OUN-UPA

Both the Nazis and Russians tried to make Ukrainians look bad re: the Jewish issue.

OUN, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, formed by Colonel Yevhen Konovalets in 1929, to continue the struggle for an independent Ukraine, the OUN stated its mission in a memorandum to the British government in 1935:

“We, the Ukrainian Nationalist Organization, are fighting for complete independence of Ukraine... We shall most vigorously defy all... attempts to... solve the affairs of Eastern Europe without, or against, the will of the Ukrainian people...”

The OUN became the enemy of all occupation powers: first of Poland, then Russia, and finally, Germany. In 1938 OUN leader Konovalets was assassinated in Holland by Soviet agent Pavel Sudoplatov.

Leadership of the OUN was assumed by Andriy Melnyk, but soon a rift developed. The moderate members remained loyal to Andriy Melnyk, while the radical supported Stepan Bandera. However, all the Ukrainian leaders, including the President of the Ukrainian Government in exile, Andriy Livitsky, who succeeded Petlura, expected that the impending conflict between Germany and the USSR would provide an opportunity for Ukraine’s independence.

But Germany would soon show it was not interested in an independent Ukraine. The dress rehearsal for the Nazi-Soviet cooperation was Carpatho Ukraine.

In late 1938, Czechoslovakia had agreed at last to honor its commitments under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and granted autonomy to its easten-most province inhabited by Ukrainians.

After a democratic election the Carpatho-Ukrainian Parliament declared independence on March 15, 1939. Monsignor Augustyn Voloshyn was elected President. On the same day Hitler and his partners of the moment, Hungary and Poland, invaded various parts of Czechoslovakia. Carpatho-Ukraine offered the first armed resistance in Europe to German designs, but its fledgling armed force was no match for the Hungarian Army, which in a few days advanced to the Polish border. Documents show that Hitler allowed the invasion of Carpatho-Ukraine not only to gain Hungary as an ally, but to show Stalin that Germany would not support Ukrainian independence.

The fall of Carpatho-Ukraine in March helped pave the way for the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty signed by Ribbentrop and Molotov on August 23, 1939.

One week later, on September 1st, Germany invaded Poland, and World War II began.

“The Second World War passed through several phases, three very clear phases: In the first phase, from September ‘39 to ‘41, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were partners. They weren’t formal allies but they were very clear partners... I would say, 'partners in crime.' Not only did they partition Poland - one of the allied powers - between them, they each attacked their neighbours. Germany, I think in those two years attacked eight European countries; the Soviet Union attacked and invaded five...” (Norman Davies)

For more, see: http://www.ucrdc.org

Today, it has been clearly established that the Bandera movement is providing forged passports not only for its own members, but also for Jews.?
(Report on Events in the USSR – 187, Berlin, March 30, 1942)
http://en.wikipedia.org

Ukrainian Nationalists Oppose Nazi Plan to Expel Jews from Galicia
LONDON - August 5, 1941

The possible mass deportation of Jews from the recently occupied districts of Lwow, Ternopol and Stanislawow, in Galicie (sic), which Germany proclaimed last week as annexed to the Government General, is provoking serious worry among the Ukrainian population there, it was reported here today.

Leaders of Ukrainian Nationalist parties in Galicia feel that the balance of power which the large Jewish population holds in these districts would be destroyed in favor of Germans should the Jews be expelled into the ghettos in the interior of Nazi-held Poland.

Bitter disappointment is felt among the Ukrainian Nationalists over the fact that the above three districts, which Hitler promised would constitute a part of the "liberated" Ukraine, have now been proclaimed a part of Nazi-held Poland. Aside from considering it a "brazen double-cross", the anti-Soviet Ukrainian leaders see in Hitler's action an indication that the Nazis are not at all certain about the outcome of the Russo-German war.
http://archive.jta.org

From: League of Ukrainian Canadians HISTORY OF THE OUN-UPA
In February 1943 Moscow creates Polish units within the Soviet partisan movement to operate in western Ukraine against the Germans and the UPA; Polish auxiliary police in German service join the anti-Ukrainian campaign; the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa), on orders from the Polish government-in-exile, prepares the operation code-named Storm? (Burza) in early 1944, intended to seize western Ukrainian territories, including the city of Lviv, to present the advancing Soviets with a fait accompli in the hope that the said territories would again become part of the Polish state
after the war; the OUN and the UPA are left with no choice but to fight against the Poles as well...

