Polish President Andrzej Duda's grandfather Mykhaylo Duda - a Ukrainian Nationalist and a Nazi Collaborator? - and the potential consequences for Ukraine, Russia, America (USA) and Poland.
Hmmm.
For some reason, when I looked at Polish President Andrzej Duda's Wikipedia page, I didn't find this information (about Duda's Ukrainian Nationalist and Nazi collaborator grandfather who participated in the extermination/genocide of Poles in Ukraine). [see below]
An inconvenient truth, albeit an important truth.
BTW, the grandfathers of Christian Lindner, Donald Franciszek Tusk, Olaf Scholz and Karl Wilhelm Lauterbach have similar histories (see below).
But did the majority of the Polish electorate who voted for Duda know his family's past and accept it?
Would Americans vote for a Japanese-American presidential candidate whose grandfather was an Imperial Japanese Navy pilot who bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 and sunk American Navy ships during the battle of Midway?
Would the Japanese vote for an American-Japanese presidential candidate whose grandfather was a crewman on one of the US bombers who dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Would Russians or Belorussians vote for a German-Russian presidential candidate whose grandfather was a Nazi Germany SS officer whose units killed women and children and burned down entire villages during WWII?
Would Israelis vote for a German-Israeli presidential candidate whose grandfather was a Nazi Germany SS officer who served in an Einsatzgrupp [12] unit that participated in the genocide of Jews during WWII (the Nazi's "Final Solution" to their "Jewish Question[Problem]", AKA the Holocaust [13])?
But East Europe has always been a strange place when it comes to inter-ethnic conflicts and their legacies -- both unbelievably cruel and extremely forgiving.
BTW, forgiveness and Mercy is always a good thing for individuals and society, unless the perpetrators never truly repent (understand and acknowledge what they did was wrong/evil, make amends and make a genuine commitment to never sin/do wrong again) and and treat their forgiveness as a weakness that can be exploited and treated as a sign that they can do similar evil again and get away with it.
Let's keep in mind that in Eastern Europe, including Poland, Ukraine and Russia, grandparents play a very important role in a child's upbringing and formation of their moral character, national identity and political views. Even if they're not around, a child's parents will often share and pass on the memories and legacy of their grandparents.
With that in mind, several adages seem rather applicable:
1. Those who don't know their history are bound to repeat.
- This is relevant for not knowing the family history of your country's political leadership and its potential impact on their views, policies & actions in office.
2. An apple often doesn't fall far from the tree.
- Children often follow in the footsteps of their parents, grandparents and other ancestors. Call it upbringing, family legacy or even genetic memory.
3. God visits “the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exod 20:5)(Exod 34:7)
- What this means to me is that parents pass on their moral deficiencies to their children during upbringing, their children can end up living similar sinful lives and paying the same price for their own sins before our maker.
And this cycle can go on for three or four generations.
So what are the potential implications of Duda's family legacy?
1. Duda and Poland will support Ukraine - as long as it's run by pro-Polish/NATO/EU/USA Ukrainian nationalists - militarily, politically and economically to extent that current Polish capacity and Poland's senior "allies" (like USA, Germany, France, NATO, EU) permit or "request."
2. In the event that Western Ukraine (especially the areas that belonged to Poland from 1917 to 1939) could "fall" into the hands of Pro-Russian Ukrainian forces or Russian forces themselves, Duda and Poland are likely to
- collaborate with potential future US/NATO/EU initiatives (directives?) to have Poland deploy Polish "peacekeeping" troops into Western Ukraine
- initiate or support local referendums to have certain Western Ukrainian areas declare independence (like Kosovo) and then opt to "re-join" Poland
3. The spirit of Andrzej Duda's Ukrainian nationalist grandfather Mykhailo will arise in him and he will support Ukraine's short/medium/long-term interests even to the detriment of Poland and its NATO/EU allies?
