DISINFO: Denazification of Ukraine remains relevant as Jews and Russians are threatened by Nazis
SUMMARY
Look what is happening in terms of denazification. During the negotiation process, after the drafting of a possible agreement, recently mentioned by officials in Kiev, in general they did not agree that some kind of denazification was needed, and they said that there is no fascisation, no growth in such sentiments. How can it not be needed? When the national hero is not just a well-known nationalist, but a Nazi. Bandera has been elevated to the rank of a national hero. How can it [denazification] not be needed?
And when the head of Kiev's government applauds a former SS soldier who directly participated in the Holocaust, in the extermination of one and a half million Jews, Russians and Poles in Ukraine in front of the whole world? If this is not a manifestation of Nazism, then what? Therefore, the issue of denazification is relevant.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin false narrative on the "denazification of Ukraine" aiming at discrediting Ukraine and justifying Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In general, Putin uses the phrase "denazify" to discredit the democratically elected leadership of Ukraine - see our examination.
This pro-Kremlin outlet is referring to the Yaroslav Hunka case. The Canadian parliament, while Volodymyr Zelensky was visiting it, gave a standing ovation honouring a veteran later accused of belonging to a Waffen SS division in WWII. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologised: 'I also want to reiterate how deeply sorry Canada is for the situation this put President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian delegation in. It is extremely troubling to think that this egregious error is being politicised by Russia and its supporters to provide false propaganda about what Ukraine is fighting for,' he said.
At that, the claim that Hunko participated in the Holocaust is unsubstantiated. Although the Waffen-SS as a whole was declared to be a criminal organisation at the Nuremberg Trials, the Galician Division has not specifically been found guilty of any war crimes. Numerous accusations of impropriety were levelled at the division, and particular members.
Some surviving members of the division, who were Polish citizens until the onset of WWII, were admitted as refugees to Canada. Immigration was prohibited for members of the Nazi party, the SS, Waffen SS etc. However, non-Germans conscripted into the Waffen SS after 1942 were exempted from this prohibition in 1951.
The special Canadian Deschênes Commission on war criminals, convened in October 1986, concluded the following in relation to membership in the Galicia Division: 'The members of the Galicia Division were individually screened for security purposes before admission to Canada,' and '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'.
Also the claim of glorification of "Nazi Stepan Bandera" is false.
In modern Western Ukraine, indeed, monuments have been erected to Bandera for his struggle for an independent Ukraine. For proclaiming the "independence of Ukraine", in 1942 Bandera was imprisoned by the Nazis in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Bandera's brothers were executed by the Nazis (as were other OUN members who were tortured and killed by Gestapo).
International historians are still arguing about Bandera’s figure working with new declassified evidence. The Polish historian Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe says: "The OUN joined the Ukrainian police, in 1941, and helped the Germans murder Jews in western Ukraine," adding he had found no evidence that Bandera supported or condemned "ethnic cleansing" or killing Jews and other minorities. It was, however, important that people from OUN and UPA "identified with him," he said.
The Canadian historian of Jewish Ukrainian origin Alik Gomelsky, studing the CIA documents related to Holocaust, reminds that the Nazis carried out massive killing of Jews, while also torturing and killing OUN members (both Ukrainians and Jews were considered as "racially inferior" by the Nazis). Only when they began to lose the war, did the Nazis begin to recruit foreign legions such as the "Waffen SS", but still without assigning the task of Holocaust to them, historian Igor Ivanistky reminds.
It is worth noting that historical Ukraine, occupied by Germany, like any occupied territory, counted both collaborators and those who stayed loyal among the nations in proportions comparable to other European countries during WWII.
Canadian historian of Jewish Ukrainian origin Alik Gomelsky regrets that the myth of “anti-Semitic Ukraine,” created by the USSR since 1917 (at that time there was a Ministry of Jewish Affairs in the Ukrainian Popular Republic and there were inscriptions on coins in four languages, including Yiddish), continues to influence the present.
Interestingly, Soviet propaganda tried contradictory versions to discredit the independent Ukrainian state, including accusing the OUN movement of “interaction with the Zionists”. All this happened against the backdrop of the state level anti-Semitism in the USSR, Gomelsky reminds.
Modern independent Ukraine is “the genius of Judaism,” notes the French philosopher of Jewish origin Bernard-Henri Lévy (see pro-Kremlin false claims on Lévy himself), referring to the memorial work of the Ukrainian authorities to remember the Holocaust, as well as permissions to install giant Jewish holidays symbols in modern Ukrainian cities.
Another eloquent example is a Jewish celebration in Uman in 2023: tens of thousands of Jews from Israel and elsewhere descend on the small Ukrainian city of Uman.“Though only a few hundred Jews live in Uman year-round, there has been an explosion in Jewish infrastructure built to accommodate the visitors — including numerous kosher eateries, more than two-dozen hotels, and street signs in Hebrew. Visitors now come even at times of the year besides Rosh Hashanah”, - Myjewishlearnings reports.
Claiming that the Russian hybrid and then full scale invasion of Ukraine is motivated by concern for the Jews and Russians who are threatened by Ukrainian “Nazis” is manipulation.