Don't rehabilitate the guilty

Haaretz.com ^ | January 14, 2012 | Efraim Zuroff

[Ravnagora]

Recent events in four different Eastern European countries have once again highlighted the ongoing assault on the accepted Holocaust narrative in the post-communist world. Three attracted considerable attention, while the fourth, which perhaps affords us the best insight into the phenomenon of Eastern European attempts to rewrite World War II history, was virtually ignored, until it aroused a solitary Jewish protest.

In Kiev, Odessa and Lviv, on January 1, hundreds marched to mark the birthday of Ukrainian nationalist hero Stepan Bandera, who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN ), which collaborated with the Nazis and actively participated in the mass murder of Jews following the German occupation of Ukraine in 1941. A few days later, the regional council of the Ukrainian oblast of Ivano-Frankivsk declared 2012 the year of the UPA, the military wing of the OUN.

From Estonia, on December 27, it was reported that the country's defense ministry planned to submit a bill to parliament that would recognize Estonians who served in the 20th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, which fought alongside German troops as "freedom fighters" for the country's independence - despite the fact that Nazi Germany had no intention of granting Estonia freedom. While the Waffen-SS division did not participate in Holocaust crimes (by the time it was established the Jews of Estonia had already been murdered ), its members included men who had previously been involved in killing Jews and Gypsies.

In Zagreb and Split, Croatia, memorial masses were conducted on December 28 to honor Ante Pavelic, its World War II head of state, who bears responsibility for the mass murder of hundreds-of-thousands of Serbs, 30,000 Jews and several thousand Roma. Pavelic, who was installed by the Germans, created one of the most lethal and brutal regimes in Axis-dominated Europe.

*****

[Ravnagora]

Ping!

[Telepathic Intruder]

Oh well, I’m sure God still remembers. And I doubt that celebrations in their honor is any comfort to them, figuring where they are now. It must seem ironic, even, almost worth a laugh.

[Cicero]

I was going to point out that those small central European nations were all caught between a rock and a hard place, with Hitler invading from one side and Stalin from the other.

Fighting against Stalin didn't necessarily mean that someone approved of the Holocaust.

I thought I'd better read the article, and sure enough, here's what the accused has to say:

Usackas issued a public statement in which he justified his original text by pointing to the unbalanced treatment in Western public opinion of "the crimes of Stalin's regime ... and the tragedy of its victims," which had only recently received due legal recognition, "in contrast to Nazi crimes which have been universally condemned by all civilized humanity."

Stalin murdered even more people than Hitler did. I don't think you can claim, as this writer does, that since the Holocaust was uniquely terrible, no one was justified in fighting against Stalin.

I don't know enough about Stepan Bandera to say whether he was a hero or not. Maybe not. But the argument used against him here really doesn't hold water.

[bayouranger]

Tough times.

[null and void]

Heroes aren’t made, they’re cornered.

But then again, so are rats...

[muawiyah]

The war isn't over in Estonia. They've got Russians left behind after long term occupation and this sort of thing is useful for intimidating them.

Next war it'll be the same old thing.

Europeans didn't get a reputation for being a brutal and warlike people without being pretty brutal and warlike.

[hinckley buzzard]

There were Waffen SS units drawn from many occupied countries including as far west as Belgium, to fight with Germany against the Bolshevik USSR. They were all deployed on the Russian front. No doubt opportunists took advantage but a small captive state of Stalin like Estonia can hardly be blamed for taking their one chance at independence.