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Thus, it is possible that you contributed to Maksym Tsarenko losing his hands, and to
Volodymyr Katelnytsky together with his mother, and Borys Derevyanko, losing their
lives.
Additional information on the Lviv massacre can be found in Alfred M. de Zayas, The
Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945.
July 4, 1999
Morley Safer
60 Minutes, CBS Television
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY
USA 10019
Morley Safer:
You Broadcast to 30 Million 60 Minutes
Viewers that in the Days Prior to German
Occupation, Ukrainians Killed Jews
In your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom, you joined with
Simon Wiesenthal in charging that in the days preceding the arrival of German forces
in June 1941, Lviv Ukrainians killed thousands of Jews:
SAFER: He [Simon Wiesenthal] remembers that even before the
Germans arrived, Ukrainian police went on a 3-day killing spree.
WIESENTHAL: And in this 3 days in Lvov alone between 5 and 6
thousand Jews was killed.
[...]
SAFER: But even before the Germans entered Lvov, the Ukrainian
militia, the police, killed 3,000 people in 2 days here.
Some 60 Minutes viewers may have been struck by the observation that while the 60
Minutes expert witness - Simon Wiesenthal - claimed that the number of Jews killed
was "between 5 and 6 thousand" in three days, you - supposedly the neutral
interviewer - chose to reduce the number killed to "3,000" and the duration of the
killing to two days - but without informing the viewer on what grounds you did so.
One wonders what reason you would have had for undermining the testimony of your
chief - and only - witness. One wonders what superior authority you discovered for
your revised statistic, and why you did not bring this superior authority forward to
testify in front of the CBS cameras instead of Simon Wiesenthal whose testimony you
apparently distrusted and chose to contradict. And one wonders that you could have
such low regard for the intelligence of 60 Minutes viewers that you would broadcast
discrepant accounts without explaining the discrepancy.
However, I Can't Find Anyone Else
Substantiating the Wiesenthal-Safer
Pre-German Lviv Pogrom
In my reading, I have yet to come across a single account which supports the
Wiesenthal-Safer claim of anywhere from 3,000 Jews killed in 2 days to 5,000-6,000
Jews killed in 3 days in Lviv during the pre-German interval. Had the
Wiesenthal-Safer pogrom taken place, then it would have been one of the biggest
pogroms of the war, and possibly the very biggest, and thus obligatory to describe
in every history of the Holocaust, if not in every history of the Second World War.
What I found, in contrast, was statements contradicting the possibility of the
Wiesenthal-Safer pogrom, most notably the following three made by Raul Hilberg:
From the Ukraine Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C reported as
follows:
Almost nowhere can the population be persuaded to
take active steps against the Jews. This may be
explained by the fear of many people that the Red
Army may return. Again and again this anxiety has
been pointed out to us. Older people have remarked
that they had already experienced in 1918 the
sudden retreat of the Germans. In order to meet
the fear psychosis, and in order to destroy the
myth [...] which, in the eyes of many Ukrainians,
places the Jew in the position of the wielder of
political power, Einsatzkommando 6 on several
occasions marched Jews before their execution
through the city. Also, care was taken to have
Ukrainian militiamen watch the shooting of Jews.
This "deflation" of the Jews in the public eye did not have the
desired effect. After a few weeks, Einsatzgruppe C complained once
more that the inhabitants did not betray the movements of hidden
Jews. The Ukrainians were passive, benumbed by the "Bolshevist
terror." Only the ethnic Germans in the area were busily working
for the Einsatzgruppe. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the
European Jews, 1961, p. 202)
The Slavic population stood estranged and even aghast before the
unfolding spectacle of the "final solution." There was on the
whole no impelling desire to cooperate in a process of such utter
ruthlessness. The fact that the Soviet regime, fighting off the
Germans a few hundred miles to the east, was still threatening to
return, undoubtedly acted as a powerful restraint upon many a
potential collaborator. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the
European Jews, 1985, p. 308)
First, truly spontaneous pogroms, free from Einsatzgruppen
influence, did not take place; all outbreaks were either organized
or inspired by the Einsatzgruppen. Second, all pogroms were
implemented within a short time after the arrival of the killing
units. They were not self-perpetuating, nor could new ones be
started after things had settled down. (Raul Hilberg, The
Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 312)
Fearing that substantiation for the Wiesenthal-Safer Lviv pogrom did exist somewhere
and that I had merely overlooked it, I made enquiry to leading Holocaust historian,
Raul Hilberg, on 15Sep97. Professor Hilberg was good enough in his reply of 15Dec97
to outline for me instances that he knew of anti-Jewish activity conducted in that
area at that time, and none of these instances gave credence to the Wiesenthal-Safer
Lviv pogrom.
