Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины

host and co-hosts. I again received no reply.

In an attempt to clarify the accuracy of the 60 Minutes broadcast, other letters were sent,

among them letters to Michael Jordan, Chairman of Westinghouse, following the Westinghouse

purchase of CBS in 1995, letters to Simon Wiesenthal, star witness on The Ugly Face of Freedom,

and letters to Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, supporting witness on the same program. Nor were my letters

the only ones sent - in fact, CBS received some 16,000 pieces of mail protesting the 60 Minutes

broadcast. To my knowledge, not a single one of these letters has ever been answered, or even

acknowledged, the muteness of CBS and others involved leaving the impression that they are

unable to muster any defense for the 60 Minutes broadcast.

At that time, and since, I have circulated copies of my critique widely, and have received many

favorable comments. In a small number of instances, I was grateful for helpful suggestions as

to minor revisions; however, no one challenged any of my major criticisms or arguments,

encouraging me to believe that these were fundamentally correct.

Below you will find the latest version of this same critique, substantially longer and more

detailed than the original, but basically offering no more than an elaboration of the material

already long in the hands of CBS. I will not again waste postage mailing this critique to CBS

with the advent of the internet, there are less costly ways to disseminate information; if CBS

wants to see this latest version, it will have no trouble finding it.

The defects of the 60 Minutes broadcast as so multifarious, that it is difficult to capture them

in one brief statement. If one were to attempt to do so, then the statement might mention that

60 Minutes misrepresented the historical record, provided mistranslations of statements

originally made in Ukrainian, suppressed pertinent information concerning Ukrainian-Jewish

relations during World War II, encouraged retrogressive notions of collective guilt, altered the

dates on which events were supposed to have occurred, doctored the sound track, accepted dubious

and implausible statements from sources whose credibility had not been established or whose

credibility should have been suspect, and generally in numerous instances employed questionable

evidence to point to conclusions that were untrue, provocative, and inflammatory. There follows

below an outline of the chief defects of this 60 Minutes broadcast.

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

The Galicia Division

60 Minutes' chief piece of evidence for Ukrainian anti-Semitism and predilection for Naziism

seems to be the official celebrations commemorating the Galicia Division. Elderly men in

civilian dress are shown wearing military insignia in a recent reunion in the city of Lviv,

Ukraine (Lvov in Russian, Lwow in Polish, formerly Lemberg). Mr. Safer informs us that

"Thousands of Ukrainians joined the SS and marched off to fight for Naziism," and that "Nowhere,

not even in Germany, are the SS so openly celebrated," and that "Many of the Ukrainian men of

Lvov who marched off as members of the SS never returned - killed fighting for Hitler."

The impression created in the viewer's mind is that these veterans are unanimously guilty of war

crimes and crimes against humanity, that they were once supporters of and now continue to be

admirers of Hitler, that they sympathized with Nazi ambitions during World War II, that they are

the remnants of a much larger group of Ukrainians who shared a similar orientation, and that as

their reunion was sanctioned by the Lviv City Council and the Ukrainian Catholic Church, similar

charges must apply to Ukrainians generally. To all this, however, I must echo Cardinal

Lubachivsky's words: "It is not true!"

The Galicia Division was recruited by the Germans only well into the war, in the summer and fall

of 1943 when they were beginning to experience setbacks on their Eastern front. That the

Galicia Division was considered an "SS" division does not bear the significance given it by 60

Minutes - it was a Waffen SS division, which is quite a different thing: "Like other German

volunteer units, the Division Halychyna [Galicia] was included in the 14th Grenadier Division of

the SS-Waffen." (Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, Volume 2, p. 1088.)

Five qualities of the Galicia Division make it a most atypical component of the stereotype of

the SS: (1) it was strictly a combat unit and so played no role in the management of

concentration camps or death camps, (2) its Ukrainian members wore a lion rampant instead of an

"SS" on their right collars during most of the life of the division, (3) it was accompanied by

Ukrainian chaplains who attended to the spiritual needs of the troops, (4) it was kept separate

from other German forces, and (5) it was created with the proviso that it never be used against

the Western Allies, but only against Soviet forces on the Eastern front. These five qualities

alone render the Galicia Division an entity unlike any that was being conjured up in the minds

of 60 Minutes viewers.