These potential outcomes could drag NATO into the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict with all ensuing potential military consequences -- up to the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
Since I've always been for a people's right to self-determination (including to what country their region shoudl belong), the million dollar question is as follows:
When it comes to Ukrainians who now live in areas of Western Ukraine that before World War II (1939-1945) belonged to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania (all current EU and NATO member states), if given a choice, would they want to
(a) have their regions leave Ukraine and rejoin these countries and
(b) obtain EU citizenship as residents of these regions, giving these people an opportunity to live anywhere in the EU and work for EU wages with EU labor rights, or
- continued military conflict,
- limited civil freedoms, political persecution and human rights violations in times of war and marshall law,
- ethnic & religious strife, and
- economic depression & stagnation, low wages, unemployment and high consumer prices.
With all that in mind, will Duda's family legacy and current views & policies be
- helpful to end the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict
-- as quickly as possible
-- with minimum loss of human life (civilians & combatants)
-- with minimum damage to Ukrainian infrastructure and economy
-- on terms & conditions that will be mutually acceptable and beneficial to both Ukraine and Russia
-- in a way that's most advantageous to America's (and its NATO/EU allies) geopolitical interests, regardless of the negative consequences for Ukraine and Russia (the ordinary people that constitute the vast majority of the peace-loving populations in both countries)
- in the best interest of
-- All Ukrainians,
-- Western Ukrainians,
-- Ukrainian nationalists,
-- Catholics Ukrainians,
-- Polish-Ukrainians
-- Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians,
-- Russian-Ukrainians
-- EU / NATO / USA
-- just Poland?
Here's an interesting historical fact:
Centuries ago when the Polish-Lithuanian empire expanded over Western Ukraine, Ukrainian & Rusyn nobility who became "Polonized" (accepted the Polish Catholic faith, Polish language, culture, joined Polish society and even became members of Polish nobility) ended up treating their former Ukrainian brothers (who were not Polonized) no better and some times even worse than "aboriginal" Poles.
As they say, those who forget history are bound to repeat it.
So what do you think?
***
Aleks Zadorozhny
Facebook
May 4, 2022 at 6:38 AM
[Google Translation]
"Meet Mikhail Ivanovich Duda (left) and Andrzej Sebastian Duda (right) [1][2][see below].
Duda, the one on the right is the President of Poland.
And Duda on the left is his grandfather, a Ukrainian nationalist and friend of Stepan Bandera [3].
Duda senior today is one of the icons of Ukrainian nationalism.
From the age of 16 he was a member of the OUN [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists][4].
In 1939, he studied sabotage and terrorist business in Nazi Germany, together with the future leader of the UPA [5], Roman Shukhevych [6].
He was friends with Stepan Bandera, who often visited his native village of Dudy.
Since 1941, he served in Nazi Germany, in the punitive battalion of the Abwehr "Roland" [7] named after Konovalets [8] and Petliura [9].
Three times he was awarded the Military Merit Cross (the highest award of the UPA).
Duda Sr. during the autumn of 1945 to the winter of 1946 [after the end of WWII] took part in battles with the Poles, was wounded twice, on October 22, 1945 - seriously wounded during an attack on the city of Bircha.
That is, the grandfather of the current Duda [President of Poland] exterminated his own people, being a Ukrainian nationalist.
The grandfather of the current Duda took part in the genocide of Poles in Volhynia in 1943."[10][11]
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0iDSXQuMbWSFjMY5WfEDMyiBh7fWydWhwKsx8uptqXgJX687KeaCKVcGRHhfP6qx3l&id=100076247396648
***
[1] Mykhailo Duda (Михайло Іванович Дуда, 11/21/1921 - 07/07/1950) - a
lieutenant in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Commander of the "Iron
Company". Died while fighting Soviet MGB troops [1206 x 1920]
https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/qscva7/mykhailo_duda_михайло_іванович_дуда_11211921/
***
[2] Andrzej Duda
Andrzej Sebastian Duda (Polish pronunciation: [ˈandʐɛj ˈduda] (listen); born 16 May 1972) is a Polish lawyer and politician who has served as President of Poland since 2015.[1] Prior to assuming the presidency, he was elected to the Sejm from 2011 to 2014 and European Parliament from 2014 until 2015.[2]
Duda was the presidential candidate for the Law and Justice (PiS) party during the 2015 presidential election in May 2015. In the first round of voting, Duda received 5,179,092 votes—34.76% of valid votes. In the second round of voting, he officially received 51.55% of the vote, defeating the incumbent president Bronisław Komorowski, who received 48.45% of the vote. On 26 May 2015, Duda resigned his party membership and the European Parliament as the president-elect.
