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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNationalists march in Kiev to honour Bandera - Nazi who led units that killed thousands of Jews.
At the rally far-right leader Oleh Tyahnybok, who heads the Svoboda party, urged the authorities to return "Hero of Ukraine" status to Bandera.
Many Russians revile Bandera, born on 1 January 1909. President Vladimir Putin has called him "Hitler's accomplice".
Russia says it supports separatists in eastern Ukraine because of a neo-Nazi threat to ethnic Russians.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30655184
Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
As a result, the question of the presence of the far-right in Ukraine remains a highly sensitive issue, one which top officials and the media shy away from. No-one wants to provide fuel to the Russian propaganda machine.
But this blanket denial also has its dangers, since it allows the ultra-nationalists to fly under the radar. Many Ukrainians are unaware that they exist, or even what a neo-Nazi or fascist actually is, or what they stand for.
Controversial 'patriot'
This hyper-sensitivity and stonewalling were on full display after President Petro Poroshenko presented a Ukrainian passport to someone who, according to human rights activists, is a "Belarusian neo-Nazi".
Experts who follow the far right have strongly objected to President Poroshenko's decision.
They say Mr Korotkykh was a member of the far-right Russian National Unity party and also a founding member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Society (NSS) in Russia.
According to Ukrainian academic Anton Shekhovtsov, the NSS's main goal "is to prepare for a race war".
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30414955
Run by the extremist Patriot of Ukraine organisation, which considers Jews and other minorities "sub-human" and calls for a white, Christian crusade against them, it sports three Nazi symbols on its insignia: a modified Wolf's Hook, a black sun (or "Hakensonne" and the title Black Corps, which was used by the Waffen SS.
Azov is just one of more than 50 volunteer groups fighting in the east, the vast majority of which are not extremist, yet it seems to enjoy special backing from some top officials:
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and his deputy Anton Gerashchenko actively supported the parliament candidacy of Andriy Biletsky, the Azov and Patriot of Ukraine commander
Vadim Troyan, another top Azov official and Patriot of Ukraine member, was recently named police chief for the Kiev region
Mr Korotkykh is also an Azov member
Ukraine's media have been noticeably silent on this subject.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30414955
Fascists and their supporters everywhere belong in the dustbin of history.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)you are correct...
I guess Bandera isn't Pooties kind of fascist...
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Jesus
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Holy shit it is real!
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Unlike competing Polish, Russian, Hungarian or Romanian nationalisms in late imperial Austria, imperial Russia, interwar Poland and Romania, Ukrainian nationalism did not include antisemitism as a core aspect of its program and saw Russians as well as Poles as the chief enemy with Jews playing a secondary role.[42] Nevertheless, Ukrainian nationalism was not immune to the influence of the antisemitic climate in the Eastern and Central Europe,[42] that had already become highly racialized in the late 19th century, and had developed an elaborate anti-Jewish discourse.[43] Two Halicz / Halych Karaites, Anna-Amelia Leonowicz (1925-1949) and her mother, Helena (Ruhama) Leonowicz (1890-1967), paradoxically, became members of the radical organisation of Ukrainian nationalists, Orhanyzatsiia Ukraїns'kykh Natsionalistiv (OUN). According to oral reports by the local Karaites, however, the Leonowicz women collaborated with the Ukrainian nationalists not of their own free will, but under compulsion, while being threatened by the latter.[44]
The predominance of the Soviet central government, rather than the Jewish minority, as the principal perceived enemy of Ukrainian nationalists was highlighted at the OUN-B's Conference in Krakow in 1941 when it declared that "The Jews in the USSR constitute the most faithful support of the ruling Bolshevik regime, and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in Ukraine. The Muscovite-Bolshevik government exploits the anti-Jewish sentiments of the Ukrainian masses to divert their attention from the true cause of their misfortune and to channel them in a time of frustration into pogroms on Jews. The OUN combats the Jews as the prop of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime and simultaneously it renders the masses conscious of the fact that the principal foe is Moscow."[45] In May 1941 at a meeting in Krakow the leadership of Bandera's OUN faction adopted the program "Struggle and action of OUN during the war" (Ukrainian: "Боротьба й діяльність ОУН під час війни" which outlined the plans for activities at the onset of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the western territories of the Ukrainian SSR.[37] Section G of that document "Directives for organizing the life of the state during the first days" (Ukrainian: "Вказівки на перші дні організації державного життя" outline activity of the Bandera followers during summer 1941 [38] In the subsection of "Minority Policy" the OUN-B ordered: "Moskali, Poles, and Jews that are hostile to us must be exterminated in this struggle, especially those who would resist our regime: deport them to their own lands, importantly: destroy their intelligentsia that may be in the positions of power ... Jews must be isolated, removed from governmental positions in order to prevent sabotage, those who are deemed necessary may only work with an overseer... Jewish assimilation is not possible." [46][47][48] Later in June Yaroslav Stetsko sent to Bandera a report in which he indicated - "We are creating a militia which would help to remove the Jews and protect the population."[49][50] Leaflets spread in the name of Bandera in the same year called for the "destruction" of ""Moscow", Poles, Hungarians and Jewry.[51][52][53] In 1941-1942 while Bandera was cooperating with the Germans, OUN members did take part in anti-Jewish actions. German police at 1941 reported that "fanatic" Bandera followers, organised in small groups were "extraordinarily active" against Jews and communists.[54]
In 1942 German intelligence concluded that Ukrainian nationalists were indifferent to the plight of the Jews and were willing to either kill them or help them, depending on what better served their cause. Several Jews took part in Bandera's underground movement,[55] including one of Bandera's close associates Richard Yary who was also married to a Jewish woman. Another notable Jewish UPA member was Leyba-Itzik "Valeriy" Dombrovsky. According to a report to the Chief of the Security Police in Berlin dated March 30, 1942, "...it has been clearly established that the Bandera movement provided forged passports not only for its own members, but also for Jews.".[56] The false papers were most likely supplied to Jewish doctors or skilled workers who could be useful for the movement.[57]
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The idea that "Jews were responsible for Bolshevism" is an unfortunate myth that has existed in central and eastern europe since the 1920s.
