victims of the torturers and butchers, but to the torturers and butchers themselves, who after
all are merely "the best of Jewish youth" led astray by some "Red Devil" - in other words, to be
viewed not as falling among the victimizers, but among the victims. I suppose that there exist
even today apologists who might speak of Adolf Eichmann as an instance of the best of German
youth who had sold his soul to the Nazi Devil.
Of course Sheftel's 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 especially in
the Cheka and its successors, the GPU, the OGPU and the NKVD.... It is
difficult to suggest a satisfactory reason for the prevalence of Jews in the
Cheka. It may be that having suffered at the hand of the former Russian
authorities they wanted to seize the reins of real power in the new state for
themselves. (Leonard Shapiro, The Role of Jews in the Russian Revolutionary
Movement, Slavonic and East European Review, 1961, 40, p. 165)
More recently, I have compiled statistics from data presented by Shapoval which suggests that
out of every ten leading members of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine, 6 were Jewish, 2 Russian, 1
Ukrainian, and 1 other.
Now within this historical context - the Ukrainian Holocaust eight years previously, the
21-month Communist reign of terror, and the recent slaughter of Ukrainians by the retreating
Communists - would it be surprising if upon the arrival of the Germans, these Western Ukrainians
had felt liberated by the Germans and at the same time vengeful toward the Communists, and would
it be surprising if among their first actions was the seeking out and punishment of any
perpetrators and collaborators who had not been able to flee with the retreating Communists?
No, it would not be surprising - and yet that is not what happened.
Zero Retribution
Prior to the arrival of the Germans, there was no anti-Jewish or anti-Communist violence. If
any impulse for vengeance existed, then it was inhibited - the Ukrainian population had been
decimated, deprived of its leadership, throttled into submission. For all they knew, the
Communists who had just left might return that very same day and resume the slaughter, starting
first with any who had dared to lift a vengeful hand. For all they knew, this was just the calm
before a new storm, just a few hours' respite while names were taken for the next round of NKVD
executions. And the last person to lift a hand against would be a Jew because the Jew had
traditionally occupied the position of authority:
From the Ukraine Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C reported as follows:
Almost nowhere can the population be persuaded to take
active steps against the Jews. This may be explained by the
fear of many people that the Red Army may return. Again and
again this anxiety has been pointed out to us. Older people
have remarked that they had already experienced in 1918 the
sudden retreat of the Germans. In order to meet the fear
psychosis, and in order to destroy the myth ... which, in the
eyes of many Ukrainians, places the Jew in the position of
the wielder of political power, Einsatzkommando 6 on several
occasions marched Jews before their execution through the
city. Also, care was taken to have Ukrainian militiamen
watch the shooting of Jews.
This "deflation" of the Jews in the public eye did not have the desired
effect. After a few weeks, Einsatzgruppe C complained once more that the
inhabitants did not betray the movements of hidden Jews. The Ukrainians were
passive, benumbed by the "Bolshevist terror." Only the ethnic Germans in the
area were busily working for the Einsatzgruppe. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction
of the European Jews, 1961, p. 202)
The picture painted by Raul Hilberg is not at all the one of Ukrainians enthusiastically
slaughtering Jews that was painted by Morley Safer in his 60 Minutes broadcast:
The Slavic population stood estranged and even aghast before the unfolding
spectacle of the "final solution." There was on the whole no impelling desire
to cooperate in a process of such utter ruthlessness. The fact that the Soviet
regime, fighting off the Germans a few hundred miles to the east, was still
threatening to return, undoubtedly acted as a powerful restraint upon many a
potential collaborator. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews,
1985, p. 308)
Raul Hilberg is not the only historian testifying to the fact that the Einsatzgruppen organized