On 24 October 2019, he received official support from PiS ahead of his re-election campaign in 2020. He finished first in the first round and then went on to defeat Rafał Trzaskowski in the runoff with 10,440,648 votes, or 51.03% of the vote.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrzej_Duda
***
Gerhardt Lindner, grandfather --> Christian Wolfgang Lindner, grandson
Brigadenfuhrer SS German Minister of Finance
Joseph Tusk, grandfather --> Donald Franciszek Tusk, grandson
Reichsfuhrer's security service Chairman of the European People's Party
SS (SD) in European Parliament
European Council President (2014 to 2019)
Polish Prime Minister (2007 to 2014)
Fritz von Sholz, grandfather --> Olaf Sholz, grandson
Gruppenfuhrer SS German Federal Chancellor (Prime Minister)
German Vice Chancellor (under Angela Merkel)
German Minister of Finance (2018 to 2021)
Hartman Lauterbacher, grandfather --> Karl Wilhelm Lauterbach, grandson
Obergruppenfuhrer SS German Minister of Health
***
[3] Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (Ukrainian: Степа́н Андрі́йович Банде́ра, romanized: Stepán Andríyovyč Bandéra, IPA: [steˈpɑn ɐnˈd⁽ʲ⁾r⁽ʲ⁾ijoʋɪt͡ʃ bɐnˈdɛrɐ]; Polish: Stepan Andrijowycz Bandera, IPA: [ˈstɛpän ʔändrʲiˈjovɨt͡ʃ bänˈdɛrä]; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian politician, Nazi collaborator and theorist of the militant wing of the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists[1][2] (OUN) and a leader and ideologist of Ukrainian ultranationalists known for his involvement in terrorist activities.[1][3][4]
Born in Galicia (at the time Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, part of Austria-Hungary) into the family of a Greek-Catholic priest, young Bandera became a Ukrainian nationalist. After the Empire disintegrated in the wake of World War I, Galicia briefly became a West Ukrainian People's Republic; following the Polish–Ukrainian War of 1918–1919, it was integrated into eastern Poland. In this period, Bandera became radicalized, and after Polish authorities refused to let him leave for Czechoslovakia to study, he enrolled at the Lviv Polytechnic, where he organized Ukrainian nationalist organizations. For orchestrating the 1934 assassination of Poland's Minister of the Interior Bronisław Pieracki, Bandera was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In 1939, following the joint German–Soviet invasion of Poland, Bandera was released from prison, and he moved to Kraków in the German-occupied zone of Poland.