Photographs contrasting different insignia of

German and Ukrainian members of the Galicia

Division

Of course the members of any military unit will be required to swear oaths of obedience to the

Commander-in-Chief. No fighting force can function without such an oath, and the members of the

Galicia Division were unable to avoid swearing one. However, compare the differences in the

German SS oath and the Ukrainian Waffen-SS oath:

German SS Oath

"I swear to you Adolf Hitler, as Leader and Chancellor of the Reich, loyalty

and valor. I vow to you and all those you place over me obedience until

death, so help me God."

Ukrainian Waffen-SS Oath

"I swear by God this holy oath, that in the struggle against Bolshevism I will

give the Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces, Adolf Hitler, absolute

obedience, and if it be his will, as a fearless soldier, I will always be

prepared to lay down my life for this oath." (Richard Landwehr, Fighting for

Freedom: The Ukrainian Volunteer Division of the Waffen-SS, Bibliophile Legion

Books, Silver Spring, Maryland, 1985, p. 45)

Here are three revealing differences between the above oaths: (1) The German SS oath swears to

Adolf Hitler who happens to be leader, whereas the Ukrainian Waffen-SS oath swears to the leader

who happens to be Adolf Hitler. (2) The German SS oath does not restrict the Germans to any

limited role, but the Ukrainian Waffen-SS oath does restrict the Ukrainian role to the "struggle

against Bolshevism." (3) In the words "obedience until death," the German SS oath appears to

imply obedience for the rest of one's life, whereas the Ukrainian Waffen-SS oath limits the

duration of the obedience to the period of service "as a fearless soldier." These are not

insignificant differences - they constitute an affirmation that the Ukrainians had their own

goals, and that these overlapped with German goals only on the matter of opposing the Soviet

re-occupation of Ukraine. For the Ukrainians to have won an even greater variance from the

fundamental German SS oath would have been for the Germans to accept into their armed forces

members who were openly declaring recalcitrance and insubordination.

The Ukrainian motivation for permitting the formation of the Galicia Division was threefold: (1)

the existence of the division would serve to improve German treatment of Ukrainians in the

occupied territories, (2) the Division would form the nucleus of a national army which might

promote Ukrainian aspirations to statehood, and (3) the Division would be thrown into the fight

to oppose the Soviet re-occupation of Ukraine.

Even though both Canada and the U.S. have Nazi-hunting units within their respective Justice

Departments, not a single member of the Division has ever been convicted of any war crime and

none has ever been charged. The absence of evidence of any wrongdoing not only of the Division

as a whole, but also of any member of the Division, during his membership in the Division or

before or after, is widely recognized. Judge Jules Deschenes, heading Canada's Commission of

Inquiry on War Criminals, concluded that:

The members of the Galicia Division were individually screened for security

purposes before admission to Canada. Charges of war crimes against members of

the Galicia Division have never been substantiated, neither in 1950 when they

were first preferred, nor in 1984 when they were renewed, nor before this

Commission. ... In the absence of evidence of participation in or knowledge of

specific war crimes, mere membership in the Galicia Division is insufficient to

justify prosecution. (Jules Deschenes, Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals,

1986, p. 12)

Judge Deschenes cites a 1947 report of a British Screening Commission which was filed just prior

to the Galicia Division being moved from Italy to Britain (note that these are the words of the

1947 British Screening Commission, not of Judge Deschenes):

They probably were not, and certainly do not now seem to be at heart

pro-German, and the fact that they did give aid and comfort to the Germans can

fairly be considered to have been incidental and not fundamental. (in Jules

Deschenes, Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, 1986, p. 253)

A 1950 British Foreign Office report to the Canadian Department of External Affairs concerning

the Galicia Division was also cited by Judge Deschenes (note that these are the words of the

1950 British Foreign Office, not of Judge Deschenes):

While in Italy these men were screened by Soviet and British missions and

neither then nor subsequently has any evidence been brought to light which

would suggest that any of them fought against the Western Allies or engaged in

crimes against humanity. Their behaviour since they came to this country has

been good and they have never indicated in any way that they are infected with

any trace of Nazi ideology. ... From the reports of the special mission set

up by the War Office to screen these men, it seems clear that they volunteered

to fight against the Red Army from nationalistic motives which were given

greater impetus by the behaviour of the Soviet authorities during their earlier

occupation of the Western Ukraine after the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Although

Communist propaganda has constantly attempted to depict these, like so many

other refugees, as "quislings" and "war criminals" it is interesting to note

that no specific charges of war crimes have been made by the Soviet or any

other Government against any members of this group. (in Jules Deschenes,

Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, 1986, p. 252)

Judge Deschenes concludes:

It is an acknowledged fact that the members of the Division were volunteers who