7 MILLION UKRAINIANS SERVED IN THE RED ARMY

A common misconception in Western historiography of WWII is that the Red Army was Russian. The term “Russians” was interchangeable with “Soviet” during the existence of the USSR. In actual fact, Russians made up only 55-60 percent of the population of the USSR. This meant that 40-45 percent were non-Russian. These demographic figures were reflected in the ethnic makeup of the Red Army. While it is true that Russians were given preponderance in the officer corps, to call the Red Army “Russian” is simply to miss the point.

In actual fact, non-Russian nationalities served in the Red Army in great numbers. Seven million Ukrainians served in the Red Army, and made important contributions not only in battles in Ukraine but also in Russia – the surrender of General Paulus’ 6th Army at Stalingrad was accepted by a Ukrainian general. All told, some 7 million Ukrainians served in the Red Army, including over 350 Marshals and Generals.

The bitter irony of the Ukrainian predicament was that Ukrainians fought on all sides of the conflict between Germany and the USSR. Often, members of the same family found themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield. Ukrainians also fought their countrymen in the struggle between the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and Soviet forces. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to view the Eastern front of WWII as, in a sense, a civil war that pitted Ukrainians against Ukrainians.

14th WAFFEN SS GALICIA

The 14th Waffen SS Galicia was a formation of Ukrainian soldiers from the Galicia region that fought in the ranks of the German armed forces. After the defeat of the German army at Stalingrad, and the failed German offensive at Kursk in 1943, the German army was faced with an increasing crisis on the Eastern Front. Soviet advances in early 1943 cut into large swaths of occupied territory, and the German army was increasingly in retreat. The Germans were also faced with an increasing manpower shortage. Because of this, the Germans began to relax their racial laws on who could serve in their armed forces.

During these events, the German authorities began to negotiate with the Ukrainian Central Committee (UCC) on the possibility of forming an armed unit of Ukrainians to fight the Red Army. For many Ukrainians struggling for independence the prospect of having a highly trained and armed force was an attractive proposition; Ukrainians lost their independence in 1920 largely because of the lack of such a force. Therefore, Ukrainian leaders agreed to cooperate with the German authorities in establishing a Ukrainian division under German command. One of the chief reasons for their cooperation was the fact that the German defeat was becoming imminent, and Ukrainian leaders did not wish to be left without a military force that could defend Ukrainian interests. OUN-Bandera, which exercised political control over the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, remained opposed to the formation of the Division.

The German authorities agreed to several conditions put forth by the UCC to Dr. Otto Waechter, governor of Galicia. The most important of these was that the Division was to be used only on the Eastern front against the Red Army, and not on the Western front against British and American forces. The formation of the Division was announced in April 1943; some 80 000 men volunteered for service. Of these about 12 000 saw action on the front.

On 17-22 July 1944, under the command of General Freitag, the Division fought in the Battle of Brody. Facing vastly superior Soviet forces, the Division was surrounded and lost some 8000 of its soldiers – killed, wounded, captured or escaped and joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The bravery the Division showed in delaying the Red Army for several days, however, allowed thousands of Ukrainians to escape from Galician territory to the west and avoid Soviet occupation.

After the defeat at Brody, the Division was replenished with reservists and saw action against the Red Army and Soviet partisans in Slovenia and Austria. In March 1945 Hitler ordered the Division disarmed – this order was ignored. The Division was renamed the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army, under the command of the Ukrainian National Committee. The Division swore an oath of loyalty to the Ukrainian people, and General Pavlo Shandruk was given command of the Division.

The Division surrendered to British forces after Germany’s capitulation. Its veterans were held in Rimini, Italy in a POW camp for two years. They were released in 1947; most of the veterans settled in Canada, the United States and Britain.

It must be stressed that the motives of the Division and those who joined it were quite clear; they fought against Stalin, and not for Hitler. The Division was cleared of any war crimes by the Allied authorities, and it is indicative that Soviet charges of war crimes committed by the Division never went beyond mudslinging; no concrete case was ever brought against members of the Division.

Despite this veterans of the Division, who fought bravely for the defense and independence of their homeland, periodically face unfounded accusations of war crimes and atrocities; leftist forces in Ukraine continue, for their own political gain, to paint the veterans of the Division as Nazi collaborators.

30 JUNE 1941

30 June 1941 was the date of the Proclamation of Ukrainian Statehood by the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B). After the German invasion of the USSR on 22 June 1941 OUN-B hoped to force the German government to accede to the formation of an independent Ukrainian state. It was hoped that the Germans would take a rational course and ally themselves with the occupied nations of the USSR, who were eager to rid themselves of the Soviet yoke.

As part of this strategy, Yaroslav Stetsko, Bandera’s second-in-command, entered Lviv with the Germans on 30 June. Stetsko declared, that by the will of the Ukrainian people, OUN-B was creating a Ukrainian state. By a decree issued by Bandera, Stetsko was appointed premier of the Ukrainian State Administration. The proclamation went on to state that the Ukrainian State Administration would submit itself to the authority of a national government yet to be created in Kyiv.

The German authorities reacted harshly to this declaration; on 12 July 1941 Stetsko was taken to Berlin for ‘consultations,’ where he was placed under arrest. He was imprisoned until 1944. Bandera was also arrested and imprisoned. After most of Ukraine had been occupied, mass arrests of OUN activists began in September 1941. Many were executed. It became obvious that the struggle for an independent Ukraine would have to fight two tyrannical imperialisms – German and Soviet. OUN began an underground struggle against the German occupiers.

After the war, Soviet propaganda would attempt to paint OUN-B as evil collaborators of the Germans; the fact that most of the leadership of OUN was imprisoned by the very regime they were supposedly collaborating with was never explained by the slanderous lies of Soviet propaganda.

LIEUTENANT GENERAL ANDREY VLASOV

b. 1900, d. 1946

Vlasov began his service in the Red Army in 1919 during the Civil War. He joined the Communist Party in 1930 and rose quickly through the ranks of the Red Army. He commanded the 37th Army during the defense of Kyiv in September 1941. In November 1941 he was appointed commander of the 20th Army and took part in the counteroffensive outside Moscow; in January 1942 his army led the counteroffensive in the Mozhaisk-Gzhatsk-Vyazma area. After the counteroffensive Vlasov was promoted to Lieutenant General and awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

In March 1942 he was made deputy commander of the Volkhov front, and made responsible for the relief of the blockade of Leningrad. His 2nd Shock Army, however, was not reinforced or allowed to withdraw; as a result it was surrounded. Vlasov gave his men the order to disband. He could not return to the Soviet forces, as he would be blamed for the destruction of his army.  After hiding for several weeks, was captured by the Germans in July 1942. Disgusted by what he saw as a betrayal of himself and his men by the Soviet High Command, Vlasov agreed to lead the Russian Liberation Army, formed by the Germans out of Soviet POWs, with the aim of convincing the Germans to change their policies towards the USSR. Vlasov was recaptured by the Red Army in May 1945 and hanged on 1 August 1946.

ANDRIY LIVITSKY

b. 9 April, 1879, Zolotonosha county, Poltava gubernia, d. 17 January, 1954 in Karlsruhe, Germany

Livitsky was a Ukrainian political leader, and head of the UNR government. Livitsky graduated from the law faculty of Kiev University, where he was president of the student hromada in Kyiv. He began his nationalist activity in 1901, when he joined the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party, and became head of the Lubni branch.

Livitsky was arrested in 1905 for his political activity; from 1905 to 1920 he was one of the leading members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers’ Party. In 1918 he was instrumental in the uprising against the Hetman government, and under the UNR Directory he chaired the commission for the convening of the Labor Congress. In April 1919 he became the minister of justice and deputy prime minister of the UNR government. In October 1919, as head of the diplomatic mission in Poland, he oversaw the negotiations for an alliance against Soviet Russia between the UNR and the Polish government; his activity culminated in the Treaty of Warsaw.

In 1920 Livitsky became head of the UNR government and went with it into exile in Tarnow, Poland. In 1921 the remaining institutions of the UNR went into exile; from 1921 to 1926 Livitsky worked closely with the leader of the Directory, Symon Peltiura. After Petliura’s death in 1926 Livitsky succeeded him as vice-president of the Directory and became head of the UNR Armed Forces, and from then headed the UNR government-in-exile.

With the outbreak of war between Germany and the USSR, the Germans confined Livitsky to Warsaw, and in 1945 Livitsky reactivated the UNR government-in-exile. In 1948 he was instrumental in the organization of the Ukrainian National Council, at whose first session he was elected president-for-life of the UNR government-in-exile. He died in 1954, and the UNR government-in-exile ceased to exist only after the declaration of Ukrainian independence from the USSR in 1991.

ANDRIY MELNYK

b. 12 December, 1890, Drohobych county, Halychyna, d. 1 November, 1964, Koln, Germany

Melnyk was a military and political figure. He was one of the most important leaders of the Ukrainian independence struggle between the wars, and after WWII. After studying in Vienna, he volunteered for the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. In 1916 he was taken prisoner by Russian forces, and while interned became a close associate of Yevhen Konovalets. In January 1919 he became chief of staff of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic.

In 1922, Melnyk took over home command of the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO). He was arrested in 1924 and sentenced to five years’ in prison for his UVO activities. He was released in 1928 and was head of the Orly Catholic Association of Ukrainian Youth from 1933-38, and continued his underground nationalist activity in Halychyna. After Konovalets was assassinated in 1938, Melnyk went abroad and assumed leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Although the Second Grand Assembly of OUN in Rome ratified his position as leader in August 1939, he did not retain the loyalty of the entire membership of OUN, and in 1940, the radical faction, led by Stepan Bandera, split from OUN. Thus, OUN split into two groups – OUN-Melnyk (OUN-M), and OUN-Bandera, (OUN-B).