Bandera cultivated German military circles favorable to Ukrainian independence, and organized OUN expeditionary groups. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he prepared the 30 June 1941 Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood in Lviv, pledging to work with Nazi Germany.[5][6] For his refusal to rescind the decree, Bandera was arrested by the Gestapo and on 5 July 1941 held under house arrest.[7] After January 1942 Bandera was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and kept in special, comparatively comfortable detention.[8][9][10] In 1944, with Germany rapidly losing ground in the war in the face of the advancing Allied armies, Bandera was released in the hope that he would be instrumental in deterring the advancing Soviet forces. He set up the headquarters of the re-established Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council, which worked underground. He settled with his family in West Germany where he remained the leader of the OUN-B and worked with several anti-communist organizations such as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations[11][12] as well as with the British intelligence agencies.[11] Fourteen years after the end of the war, Bandera was assassinated in 1959 by KGB agents in Munich.[13][14]
On 22 January 2010, the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the posthumous title of Hero of Ukraine.[15] The European Parliament condemned the award,[16] as did Russia,[17] Polish, and Jewish politicians and organizations.[18][19][20] President Viktor Yanukovych declared the award illegal, since Bandera was never a citizen of Ukraine, a stipulation necessary for getting the award. This announcement was confirmed by a court decision in April 2010.[21] In January 2011, the award was officially annulled.[22] A proposal to confer the award on Bandera was rejected by the Ukrainian parliament in August 2019.[23]
Bandera remains a highly controversial figure in Ukraine,[24][25][26] with some Ukrainians hailing him as a liberator who fought against the Soviet, Polish and Nazi states while trying to establish an independent Ukraine, while other Ukrainians condemn him as a fascist[27] and a war criminal[28] who was, together with his followers, largely responsible for the massacres of Polish civilians[29] and partially for the Holocaust in Ukraine.[30][31][32][33]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera
***
[4] Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Ukrainian: Організація українських націоналістів, romanized: Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization established in 1929 in Vienna. The organization first operated in Eastern Galicia (then part of interwar Poland). It emerged as a union between the Ukrainian Military Organization, smaller radical right-wing groups, and right-wing Ukrainian nationalists and intellectuals represented by Dmytro Dontsov, Yevhen Konovalets, Mykola Stsiborskyi, and other figures.[4][nb 1]
The ideology of the OUN has been described as similar to Italian Fascism.[5] The OUN sought to infiltrate legal political parties, universities and other political structures and institutions.[4][6][nb 2] The OUN's strategies to achieve Ukrainian independence included violence and terrorism against perceived foreign and domestic enemies, particularly Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Kingdom of Romania, and the Soviet Union.[4]
In 1940, the OUN split into two parts. The older, more moderate members supported Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk and the OUN-M, while the younger and more radical members supported Stepan Bandera's OUN-B. After the start of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), the OUN-B in the person of Yaroslav Stetsko declared an independent Ukrainian state on 30 June 1941 in occupied Lviv, while the region was under the control of Nazi Germany,[6] pledging to work closely with Germany, which was presented as freeing Ukrainians from Russian oppression.[7] In response, the Nazi authorities suppressed the OUN leadership. In October 1942 the OUN-B established the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). In 1943–1944, in an effort to pre-empt Polish efforts to re-establish Poland's pre-war borders,[8] UPA combat units carried out large-scale ethnic cleansing against Polish people.[6] Historians estimate that 100,000 Polish civilians were massacred in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.[9][10][11]
After World War II, the UPA fought against Soviet and Polish government forces. During Operation Vistula in 1947, the Polish government deported 140,000 Ukrainian civilians in Poland to remove the support base for the UPA.[12] In the struggle Soviet forces killed, arrested, or deported over 500,000 Ukrainian civilians. Many of those targeted by the Soviets included UPA members, their families, and supporters.[6][nb 3] During and after the Cold War, Western intelligence agencies, including the CIA, covertly supported the OUN.[13]
A number of contemporary far-right Ukrainian political organizations claim to be inheritors of the OUN's political traditions, including Svoboda, Right Sector, the Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National Self Defence, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists.[6][nb 4][14] The role of the OUN remains contested in historiography, as these later political inheritors developed a literature denying the organization's fascist political heritage and collaboration with Nazi Germany, while also celebrating the SS Division Galicia.[6][nb 5][15]
Quote from Wikipedia:
"The OUN pursued a policy of infiltrating the German police to obtain weapons and training for fighters. In that role, it helped the Germans to carry out the Holocaust.
