Bolshevist commissars and for the disgraceful actions of those Jews who
participated in the work of the Bolshevist chekas (Secret Police), the
Ukrainian people has a full right to disclaim any responsibility for those who
have besmirched themselves by pogrom activities. (Arnold Margolin, The Jews of
Eastern Europe, 1926, p. 124, in Andrew Gregorovich, Jews and Ukrainians, Forum
No. 91, Fall-Winter, 1994, p. 30)
Additional material on Jewish collaboration with the Nazis can be found in my discussion of the
Jewish Ghetto Police in my Letter 17 to Anne McLellan, Canada's Minister of Justice.
CONTENTS:
Preface
The Galicia Division
Quality of Translation
Ukrainian Homogeneity
Were Ukrainians Nazis?
Simon Wiesenthal
What Happened in Lviv?
Nazi Propaganda Film
Collective Guilt
Paralysis of the Comparative
Function
60 Minutes' Cheap Shots
Ukrainian Anti-Semitism
Jewish Ukrainophobia
Mailbag
A Sense of Responsibility
What 60 Minutes Should Do
PostScript
Paralysis of the Comparative Function
Positions taken by Morley Safer acquire meaning - can only be evaluated - following relevant
comparisons, but Mr. Safer fails to make these comparisons. For example, Ukrainian assistance
to Jews during the Jewish Holocaust acquires significance - indeed, may be thrown into a wholly
new light - when compared to Jewish assistance to Jews during the Jewish Holocaust, but Mr.
Safer does not make such a comparison. Ukrainian cruelty on behalf of the Nazis acquires
significance when compared to Jewish cruelty on behalf of the Nazis, but Mr. Safer does not make
this comparison. Ukrainians saving Jews (a possibility totally ignored by Mr. Safer) is given a
new significance when compared with Jews saving Ukrainians at times when such aid was possible
and of course Mr. Safer never reaches a point where he could make such a comparison.
Comparison 1: Ukrainians Helping Jews Compared to Jews Helping Jews
We have seen above that countless Ukrainians risked their lives and gave their lives to save
Jews. And what, let us now ask, were those who today level accusations of genetic anti-Semitism
against Ukrainians doing at the same time? What, for example, were American Jews doing? The
generous view is that they were doing little:
No American Jew appeared to have altered his life style once news of the
Holocaust was revealed. Even at the time, some observers were repelled by the
often festive atmosphere of Jewish social life in a period of wartime
prosperity. (Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 1992, p. 550)
Over the centuries the dispersion of the Jews had a functional utility:
whenever some part of the Jewish community was under attack, it depended on
help from the other Jews. In the period of the Nazi regime, this help did not
come. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 1052)
This question has haunted me ever since the war: Why did the Jews of the free
world act as they did? Hadn't our people survived persecution and exile
throughout the centuries because of its spirit of solidarity? ... When one
community suffered, the others supported it, throughout the Diaspora. Why was
it different this time? (Elie Wiesel, Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea,
1995, p. 63)
A less indulgent view, however, is that Jews not under Nazi occupation - particularly American
and British Jews - knowingly, willfully, calculatedly sacrificed their trapped European
coreligionists:
In his book, "In Days of Holocaust and Destruction," Yitzchak Greenbaum
writes, "when they asked me, couldn't you give money out of the United Jewish
Appeal funds for the rescue of Jews in Europe, I said, 'NO!' and I say again,
'NO!' ... one should resist this wave which pushes the Zionist activities to
secondary importance."
In January, 1943, the leadership of the absorption and enlisting fund
decided to bar all appeals on behalf of rescuing Jews. It is explicitly stated
in the "Sefer Hamagbis" (Book of Appeals) that the reasons for this prohibition
were because of other obligations in Eretz Yisroel.
In the beginning of February, 1943, Yitzchak Greenbaum addressed a meeting
in Tel Aviv on the subject, "the Diaspora and the Redemption," in which he
stated:
"For the rescue of the Jews in the Diaspora, we should consolidate our
excess strength and the surplus of powers that we have. When they come to us
with two plans - the rescue of the masses of Jews in Europe or the redemption
of the land [in Palestine] - I vote, without a second thought, for the
redemption of the land. The more said about the slaughter of our people, the
greater the minimization of our efforts to strengthen and promote the
Hebraization of the land. If there would be a possibility today of buying
packages of food [for Jews in Nazi captivity] with the money of the "Keren
Hayesod" (United Jewish Appeal) to send it through Lisbon, would we do such a
thing? No! And once again No!" (Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims
Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, p. 26, emphasis
added)
