Homework

[Thomas Eckhardt]

I have no idea which narratives are spread in Russia. Criticism in the
West does not refer to a "pogrom tradition reaching back well into the
17th century". As you well know, it refers to Babyn Jar and the UPA and
the OUN-B, i.e. to Ukranians who collaborated in the Holocaust and
perpetrated a mass murder of Jews and Poles in Wolhynia.

Some of the people we are training and arming in Ukraine are the
ideological descendants of these collaborators in the Holocaust. But
this is not only about the infamous Azov Battalion with its Wolfsangel
(emblem of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich) and the Black Sun of
the Obergruppenführersaal in the Wewelsburg, "a Ukrainian neo-Nazi
paramilitary organization" as the NYT has it in its report on the
massacre in Christchurch whose perpetrator sported the Azov insignia.

In today's Ukraine, anti-semitic ideologues and mass murderers like
Bandera, Shukhevych, Lebed etc. have streets and places named after
them. Vatutin Avenue in Kiev has been renamed into Shukhevich Avenue,
after Roman Shukhevych, who "was a Ukrainian nationalist, one of the
commanders of Nachtigall Battalion, a hauptmann of the German
Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion, a military leader of
the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and one of the organizers of the
Galicia-Volhynia massacres of approximately 100,000 Poles." (Wiki)

The head of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee Eduard Dolinsky condemned the
decision:

"Is it possible to measure the depth of moral degradation? It is hard,
but there are cases when this falls so deep that it can’t be measured.
Kiev City Council’s decision on renaming Vatutin Avenue in honor of the
Nazi officer Shukhevych, on whose hands is the blood of tens of
thousands of Ukrainians, Jews and Poles, is such a case of the deepest
moral degradation, scandalous cynicism, and human baseness,"

https://www.stalkerzone.org/head-ukrainian-jewish-committee-called-shukhevych-street-kiev-national-shame/

As I mentioned, criticism of these "Heroes of Ukraine" is prohibited by law.

All of this doesn't make Ukraine a Nazi-state, but highlights that the
influence of neo-Nazi ideology in Ukraine goes far beyond a few
Wehrsportgruppen.


------- Original Message -------
Martin Dietze <mdietze at gmail.com> schrieb am Dienstag, 8. März 2022 um
23:19:

 > Yes, I agree. People of Jewish decendence have made horrible
experience throughout history.
 >
 >
 > However feeling ambivalent when Ukraine is attacked by Russia because
of antisemitic violence that happened to take place in today's Ukraine,
(selectively) adding anecdotes about cosaks and ignoring the fact that
antisemitism in today's Russia is huge while at a very low level in
Ukraine, seems rather ... unfortunate. An intellectual should be able -
and willing - to do a bit more of homework.
 >
 > And it just fits too well into the narrative that has been spread by
Russia for many years: Ukraine, a country of antisemites with a pogrom
tradition reaching back well into the 17th century. It is wrong, and
people who buy it usually expose their complete ignorance by doing so.
 >