Although most Jews were actually killed by Germans,[citation needed] the Ukrainian auxiliary police, working for the Germans, played a crucial supporting role in the liquidation of 200,000 Jews in Volhynia in the second half of 1942"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_Ukrainian_Nationalists
***
[5] Ukrainian Insurgent Army
Українська повстанська армія
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainian: Українська повстанська армія, УПА, Ukrayins'ka povstans'ka armiya, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and later partisan formation.[1] During World War II, it was engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Soviet Union, the Polish Underground State, Communist Poland, and Nazi Germany.[2][3][4] It was established by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The insurgent army arose out of separate militant formations of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—Bandera faction (the OUN-B), other militant national-patriotic formations, some former defectors of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, mobilization of local populations and others.[5] The political leadership of the army belonged to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—Bandera.[5] It was the primary perpetrator of the ethnic cleansing of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.[6][7] Its official date of creation is 14 October 1942,[8] day of the Intercession of the Theotokos feast. From December 1941 to July 1943, the Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army shared the same name (Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA).[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army
***
[6] Roman Shukhevych
Roman-Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych (Ukrainian: Рома́н-Тарас Йо́сипович Шухе́вич, also known by his pseudonym Taras Chuprynka; 30 June 1907 – 5 March 1950), was a Ukrainian nationalist,[1] one of the commanders of Nachtigall Battalion, a hauptmann of the German Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion,[2] a military leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and one of the organizers of the Galicia-Volhynia massacres of approximately 100,000 Poles.[2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Shukhevych
***
[7] Roland Battalion
The 'Roland Battalion (German: Battalion Ukrainische Gruppe Roland), officially known as Special Group Roland,[1] was the subunit under command of the Abwehr special operations unit Lehrregiment "Brandenburg" z.b.V. 800. Along with the Nachtigall Battalion it was one of two military units formed on 25 February 1941 by head of the Abwehr Wilhelm Franz Canaris, which sanctioned the creation of the "Ukrainian Legion" under German command. It was composed primarily of occupied Poland citizens of Ukrainian ethnicity directed to unit by Bandera's OUN orders .[2]
In Germany, in November 1941 the Ukrainian personnel of the Legion was reorganized into the 201st Schutzmannschaft Battalion. It numbered 650 persons which served for a year at Belarus before disbanding.[3]
Formation
Prior to Operation Barbarossa, the Bandera's OUN actively cooperated with Nazi Germany. According to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and other sources, OUN-B leader Stepan Bandera held meetings with the heads of Germany's intelligence, regarding the formation of "Nachtigall" and "Roland" Battalions. On 25 February 1941 the head of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Franz Canaris, sanctioned the creation of the "Ukrainian Legion" under German command. The unit would have had 800 persons. Roman Shukhevych became a commander of the Legion from the OUN-B side. OUN expected that the unit would become the core of the future Ukrainian army. In the spring the OUN received 2.5 million marks for subversive activities against the USSR.[4][5] In the spring of 1941 the Legion was reorganized into 2 units. One of the units became known as Nachtigall Battalion, a second became the Roland Battalion, and the remainder was immediately dispatched into Soviet Union to sabotage the Red Army's rear.[6]
The Battalion was set up by the Abwehr and organized by Richard Yary of the OUN(b) in March 1941, prior the German invasion to Soviet Union. Approximately 350 Bandera's OUN followers were trained at the Abwehr training centre at the Seibersdorf under command of the former Poland Army major Yevhen Pobiguschiy.[7]
In comparison to Nachtigall - which used ordinary Wehrmacht uniform, the Roland Battalion was outfitted in the Czechoslovakian uniform with yellow armband with text "Im Dienst der Deutschen Wehrmacht" (In the service of the German Wehrmacht). They were given Austrian helmets from World War I. The Battalion had arms consisting of 2 Czechoslovakian light machine guns and Germans light weaponry .[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Battalion
***
[8] Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Mykhailovych Konovalets (Ukrainian: Євген Михайлович[1] Коновалець; June 14, 1891 – May 23, 1938) was a military commander of the Ukrainian National Republic army, veteran of the Ukrainian-Soviet War and political leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. He is best known as the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists between 1929 and 1938.
Political career
In the summer of 1918 he convinced Pavlo Skoropadskyi, Hetman of Ukraine, to create a Special Platoon of Sich Riflemen, which was established in Bila Tserkva. In November 1918 he officially requested a void of the Federal Union with Russia from the Hetmanate and actively supported the forces of the Directoria in the battle of Motovylivka [uk] (fought at Motovylivka railway station [uk], near Motovylivka, Kiev Oblast) in the ousting of Skoropadskyi.
