Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины

himself. Their misstatements lower Jewish credibility; their hatred incites a reactionary

anti-Semitism.

In fact, Morley Safer's accusation of Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis is not a cry for

justice nor an advancement of historical truth, but is, rather, a weapon sometimes brandished

under political motivation even when the facts do not justify its use, and at other times

sheathed, also for political reasons, even when the facts cry out for its use. Thus, a

Ukrainian may be prosecuted even though the evidence against him is patently fraudulent, as was

the case in the trial of Ivan Demjanjuk (Yoram Sheftel, The Demjanjuk Affair: The Rise and Fall

of a Show-Trial, 1994). A Jewish Zionist, in contrast, may go unprosecuted for very real

collaboration with the Nazis, though he may be unable to avoid final justice imposed through

individual action:

Moldetsky, a leader of the Zionist Workers Party (Poalei Zion), who was

appointed head of the council of elders in Bedzin, and who, over the course of

years, chose thousands of Jews for forced labor and extermination, succeeded in

remaining alive. For the mass deportations, Moldetsky published a decree which

was completely fraudulent and deceiving, in which he said: "Jews, dress up in

your holiday clothes and march joyfully to the gathering places mentioned

above. No one is to remain at home. ..." The Jews, in their innocence,

obeyed him. The result was that people with large families - as well as the

elderly - a total of 8,000, were sent to Auschwitz. The babies were pushed

into sacks by the Nazis.

...

After the war, Moldetsky - by merit of Zionist activities - was

understandably one of the first to receive an immigration certificate to

Palestine. His collaboration in the murder of tens of thousands of Jews did

not make him unfit in the eyes of the officials of the Jewish Agency, who were

distributing the certificates. He went to Eretz Yisroel where, it has been

reported, the revengeful hand of the Jews of Bedzin killed him while he was

taking a trip in the mountains. (Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims

Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, pp. 122-123)

A related demonstration of how the accusation of Nazi collaboration is not levelled impartially,

but is used as a political weapon can be found in the case of Dr. Israel Kastner.

Comparison 2: Ukrainian Cruelty on Behalf of the Nazis Compared to Jewish Cruelty on Behalf of the

Nazis

Morley Safer states, addressing himself to Simon Wiesenthal: "I get the impression from people

that the actions of the Ukrainians, if anything, were worse than the Germans." What can Mr.

Safer possibly mean by such a statement? Does he mean that he knows of a Ukrainian whose

actions are worse than Hitler's, and another Ukrainian whose actions are worse than Himmler's,

and another whose actions are worse than Eichmann's, and so on down the line? Surely, this is

an impossibility, as Ukraine has never been accused either of starting the Second World War or

of engineering the Final Solution. Surely all that Mr. Safer means is that some Ukrainians can

be found who were worse than the average German, or the average Nazi, or even the average member

of the SS. Agreed - undoubtedly such Ukrainians exist, but what of it? Similar deviants exist

in all groups. Relevant here is that every faithful account of the Jewish Holocaust is peppered

with statements such as the following:

Question survivors of the ghettoes and camps. They all certify that the

beatings they received at the hands of the Jewish 'golden youth' were filled

with scorn. They fulfilled their tasks with a zeal and cruelty to a greater

extent than that required by the German commanders. (Y. Efroiken, Sanctity and

Valor of the Jews, in Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse:

Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, p. 21)

He [K. Tzetnik] depicts the figure of Eliezer Greenbaum, son of Yitzchak

Greenbaum, who, thanks to his tactics of acting as informant and displaying

cruelty - to an extent which amazed even the Germans - was elevated to the rank

of the bloc commander. (Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse:

Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, p. 21)

Practically all of the kapo officers were academicians - persons with degrees

who behaved like wild beasts and at times were more cruel than the Nazis. (Reb

Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish

War Criminals, 1977, p. 121)

Is it in the interests of historical truth to allude to the Ukrainian beasts without mentioning

the Jewish beasts? Does the depiction of one without the other constitute information or

disinformation, reporting or propaganda? Who commands such bias in the media? Who pays for

it? These are issues worthy of address by a team of intrepid investigative reporters, should

any be found.

Comparison 3: Ukrainians Saving Jews Compared to Jews Saving Ukrainians

Jews have had many opportunities to save Ukrainians. For example, Jews could have saved

Ukrainians during the induced famine of 1932-33, during which Jews fared better than Ukrainians

for several reasons: (1) Jews tended to be urban whereas the famine tended to be rural; (2) Jews

were more affluent, and money buys food even during a famine; (3) Jews received support from

other Jews in the West; (4) Jews occupied positions of authority, and in fact can be said to

have administered the famine. Thus, Jews had ample opportunity to save Ukrainians simply by

giving them food or by sabotaging the food-confiscation process. Or, in the mass deportations

and executions, during which Jews again occupied positions of authority, there was again ample

opportunity for Jews to subvert the process and hide or save Ukrainians.