1943-1944 "In their propaganda war against the Ukrainian liberation movement, the Nazis call the members of the OUN-UPA agents of Moscow and the OUN-UPA a tool of Jewish Bolshevism, while the Soviet side
calls the members of the OUN-UPA despicable German hirelings and Hitlerite servants this is additional evidence that testifies to the self-reliance of the Ukrainian liberation movement...
http://www.lucorg.com

Ukrainian Leaders in Galicia Are Friendly to Jews Despite Nazi Propaganda
GENEVA -
Reports reaching here today from Nazi-held Poland reveal that friendly relations are developing between the Ukrainians and the Jews in the parts of Nazi-occupied Galicia where Ukrainians are participating in the local administration.

Despite the efforts of the Nazi occupational authorities to incite the Ukrainians against the Jews, Ukrainian leaders in Galicia are cooperating with the local Jewish leaders with whom they worked for many years under the Polish regime. The Nazi allegations that Jews were responsible for the killing of many Ukrainian nationalists in Lwow when the city was occupied by the Soviet army are having practically no influence on the Ukrainian population.

The majority of the Ukrainian leaders were in Lwow during the Soviet occupation of Eastern Galicia and are therefore in a position to know that the Nazi anti-Jewish allegations are baseless. These leaders are also aware of the fact that a large number of Jews were deported by the Soviet occupational authorities from Lwow and other Galician cities to distant sections of Siberia.

Dwelling at great length on the starvation prevailing among the Jews in Nazi-held Galicia, the report reveals that while the Nazi authorities hardly furnish any food to the Jewish population there, local Ukrainians in charge of the civil administration are displaying great understanding of the Jewish plight and try to alleviate it to any possible extent. Most of the relief for Jews in Galicia, however, comes from the Jews in Poland. Though they trammelled are in great need of food, they share what little they have with their brethren in Galicia through the Jewish communities which have been established in Lwow, Tarnow, Przemysl, Stanislawow, Chertkov, Sambor and Drohobitch.

The report also reveals that thousands of Jews* in Galicia are homeless as a result of the "scorched earth" policy of the Russian Army which burned down many buildings when retreating from Galicia. In Lwow all synagogues and Jewish school buildings were not affected by the fires and it is in these buildings that the roofless Jews are given shelter. In Tarnopol, on the other hand, all Jewish public buildings were demolished with the exception of the Jewish Artisans Guild quarters where most of the Jews in the city have been crowded. [*Olga's note: See how this is biased, that the Jewish were affected by the scotch earth policy but not the Ukrainians? How about the Ukrianian peasant homes? Weren't they harmed too? Hmmmm]
http://archive.jta.org

Bandera and antisemitism
http://en.wikipedia.org
Unlike competing Polish, Russian, Hungarian or Romanian nationalisms in late imperial Austria, imperial Russia, interwar Poland and Romania, Ukrainian nationalism did not include antisemitism as a core aspect of its program and saw Russians as well as Poles as the chief enemy with Jews playing a secondary role.[38] Nevertheless, Ukrainian nationalism was not immune to the influence of the antisemitic climate in the Eastern and Central Europe,[38] had already become highly racialized in the late 19th century, and had developed an elaborate anti-Jewish discourse.[39]

The predominance of the Russians, rather than the Jewish minority, as the principal perceived enemy of Ukrainian nationalists was highlighted at the OUN-B's Conference in Krakow in 1941 when it declared that "The Jews in the USSR constitute the most faithful support of the ruling Bolshevik regime, and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in Ukraine. The Muscovite-Bolshevik government exploits the anti-Jewish sentiments of the Ukrainian masses to divert their attention from the true cause of their misfortune and to channel them in a time of frustration into pogroms on Jews. The OUN combats the Jews as the prop of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime and simultaneously it renders the masses conscious of the fact that the principal foe is Moscow."[40] In May 1941 at a meeting in Krakow the leadership of Bandera's OUN faction adopted the program "Struggle and action of OUN during the war which outlined the plans for activities at the onset of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the western territories of the Ukrainian SSR.[41] Section G of that document –"Directives for first days of the organization of the living state outline activity of the Bandera followers during summer 1941 [42] In the subsection of "Minority Policy" the OUN-B ordered: "Moskali (a derogatory terms for Russians), Poles, Jews are hostile to us must be exterminated in this struggle, especially those who would resist our regime: deport them to their own lands, importantly: destroy their intelligentsia that may be in the positions of power ... Jews must be isolated, removed from governmental positions in order to prevent sabotage, those who are deemed necessary may only work with an overseer... Jewish assimilation is not possible." [43][44][45] Later in June Yaroslav Stetsko sent to Bandera a report in which he indicated - "We are creating a militia which would help to get remove the Jews and protect the population." [46][47] Leaflets spread in the name of Bandera in the same year called for the "destruction" of ""Moscow", Poles , Hungarians and Jewry.[48][49][50] In 1941-1942 while Bandera was cooperating with the Germans, OUN members did take part in anti-Jewish actions.

