Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины
are aware that the Waffen SS was a combat unit that played no role in the management of
concentration camps, and carried out no SS functions? I wonder if you are aware of
this, as you typically - perhaps always? - drop the qualification "Waffen" and refer to
members of the Galicia Division simply as members of the "SS," which gives the
misleading impression that combat soldiers were administrators of concentration camps.
If you are already aware of the distinction between the SS and the Waffen SS, then I
wonder that you would allow yourself to present the misleading picture that you have
been presenting. If you are unaware of this distinction, then I wonder how it came to
be that you are accorded the status of an expert witness on World War II events, as you
were on the 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom on October 23, 1994. Would
you be able to throw any light on this question?
But on top of that, you must have become aware during your long career as a Nazi
hunter that Ukraine was not unique in providing the German armed forces with Waffen SS
troops. Below, I reproduce a quote from an interview by Slavko Nowytski of Professor
Norman Davies, historian at the University of London, and author of the recent Europe:
A History, published by Oxford University Press:
In discussing the question of collaborating with Germany Prof. Davies
noted that, "A large number of the volunteers for the Waffen SS came
from Western Europe. The nation which supplied it the largest number
of divisions was the Netherlands [four]. There were two Belgian
divisions, there was a French Waffen SS. To my mind, it's rather
surprising that Ukraine, which is a much larger country [than the
Netherlands or Belgium] supplied only one Waffen SS Division.... It's
surprising that there were so few Ukrainians [in the German Army].
Many people don't know, for example, that there were far more Russians
fighting alongside the Wehrmacht or in the various German armies than
there were Ukrainians.... Thanks to Soviet propaganda, the Russian
contribution to the Nazi war effort has been forgotten, whereas the
Ukrainian contribution has been remembered, I think, too strongly."
(Andrew Gregorovich, Forum, No. 95, Spring, 1997, p. 34)
And so the information in the above quotation leads to several more questions:
(1) As the population of The Netherlands is small, and as it contributed the
largest number of Waffen SS divisions, this gives The Netherlands the largest per
capita contribution to the Waffen SS of any country. Would you conclude from this that
the people of The Netherlands are the most anti-Semitic in the world? And following
the same line of reasoning, would you conclude that the people of Belgium are the next
most anti-Semitic? And also that as the population of France is approximately equal to
the population of Ukraine, and as each of these contributed one Waffen SS division,
that the French are approximately as anti-Semitic as the Ukrainians?
(2) As you have expended considerable energy attacking the former members of the
Galicia Division as war criminals, I wonder if you have expended any similar energy
attacking former members of The Netherlands, Belgium, and French Waffen SS divisions in
the same way? For example, have you demanded any investigation of The Netherlands
Waffen SS, and as a result has the government of The Netherlands ever created a
commission on war criminals comparable to Canada's Deschenes Commission on War
Criminals? And have you done so in Belgium? In France?
If not, then why not? Why do you single out the Galicia Division? How is the
Galicia Division different from the other Waffen SS divisions?
(3) If in comparison to several other countries, Ukraine contributed
proportionately fewer numbers to the Waffen SS, or to any of the German armed forces,
then shouldn't you as a Nazi hunter, commend or thank Ukrainians for their relatively
small contribution to the German war effort?
(4) Are you aware that the chief motive behind the creation of the Galicia
Division was to prevent the Soviet re-occupation of Ukraine? Are you aware that in
consequence, the Galicia Division was organized with the proviso that it not be used
against the Western allies, but only against the Soviets on the Eastern front; and that
in fact, the only use to which the Galicia Division was ever put was against the
Soviets in the Battle of Brody? If you are aware of this, then why did you not mention
it on the 60 Minutes broadcast in which you were the chief witness and the Galicia
Division the chief subject of discussion? If you are not aware of this, then why does
60 Minutes consider you an authority on World War II?
Would you happen to know if the Waffen SS divisions of other countries were
created under the same proviso?