Perhaps the most telling piece of evidence that the Wiesenthal-Safer Lviv pogrom was
a fabrication is unearthed upon trying to substantiate it in Simon Wiesenthal's own
writing. In one place, Simon Wiesenthal has the anti-Jewish activity postdating the
arrival of the Germans, and mentions neither the number of fatalities nor the
duration:
The Ukrainian police ... had played a disastrous role in Galicia
following the entry of the German troops at the end of June and the
beginning of July 1941. (Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance,
1989, p. 34, emphasis added)
And later in the same account, Simon Wiesenthal does mention a Lviv pogrom of three
day's duration, but again without mentioning the number of fatalities, and again
unambiguously placing it after the German occupation:
Thousands of detainees were shot dead in their cells by the
retreating Soviets. This gave rise to one of the craziest
accusations of that period: among the strongly anti-Semitic
population the rumour was spread by the Ukrainian nationalists that
all Jews were Bolsheviks and all Bolsheviks were Jews. Hence it
was the Jews who were really to blame for the atrocities committed
by the Soviets.
All the Germans needed to do was to exploit this climate of
opinion. It is said that after their arrival they gave the
Ukrainians free rein, for three days, to 'deal' with the Jews.
(Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 36, emphasis
added)
Also, whereas on your 60 Minutes broadcast you gave the impression that Simon
Wiesenthal was making his appearance on 60 Minutes in the role of an eyewitness to
the Wiesenthal-Safer Lviv Pogrom, or at least as a researcher who had documented it,
yet in the quotation immediately above, Simon Wiesenthal's use of "It is said that"
gives the contrasting impression that he is no more than passing along a rumor
concerning events that he has neither witnessed nor verified.
In conclusion, the Wiesenthal-Safer story of a massive pre-German Lviv pogrom is not
supported in historical writing, and is even contradicted by other testimony, some
of it leading Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg's, and some of it your own expert
witness Simon Wiesenthal's. Thus, unless you are able to substantiate the
Wiesenthal-Safer pre-German Lviv pogrom, you will invite the conclusion that it
never took place, and that your implanting it into the minds of 30 million 60
Minutes viewers constituted an attempt on the part of two individuals Simon
Wiesenthal and yourself - to fabricate a piece of history.
In Fact, the Consensus Seems to be that in
the Days Prior to German Occupation, it
was the NKVD that was Killing Ukrainians
In contrast to what appears to be a lack of substantiation of the Wiesenthal-Safer
story that in the days prior to German occupation Ukrainians were murdering Jews, I
do in my reading keep stumbling across quite a different story - that in the days
prior to German occupation, it was the NKVD that was murdering Ukrainians. Below
are 22 such statements. These statements were discovered not through any systematic
or exhaustive search, but rather only through casual reading. A systematic and
exhaustive search would turn up a much larger number of such statements.
In order to demonstrate that the NKVD had a general policy of killing Ukrainians
prior to retreating, of which the Lviv massacre was but a single instance, I include
descriptions of such killings in several locations.
"NKVD," in case you are interested, is an acronym for the Russian "Narodny
Komisariat Vnutrenikh Del," which translates as "National Commissariat of Internal
Affairs," and which bland title gives no hint of the NKVD's true role.
Please note that the block quotation immediately below is attributable to Simon
Wiesenthal, and that in it he demonstrates an awareness of the NKVD massacre of
Ukrainians, such that omitting mention of this massacre on your 23Oct94 60 Minutes
broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom, must be considered not an oversight, but a
willful suppression of relevant information:
(1) Thousands of detainees were shot dead.