After Germany’s invasion of the USSR, Melnyk was kept under house arrest by the Germans, and was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1944. During his imprisonment, Melnyk’s deputy, Oleh Olzhych, oversaw the activities of OUN-M on Ukrainian soil.

In 1942, Melnyk, along with several other leading Ukrainian figures, sent a memorandum to Hitler that demanded an end to German destruction of Ukrainian territories. This won Melnyk the further enmity of the Germans.

After the War, Melnyk worked to consolidate the Ukrainian political community in the West. He was active in the formation of the Ukrainian Coordinating Committee in 1946 and the Ukrainian National Council in 1947. He also proposed the founding of a world congress of Ukrainians in 1957; this idea was realized in 1967 with the founding of the World Congress of Free Ukrainians. Melnyk also wrote numerous historical articles on the struggle for Ukrainian independence. He died in 1964.

BABYN YAR

Babyn Yar is a ravine in the northwest section of Kyiv. During the German occupation of Kyiv, from 1941 to 1943, some 150 000 people were murdered there by the German authorities. Most of those killed at Babyn Yar were Jews. Victims also included Soviet POWs, partisans, Ukrainian nationalists, and gypsies. Soon after the occupation of Kyiv, the area was turned into a killing ground. On September 29-30, 1941 over 30 000 Jews were killed at Babyn Yar.

Before retreating from Kyiv, the Germans tried to cover up the evidence of their crimes at Babyn Yar; they dug up the mass graves there and burned the corpses. After the end of the war, Babyn Yar took on political significance. As official Soviet anti-Semitism increased, Soviet propaganda purposely avoided mentioning that Jews were executed at Babyn Yar, speaking only of the murder of Soviet citizens.

BATTLE OF BRODY

The Battle of Brody took place from 13-22 July 1944. It was the most significant military action fought by the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division. The Division was attached to the 13th German Army Corps, which had the task of defending Lviv.

The town of Brody is situated less than two hundred kilometers east of Lviv. As the Red Army advanced westward, the task of occupying Lviv fell to Marshal Ivan Konev, commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front. His offensive against Lviv began in early July 1944. The 13th Army Corps, commanded by Walther Model, was hopelessly outnumbered, more than 2:1 in men and 3:1 in armor and materiel. The 14th Waffen SS was ordered to plug the hole in the front at Brody.

The Division faced a Soviet force that was several times stronger, and had armored and air support, neither of which the Division enjoyed. Hopelessly outmanned and outgunned, the Division nevertheless fought bravely, even after its German commander, General Freitag, fled the battlefield. On 18 July the Division was surrounded, but on 21-22 July broke out of the encirclement. Of 12 000 men that fought in the 14th at Brody, only 3000 managed to return to German lines. Some joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The rest were killed, wounded or taken as POWs.

Despite its defeat at Brody, the brave resistance by the 14th delayed the Red Army for several crucial days on its march to Lviv. This allowed several thousand citizens of the city, including large numbers of the intelligentsia and political activists, to flee west in front of the Soviet advance, and thus saved several thousand people from the horrors of Soviet occupation.

BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

The Battle of Stalingrad was the military turning point in the war on the Eastern Front. After reversing the defeats in front of Moscow in the winter of 1941-42, the Wehrmacht, in the spring and summer of 1942 executed successful offensives in the south towards Stalingrad on the Volga. In September General Paulus’ 6th Army entered the streets of Stalingrad. Stalin decided that the city would have to be held, no matter the cost. The next weeks saw some of the most vicious fighting of the entire war, as the Wehrmacht engaged the Red Army in street battles, in which each building was fanatically defended.

On 19 November the Red Army counterattacked in a pincer movement against two Romanian armies that were protecting the German flanks. The Romanian armies collapsed under the assault of Lt. General Vatutin and Lt. General Eremenko’s armies, and the Red Army completed an encirclement of Paulus’ Army in Stalingrad on 23 November. Hitler refused to let the 6th Army break out of Stalingrad in an attempt to reestablish contact with German forces, and Field Marshal von Manstein was ordered to establish contact by breaking through the Soviet encirclement. Reichmarshall Herman Goring, head of the Luftwaffe, pledged to keep Paulus’ army supplied through airdrops; the Luftwaffe, however, was unable to deliver even 1/4th of the promised 300 tons of supplies a day. Von Manstein’s attempt to reestablish supply lines with the 6th Army failed, and Lt. General Rokossovsky’s Don Front attacked Paulus’ army in the Stalingrad pocket from west to east.

Lacking reinforcements, warm clothing and supplies, the 6th Army put up fierce resistance, but on 22 January, lost its last airfield. Paulus suggested to Hitler that the Army be allowed to surrender; this was refused. Paulus was promoted to Field Marshal on 30 January and the 6th Army was abandoned, ordered to fight to the last man. On 31 January, Paulus surrendered to the Rokossovsky’s armies. The Wehrmacht lost an estimated 250 000 men at Stalingrad, not including the 30 000 wounded that were evacuated by air. The victory at Stalingrad cost the Red Army some 750 000 dead, wounded or missing.

After the Battle of Stalingrad, the initiative in the War changed irrevocably to the Soviet side. The disastrous defeat at Stalingrad marked the end of Wehrmacht advances into the USSR; hereafter, the Red Army would begin to reconquer Soviet territories taken by the Germans since June 1941. Stalingrad also epitomized the brutality of fighting on the Eastern Front; both Hitler and Stalin ordered that their armies hold territory to the last man – “not one step back.” These orders led to massive casualties on both sides.

BYKIVNIA

Bykivnia is a small hamlet in a wooded area a few miles northeast of Kyiv. The NKVD, from 1936 to 1941 used the area to bury its victims; it is estimated that some 225 000 victims were buried there. Most of those buried there were victims of the Great Terror that swept the USSR from 1936 to 1938.

The Great Terror was the most extreme chapter in the cycle of repressions that characterized the history of Soviet rule in Ukraine. Seeking to eliminate all real and perceived opposition to his rule, Stalin and NKVD head Nikolai Yezhov oversaw a purge of society that for its intensity has few, if any, parallels in human history. Countless numbers of Soviet citizens were swept up in operations all over the USSR and sent to labor camps, or shot. Most of the victims were never tried, and the families of those who were shot were told that their loved ones had been sentenced to camps “without the right to correspond.”  Bykivnia is but one of thousands of mass graves that dot the map of Ukraine.

In September 1941, after the German army drove the Soviets from Kyiv, citizens of Kyiv came to Bykivnia and unearthed the thousands of corpses buried there; the Germans ordered that photographs be taken to illustrate the brutality of Soviet rule. The revelations of the crimes committed under Soviet rule led many Ukrainians to side with the Germans against the Soviets, until the German regime proved itself as brutal as the Soviet.

In 1944, after the reoccupation of Kyiv by the Red Army, a Soviet war-crimes commission concluded that the German regime was responsible for the killings at Bykivnia; Darnytsia, a concentration camp where more than 60 000 Soviet POWs were executed by the Germans was located only three miles away. This cover-up was part of the attempt of the Soviet authorities to hide their crimes from the world; many other Soviet atrocities were blamed on the Germans.

CARPATHO UKRAINE

Under the Versailles Treaty, most Ukrainian territory was divided between three powers – the USSR, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia occupied the region known as Pidkarpattya – Subcarpathia. Compared to both the Polish and Soviet occupations of Ukrainian territory, Czechoslovak rule in Subcarpathia was relatively benign, and the region soon became a focus for the activity of the Ukrainian struggle for independence, and a nationally conscious Ukrainian literary community.

On 11 October 1938 the Czechoslovakian government, as it was required to do by the Treaty of Versailles, granted autonomy to Subcarpathia, establishing Carpatho Ukraine. On 26 October Monsignor Augustyn Voloshyn was appointed premier of Carpatho Ukraine. An elected legislature, the Carpatho Ukrainian Diet, was created, with its seat in Khust. Elections to the Diet took place on 12 February 1939. The Carpatho Ukrainian government established a military force, the Carpathian Sich.

On 15 March 1939, as the German army was marching into Prague, Carpatho Ukraine declared independence, and Voloshyn was appointed president of the new republic. Hitler authorized the Hungarian occupation of Carpatho Ukraine, in part in order to reassure Stalin that Hitler would not support any independent Ukrainian state.

The under-equipped Carpathian Sich resisted the Hungarian invasion, but was soon decimated by the Hungarian army, and Carpatho Ukraine was incorporated into Hungary. Some 5000 Carpatho Ukrainians, and several hundred Galician Ukrainians who had come to assist the new Ukrainian state, died in the fighting. Carpatho Ukraine thus became the first state to resist Hitler and his allies with arms.

DAMIANIV LAZ

During perestroika, the organization Memorial was founded in order to investigate Stalinist crimes. In 1989 Memorial was instrumental in uncovering a mass grave at Damianiv Laz in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. The Soviet authorities, after the end of WWII, used bulldozers to change the landscape at Damianiv Laz in an attempt to cover up the crimes committed there. It is estimated that some1500 victims were buried there. Documents found in the grave confirmed that those buried at Damianiv Laz were victims of the NKVD, shot during the Red Terror that gripped Western Ukraine during the first Soviet occupation, 1939-41. Damianiv Laz is but one of the countless mass graves that were left behind in Ukraine by the Soviet regime.