Of course, the reality is that the moment you embrace Bolshevism, your previous religion no longer exists, so, it is an impossibility to say that Jews or Catholics or Russian Orthodox were "Responsible for Bolshevism".
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)What I want to say (and wish I could say it in a soft, gentle, reasonable voice) is that this is the thing that people who rail against "Zionism" don't understand...
1. First of all, they don't understand that to many Jews, when we hear someone say "Those Zionists...!" or "Zionist propaganda" or something similar, it sounds very scary and hate-filled. Why? It's hard to say. It is a visceral thing and you just have to take my word for it. To my ear, saying "Zionist" sounds close to hate-fillled talk.
(please remember I am trying to speak in a soft, gentle voice )
2. People must understand that this has been the Jewish experience for over 1,500 years. Hate, blind hate. If it doesn't rationalize the poor treatment of Palestinians, perhaps it can at least help you understand it and try to give just one extra tick of patience to those who must work through their fear and defensiveness before coming out the other side into a better place.
I hope that didn't come off offensive to anyone.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Skip to :54 seconds for the Bandera Birthday Bash 2014
Thanks for your comments, you make some good points. Auto correct got you at the end of your point 1... tall=talk.
pampango
(24,692 posts)They are an evil force but have less support in Ukraine than in many other European countries. Indeed the far-right in the rest of Europe admires Putin and Russia. They were even recruited to be 'election monitors' in the Crimean referendum.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Nitram
(22,853 posts)He fought against the U.S.S.R. for a free and united Ukraine. That doesn't make him a Nazi. Typical Russian propaganda.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)MattSh
(3,714 posts)Blame them if you must blame someone.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)They either did or didn't. Is mass murder of jews because they are communist different from killing jews because they are jewish? Its mass murder either way.
Did Ukranian nationalist work with the SS during the holocaust? You seem so conflicted in calling this murderer a nazi. Maybe he was just misunderstood.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)In the revolutionary war, the folks the colonists killed were almost all from the church of England.
Does that mean this was an attempt at genocide of those belonging to that church?
Obviously not. There were political reasons beyond that for which the fighting and killing was going on.
This isn't that complicated.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)The role of Ukrainians in the holocaust is well documented.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)MattSh
(3,714 posts)And Bandera collaborated with the Nazis. To say otherwise is historical revisionism.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)owever, Bandera did collaborate with the Nazis and receive German funding for subversive acts in the USSR as German forces advanced across Poland and into the Soviet Union at the start of the war.
He fell out with the Nazis in 1941, after the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists declared Ukraine's independence, and he was sent to a concentration camp.
Bandera won back Germany's support in 1944, and he was released. The German army was hoping the Ukrainian insurgents could stop the advance of the Soviet army, which had regained control over much of eastern Ukraine by then. Bandera set up a headquarters in Berlin and oversaw the training of Ukrainian insurgents by the German army.
His group also was involved in the ethnic cleansing that killed tens of thousands of Poles in 1942-44. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists portrayed Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Jews most of the minorities in western Ukraine as aliens and encouraged locals to "destroy" Poles and Jews.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/01/01/ukraine-bandera/4279897/
The defense of this pogrom leading freak is amazing.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)You might want to rethink that, particularly given your posting history.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Well, as Putin believes Andrey Vlasov was a fascist too (address to the Dumas in March of 2014 during Putin's Crimean Anschluss when he played the 'Kosovo Card'), I tend to have a difficult time investing any validity into his statements.
However, as this particular group is smaller the Tea Baggers of New York state, I'll attribute their existence merely to stupidity rather than any (dramatically non-existent) policies of Poroshenko or the Verkhovna Rada.