The Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia has temporarily enclosed a monument to Ukrainian war dead at one of its cemeteries as it seeks “open, scholarly and compassionate dialogue” with Jewish organizations that have expressed concern over this particular memorial and the complex history behind it.
Erected during the 1990s, the black, cruciform monument — which bears the Ukrainian trident and a lion, an ancient symbol of the Galicia region — honors World War II Ukrainian soldiers who (under occupation by Nazi Germany, which regarded Ukrainians and other Slavic peoples as subhuman) fought in Germany’s 14th Waffen-SS “Galicia” Division, later known as the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army in 1945. Similar memorials exist among the Ukrainian diaspora throughout the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.
For decades, the Ukrainian soldiers’ participation in the division has been the focus of extensive inquiry by academics and investigators, with researchers noting soldiers joined the division as a means of attaining Ukrainian independence amid repression by both the Nazi and Soviet regimes. During the 1980s, three separate commissions in Canada, Australia and Britain found little to no evidence of the soldiers’ participation in Nazi atrocities.
Recent articles in the American Jewish news outlet the Forward and The Philadelphia Inquirer about the monument revived controversy over that legacy. In May, Moss Robeson — an independent researcher whose work is highly critical of Ukrainian nationalism — posted an image of the monument on X (formerly Twitter), claiming the monument had “apparently flown under the radar” for the past three decades.
Since then, a number of groups, including the American Jewish Committee, have called for the removal of the monument. (more...)
Ukrainian Catholic archbishop temporarily covers controversial WWII war dead memorial
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