DARIA HUSYAK

Daria Husyak was born February 4, 1924 in Truskavtsi, Lviv oblast, Ukraine. She is a relative of Vasyl Bilas, who, with Dmytro Danylyshyn, took part in an OUN attack on a Polish post office, for which they were both executed by the Poles in 1932. She was a member of the OUN, a courier for UPA leader Roman Shukhevych. She was arrested by the Soviets in 1950, after the death of Shukhevych, and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. She survived the sentence and was released in 1975. She lives in Lviv, Ukraine (The interview was takn on April 30, 1993, in Toronto.

DEPARTMENT OF THE RIGHTEOUS AT YAD VASHEM

Yad Vashem is Israel’s official Holocaust memorial – its full title is Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. Yad Vashem undertakes several activities, including, among others, recording testimonies of survivors, conducting research on the Holocaust, conducting education campaigns on the Holocaust, holding ceremonies of remembrance, and honoring those who helped Jews escape the horrors of the Holocaust.

The Department of the Righteous at Yad Vashem researches the role of gentiles in aiding Jews during the Holocaust. A gentile can be declared a “Righteous among the Nations” if they aided Jews in escaping from the Holocaust and did not receive material compensation from doing so. Those who helped Jews escape or sheltered Jews from the Holocaust did so at great peril to themselves; aiding or hiding a Jew carried with it the death penalty.

Since 1963 when the law on the Righteous among the Nations was passed, some 15 000 people have been honored with the title. Among them is Ukrainian Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky. Ukrainians place third on the list in terms of numbers of those who have been honored as Righteous Among the Nations of all the nationalities of Europe. The medal received by those so honored is inscribed with a passage from the Talmud – “Whosoever preserves one life, it is as though he has preserved the entire world.” The title “Righteous among the Nations” is the highest honor bestowed by the Israeli government on non-Jews.

DISPLACED PERSONS CAMPS

Displaced persons (DP) camps were found in West Germany and Austria after 1945, on territory occupied by American, British and French forces. The term “displaced person” refers to civilians, who through any number of factors, were not in their home country when the war ended. After 1945-46, when most people from Western Europe had returned home, the term referred to people who refused to return to their countries. The vast majority refused to return because their country was Communist-dominated.

In 1947 some 1.6 million people were held in DP camps. About 250 000 of these were Ukrainians. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (1945-August 1947) and then the International Refugee Organization were responsible for administration and supply of the camps. In 1946 there were almost 500 DP camps; by 1950 the number had shrunk to less than 250. The largest Ukrainian camps, housing between 2 and 5 thousand people were Karlsfeld, Werner-Kaserne (near Munich), Somme-Kaserne (near Augsburg), and Jager-Kaserne (near Mittenwald).

During the short existence of the camps, an active political, cultural and educational life developed. In 1948, for example, 102 elementary schools, 47 secondary schools and 43 trade schools operated in the camps. More than 200 periodicals and almost 1000 books were published in the camps in 1948. Most of the Ukrainian DPs settled in the United States, Canada, Australia or Western Europe.

DISSIDENTS

The dissident movement in the USSR came into existence during the Khrushchev-era “Thaw,” which followed the denunciation of the Stalinist cult of personality at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956. The Khrushchev era was a time of liberalization in the USSR; some criticism, and freedom in art was allowed by the regime. The result was that many intellectuals began demanding even more political and cultural freedom.

In Ukraine many of those associated with the dissident movement argued for adherence to the constitution of the USSR and against the policies of Russification and destruction of national culture. In the 1960s, a number of talented young writers emerged who demanded increased freedom in literature and the right to express nationally conscious ideas, a right ostensibly guaranteed by the Soviet constitution. Known as shestydesyatynyky (the Sixtiers), these writers represented a national renaissance in Ukrainian literature.

When Khrushchev was deposed in 1964, the process of de-Stalinization begun by him came to an abrupt end. With the ascent to the post of General Secretary of CPSU of Leonid Brezhnev, a severe crackdown began on the dissident movement. Many dissidents sent to labor camps, or falsely declared insane and interred in psychiatric hospitals.

The crackdown on the dissident movement became one more chapter in the cycle of repressions that defined the history of the USSR. Many dissidents spent a decade or more in labor camps, psychiatric hospitals or exile in an attempt to force a renunciation of their views. Few actually did renounce their views. Upon release as a rule they were denied employment in their field and earning a living was purposely made difficult. Unable to find employment, dissidents were often re-sentenced for parasitism.

When perestroika began in 1985 political prisoners began to be freed or allowed to return from exile. The last political prisoners in the USSR were not freed, however, until 1989 or 1990. In Ukraine, the dissident movement is important in that it represented a serious challenge to Soviet power, and was the continuance of the struggle for national self-determination that finally succeeded with the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991

ERICH KOCH

b. 19 June 1896, d. 12 November 1986, Barczewo, Poland.

Koch joined the Nazi Party in the early 1920s, and served as Gauleiter (governor) of East Prussia from 1933. After the occupation of Ukrainian territories in 1941, Koch was appointed Reichkommisar of Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Koch was known for his cruelty; he described himself as a ‘brutal dog.’ Under Koch, Reichkommissariat Ukraine became the most brutal occupied Reich territory. Koch was responsible for the deaths of some 4 million people in his three years of rule in Reichkommissariat Ukraine, including almost the entire Jewish population of the region.  Entire villages were routinely destroyed as reprisal for Ukrainian nationalist and Soviet partisan actions.

Koch considered the Ukrainians, and Slavs in general, of being an inferior race to be used as a source of slave labor for the German war effort. Under his rule, some 2.5 million Ukrainians were deported to work in the German Reich as slave labor. Furthermore, because Ukrainians were to be used solely as labor, they were denied everything but the most rudimentary education.

After the re-occupation of Ukrainian territories by the Red Army in 1944, Koch once again became Gauleiter of East Prussia. After the War, he escaped to the British zone of occupation where he lived until 1949. He was discovered and sent to Poland for trial; convicted for war crimes, he was sentenced to death. This sentence was never carried out, ostensibly because of Koch’s poor health. Strangely, the USSR never demanded his extradition to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity that he committed in his three years of brutal rule over Reichkommissariat Ukraine. Nor did Soviet authorities ever publicly pressure the Polish government to carry out Koch’s death sentence.  Koch lived in relative comfort in a Polish prison until his death from natural causes in 1986.

EVACUATION OF SOVIET UKRAINE

On 27 June 1941, five days after the invasion of the USSR by the German army, the Council of Peoples’ Commissars and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR passed resolutions “Concerning the Order of Removing and Stationing Human Contingents and Valuable Property.” Part of the scorched-earth policy of the USSR, in which the invading armies of Germany were to find nothing left behind that could be used, either in the war effort, or otherwise, this resolution ordered the removal eastward of institutions and enterprises from Soviet Ukraine.

550 large industrial enterprises from thirty industrial spheres, twenty light-industry installations, and the property of hundreds of collective farms were shipped eastward from Ukraine. More than three million engineers, designers, qualified workers and intellectuals were sent to Soviet Russia, along with the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and its institutes. The sheer numbers of collective farm property that was shipped eastward is staggering: according to Soviet statistics, more than 150 000 horses, 11 million cattle, almost 18 million sheep and more than 1.5 million pigs, as well as more than 20 000 tractors were removed from Soviet Ukraine and sent to eastern regions of the USSR.

The evacuation of industry and agriculture from Soviet Ukraine had an immense effect on the Soviet war effort; factories that were evacuated were quickly reconstructed in the rear and evacuated collective farm property was instrumental in feeding the Red Army. This evacuation, however, also caused significant privations for Soviet citizens left behind; for much of the German occupation of Soviet Ukraine there were severe food shortages, particularly in the cities. The evacuation and scorched earth policies moreover served to turn many Soviet citizens against Stalin’s regime, because of what was rightly seen as an abandonment of the Soviet people in occupied territories by their leaders.

FINAL SOLUTION

The Final Solution is a term used to denote the murder of six million European Jews by the Nazis. The “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was the last and most extreme cycle of repression visited upon the Jewish population of Europe. Nazi repressive policies towards Jews began with the adoption of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, which, among other measures, banned mixed German-Jewish marriage, stripped Jews of property rights, and the ability to hold government jobs. The persecution of the Jews was a pillar of Nazi racial ideology, which stated that Jewish blood polluted the German population, and therefore the Jewish problem had to be solved with the utmost severity.

After the German occupation of Poland, which contained a sizeable Jewish population, Jews were herded into ghettos. Soon after the German invasion of the USSR, the high Nazi leadership made a decision that the Jewish question required a ‘final solution;’ European Jewry was to be liquidated. This decision was reached at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942. The Jews who had been herded into ghettos were transported to specially set up death camps, at which those who could not work were immediately put to death, while those who were still capable of working were worked to death. At the most notorious death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, more than 1.5 million people were murdered, more than 800 000 of who were Jews. It is estimated that three million Polish Jews and one million Soviet Jews were murdered in the Final Solution.  The most widely used method of murder was the use of poison gas; execution by shooting was also common.

From 1939 to 1945 some six million Jews were murdered. This represented one third of the world’s Jewish population. The Nazis’ Final Solution stands as a testament to the possibilities of man’s inhumanity to man; the barbarity of the Final Solution has few, if any, parallels in human history.

GENERALGOUVERNMENT

The Generalgouvernment was an administrative unit that consisted of the central part of Poland, occupied by Germany but not annexed directly to the Reich. Established in October 1939, the Generalgouvernment was a German colony with only minimal rights for the local population. After the German invasion of the USSR Galicia was annexed to the Generalgouvernment – its population thus increased to 18 million people. Nearly 4 million of the inhabitants were Ukrainian.

