehrmacht unit.
Israeli historian Leni Yahil provides an answer - the war effort had taken center stage; Himmler
wanted to remain on center stage; and it is for that reason that Himmler defined certain combat
units as falling within the SS:
The very fact that Himmler and his executors became the central force
directing the implacable war against the Jews accorded them, and primarily
Himmler as their leader, a crucial position in the hierarchy of Nazi rule
wherever it extended. Hitler's hatred of the Jews and the importance he
ascribed to solving the Jewish problem according to his concept were among the
factors that ensured Himmler's status as the man who carried out the fuhrer's
program.
It might have been assumed that in wartime, when stress is necessarily laid
on the military struggle, the influence of the SS would have declined, since it
no longer held the center stage. If Hitler had lost interest in Himmler's
activities, the latter's own political career would have come to an end. He
forestalled the danger in two ways: one was by associating the SS with the war
effort through the establishment of the armed or Waffen SS while being careful
to prevent the army's influence over these corps from overriding his own.
(Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945, Oxford, New
York, 1990, p. 145)
The Nightingale Unit
60 Minutes also mentioned the Nightingale Unit, otherwise known as the Nachtigall Unit. The
Nachtigall Unit was eventually merged with the Ukrainian Roland Unit, some 600 Ukrainian
soldiers in all. These two units were formed on German territory prior to the outbreak of World
War II by Ukrainians who had either not fallen within the Soviet zone of occupation, or who had
escaped from it, and who anticipated German assistance in liberating Ukraine from Soviet rule.
These units too, however, fail to support the picture of Ukrainians "marching off to fight for
Hitler."
Specifically, shortly after the entry of the Germans into Lviv, Stepan Bandera, "(supported by
members of the Nachtigall Unit) decided - without consulting the Germans - to proclaim on 30
June 1941, the establishment of a Ukrainian state in recently conquered Lviv. ... Within days
of the proclamation, Bandera and his associates were arrested by the Gestapo and incarcerated"
(Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 1994, pp. 463-464). Refusing to rescind the proclamation,
Bandera spent July 1941 to September 1944 in German prisons and concentration camps. (Stepan
Bandera is mentioned at this point because he was supported by the Nachtigall Unit; Bandera was
not a member of the Nachtigall Unit.) "Because of their opposition to German policies in
Ukraine, the units were recalled from the front and interned. ... Toward the end of 1942, the
battalion was disbanded because of the soldiers' refusal to take an oath of loyalty to Hitler"
(Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, Volume 2, p. 1088). "The battalion was disarmed and
demobilized, and its officers were arrested in January 1943. Shukhevych, however, managed to
escape and join the UPA" (Encyclopaedia of Ukraine, Volume 4, p. 680). Roman Shukhevych who had
been the highest-ranking Ukrainian officer of the Nachtigall unit went on to became
commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a partisan group opposing all foreign
occupation, and which during the Nazi occupation was directed primarily against the Nazis.
Ukrainians in the Nachtigall and Roland Units, then, were also not Ukrainians marching off to
fight for Hitler, but rather they were Ukrainians calculating that an alliance with German
forces would promote their national interests, they were Ukrainians whose willingness to fight
for Hitler or to promote Nazi interests proved to be close to non-existent, and they were
Ukrainians who fell out with their Nazi sponsors in the early stages of the war.
It must be noted also that unlike the Galicia Division, the Nachtigall and Roland Units were not
part of the SS, and so that Mr. Safer was in error when he stated that "Roman Shukhevych ... was
deputy commander of the SS Division Nightingale."
It is another mark of 60 Minutes' biased coverage that in objecting to streets being named after
the above-mentioned Stepan Bandera, it did not mention that he spent most of the war in German
captivity, nor that he lost two brothers at Auschwitz; and in objecting to the commemoration of
the above-mentioned Roman Shukhevych, it did not mention that he escaped from German captivity
and commanded the Ukrainian guerrilla war against the German occupation. These omissions are
part of a pattern of distortions and misrepresentations used by 60 Minutes to create the false
impression of undeviating commitment to Naziism on the part of Ukrainians. Take Ukraine's
staunchest opponents of Naziism, let 60 Minutes' makeup crew touch them up for the camera, and
somehow they appear on the air with swastikas smeared on their foreheads.