(5) Given that Canada's Deschenes Commission on War Criminals failed to identify
even a single member of the Galicia Division as calling for further investigation; and
given that neither you nor anyone else has ever had any member of the Galicia Division
convicted of any crime, or even tried for any crime; and, most importantly, given that
neither you nor anyone else has ever even specified any crime of which the Galicia
Division as a whole, or any member of the Galicia Division, might have been guilty
given all this, I wonder if the time has not finally come when you have to admit that
your obsession with the Galicia Division has been misplaced?
And would you happen to know if the Waffen SS divisions of The Netherlands,
Belgium, and France have proven to be as free from blame as has the Ukrainian Galicia
Division?
Sincerely yours,
Lubomyr Prytulak
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL 840 hits since 18Jan98
Wiesenthal Letter 19 Sep 12/97 Testimony of Erwin Schulz
September 12, 1997
Simon Wiesenthal
Jewish Documentation Center
Salztorgasse 6
1010 Vienna
Austria
Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:
In my letters to you of September 8 and 9, 1997, I have questioned your assertion
made on the 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom of October 23, 1994 to the
effect that in the few days before the arrival of the Germans, Ukrainians killed some 5
to 6 thousand Jews in Lviv. I have recently come across some testimony that indicates
that your assertion is correct on all of the details of this event save one.
The fresh testimony that I am referring to is that of Erwin Schulz, Commander of
Einsatzkommando 5 (a subunit of Einsatzgruppe C), from May until 26 September, 1941.
From Schulz's testimony, it appears that several of the details of your assertion are
correct: namely that the number murdered was 5,000, which is within the bounds of your
own estimate; that the location was indeed Lviv (identified as Lemberg); that the time
was indeed during the few days prior to the arrival of the Germans; and that the chief
participants were indeed Ukrainians and Jews, although Schulz does mention the
secondary involvement of others.
The point on which Schulz differs from you is that whereas you say that the
slaughter consisted of Ukrainians killing Jews, Schulz says that it consisted of Jews
killing Ukrainians:
We learned that, before the Russian troops had left, a very great
number of Lemberg citizens, Ukrainians and Polish inhabitants of other
towns and villages had been killed in this prison and in other
prisons. Furthermore, there were many corpses of German men and
officers, among them many Air Corps officers, and many of them were
found mutilated. There was a great bitterness and excitement among the
Lemberg population against the Jewish sector of the population. (Erwin
Schulz, in John Mendelsohn, editor, The Holocaust: Selected Documents
in Eighteen Volumes, Garland, New York, 1982, Volume 18, p. 18)
On the next day, Dr. RASCH informed us to the effect that the killed
people in Lemberg amounted to about 5,000. It has been determined
without any doubt that the arrests and killings had taken place under
the leadership of Jewish functionaries and with the participation of
the Jewish inhabitants of Lemberg. That was the reason why there was
such an excitement against the Jewish population on the part of the
Lemberg citizens. (Erwin Schulz, in John Mendelsohn, editor, The
Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, Garland, New York,
1982, Volume 18, p. 18)
I wonder if you would care to comment on this discrepancy between Schulz's
testimony and your own?
Sincerely yours,
Lubomyr Prytulak
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL 1435 hits since 18Jan98
Wiesenthal Letter 20 Sep 13/97 Jews killing Ukrainians in Lviv
September 13, 1997
Simon Wiesenthal
Jewish Documentation Center
Salztorgasse 6
1010 Vienna
Austria
Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:
In my letter to you of September 12, I presented the testimony of Erwin Schulz to
the effect that in the few days prior to the arrival of German forces in Lviv in 1941,
some 5,000 inhabitants of the Lviv region, predominantly Ukrainians and Poles, had been
killed, and that the killing had been conducted "under the leadership of Jewish
functionaries and with the participation of the Jewish inhabitants of Lemberg."
The continuing question before us can be broken down into two parts: (1) Were
such large numbers of Ukrainians and Poles killed? (2) What ethnic groups were most
responsible for the killing?