Hans Frank was the governor of Generalgouvernment – Frank was accountable only to Hitler. Germans staffed all high positions in the administration; Poles and Ukrainians were allowed only minor administrative roles. Limited local self-rule was allowed; thus, the German occupation in the Generalgouvernment was somewhat less brutal than in Reichkommissariat Ukraine. The Ukrainian Central Committee in particular had an influence on assisting in the social welfare situation in the Generalgouvernment. 

GERMAN EINSATZKOMMANDO

The Einsatzkommando was responsible for some of the most heinous crimes against humanity carried out by the Nazi regime. The Einsatzkommando was under the control of the Reichsicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, literally – Reich Security Main Office), which was a part of the structure of the SS. The RSHA brought all the state security formations – the secret state police (Gestapo), the criminal police (Kripo), and the Nazi Party security service Sicherheitsdienst (SD). Reyhard Heydrich headed the RSHA from 1938 until his assassination in 1942.

The Einsatzkommando was organized into several Einsatzgruppen, which operated in the wake of the German army. First employed in Austria in 1938, during the Polish campaign the Einsatzgruppen followed behind the German army and murdered the Polish elite – priests, intelligentsia, aristocrats and political leaders. Many Jews were also arbitrarily murdered in the Polish campaign, while the large part of Polish Jewry was forced into ghettos. The Einsatzkommando thus became a key actor in the implementation of the Final Solution.

After the German invasion of the USSR, five Einsatzgruppen totaling some 3000 men followed the German army. By November 1941, they had murdered some 600 000 Jews. The Einsatzgruppen also targeted soviet political commissars, Ukrainian partisans and Ukrainian nationalists. Einsatzgruppen C and D operated on Ukrainian territory; Einsatzgruppe C, under the command of SS Standartfuhrer Paul Blobel was responsible for the murder of thousands of Jews, intelligentsia and Ukrainian nationalists at Babyn Yar near Kyiv in 1941.

GERMANS OCCUPY KYIV

The first few weeks of the German invasion of the USSR saw a tremendous advance by German forces. Three armies advanced on Leningrad in the north, Moscow in the center and Kyiv in the south. Von Kleist’s First Panzer Group had advanced more than 400 km in less than 18 days, reaching Kyiv’s outer defenses in mid-July 1941. However, to avoid street fighting the Group swung south along the Dnipro. Army Group South could not complete the encirclement of Kyiv.

Hitler then changed the priorities of attack; General Guderian’s Second Panzer Group, which was east of Smolensk and advancing on Moscow, swung south to attack east of on 25 August. Stalin forbade the withdrawal of Lt. General Kirponos’ South-West Front, which had been defending Kyiv. As a result, his armies were encircled in a massive pincer movement around the city, with Army Group South meeting up with Guderian near Romny, about 200 km east of Kyiv in early September. Soviet forces that surrendered in Kyiv numbered some 665 000 – the largest number of POWs captured in a single battle. The German authorities treated them abominably – they were simply surrounded with barbed wire and left under guard in an open field without food or shelter. Most soon perished.

However, the diversion of Guderian’s Second Panzer Group away from the offensive on Moscow played a large part in ensuring that the Wehrmacht could not take the city before the harsh Russian winter set in – the Wehrmacht would advance to the outskirts of the Soviet capital but would be forced back with a massive Red Army counteroffensive.

When the Germans entered Kyiv, they found that the city had been packed with mines and bombs by the retreating Soviet forces. Khreshchatyk, the city’s main street, was blown up, as were many important buildings. The destruction of the infrastructure of the city was a part of the Soviet “scorched earth” policy in which nothing of value was to be left to the enemy by retreating armies.

GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE OF THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL REPUBLIC

As the armies of the Ukrainian National Republic began to be overrun by the Read Army, the government institutions of the independent Ukrainian state were evacuated, partly in 1919, and then completely in 1920, from Ukrainian territories. Most of the government institutions were relocated mostly in Tarnow, Poland, and some in Czechoslovakia. They were later moved to Warsaw, Paris and Prague.

In November 1920 the Law on the Temporary Supreme Authority and the Legislative System of the UNR transferred legislative powers and authority over the government to the State Peoples’ Council. Until this Council could be convened, however, its functions were to be carried out by the UNR Council of National Ministers, while the head of the Directory was empowered to act as the supreme state authority and approve laws, treaties, etc. Until 1947 there was no legislative body among the state institutions in exile.

Symon Petliura was the head of the Directory and thus the head of state until his death in May 1926 when Andriy Livytsky replaced him. The government in exile failed to establish itself as the political center of national activity in the Ukrainian diaspora; it was seen by many as simply another political party. The government-in-exile worked to bring the Ukrainian national question to the attention of the League of Nations in the period between the wars; during WWII the government-in-exile suspended its activities.

After the War, the composition of the government-in-exile changed as activists from Western Ukraine joined it and what had been Soviet Ukraine before the War. The government-in-exile existed until 1991, when President Mykola Plaviuk formally handed over his powers to the President of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk.

GULAG

Gulag is the Russian acronym for Glavnoi upravlennia lagerei, or “Main Administration of Camps.” Under control of the first the Cheka, then the OGPU, then the NKVD and finally the MVD, Gulag refers to the vast network of labor camps and settlements that dotted the maps of the remotest regions of the Soviet Union. Gulag lasted for the entire existence of the USSR. The first camps were formed shortly after the Revolution in 1917 and ostensibly had as their goal the political re-education of anti-Soviet elements through labor. In reality, however, the camps were used not to re-educate but to destroy real or perceived enemies of the regime through backbreaking labor, starvation rations, severe climate and unbearable living conditions. Though camps were found in all regions of the USSR, the largest and most important were in the far North, where prisoners toiled in the extraction of minerals and other natural resources.

After Stalin consolidated his power Gulag staff and powers were increased, and forced labor became an integral part of the industrialization drive. The White Sea Canal, for example, was built in the early 1930s almost exclusively by Gulag labor. The Great Terror of 1936-38 saw the populations of the camps grow significantly. Most of those sent to the camps during this time for political crimes were innocent of any offences at all. As part of the system of repression, non-political, criminal offenders (known as ‘thieves’) were allowed by the regime to lord over the political prisoners. During the War, conditions in camps became even worse; there was a severe food shortage and work norms were increased in the camps in an effort to increase the productivity of the war economy. The result was an exponential rise in death rates.

After the War, the composition of the camps changed significantly, due to a massive influx of Baltic peoples, Ukrainians and German POWs. Those sent to camps after the War were for the most part, unlike the politicals of the 1930s, organized members of nationalist independence movements. Thus, while the politicals of the 1930s were dominated and bullied by the more organized thieves, the political prisoners of the second half of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s brought with them organized networks and effectively fought against domination by the thieves. After the War, then, thieves no longer dominated the political prisoners, and political prisoners organized and protected themselves along national lines. These new political prisoners were instrumental in organizing the prisoner uprisings of 1952-54.

After Stalin’s death and Lavrentiy Beria’s ouster, the size and power of Gulag was scaled back significantly. However, the camp system lasted well into the days of perestroika, and the last political prisoners were not released from the camps or exile until shortly before the collapse of the USSR.

THE GULAG UPRISINGS OF 1952-54

After the Soviet victory in WWII, new strict regime camps for political prisoners were set up in the Gulag. The majority of political prisoners sent to these camps were from the newly occupied Soviet territories of the Baltic States and Western Ukraine, the Polish Home Army, German and Japanese POWs, and former Red Army soldiers. These prisoners brought with them not only strong national ties, but also networks and organizational skills – many, especially those from the Baltic States and Western Ukraine, were former partisans who had waged a brutal struggle against Soviet occupation.

The fact that political prisoners were segregated from criminal prisoners allowed the politicals to further develop their organized networks. The politicals no longer had to struggle against both the criminal prisoners and the camp administration, and could focus all their energies on the latter. An amnesty in 1945 released about 40% of the Gulag population – many of those released had been informers, which made it more difficult for Soviet authorities to fight subversion in the camps. In the first years after the War, the nationalist political prisoners, the vast majority of who were virulently anti-Soviet, began to gain the upper hand among the prisoners.

In 1947 new twenty-five year terms were introduced – since sitting out such a sentence was thought to be impossible, it had the effect of radicalizing the political prisoners even more. Uprisings in camps became more frequent. Stalin died in March 1953. There was a sense in the camps that change would come. Change did come, but not as expected. The Beria Amnesty of 1953 freed more than one million prisoners, but politicals were largely left out of this amnesty. Angered by the fact that the amnesty had not affected them, and saddled with twenty-five year terms they had little hope of surviving, the political prisoners rose up in revolt against the Gulag system.

Two of the largest revolts were at Norilsk (June-August 1953) and Kengir (May-June 1954). Both uprisings started as strikes in response to unfair treatment of prisoners. Prisoners at the camps refused to go to work, and expelled the administration from the camps. In both cases, the prisoners demanded similar things – review of their cases, lower work hours, higher rations and punishment for guards who abused prisoners.

What is extraordinary about the uprisings is the level of organization of the prisoners. The day that the administrations were forced out of the camps, Strike Committees were elected. While Red Army veterans led these Committees, they were in reality controlled by the nationalist organizations in the camps, which were responsible for security and controlled a majority of the members of the Strike Committees.

