were to join your voice to ours in however simple and brief a statement, I think that a
retraction might be forthcoming in short order.
I should explain by way of background that my attitude to this sort of
misstatement is that it is disrespectful to the memory of the Holocaust dead. I do not
believe that the Holocaust dead authorized Messrs Safer and Wiesenthal to replace the
real Holocaust with a grander one which would do more to advance their respective
careers. I believe that by means of their fabrications, Messrs Safer and Wiesenthal do
a great disservice to the perception of Jewish credibility, provide ammunition for
Holocaust deniers, and at the same time harm Ukrainian-Jewish relations.
Thus, if it were true that the Lviv pogrom in question did not take place, and if
you were to release a statement to that effect (if only in a letter to me which I could
quote), I think you would be performing an invaluable service toward enhancing the
perception of Jewish credibility, toward disarming Holocaust deniers, and as well
toward improving Ukrainian-Jewish relations.
Sincerely yours,
Lubomyr Prytulak
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE HILBERG 806 hits since 31May99
Hilberg reply to Letter 1 15Dec97 Lviv pogrom implicitly denied
Raul Hilberg
236 Prospect Parkway
Burlington, VT 05401
802-863 4653
December 15, 1997
Mr. Lubomyr Prytulak
[...]
Dear Mr. Prytulak,
I have had to delay a reply to your letter of September 15, because I had an almost
impossible deadline for a manuscript, plus two trips, one to Europe and one to
Alberta. Now I have had a chance to reexamine some sources with respect to actions in
Lviv and a few other places within eastern Galicia during the early phase of the
occupation.
Here then are a few more details to complement the sections you have taken from the
1961 edition of my book, The Destruction of the European Jews. The historian Philip
Friedman writes on pages 246-47 of his Roads to Extinction, New York 1980:
By inciteful proclamations, pamphlets, and oral propaganda, the Germans
stirred up mass hatred of the Jews. Persecution and pogroms began
immediately after the entry of the German army. From June 30 to July
3, German soldiers spread through the streets of the city in the
company of Ukrainian nationalists and an unruly mob of the local
population. They fell upon the Jews in the streets, beat them
murderously, and dragged them away for "work" - especially for
cleansing of prisons filled with corpses and blood. Thousands of Jews
were seized and conveyed to the prisons on Zamarstynowska, Jachowicza,
and Lackiego Streets; to the Brygidki prison on Kazimierzowska Street;
and to the Gestapo headquarters, at 59 Pelzynska.
The first mention of these events in a report of the Security Police of July 3, 1941,
is a statement that angered residents had already seized 1,000 Jews. A subsequent
report, dated July 16, 1941, notes that "In Lemberg [Lviv] the population rounded up
about 1,000 Jews, and with mistreatment [unter Mi?handlungen] delivered them to the
[German] army-occupied GPU prison." In the same report, there is mention of the
shooting by the Security Police of 7,000 Jews in all of eastern Galicia. Fifty Jews
were reported to have been killed by local inhabitants in Sambor. Another Security
Police report, dated July 11, 1941, refers to 600 Jews "liquidated" in the course of
"persecutions of Jews inspired by the Einsatzkommando" 4b in Tarnopol.
In conclusion, it would seem that local inhabitants violently seized about a thousand
of the Jews arrested in Lviv. Because of the German role and the presence of Ukrainian
militia, I have not called these actions a pogrom, but that may be a matter of
labeling.
Sincerely,
Raul Hilberg [signature]
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE JORDAN Jordan > 786 hits since 23May98
Jordan Letter 1 Mar 6/96 Answering 16,000 pieces of mail
March 6, 1996
Michael H. Jordan
Chairman, Westinghouse Electric Corporation
11 Stanwix Street
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
USA 15222
Dear Mr. Jordan:
In the Wall Street Journal article on you of February 28, 1996, the phrase "pulling CBS from the ratings
basement" caught my attention, and led me to wonder whether it would be possible to accomplish such a feat while CBS
continues to be weighed down with personnel who have demonstrated such lapses of intelligence and of integrity as were
requisite to broadcasting "The Ugly Face of Freedom." If you take the trouble to read the enclosed documentation, I
am sure that you will be convinced that my depiction of this broadcast as requiring lapses of both intelligence and
integrity is not hyperbolic, but rather is restrained.
Let me right now give you just one example of the hatemongering that was offered to CBS viewers as investigative
journalism in "The Ugly Face of Freedom." It is Morley Safer reading into the camera - without so much as blinking
"The Church and Government of Ukraine have tried to ease people's fears, suggesting that ... Ukrainians, despite the
allegations, are not genetically anti-Semitic." One might have expected that no mainstream journalist would be able