On December 6, 1919, by the Order of the Head Otoman he demobilized his military formations. The same year he was taken prisoner and interned in a Polish POW camp in Lutsk, although he was released in the spring of 1920 and moved to Czecho-Slovakia. In 1920, as a result of the shattered struggle for Ukrainian independence, Konovalets set up a new organization capable of clandestine activities on the lands claimed by Ukrainians and controlled by Poland, Russian SFSR, Romania, and Czechoslovakia.
Created in August of that year in Prague, the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) was aimed at armed resistance against Poland and Russia and was involved in the military training of youth and the prevention of any form of cooperation between Ukrainian and Polish authorities.[citation needed] The organization often resorted to terrorist attacks against Polish politicians as well as members of Ukrainian intelligentsia striving for cooperation with Poles (assassination of Sydir Tverdokhlib and Sofron Matviyas[3]).
The name of the organization was inspired by Piłsudski's Polish Military Organisation , which operated during the World War I. The foundation of the organization became the leaders of the Ukrainian Halych Army. After the end of the Polish-Soviet War and the battle for Lviv, Konovalets became the leader of the UVO in the city.
However, after several acts of sabotage his organisation was broken by the police[citation needed], and in December 1922 Konovalets fled the country.
Exile and assassination
During his exile years he lived in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. In 1929 he took part in the first congress of Ukrainian nationalists in Vienna. During the congress it was decided to form the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and Konovalets was elected as its leader. He then actively promoted its influence among the Ukrainian emigres throughout Europe and America while establishing contacts with intelligence offices of Lithuania, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and others. With his direct help were formed the Societies of Sich Riflemen in North America. The goal of the OUN was to revive an independent Ukraine through armed struggle.
Konovalets' activities raised fears in the Kremlin because of penetration of the OUN into the Soviet Union. On May 23, 1938, he was assassinated in Rotterdam by a bomb rigged to explode hidden inside a box of chocolates. This booby-trap was disguised as a present from a close friend. This friend, however, was in reality an NKVD agent who had infiltrated the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.
Pavel Sudoplatov, who on a recent visit to the Soviet Union had been personally ordered by Joseph Stalin to assassinate Konovalets in retaliation for the assassination of a Soviet diplomat at the consulate in Lviv in 1933. Pavel Sudoplatov had beforehand slipped into Finland in July 1935 using the alias 'Pavel Gridgdenko' after a period of training.[4] According to Sudoplatov, Stalin had told him, "This is not just an act of revenge, although Konovalets is an agent of German fascism. Our goal is to behead the movement of Ukrainian fascism on the eve of the war and force these gangsters to annihilate each other in a struggle for power."[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevhen_Konovalets
***
[9] Symon Petliura
Symon Vasylyovych Petliura[a] (Ukrainian: Си́мон Васи́льович Петлю́ра; 22 May [O.S. 10 May] 1879 – May 25, 1926) was a Ukrainian politician and journalist. He became the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Army and the President of the Ukrainian People's Republic during Ukraine's short-lived sovereignty in 1918–1921, leading Ukraine's struggle for independence following the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917.