In a sense, the uprisings in the Gulag were doomed to failure before they began. Prisoners, even thousands of well-organized prisoners, armed with knives were no match for Soviet tanks and machine guns. The uprisings of 1952-4 were ruthlessly put down, with the prisoners suffering heavy casualties. Many of those who survived, particularly among the leadership of the revolts, received additional sentences or were sent to the worst camps. In another sense, however, the uprisings in the Gulag represented a terrible defeat for the Soviet authorities. Despite their best efforts, political prisoners had managed to organize themselves into a real threat to Soviet power. These uprisings stand as a testament to the fact that brutal tyranny will be resisted equally fiercely. If the Gulag succeeded in breaking many people, it also failed in breaking many others.

HEINRICH HIMMLER

b. 1900, Munich, d. 23 May 1945

Himmler was head of the SS from 1929 to 1945, and Germany’s Minister of the Interior from 1943 to 1945. In 1933, as head of the Munich police, Himmler established the first Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. Himmler succeeded in establishing the SS as an organization that had a fair amount of autonomy from the Nazi Party. Before the war, he was the third most important Nazi leader, after Hitler and Goring. In October 1939 Himmler was given sweeping powers in the parts of Poland annexed directly into the Reich; in the next year more than 300 000 Jews and more than one million Poles were deported to the Generalgouvernment and replaced by Volkdeutsche. After being appointed Minister of the Interior, Himmler directed the Final Solution and oversaw the system of forced labor.

As Germany’s fortunes in the War began to turn, Himmler sought to start peace negotiations with the Allies; at the beginning of 1945 he ordered a halt to the Final Solution. By this point completely divorced from reality, Himmler believed that the Allies would make him Germany’s new leader after Hitler was removed and peace re-established. After Germany’s surrender, the Allies captured Himmler. On 23 May 1945 he killed himself with a cyanide capsule.

HRYHORII BANYK, WITNESS

Hryhorii Banyk was a witness to the excavation of bodies murdered by the Soviets in Demianiv Laz, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, Western Ukraine.

IVAN KLYMIV

b. 1909, Sokal county, Galicia, d. December 1942

Klymiv was an OUN leader, who, after the split in OUN in 1939, joined the Bandera faction. Klymiv was arrested in 1935 by the Polish authorities for his role in OUN activities in Halychyna. He was sentenced to ten years in a Polish concentration camp. He was released, along with Bandera and other leaders, after the fall of Poland in 1939.

After the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941 Klymiv headed the territorial executive in Western Ukraine, and after Bandera’s arrest by the German authorities, was a leader in the OUN anti-German underground. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1942, he was tortured to death in December 1942.

IVAN ROHACH

b. 1913, Transcarpathia, d. 1942, Kyiv

Rohach was a journalist, publicist and political activist. In the 1930s he was head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Transcarpathia. A part of Czechoslovakia in the interwar years, Transcarpathia was, due to the comparatively benign Czechoslovak rule, a center for Ukrainian nationalist activity. In 1938-39 he led the paramilitary Ukrainian National Defense and Carpathian Sich in Transcarpathia.

After the split in OUN, Rohach stayed loyal to the Melnyk faction, and led an OUN Expeditionary Group to Kyiv after its occupation by the Germans. In Kyiv he was managing editor of the nationalist newspaper Ukraiinske slovo. After the German authorities closed down the newspaper, Rohach was arrested by the Gestapo and in 1942 shot at Babyn Yar.

The murders of Rohach, Olena Teliha and countless other Ukrainian nationalist activists by the Germans was part of the German program of conquest of Ukraine; an essential precept of which was the elimination of an independence-minded intelligentsia. After the nationally aware Ukrainian leadership was decapitated, the Ukrainian people it would be easier for the German authorities to turn the Ukrainian people into slave-laborers whose only reason for existence would be to perform manual labor for the Third Reich.

JANUARY 22 1918

January 22 1918 is the date of the proclamation by the Central Rada’s Fourth Universal, of full independence of the Ukrainian National Republic. From its inception in November 1917 to January 22 1918, the UNR was in a federation with Russia.

While the UNR lasted less than three years on the territory of Ukraine, January 22 is an extremely important date for Ukrainians, as it was the date on which Ukrainians celebrated Ukrainian statehood. In the diaspora this date was when Ukrainians remembered the struggle for independence; until 1991, when Ukraine declared independence from the USSR, January 22 was the date on which Ukrainians in the free world celebrated statehood.

JOHN ARMSTRONG

John Armstrong is professor emeritus of political science, University of Wisconsin-Madison and has also taught at the University of Colorado and Columbia. He is the author of Ukrainian Nationalism (1955, 2nd ed.1963) and The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite (1959). He was born in the USA in 1922 and lives in Florida.

KARPO MYKYTCZUK, VOLUNTEER FREEDOM FIGHTER

He was born on April 22, 1913 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine and graduated from a commercial school in Vienna. He was a member of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists). In 1942-43 he was imprisoned by the Gestapo. He was chosen by the OUN to establish contact with the Allies. After the war, in 1947, he emigrated to Argentina and became the head of the Ukrainian Information Istitute in Buenos Aires. In 1954, he went to Canada, lived in Toronto and worked as a librarian. He died May 18, 1997 in Toronto. (The interview was taped on July 14, 1990 in Toronto).

LEV FUTALA

He was born on January 23, 1922 in the village of Berehy, Lviv oblast and, from 1939,  was a member of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists). In 1944, he joined the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army), where he bacame an officer and received several medals for bravery in battle. In 1947, he took part in the UPA raid to the West. Emigrated to the USA in 1949. He was the founder and leader of the Association of Former Member of the UPA, and became the head of their World Association in 1983. He died December 22, 2007 in New York.

MAN-MADE FAMINE GENOCIDE

The Man-Made Famine Genocide (Holodomor) took place in the Ukrainian SSR during 1932-33. Between 7 and 10 million Ukrainians were purposely starved to death by order of Stalin and the Soviet authorities. After the adoption of “socialism in one country,” the USSR embarked on a path of break-neck industrialization in order to ‘catch up’ to the level of industrialization in Europe and North America.

This rapid industrialization was to be paid for by the export of the USSR’s most important commodity – grain. In order to facilitate this process, agriculture was to be collectivized. Peasants were to join collective farms and work as employees of the state on their land. The drive to expropriate the land from the peasantry and force the peasantry to join collective farms was met with fierce resistance. Dekulakization saw the expropriation and arrest of the richer peasantry (known as kulaks) – millions of peasants were arrested, sent to labor camps or deported to the farthest corners of the USSR.

Part of the effort to break the peasantry and bend it to the will of the Soviet authorities involved pacifying the Ukrainian peasantry, which had been the backbone of the Ukrainian nation during tsarist times and had always resisted Moscow’s attempts to control Ukrainian territory. Larger and larger taxes were levied against peasants who refused to join collective farms; soon more drastic measures were taken. Peasants who refused to join collective farms had their property expropriated and were deported. The result was that by the end of 1931 virtually all agriculture in the Ukrainian SSR was collectivized or run by state farms.

In order to facilitate industrialization the Soviet government began to raise quotas for the amount of grain the collective farms had to deliver to the state. Soon, the quotas were raised to such a level that the entire yield had to be turned over to the state. In July 1932 the ‘hoarding’ of grain was declared an offense against the state that carried with it a ten-year term in a labor camp. Teams of NKVD recruits scoured the countryside and searched the peasants for any grain they may have been ‘holding out.’ The peasantry was left with, quite simply, nothing to eat. The introduction of an internal passport system kept the peasants away from the cities, where the situation with food was better, and tied them to the villages

By the fall of 1932 famine was raging in several regions of the USSR. It was most intense in the Ukrainian SSR and in the Kuban in the RSFSR (a majority of the Kuban peasantry was Ukrainian by origin). The Soviet authorities, who went to great lengths to cover up the horrendous crime being committed, vigorously denied reports of the Famine. Any and all aid was refused. It was difficult for Western governments to believe that the USSR would dump millions of tons of grain on the international market while its own citizens were starving. Left with nothing to eat, the peasants began dying by the thousands.

The Famine was stopped as suddenly as it started. Having broken the peasants and murdered more than twenty percent of the population of Ukraine, Stalin and the Soviet authorities relaxed grain quotas in 1933 and the Famine came to an end.

The Holodomor, one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated by a regime against its citizenry, had an impact on WWII as well. As German forces occupied Ukraine millions of Ukrainians, remembering the horrors of the Holodomor, and a few years later, the Great Terror, rejoiced. Given the brutality with which the Stalinist regime treated its own citizens it is surprising not that so many Ukrainians fought on the side of the Germans but that so few did.

METROPOLITAN ANDRIY SHEPTYTSKY

b. 29 July 1865, Yavoriv county, Galicia, d. 1 November 1944, Lviv

Sheptytsky was a prominent church leader and civic and cultural activist. He was the Metropolitan of Halych and the Archbishop of Lviv. Born into a noble Ukrainian-Polish family, he competed his studies at the University of Krakow with a PhD in law in 1894, and studied theology and philosophy at the Jesuit seminary in Krakow.

Sheptytsky was ordained and moved quickly through the ranks of the Greek Catholic church; in 1899 he was enthroned Metropolitan of Halych and Archbishop of Lviv. He also became a member of the Galician Diet and in 1903 a member of the Austrian House of Lords and Imperial Ministerial Council. He often argued for increased rights for Ukrainians in Galicia and for the establishment of Ukrainian schools and a university. His activism earned him great support among the Ukrainian population.

In the interwar years, Sheptystsky was an active supporter of the Ukrainian independence movement, and spoke out against the Pacification campaign begun in Galicia by the Polish government in 1930. However, he often criticized the Ukrainian nationalist camp as well, particularly the use of violence and terrorism. He was also denounced by pro-Soviet forces n Western Ukraine, particularly for his strong condemnation of the Famine in 1932-33 and the ‘godlessness’ of communism.