When the German attack came on 22 June the Soviets had no time to
take with them the people they had locked up. So they simply
killed them. Thousands of detainees were shot dead in their cells
by the retreating Soviets. (Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not
Vengeance, 1989, p. 35)
(2) The NKVD burned prisons with prisoners in them.
While the movement to the East was taking place, the NKVD carried
out mass arrests and executions, chiefly of Ukrainians - especially
those who tried to avoid evacuation. In the jails most prisoners
whose period of imprisonment was more than three years were shot;
others were evacuated if possible. In several cities the NKVD
burned prisons with prisoners in them. (Volodymyr Kubijovyc,
editor, Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, University of Toronto
Press, Toronto, 1963, Volume I, p. 878, Vsevolod Holubnychy and H.
M. wrote this section)
(3) Succeeded in annihilating some 10,000 political prisoners.
The Bolsheviks succeeded in annihilating some 10,000 political
prisoners in Western Ukraine before and after the outbreak of
hostilities (massacres took place in the prisons in Lviv, Zolochiv,
Rivne, Dubno, Lutsk, etc.). (Volodymyr Kubijovyc, editor, Ukraine:
A Concise Encyclopaedia, University of Toronto Press, Toronto,
Volume 1, p. 886)
(4) Mainly members of the city's [Lviv's] intelligentsia.
Before fleeing the German advance the Soviet occupational regime
murdered thousands of Ukrainian civilians, mainly members of the
city's [Lviv's] intelligentsia. (Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Volume
3, p. 222)
(5) NKVD slaughtered their prisoners en masse.
The Soviets' hurried retreat had tragic consequences for thousands
of political prisoners in the jails of Western Ukraine. Unable to
evacuate them in time, the NKVD slaughtered their prisoners en
masse during the week of 22-29 June 1941, regardless of whether
they were incarcerated for major or minor offenses. Major
massacres occurred in Lviv, Sambir, and Stanyslaviv in Galicia,
where about 10,000 prisoners died, and in Rivne and Lutsk in
Volhynia, where another 5000 perished. Coming on the heels of the
mass deportations and growing Soviet terror, these executions added
greatly to the West Ukrainians' abhorrence of the Soviets. (Orest
Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 1994, p. 461)
(6) Liquidated with a shot at the scruff of the neck.
Right after the entry we were shown 2,400 dead bodies of Ukrainians
liquidated with a shot at the scruff of the neck at the city jail
of Lemberg [Lviv] by the Soviets prior to their marching off.
(Hans Frank, In the Face of the Gallows, p. 406)
(7) The city stank.
In Lvov, several thousand prisoners had been held in three jails.
When the Germans arrived on 29 June, the city stank, and the
prisons were surrounded by terrified relatives. Unimaginable
atrocities had occurred inside. The prisons looked like
abattoirs. It had taken the NKVD a week to complete their gruesome
task before they fled. (Gwyneth Hughes and Simon Welfare, Red
Empire: The Forbidden History of the USSR, 1990, p. 133)
(8) Many of them were found mutilated.
We learned that, before the Russian troops had left, a very great
number of Lemberg [Lviv] citizens, Ukrainians and Polish
inhabitants of other towns and villages had been killed in this
prison and in other prisons. Furthermore, there were many corpses
of German men and officers, among them many Air Corps officers, and
many of them were found mutilated. There was a great bitterness
and excitement among the Lemberg population against the Jewish
sector of the population. (Erwin Schulz, from May until 26
September, 1941 Commander of Einsatzkommando 5, a subunit of
Einsatzgruppe C, in John Mendelsohn, editor, The Holocaust:
Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, Garland, New York, 1982,
Volume 18, p. 18)
(9) The killed people in Lemberg [Lviv] amounted to about 5,000.
On the next day, Dr. RASCH informed us to the effect that the
killed people in Lemberg [Lviv] amounted to about 5,000. It has
been determined without any doubt that the arrests and killings had
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