And so 60 Minutes has painted a picture entirely at variance with the historical record. The
idea of Ukrainians en masse unselfconsciously celebrating the SS is preposterous and on a par
with the image of Jews sacrificing Christian children to drink their blood. These sorts of
fantastic and inflammatory charges are leveled by the more hysterical elements within each
community, are passed along by the more irresponsible members of the mass media, and are aimed
at consumption by the more naive and gullible members of their respective groups. 60 Minutes'
allegations have smeared members of the Galicia Division and Ukrainians generally with a
reckless disregard of evidence that is readily available to any researcher who is interested in
presenting an impartial picture. It is a blatant calumny for 60 Minutes to hold out any of the
above-mentioned units as evidence that Ukrainians "marched off to fight for Hitler" and it
overlooks also that on the Soviet side fighting the Nazis were about two million Ukrainians
which in view of their much larger number, 60 Minutes could have taken as evidence of Ukrainians
"marching off to fight against Hitler" and it overlooks as well the large number of Ukrainians
fighting against Hitler in the various national armies of the Allied forces.
Morley Safer's Contempt for the Intelligence of his Viewers.
Morley Safer states that "Nowhere, not even in Germany, are the SS so openly celebrated," and
while he is saying this, we might rightly expect that the scenes presented will be supportive of
his statement. What we do see is elderly veterans of the Galicia Division at a reunion in
Lviv. What details of these scenes support Morley Safer's strong conclusion? Let us consider
ten possibilities.
(1) Perhaps Mr. Safer counted swastikas, and their large number supported his strong
conclusion? But no, that can't be it - for there is not a single swastika to be seen anywhere.
Not one! But how is it possible to hold the world's most open celebration of the SS without a
single swastika? Mr. Safer's conclusion does not seem to be supported by the scene presented
in fact, his conclusion seems to be contradicted by the scene presented. Well, but perhaps
there were other clues?
(2) Surely at the world's most open celebration of the SS, one would find the "SS" insignia in
plentiful supply? But no, there is not a single "SS" visible anywhere. The camera scans the
veterans, we can see their medals and decorations, but we cannot see a single "SS." So far,
then, we have the world's most open celebration of the SS, but without a single swastika and
without a single "SS." But let us move ahead more quickly.
(3) The number of portraits of Hitler, commander-in-chief of all the German armed forces, and so
commander-in-chief of the SS? Zero!
(4) The number of portraits of Himmler, head of the SS? Zero!
(5) The number of portraits of any member of the Nazi hierarchy, or indeed of any German? Zero!
(6) Any Nazi salutes being made? No, not one!
(7) Any Nazi songs being sung? None!
(8) A single word of German spoken? No, not one!
(9) Perhaps there was literature circulated during the reunion which revealed Nazi sympathies?
But no such literature was shown. How about at any time prior to the reunion - even during the
entire 50 or so years following the formation of the Division and up until the reunion? 60
Minutes does not appear to have discovered any such Nazi literature.
(10) As these veterans have been living for more than 50 years predominantly in Canada, the
United States, and Australia, then they can readily be interviewed, and so perhaps 60 Minutes
interviewers managed to elicit pro-Nazi statements from them? No, this golden opportunity too
was passed over, not a single question was asked, not a single word spoken, and not a single
pro-Nazi statement was to be heard.
What then are we left with? We seem to be left with Morley Safer making a fantastic claim while
presenting as evidence images devoid of the slightest detail supporting that claim. We are
left, in short, with Morley Safer revealing his contempt for the intelligence of the 60 Minutes
viewer.
CONTENTS:
Preface
The Galicia Division
Quality of Translation
Ukrainian Homogeneity
Were Ukrainians Nazis?