During the first Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine (1939-41) Sheptytsky exhorted the faithful not to abandon the Church for the atheism imposed by the regime. The Soviet authorities did not harm Sheptytsky because of his prominence; his arrest would surely have brought a severe backlash. Sheptytsky initially believed that the German invasion of the USSR would provide for the establishment of an independent Ukrainian state. When he witnessed the cruelty of the German regime towards the local population and the Jews in particular, Sheptytsky, in early 1942, sent a letter to Heinrich Himmler denouncing the atrocities being committed.

Sheptytsky began to provide refuge to Jews and instructed his monasteries and convents to do the same. He remained active throughout the war in political and church affairs, despite his advancing age and failing health. His death in 1944 marked the beginning of widespread persecution of the Greek Catholic church in Western Ukraine by Soviet authorities. After his death, owing to his tireless work on behalf of the Church and his brave stand against both Nazi and Soviet imperialism, a movement began to have him beatified began. In 1968, the first phase of this process was completed, when Pope Paul VI proclaimed Sheptytsky a “Servant of God.”

Despite the vilification of Sheptytsky by Soviet propaganda, his status was not diminished among the Western Ukrainian population; since the re-emergence of the Ukrainian Catholic church he has attained great popularity in Ukraine.

METROPOLITAN VASYL LYPKIVSKY

b. 19 March 1864, Kiev Gubernia, d. 27 November 1937

Lypkivksy was the first Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Ordained in 1891, he began lecturing on canon law in the Kiev Church Teachers’ School but was dismissed for his support of a separate Ukrainian Church. After the 1917 Revolution he led the struggle for an independent Ukrainian Church. He celebrated the first Liturgy in the Ukrainian language in May 1919, for which the Russian Orthodox Church defrocked him. In summer 1919 he became parish priest of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.

After the All-Ukrainian Church Council established the UAOC in October 1921 Lypkivsky was elected Metropolitan. Despite the Russian Orthodox Church’s refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the UAOC and its constant vilification of Lypkivksy, he worked tirelessly in establishing the new independent Church, for which he gained much popularity. His popularity was seen as a threat by the Soviet authorities, and he was placed under house arrest in 1927; soon after, the Soviet authorities forced the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Council to dismiss him. He lived under arrest and in poverty in Kyiv from 1927 until 1937. The NKVD arrested Lypkivsky in November 1937, at the height of the Great Terror. He was charged with anti-Soviet activity and summarily executed on 27 November 1937. Much of the hierarchy and clergy of the UAOC met with a similar fate as Soviet authorities attempted to control spiritual life in the USSR through the Russian Orthodox Church.

MONSIGNOR AUGUSTYN VOLOSHYN

b. 17 March 1874, Kelechyn, Transcarpatha, d. 1946, in a Soviet prison

Voloshyn was a leading cultural and political figure in the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia. After graduating from the Uzhorod Theological Seminary and the Higher Pedagogical School in Budapest, Voloshyn became a professor and director at the Uzhorod Teachers’ Seminary. He also edited and published Nauka, a Ukrainian language newspaper, from 1903-14, and was involved in the publication of several other Ukrainian newspapers and journals.

Voloshyn was one of the founders of Christian Peoples’ Party, and served as its president from 1923-39. In 1925 he was elected to the Czechoslovak parliament as a candidate from the Ukrainian region of Subcarpathia. At the same time he was a leading member of various cultural organizations. He was perhaps the most important figure in the creation of Carpatho Ukraine; on 26 October 1938 the Czechoslovak government, after granting autonomy to Carpatho Ukraine, appointed Voloshyn premier. On 15 March 1939 the Carpatho Ukrainian Diet declared independence and Voloshyn was elected president of independent Carpatho Ukraine.

With Hitler’s blessing, the fascist Hungarian government invaded Carpatho Ukraine, and Voloshyn emigrated to Prague. In Prague he worked in research and teaching at the Ukrainian Free University. During his time there, he published several textbooks and a general survey of pedagogy. After the occupation of Prague by the Red Army in 1945, Voloshyn was arrested by the Soviet secret police in May 1945 and deported to the USSR. He died in a Soviet prison in 1946.

MYKOLA KUDELA, WITNESS

He was born on March 10, 1914 in the village of Buyani, Lutsk county in the region of Volyn, Ukraine. He was a member of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) from 1932. A survivor of the Lutsk prison massacre in 1941, he was sent to the GULAG in 1947, where he spent 7 years. He is a well known collector of Shevchenkiana, has published four books of memoirs. He lives in Lutsk, Ukraine.

MYROSLAV MALECKY

He was born June 8 1918 in Bortiatyni, Lviv oblast, Ukraine. He joined the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) and spent time as a political prisoner in a Polish prison. He volunteered for the Ukrainian Division «Halychyna» and took part in the battle of Brody in 1944. He emigrated to Argentina, where he became the editor of the quarterly «Vilna Ukraina». Came to Canada in 1957. Member of the Brotherhood of Soldiers of the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army. (The interview was recorded on November 20, 1998 in Toronto.

THE NAZI-SOVIET TREATY OF NON-AGGRESSION

The Nazi-Soviet Treaty of Non-Aggression was signed between Germany and the USSR on 23 August 1939 in Moscow. The Treaty is also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, named after the foreign ministers of the USSR, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Germany, Joachim von Ribbentrop, who negotiated and signed the Treaty.

After trying unsuccessfully to secure a guarantee of non-aggression from France and Great Britain in his drive to secure eastern lands for the Third Reich, Hitler turned to Stalin. The Nazi-Soviet Treaty of Non-Aggression guaranteed Hitler that a German invasion of Poland would not result in war with the USSR.

In a secret protocol, the Treaty assured Stalin that the Red Army could occupy the eastern Polish territories, where over five million Ukrainians lived. These territories were incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. Two additional secret protocols divided Europe into spheres of influence, with the division running through the Narev, Vistula and San rivers, giving the USSR control of the Baltic States and Bessarabia. The Baltic States were occupied by the Red Army in 1940 and incorporated into the USSR.

The Nazi-Soviet Treaty of Non-Aggression, after the destruction and partition of the Polish state, by the ratification of the Treaty of Borders and Friendship between Germany and the USSR on 28 September 1939. In this Treaty, the USSR and Germany each recognized the others’ legitimacy to the Polish territory they had just annexed. The USSR also agreed to supply Germany with essential war materiel. The delivery of these supplies was only stopped after the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941.

One of the most extraordinary diplomatic coups in history, the Nazi-Soviet Treaty of Non-Aggression revealed the cynicism and opportunism of the foreign policies of both totalitarian states. In what must be described as simply a land grab, Stalin signed a Treaty with Germany despite the fact that Hitler’s plans to invade the USSR had been made clear years before in Mein Kampf. The Treaty allowed Hitler to secure his eastern border and focus all his forces on the defeat of France and Great Britain in the West, a goal he came precariously close to realizing in 1940.

For the Ukrainian population now incorporated into the USSR, the two years between Soviet occupation and German invasion saw purges and repressions that equaled and perhaps even surpassed the Great Terror of 1936-38 in the USSR.

NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV

b. 17 April, 1894, Kursk Gubernia, Russia, d. 11 September 1971, Moscow

Khrushchev was First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine from 1938 to 1949, except for nine months in 1947. Essentially Stalin’s envoy in Ukraine, Khrushchev oversaw numerous cycles of repression in Ukraine. Born into poverty he joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) in 1918 and rose through the ranks to become a member of the Central Committee in 1934. He became head of the Moscow Party organization soon after, and was instrumental in carrying out the purges of the Great Terror of 1936-38.

In 1938 he was transferred to Ukraine, and oversaw the execution of thousands of Ukrainians in the last year of the Terror. When Halychyna and Volyn were incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR in 1939 Khrushchev oversaw the massive repressions carried out there from 1939-41. As the Red Army re-occupied Ukraine in 1943 and 1944 Khrushchev was responsible for carrying out another round of purges, this time of people who were thought to have collaborated with the German authorities. Khrushchev also directed the brutal struggle against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and civilians who supported their struggle for Ukrainian independence.

After Stalin’s death Khrushchev sought to distance himself from the man who had served so loyally, and after emerging victorious from a power struggle within the Politburo, in 1956 Khrushchev launched his destalinization campaign, delivering a secret speech at the 20th Party Congress in which he denounced Stalin’s crimes but made no mention of his own culpability in carrying them out. As General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev’s frequent shifts in policy and often outlandish behavior cost him support within the upper eschelons of the Party leadership and he was deposed in 1964. The end of Khrushchev’s rule in 1964 saw the end of the ‘thaw,’ a period of cautious liberalization of Soviet life, and a return to Stalinist methods. From 1964 until his death in 1971 Khrushchev was confined to his country home, under virtual house arrest.

NORMAN DAVIES

Norman Davies is an author, academic and also a well known lecturer and broadcaster. Professor Emeritus, London University and Supernumerary Fellow, Wolfson College Oxford, he is the author of several historical

works on Poland and Russia. His books include Europe: A History (1996), a ground-breaking work which became an international bestseller and The Isles:A History (1999). His most recent books are Rising '44. The Battle for Warsaw which describes the Warsaw Uprising and Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory (2006), a study of the Second World War in Europe. He was born in England in 1939 and lives in London.