We have already seen above innumerable cases of Ukrainians saving Jews, but can we now locate a

single case of a Jew saving a Ukrainian? Simon Wiesenthal, for example, had his life saved by

the Ukrainian Bodnar, but did Simon Wiesenthal ever in his long life reciprocate by saving a

Ukrainian? We saw above that an entire Ukrainian family was shot by the Nazis for hiding a

Jewish woman, but can we find a single instance of an entire Jewish family being shot by the

Bolsheviks for hiding a Ukrainian woman? We saw above that the Ukrainian mayor of a town was

shot by the Nazis for helping Jews, but can we find a single instance of a Jewish mayor - and

there were many Jewish mayors in Ukraine - being shot by the Bolsheviks for helping Ukrainians?

We saw above Metropolitan Sheptytsky risking his life and the lives of other Ukrainians by

hiding Jews on church property, but can we find a single instance of a rabbi risking his life

and the lives of other Jews by hiding Ukrainians on synagogue property? We saw above

Metropolitan Sheptytsky writing to Himmler protesting the shooting of Jews, but can we find any

similar case of a rabbi writing to Lazar Kaganovich protesting the starvation of Ukrainians?

One would like to see a statement from Morley Safer as to the justification for this double

standard. When the most rudimentary and obvious comparisons indicate that Ukrainians have been

disposed to Jews much more favorably than Jews have been disposed to Ukrainians, how can Morley

Safer justify concluding the opposite?

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

60 Minutes' Cheap Shots

60 Minutes peppered its broadcast with distortions and misrepresentations. Here are nineteen

miscellaneous instances:

(1) Doctoring the sound track to bring out the evil of torchlight parades. The torchlight

marchers are not a clear indication of anything, and without some enhancement, the scene would

have fallen flat, and so 60 Minutes overlaid an exaggerated, rhythmic tramping sound which added

an ominous militaristic flavor to the scene. In fact, given that it is dark and there is no

band and the marchers are not singing, it is impossible for any but local groups of them to keep

in step, and simple leather-soled or rubber-soled shoes could not have made such a sound - it

would have taken cleated boots. The rhythmic tramping superimposed by 60 Minutes continues to

be heard even when the paraders can be seen to be walking more than marching. One can see that

the added sound effects are only imperfectly coordinated with the movements of the feet.

(2) "Adolph Hitler Square". "The place they're marching in was once called Adolph Hitler

Square," Mr. Safer tells us, but does not add that it was so called by the Germans and that it

was not called that either before the Germans came or after they left.

(3) Gratuitous accusation of mimicking. Mr. Safer informs us of the marchers that "Their chants

and banners mimic another more fearsome time."

But this is absolutely gratuitous - neither the chants nor the banners are mimicking anything.

The marchers are not wearing swastika armbands and their banners do not contain Nazi symbols.

They are not chanting "Death to the Jews!" but only "Slava natsiyi!" which means "Glory to the

nation!" and is about as ominous in Ukrainian as "Vive la patrie!" is in French.

Mr. Safer's syllogism here seems to be: The Nazis sometimes held torchlight parades. These

Ukrainians are holding a torchlight parade. Therefore, all Ukrainians are Nazis.

(4) If it sounds like "Nazi," then it must be "Nazi." 60 Minutes broadcast the above-mentioned

"Slava natsiyi!" several times, but never provided a translation. But as "natsiyi" sounds like

"Nazi," this invites the listener who does not know any Slavic languages to think that something

is being said about Naziism, and the context supplied by Morley Safer suggests that this

something is complimentary.

(5) The menace of boy scouts and girl guides. Desperate for any images that to a gullible 60

Minutes audience might be suggestive of undying Naziism within Ukraine, Morley Safer presents

film clips of Ukrainian boy scouts and girl guides.

(6) Censorship through muted translation. When a Ukrainian in Lviv says "A Russian shot my

brother!" 60 Minutes mutes the English translation to the point that it is almost inaudible.

The critical viewer is left wondering whether the operating principle might not be that when a

Ukrainian says something that might win sympathy for Ukrainians, omit it; in the case where the

image has some overriding appeal (that was a pretty craggy Ukrainian, he was pretty excited, and

the lighting was wonderful), then mute the translation to the point of inaudibility.

Furthermore, in the 60 Minutes transcript of The Ugly Face of Freedom, the statement "A Russian

shot my brother!" is entirely omitted, one might imagine following this same principle of

avoiding attracting sympathy to Ukrainians.

(7) Who welcomed the Germans? Mr. Safer says that "The same square greeted Hitler's troops