Role in pogroms
Petliura is considered a controversial figure connected with the pogroms of Jews during his rule of the Ukrainian National Republic.[9][10][11] According to Peter Kenez, "before the advent of Hitler, the greatest mass murder of Jews occurs in the Ukraine in the course of the Civil War. All participants in the conflict were guilty of murdering Jews, even the Bolsheviks; however the Volunteer Army had the largest number of victims."[12][13] The number of Jews killed during the period is estimated to be between 50,000 and 200,000.[14][15][16] A total of 1,236 violent attacks on Jews had been recorded between 1918 and 1921 in Ukraine. Among them, 493 were carried out by Ukrainian People's Republic soldiers under the command of Symon Petliura, 307 by independent Ukrainian warlords, 213 by Denikin's army, 106 by the Red Army, and 32 by the Polish Army.[17][18]
The newly formed Ukrainian state (Ukrainian People's Republic) promised Jews full equality and autonomy. Arnold Margolin, a Jewish assistant minister in Petliura's UPR government, declared in May 1919 that the Ukrainian government had given Jews more rights than they enjoyed in any other European government.[19] However, after 1918, military units became involved in pogroms against Jews. During Petliura's term as Head of State (1919–20), pogroms continued to be perpetrated on Ukrainian territory.[20][21]
Petliura's role in the pogroms has been a topic of dispute since his assassination in 1926 and the succeeding Schwartzbard's trial. In 1969, the journal Jewish Social Studies published two opposing views regarding Petliura's responsibility in pogroms against Jews during his reign over Ukraine, by scholars Taras Hunczak[22] and Zosa Szajkowski.[23] Later the Journal published letters from the two authors.[24]
According to Hunczak, Petliura actively sought to halt anti-Jewish violence on numerous occasions, introducing capital punishment for carrying out pogroms.[25][26] Conversely, he is also accused of not having done enough to stop the pogroms[19] and being afraid to punish officers and soldiers engaged in crimes against Jews for fear of losing their support.[27][28][page needed]
...
Order Issued by the Main Command of the Armies of the Ukrainian National Republic
It is time to realize that the world Jewish population—their children, their women—was enslaved and deprived of its national freedom, just like we were.
It should not go anywhere away from us; it has been living with us since time immemorial, sharing our fate and misfortune with us.
I decisively order that all those who will be inciting you to carry out pogroms be expelled from our army and tried as traitors of the Motherland. Let the courts try them for their actions, without sparing the criminals the severest punishments according to the law. The government of the UNR, understanding all the harm that pogroms inflict on the state, has issued a proclamation to the entire population of the land, with the appeal to oppose all measures by enemies that instigate pogroms against the Jewish population...
Chief Otaman Petliura, August 26, 1919[10]
...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symon_Petliura
***
[10] Volhynia
World War II
Following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 and the subsequent invasion and division of Polish territories between the Reich and the USSR, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied the Polish part of Volhynia. In the course of the Nazi–Soviet population transfers which followed this (temporary) German-Soviet alliance, most of the ethnic German-minority population of Volhynia were transferred to those Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany. Following the mass deportations and arrests carried out by the NKVD, and repressive actions against Poles taken by Germany, including deportation to the Reich to forced labour camps, arrests, detention in camps and mass executions, by 1943 ethnic Poles constituted only 10–12% of the entire population of Volhynia.
During the German invasion, around 50,000–100,000 Polish people (mostly women and children) in Volhynia were massacred by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The number of Ukrainian victims of Polish retaliatory attacks until the spring of 1945 is estimated at approx. 2,000−3,000 in Volhynia.[8] In 1945 Soviet Ukraine expelled ethnic Germans from Volhynia following the end of the war, claiming that Nazi Germany had used ethnic Germans in eastern Europe as part of an alleged Generalplan Ost. The expulsion of Germans from eastern Europe was part of broader mass population transfers after the war.