OLEH OLZHYCH

b. 8 July 1907, Zhytomyr, d. 9 June 1944, Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Oleh Olzhych was the pseudonym of Oleh Kandyba. Olzhych was a poet and nationalist leader. He emigrated from Ukraine in 1923 and lived in Prague. He graduated in 1929 from Charles University with a degree in archeology. In 1929 he joined the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and became head of their cultural and educational branch.

After the split in OUN in 1938 Olzhych remained loyal to the Melnyk faction and represented OUN-M in Carpatho Ukraine as Melnyk’s deputy. Olzhych’s poetry focused on themes of Ukrainian struggle for independence. He moved to Kyiv in 1941 and was instrumental in the formation of the Ukrainian National Council.

From 1941 to 1944 he directed the activities of OUN-M in Ukraine. He was arrested by the Gestapo for his nationalist activities, and executed in Sachsenhausen on 9 June 1944.

OLEKSANDR HRYN’KO, VICTIM OF SOVIET OCCUPATION

Born on September 12, 1919 in Hrybova, Ternopil oblast, in Ukraine. He worked as an actor in the Lviv Zainkovtsky Theatre company. The interview was taken in 1993.

OLENA TELIHA

b. 21 July 1907, St. Petersburg, Russia, d. 21 February 1942, Kyiv

Teliha was a poet, publicist and nationalist activist. She immigrated to Czechoslovakia in 1922, where she studied at the Ukrainian Higher Pedagogical Institute. She soon became a part of the burgeoning literary and intellectual Ukrainian community in Prague. She moved to Warsaw in 1929, and in 1933 began contributing to the Ukrainian nationalist journal Vistnyk, published in Lviv. From 1939 she worked in the cultural sector of the Leadership of Ukrainian Nationalists.

After the outbreak of war, Teliha moved to Lviv and after the German occupation of Kyiv went there with OUN expeditionary groups. In Kyiv, she became head of the Writers’ Union and editor of the weekly literary journal Litavry. The German authorities closed down Litavry’s parent newspaper, Ukraiinske slovo, and replaced it with the pro-German Nove ukraiinske slovo. An outspoken critic of German occupation and determined supporter of the Ukrainian struggle for independence, Teliha refused to cooperate with the German authorities. She was arrested by the Gestapo and shot on 21 February 1942 at Babyn Yar.

OLHA PETRENKO-KOVALEVSKY

Olha Kovalevsky is from the Poltava region and was taken by force to work in Germany. The interview was taken in Ukraine.

OPERATION BARBAROSSA

Barbarossa was the codename used by the Germans for the invasion of the USSR that began on 22 June 1941. Hitler had made his intentions towards the USSR clear in Mein Kampf; the vast plains of the USSR were to be conquered to provide Germans lebensraum (living space), and to ensure that Germany could never again be starved into submission as she had been in WWI. The strategy behind Operation Barbarossa was an extension of the blitzkrieg concept used to great effect in the Low Countries and France the previous spring – a quick strike at the heart of the USSR, in order to force surrender before the Russian winter set in.

At the beginning of the invasion of the USSR, German forces on the Eastern Front totaled more than 3.5 million men, 3600 tanks and 2700 aircraft, organized into three Army Groups – North, which struck towards Leningrad, Centre – which struck towards Minsk and Smolensk, and South – which struck towards Kyiv. The German forces were opposed by the Red Army, which totaled 2.9 million men, more than 10000 tanks, and about 8000 aircraft. However, Stalin had ignored repeated warnings from both his intelligence services and British sources that an attack by Germany was imminent. As a result, the Red Army, ill prepared, was routed in the first weeks of the invasion. Almost all her air force was destroyed, and through the summer the Wehrmacht swept through the Western regions of the USSR.

It was only at the gates of Moscow in December 1941 that the Wehrmacht suffered its first serious setback of the War. Having advanced to within a few dozen miles of the Soviet capital, the Wehrmacht, overextended and ill supplied for fighting in the extremely cold conditions, was repelled by a massive Soviet counteroffensive. Although the Front was eventually stabilized, Operation Barbarossa and the attempt to force a Soviet surrender before winter, had failed. After December 1941 time worked against the German forces, as the combined economic might of the USSR and the USA, which had entered the War on 7 December 1941, far outweighed the German ability to produce materiel for the war effort. In 1942, Germany switched strategies; instead of attempting to quickly capture Moscow they focused their spring and summer offensives to the south, in an attempt to capture the vast oil reserves of the Caucuses.

ORGANIZATION OF UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was formed in Vienna in 1929. OUN emerged from a merger of several nationalist organizations – the Ukrainian Military Organization, the League of Ukrainian Nationalists – and several nationalist student associations. At its founding conference from 28 January-3 February 1929, it elected a nine-man Leadership of Ukrainian Nationalists, with Colonel Yevhen Konovalets as its head.

The goal of OUN was to establish an independent national Ukrainian state on Ukrainian ethnic territories through revolutionary means. Collaboration of any kind with regimes occupying Ukrainian territories was eschewed. Violence was accepted as a political tool against all enemies of the cause. In the 1930s the activity of OUN was concentrated mainly in Galicia and Volyn against the Polish regime. OUN carried out sabotage against Polish landowners, led boycotts of state schools, and of Polish alcohol and tobacco monopolies. OUN also attacked government institutions and carried out dozens of assassinations.

The Polish regime reacted to these attacks with a campaign of pacification, begun in 1930. Throughout the 1930s many members of OUN were imprisoned, and in 1934 many of OUN’s leaders, including the head of the Western Ukrainian Territorial Executive Stepan Bandera, were arrested and kept in prison until the outbreak of WWII. OUN did not succeed in penetrating Soviet Ukrainian territory; however, concerned with the potential of OUN, Stalin ordered the assassination of Konovalets in 1938.

The OUN membership consisted mostly of young people and students. Some estimates put the membership of OUN in the 1930s in Galicia and Volyn as high as 20 000. OUN’s influence, however, was much greater than the size of its membership may suggest. As the leading Ukrainian nationalist organization, OUN embodied Ukrainian desires for independence and was the key organization in shaping the political attitudes of Western Ukrainians.

The assassination of Konovalets led to a succession crisis in OUN. At the 2nd Grand Assembly of OUN in Rome in August 1939 Andriy Melnyk was elected leader. After the occupation of Poland by German forces, Bandera and other young leaders emerged from prison, and challenged Melnyk’s leadership and accused him of abandoning the principles on which OUN had been founded in 1929. In February 1940 the faction led by Bandera formed the Revolutionary Leadership and in April 1941 held an Extraordinary Congress in Krakow, at which it declared Melnyk’s leadership illegal and elected Bandera as the head of OUN. OUN thus split into two separate factions – OUN-Melnyk, which was the moderate wing, and OUN-Bandera, which was the revolutionary wing. Most of the OUN cadres operating on Ukrainian territory accepted Bandera’s leadership, while most of OUN cadres living abroad continued to stay loyal to Melnyk.

Both wings of OUN saw the coming war between Germany and the USSR as an opportunity for the establishment of an independent Ukrainian state. As such both sides cooperated with German authorities. The line of reasoning was that Germany would undoubtedly need Ukrainian help in its war against the USSR; Germany would thus have to accept an independent Ukrainian state. On 30 June 1941 OUN-B proclaimed Ukrainian independence in Lviv, with Yaroslav Stetsko as premier. Hitler reacted to this declaration by ordering the arrest of Bandera and many of his associates. Bandera spent the rest of the war in a German concentration camp, and many members of OUN-B were executed or sent to concentration camps. Many members of OUN-M met the same fate; Melnyk was kept under house arrest in Berlin until 1944, when he was imprisoned in a concentration camp.

After the arrest of Bandera and Melnyk resistance to German rule began with the establishment of the Polisian Sich under Taras Borovets, which cooperated with OUN-M. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was formed in 1943, under the leadership of OUN-B, and absorbed most of the other nationalist Ukrainian formations operating in Ukraine. At its Third Extraordinary Congress in August 1943, OUN-B condemned both fascist national-socialism and Russian Bolshevism, and adopted a nationality policy that was based on rights for national minorities, replacing its previous stand of “Ukraine for Ukrainians.” OUN-B also modified its command structure, replacing one-man rule with a three-man leadership Bureau of R. Shukhevych, Z. Matla, and D Maivsky. In July 1944 the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council was set up, consisting mostly of members of OUN-B and led by Shukhevych.

After the War, strife between the two factions of OUN continued as they struggled for dominance first in the Displaced Persons’ camps, and later, in the Ukrainian diaspora. However, both OUN-M and OUN-B at its core represented the Ukrainian struggle against imperialism and the desire for an independent Ukrainian state. In Ukraine, the work of OUN was not forgotten, particularly in Western Ukraine, and despite years of Soviet occupation the dream for a free Ukraine was never stamped out.

OSTARBEITERS

Ostarbeiter, literally, “worker from the east,” was the term used by the German authorities to denote workers brought into Germany from the eastern occupied territories. By the end of 1941, due to the mobilization of massive armies, Germany was experiencing a critical labor shortage in its war industry. To combat this shortage, a recruiting campaign was begun in January 1942 in occupied territories. People who signed up were promised good pay and hot food; however, few volunteers signed up. The German authorities in the occupied territories were therefore ordered to round up people by force.

Erich Koch, governor of Reichkommissariat Ukraine, was ordered to provide 450 000 people per year for work in Germany. Police forces were used to round up people in markets, churches and theaters, who were then shipped to Germany. Often, entire villages were rounded up and sent to Germany. These people were forced to wear a badge, “OST,” which identified them as being from the eastern occupied territories. The conditions in which they worked and lived were little different from slave labor. In the camps in which they were interned, sanitary conditions were terrible; typhus, and diphtheria were rampant.

