Ukraine wants to move the remains of collaborators to the national Pantheon in Kiev

 

On 9 April 2015, the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed by a majority vote the law “On the legal status and commemoration of fighters for Ukraine’s independence in the twentieth century”. According to this law, the executioners of the Jewish people during the Civil (1918-20) and Second World Wars – fighters who were part of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), known for their cooperation with the Nazis and participation in the extermination of Jews and Poles – are defined as “fighters for independence” in the country. If we are speaking about personalities, we need to mention several important perpetrators: Simon Petlyura, leader of the Ukrainian nationalists during the 1918-20 Civil War organizer of the Jewish Pogroms, Stepan Bandera, the UPA’s commander-in-chief and someone who actively collaborated with Adolf Hitler, Wehrmacht Hauptmann, and, lastly, deputy commander in Hitler’s Nachtigal battalion, Roman Shukhevich.

Most Western scholars have rightly seen this move as Ukraine’s reaction to the changed relationship with Russia following the 2014 annexation of Crimea. After this, Ukrainian leaders began to reinterpret past events in order to promote a certain conceptualisation of their national community by contrasting Russian values with anti-Russian values. Thus, those who collaborated with Hitler’s regime, including in the extermination of Jews and Poles, became fighters for freedom from “Soviet occupation”, while the organisers of anti-Jewish pogroms during the Russian Civil War of 1918-20, such as S. Petlyura, became “fighters for independence”.  (more...)

Ukraine wants to move the remains of collaborators to the national Pantheon in Kiev