On the first question, there does not appear to be much doubt - every one of the
half-dozen sources that I consulted agree that the slaughter did take place. In fact,
in the last quotation of the following set of six, you yourself, Mr. Wiesenthal, can be
seen to agree:
Before fleeing the German advance the Soviet occupational regime
murdered thousands of Ukrainian civilians, mainly members of the city's
[Lviv's] intelligentsia. (Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Volume 3, p. 222)
The Bolsheviks succeeded in annihilating some 10,000 political
prisoners in Western Ukraine before and after the outbreak of
hostilities (massacres took place in the prisons in Lviv, Zolochiv,
Rivne, Dubno, Lutsk, etc.). (Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, Volume
1, p. 886)
The Soviets' hurried retreat had tragic consequences for thousands of
political prisoners in the jails of Western Ukraine. Unable to
evacuate them in time, the NKVD slaughtered their prisoners en masse
during the week of 22-29 June 1941, regardless of whether they were
incarcerated for major or minor offenses. Major massacres occurred in
Lviv, Sambir, and Stanyslaviv in Galicia, where about 10,000 prisoners
died, and in Rivne and Lutsk in Volhynia, where another 5000 perished.
Coming on the heels of the mass deportations and growing Soviet terror,
these executions added greatly to the West Ukrainians' abhorrence of
the Soviets. (Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 1994, p. 461)
Right after the entry we were shown 2,400 dead bodies of Ukrainians
liquidated with a shot at the scruff of the neck at the city jail of
Lemberg [Lviv] by the Soviets prior to their marching off. (Hans Frank,
In the Face of the Gallows, p. 406)
In Lvov, several thousand prisoners had been held in three jails. When
the Germans arrived on 29 June, the city stank, and the prisons were
surrounded by terrified relatives. Unimaginable atrocities had
occurred inside. The prisons looked like abattoirs. It had taken the
NKVD a week to complete their gruesome task before they fled. (Gwyneth
Hughes and Simon Welfare, Red Empire: The Forbidden History of the
USSR, 1990, p. 133)
When the German attack came on 22 June the Soviets had no time to take
with them the people they had locked up. So they simply killed them.
Thousands of detainees were shot dead in their cells by the retreating
Soviets. (Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 35)
The first question having been settled - I trust - to the satisfaction of all, we
turn now to the second question: Is there any ethnic group that might have been
particularly responsible for the killing? Well, if the slaughter was conducted by the
NKVD or was directed by the NKVD, then the question reduces to What was the ethnic
composition of the NKVD?
The evidence that I have come across points to the conclusion that the NKVD was
dominated by Jews. Here is one such piece of evidence. The speaker is Yoram Sheftel,
John Demjanjuk's Israeli defense attorney, describing his visit to the Simferopol,
Ukraine, KGB headquarters in 1990 - what Sheftel seems to be saying is that out of a
sample of some 30 members of the wartime NKVD, every last one was a Jew:
On the right-hand wall was a stone memorial plaque engraved with the
names of about thirty KGB men from Simferopol who had fallen in the
Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets call World War II. I was shocked
and angry as I read the names: the first was Polonski and the last
Levinstein, and all those between were ones like Zalmonowitz, Geller
and Kagan - all Jews. The best of Jewish youth in Russia, the cradle
of Zionism, had sold itself and its soul to the Red Devil. (The
Demjanjuk Affair: The Rise and Fall of a Show-Trial, 1994, p. 301)
Of course a sample of 30 is not necessarily a sample that is representative of the
entire NKVD; however the Jewish domination of the entire NKVD is not a rare or dubious
hypothesis, but is one, rather, that is upheld from more than one direction:
As a Jew, I'm interested in another question entirely: Why were there
so many Jews among the NKVD-MVD investigators - including many of the
most terrible? It's a painful question for me but I cannot evade it.
(Yevgenia Albats, The State Within a State: The KGB and its Hold on
Russia, Past, Present and Future, 1994, p. 147)
Jews abounded [also] at the lower levels of the Party machinery