In 1942 German intelligence concluded that Ukrainian nationalists were indifferent to the plight of the Jews and were willing to either kill them or help them, depending on what better served their cause. Several Jews took part in Bandera's underground movement,[51] including one of Bandera's close associates Richard Yary who was also married to a Jewish woman. Another notable Jewish UPA member was Leyba-Itzik "Valeriy" Dombrovsky. According to a report to the Chief of the Security Police in Berlin dated March 30, 1942, "...it has been clearly established that the Bandera movement provided forged passports not only for its own members, but also for Jews.".[52] The false papers were most likely supplied to Jewish doctors or skilled workers who could be useful for the movement.[53]

When Bandera was in conflict with the Germans, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army under his authority sheltered many Jews.[54] and included Jewish fighters and medical personnel.[55][56] In the official organ of the OUN-B's leadership, instructions to OUN groups urged those groups to "liquidate the manifestations of harmful foreign influence, particularly the German racist concepts and practices." [57] In summary, Bandera's movement sometimes harmed and sometimes helped Jews depending on particular circumstances and on Bandera's relationship with Germany.

The UPA-OUN story with over 50 volumes of the "Litopys UPA' series
http://www.litopysupa.com

In Mein Kampf, Hitler had already pointed to the Ukraine as an essential part of this German living space. The Ukraine and other regions of Eastern Europe needed to belong to the German nation so that they could be utilised in a "proper" manner. According to Nazi propaganda, the Nazi sword would liberate [from USSR] this territory in order to make space for the German race."
http://answers.google.com

British historian A. J. P. Taylor noted in his 1963 foreword "Second Thoughts" to his 1961 book The Origins of the Second World War:
Lebensraum (New Living Space) in Ukraine:

In 1961 a German professor [Fritz Fischer] reported the results of his investigations into German war aims. These were indeed a "blueprint for aggression" or as the professor called them "a grasp at world power": Belgium under German control, the French iron fields annexed to Germany, and, what is more, Poland and the Ukraine to be cleared of their inhabitants and resettled with Germans. These plans were not merely the work of the German General Staff. They were endorsed by the German Foreign Office and by the "good German", Bethmann Hollweg.

Germany had thus secured the Ukraine. The Russian recognition of the Ukraine's separation exacted at Brest-Litovsk repesented the key element in German efforts to keep Russia perpetually subservient. In addition, German troops held the Crimea and were stationed in smaller numbers in Transcaucasia. Even the unoccupied "rump" Russia appeared"with the conclusion of the German-Soviet Supplementary Treaty on August 28, 1918â€"to be in firm though indirect dependency on the Reich.

SOVIET OCCUPATION OF WESTERN UKRAINE, 1939-41
As part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of Non-Aggression, eastern territories of Poland, most importantly Halychyna [Galicia], were incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. After the Red Army marched into Lviv on 17 September 1939, the peoples of Western Ukraine were proclaimed liberated from the bourgeois nationalist government of Poland and a sham Assembly was convened in October, which asked the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to untied [unite?] Western Ukraine with Soviet Ukraine. Thousands of Party activists and NKVD operatives were dispensed to Western Ukraine to carry out the Sovietization of Western Ukraine.

Austro-Hungarian rule (to 1918) and then Polish rule (1919-39) in Western Ukraine had been more benign than Tsarist and Soviet rule in the rest of Ukraine. Western Ukraine therefore became the piedmont of the struggle for an independent Ukraine. The two years of occupation that followed saw the use of repression and terror in Western Ukraine that equaled and even surpassed the Great Terror of 1936-38 in the USSR. Real and perceived enemies of the Soviet regime were ruthlessly attacked. The primary organ of repression was the NKVD; the Sovietization of Western Ukraine was overseen by Stalin's envoy in Ukraine, Nikita Khrushchev.

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN], Ukrainian cooperatives, the Greek Catholic Church, the Communist Party of Western Ukraine and Ukrainian press were brutally repressed. The collectivization of the villages began, which was met with stiff resistance; by 1941, 15% of agriculture in Western Ukraine was collectivized. The Russian language became mandatory for all pupils.

[The start of homogenization, i.e., mixing the Ukrainian and Russians] From 1939 to 1941 1.2 million people were deported from Western Ukraine to the Soviet East [Siberia, etc], including 400,000 Ukrainians. These numbers represented some 10% of the population of Western Ukraine. Many of the members of the nationally conscious intelligentsia and national leadership in Western Ukraine were repressed on the spot. It is estimated that some 15,000 people were shot during the Red Terror in Western Ukraine from September 1939-June 1941. After the outbreak of war between the USSR and Germany in June 1941 22,000 people were shot in eastern Ukrainian NKVD prisons in June-July 1941 as the Red Army retreated.

Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center:
http://www.ucrdc.org