Simon Wiesenthal
What Happened in Lviv?
Nazi Propaganda Film
Collective Guilt
Paralysis of the Comparative
Function
60 Minutes' Cheap Shots
Ukrainian Anti-Semitism
Jewish Ukrainophobia
Mailbag
A Sense of Responsibility
What 60 Minutes Should Do
PostScript
Quality of Translation
Were all those Ukrainians really saying "kike" and "yid"?
In one instance, I could make out the Ukrainian word "zhyd." Following conventions of Ukrainian
transliteration into English, by the way, the "zh" in "zhyd" is pronounced approximately like
the "z" in "azure," and the "y" in "zhyd" is pronounced like the "y" in "myth." Quite true, to
continue, that in Russian "zhyd" is derogatory for "Jew" and "yevrei" is neutral. In Ukrainian,
the same is true in heavily Russified Eastern Ukraine, and even in Central Ukraine. But in the
less Russified Western Ukraine old habits persist, and here especially among the common people
- "zhyd" continues to be as it always has been the neutral term for "Jew," and "yevrei" sounds
Russian.
Thus, in non-Russified Ukrainian, the "Jewish Battalion" of the Ukrainian Galician Army formed
in 1919 was the "zhydivskyi kurin". "Judaism" is "zhydivstvo." A "learned Jew" is "zhydovyn."
"Judophobe" is "zhydofob" and "Jodophile" is "zhydofil." The adjective "zhydivskyi" meaning
"Jewish" was used by Ukrainians and Jews alike in naming Jewish orchestras and theater groups
and clubs and schools and government departments. The Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971, Volume 11,
p. 616) shows the May 18, 1939 masthead and headlines of the Lviv Jewish newspaper which was
published in Polish. The Polish language is similar to Ukrainian, but uses the Roman rather
than the Cyrillic alphabet. The headline read "Strejk generalny Zydow w Palestynie" which means
"General strike of Jews in Palestine." The third word "Zydow" meaning "of Jews" is similar to
the Ukrainian word that would have been used in this context, and again serves to illustrate
that the Jews of this region did not view the word "zhyd" or its derivatives as derogatory.
We find this same conclusion in the recollections of Nikita Khrushchev (in the following
quotation, I have replaced the original translator's "yid" which rendered the passage confusing,
with the more accurate "zhyd"):
I remember that once we invited Ukrainians, Jews, and Poles ... to a meeting at
the Lvov opera house. It struck me as very strange to hear the Jewish speakers
at the meeting refer to themselves as "zhyds." "We zhyds hereby declare
ourselves in favour of such-and-such." Out in the lobby after the meeting I
stopped some of these men and demanded, "How dare you use the word "zhyd"?
Don't you know it's a very offensive term, an insult to the Jewish nation?"
... "Here in the Western Ukraine it's just the opposite," they explained. "We
call ourselves zhyds...." Apparently what they said was true. If you go back
to Ukrainian literature ... you'll see that "zhyd" isn't used derisively or
insultingly. (Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 1971, p. 145)
But 60 Minutes' mistranslation went even further than that - upon listening to the broadcast
more carefully, it is possible to hear that where the editor of the Lviv newspaper For a Free
Ukraine was translated as saying in connection with a joke circulated among the common people
"In terms of the Soviet Union which is abbreviated SSSR, that stands for three kikes and a
Russian," - in fact he was using the unarguably neutral term "yevrei" which it is obligatory to
translate not as "kike" but as "Jew" not only in Russian, but in Eastern and Western Ukrainian
as well.
Thus, in at least two instances, and possibly in all, the 60 Minutes' translator was translating
incorrectly, and in such a manner as to make the Ukrainian speakers appear to be speaking with
an unrestrained anti-Semitism, when in fact they were not. On top of that, the translator
gratuitously spit out his words and gave them a venomous intonation which was not present in the
original Ukrainian. And then too, where the speaker spoke in grammatical Ukrainian, the
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