The Soviet Union annexed Volhynia to Ukraine after the end of World War II. In 1944 the communists in Volyhnia suppressed the Ukrainian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate. Most of the remaining ethnic Polish population were expelled to Poland in 1945. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Volhynia has been an integral part of Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volhynia#World_War_II
***
[11] Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia
The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (Polish: rzeź wołyńska, lit. 'Volhynian slaughter'; Ukrainian: Волинська трагедія, romanized: Volynska trahediia, lit. 'Volyn tragedy'), were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or the UPA, with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population against the Polish minority in Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, parts of Polesia and Lublin region from 1943 to 1945.[4] The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943. Most of the victims were women and children.[5] Many of the Polish victims regardless of age or gender were tortured before being killed; some of the methods included rape, dismemberment or immolation, among others.[6] The UPA's actions resulted in between 50,000[1] and 100,000 deaths.[7][8]
According to Timothy Snyder, the ethnic cleansing was a Ukrainian attempt to prevent the post-war Polish state from asserting its sovereignty over Ukrainian-majority areas that had been part of the prewar Polish state.[9] Henryk Komański and Szczepan Siekierka write that the killings were directly linked to the policies of Stepan Bandera's faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and its military arm, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose goal as specified at the Second Conference of the OUN-B on 17–23 February 1943 (March 1943 in some sources) was to purge all non-Ukrainians from the future Ukrainian state.[10][better source needed] The massacres led to a wider conflict between Polish and Ukrainian forces in the German-occupied territories, with the Polish Home Army in Volhynia[11] responding to the Ukrainian attacks in kind, on a much smaller scale.[12][13]
In 2008, the massacres which were committed by the Ukrainian nationalists against the Poles in Volhynia and Galicia were described by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance as bearing the distinct characteristics of a genocide,[14][15] and on 22 July 2016, the Parliament of Poland passed a resolution recognizing the massacres as genocide.[16][17] This classification is disputed by Ukraine and non-Polish historians. According to a 2016 article in Slavic Review, there is a "scholarly consensus that this was a case of ethnic cleansing as opposed to genocide".[18]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia
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[12] Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen[a] (German: [ˈaɪnzatsˌɡʁʊpm̩], lit. 'deployment groups';[1] also 'task forces')[2] were Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass-murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe.
The Einsatzgruppen had an integral role in the implementation of the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (Die Endlösung der Judenfrage) in territories conquered by Nazi Germany, and were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, including members of the Catholic priesthood.[3]
Almost all of the people they murdered were civilians, beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and Romani people, as well as actual or alleged partisans throughout Eastern Europe.
Under the direction of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the Einsatzgruppen operated in territories occupied by the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
The Einsatzgruppen worked hand-in-hand with the Order Police battalions on the Eastern Front to carry out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacre at Babi Yar with 33,771 Jews murdered in two days, and the Rumbula massacre (with about 25,000 Jews murdered in two days of shooting).
As ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the Wehrmacht cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen, providing logistical support for their operations, and participated in the mass murders. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen, related agencies, and foreign auxiliary personnel murdered more than two million people, including 1.3 million of the 5.5 to 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
After the close of World War II, 24 senior leaders of the Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen trial in 1947–48, charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were handed out. Four additional Einsatzgruppe leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen
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[13] The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah,[b] was the genocide of European Jews during World War II.[3] Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe,[a] around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.[c] The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland.[5]
Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and those deemed "undesirable", starting with Dachau on 22 March 1933.[6] After the passing of the Enabling Act on 24 March,[7] which gave Hitler dictatorial plenary powers, the government began isolating Jews from civil society; this included boycotting Jewish businesses in April 1933 and enacting the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935. On 9–10 November 1938, eight months after Germany annexed Austria, Jewish businesses and other buildings were ransacked or set on fire throughout Germany and Austria on what became known as Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass"). After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, triggering World War II, the regime set up ghettos to segregate Jews. Eventually, thousands of camps and other detention sites were established across German-occupied Europe.
The segregation of Jews in ghettos culminated in the policy of extermination the Nazis called the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, discussed by senior government officials at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942. As German forces captured territories in the East, all anti-Jewish measures were radicalized. Under the coordination of the SS, with directions from the highest leadership of the Nazi Party, killings were committed within Germany itself, throughout occupied Europe, and within territories controlled by Germany's allies. Paramilitary death squads called Einsatzgruppen, in cooperation with the German Army and local collaborators, murdered around 1.3 million Jews in mass shootings and pogroms from the summer of 1941. By mid-1942, victims were being deported from ghettos across Europe in sealed freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, they were gassed, worked or beaten to death, or killed by disease, starvation, cold, medical experiments, or during death marches. The killing continued until the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945.
The Holocaust is understood as being primarily the genocide of the Jews, but during the Holocaust era[8] (1933–1945), systematic mass-killings of other population groups occurred, including Roma, Poles, Ukrainians and Soviet civilians and prisoners of war. Other victims of deadly Nazi persecution included smaller groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Black Germans, the disabled, and homosexuals.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
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