About 80% of the ostarbeiters forcibly taken from Soviet territories were from Ukraine. It is estimated that between 2.4 and 2.8 million Ukrainians worked as ostarbeiters. The death rate among them was high, due to terrible living conditions, inadequate diet and long hours of often backbreaking labor. Ostarbeiters worked mainly in the production of munitions and V-2 rockets; many were also forced to work in the railroads, mining and agriculture.

PAVEL SUDOPLATOV

b. 7 July 1907, Melitopol, d. 26 September 1996

Sudoplatov was one of the leading espionage figures in the USSR. Born to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, Sudoplatov began working for the Cheka (Chrezvychaynaya kommissiya po borbe s kontrrevolyutsiey ii sabotazhem – Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counterrevolution and Sabotage) in 1921 at the age of fourteen.

He moved to Moscow in 1933 and worked for the OGPU, the security service that preceded the NKVD (Narodnyi komissariat vnutrishnykh del – Peoples’ Commissariat of Internal Affairs). In 1938 he was ordered by Stalin to carry out the assassination of the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Yevhen Konovalets. He carried this assignment out on 23 May 1938 in Rotterdam, giving Konovalets a box of chocolates that contained a bomb. 

Sudoplatov narrowly escaped his own fall when the head of the NKVD, Nikolai Yezhov, was purged in the fall of 1938. In early 1939 Sudoplatov was reinstated as head of the NKVD’s Foreign Department and in this role planned and oversaw the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940.

In June 1941 Sudoplatov was put in charge of the Administration of Special Tasks at the NKVD, which carried out numerous assassinations and sabotage activities behind German lines. After the War, Sudoplatov was instrumental in the MGB (Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoye bezopasnosti - Ministry of State Security), which replaced the NKVD in 1946) operations against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). He personally commanded the search and eventual killing of UPA general Roman Shukhevych in 1950. Sudoplatov,, as head of Special Tasks, also oversaw the espionage activities of the USSR, particularly in the sphere of atomic energy.

After the death of Stalin, the Minister of State Security, Lavrentii Beria, reorganized the MGB into the MVD (Ministerstvo vnutrishnykh del - Ministry of Internal Affairs). Beria was purged in the summer of 1953; Sudoplatov, who had worked under him since 1939 and for whom Beria was a mentor, was also arrested and imprisoned. Sudoplatov spent fifteen years in prison and upon his release became a translator. He continually petitioned the authorities for rehabilitation and reinstatement in the Party; he was rehabilitated only in February 1992, after the state for which he had committed so many crimes had ceased to exist. Sudoplatov died in 1996, two years after publishing his sensational memoir, Special Tasks, which exposed many secrets of Soviet intelligence operations.

PETRO SYDORENKO

He was born on May 15, 1926 in the village of Ternovatka near Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. In 1942 he was forcibly taken to Germany as an Ostarbeiter. After the war, he emigrated to Canada where he worked as a fine art painter. He died May 6, 2007 in Toronto. The interview was taken on April 3, 1997 in Toronto.

POLONIZATION

Polonization was a policy of forced cultural and linguistic assimilation practiced by the Polish government in Western Ukraine in the interwar years. The Treaty of Versailles frustrated Ukrainian hopes for an independent state; Western Ukrainian territories, the largest of which was Galicia, were incorporated into the new Polish state. However, the Treaty of Versailles guaranteed minority rights. The Polish government, however, did nothing to protect the rights guaranteed with Ukrainians – in fact, it actively suppressed the Ukrainian population.

The policy of Polonization was carried out chiefly in three main directions – cultural, economic and political. The Ukrainian language was increasingly attacked; Ukrainian universities and schools were routinely closed. In 1931, there were no Ukrainian universities or colleges, and only four secondary schools taught in Ukrainian, as opposed to 775 Polish-language universities. The Ukrainian language was banned in all government institutions. Ukrainian-language newspapers were routinely shut down. Ukrainian organizations such as PLAST, a scouting organization, were banned.

In terms of economics, the Polish government set out to colonized the Western Ukrainian settlers with Polish settlers. In Western Ukraine, ninety percent of the peasants were Ukrainian; in 1931 they controlled only 51% of arable land, while the Polish minority, 8.5% of the peasantry, controlled 20.3%. 26.4% of arable land was redistributed between 15 000 Polish families resettled in Western Ukraine. Politically, the Polish government used pressure to ensure that ethnic Poles were disproportionately elected to all governing bodies.

Ukrainians, predictably, reacted to the policy of Polonization with strong opposition. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), formed in 1929, began a policy of sabotage and led boycotts of Polish monopolies, especially tobacco and alcohol. OUN also carried out several assassinations of Polish officials.

In the 1930s, under General Pilsudski, President of Poland, the country slid increasingly into presidential authoritarianism and the legislative powers of the sejm and other state organs increasingly subordinated to the will of the President. The home rule guaranteed to Ukrainians by the Treaty of Versailles was increasingly limited. Part of this descent into authoritarianism was increased repression against Ukrainians; OUN leaders were arrested, students suspected of ties with OUN were expelled from schools, and the peasantry was routinely harassed in a program called pacification.  The policies carried out by the Polish government in the interwar years fuelled resentment between Ukrainians and Poles, which would break into open conflict a few years later, in the second half of WWII.

QUISLING NORWAY

Quisling Norway was the regime in power in Norway during much of WWII. Norway declared neutrality in the war, but was invaded by German troops in April 1940 in order to stave off the planned Allied invasion of the strategically important government. In 1942, Vidkun Quisling, head of the small Norwegian National Socialist Party, was appointed minister president, and led a collaborationist government largely under direct German control through Reichkommissar Josef Terboven.

A strong anti-Quisling resistance movement developed. Quisling Norway was one example of puppet governments set up by the Germans in occupied territories. Similar governments existed in Vichy France, Hungary, Romania, among other places. Quisling was arrested in May 1945, tried by a Norwegian court, found guilty of, among other charges, treason, and hanged. The word “quisling” has since become synonymous with traitor, especially one that collaborates with a foreign power.

REICHKOMMISSARIAT UKRAINE

Reichkommissariat Ukraine was an administrative unit that encompassed most of Ukrainian territory under civilian rule during the German occupation 1941-44. Reichkommissariat Ukraine was established in September 1941 and was made up of Volyn, Polisia, Right Bank Ukraine and part of the Poltava oblast; in September 1942 Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts were annexed to the Reichkommissariat Ukraine – the rest of Left Bank Ukraine remained under military rule. Galicia became part of the Generalgouvernment, while northern Bukovyna and Transdniestria became part of Romania. Reichkommissariat Ukraine had about 17 million civilian inhabitants.

Erich Koch, who embodied the ruthlessness of Nazi occupation policy, ruled Reichkommissariat Ukraine. Occupation policies in Reichkommissariat Ukraine were more brutal than in the Generalgouvernment. The death penalty was introduced for even minor offenses. Education was reduced to four grades of primary school, and higher education restricted only to specialized vocational courses. Cultural and media institutions were closed. Medical services and food supplies were reduced, and the population was mobilized to work for the Four Year Plan. Many were taken to work in Germany as ostarbeiters.

Reichkommissariat Ukraine was an important part of the German lebensraum plans; after the war, the territory was to be annexed to the Reich and Ukrainians were to be resettled east of the Ural mountains to make room for German colonists. The black earth of Ukraine was to be used to feed the new German empire. These plans were interrupted by the Soviet victory at Stalingrad and the gradual reoccupation of Ukraine by the Red Army; Reichkommissariat Ukraine was formally liquidated in November 1944.

REPATRIATION

Repatriation refers to the return of people to their country of origin. After WWII many millions of people found themselves outside their homelands; it is estimated that between six and eight million people were displaced from Eastern Europe alone. In addition to those who fled zones of occupation, the German government forcibly transported approximately three million people from the eastern occupied territories to work as ostarbeiters. About 2.2 million of these were Ukrainians.

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945 the Allied powers agreed that all Soviet nationals in Western Allied zones of occupation were to be repatriated to the USSR. The USSR pursued this policy with zeal. There were several reasons for this – first, there was a desire to punish the so-called “traitors to the Fatherland” – the fact that ostarbeiters were forced to work in Germany did not augment their guilt. Second, the USSR was suffering from a manpower shortage due to the terrible losses of the war. Reconstruction would require large amounts of manpower. Lastly, the USSR feared that the Soviet reputation would be damaged by the presence in the West of large numbers of people who had experienced Soviet power first-hand. For this reason they pursued the repatriation of Ukrainians most enthusiastically.

Soviet repatriation teams traveled the POW and Displaced Persons Camps attempting to convince Soviet nationals to return home. Despite the fact that Soviet authorities promised those who were to be repatriated that “the Fatherland has forgiven you” (for what offense they were being forgiven is unclear) and that they would be welcomed back into the Soviet brotherhood of nations, most flatly refused to return. Those who were repatriated were, in some cases, executed upon return to Soviet territory. The majority of those repatriated were given lengthy sentences in the Siberian labor camps of the Gulag. Some committed suicide rather than return. Those who refused to go willingly were forcibly repatriated. Forced repatriation from American zones did not last long; in December 1945 forced repatriation was stopped. The British, to their discredit, cooperated with the policy of forced repatriation much longer. In mid-1946 they stopped allowing repatriation by force. But isolated incidents of forced repatriation took place until the middle of 1947.

Americans and Canadians of Ukrainian descent serving in their respective country’s armed forces played a large part in stopping the forced repatriation of Soviet Ukrainian nationals. All told, it is estimated that some two million Ukrainians were repatriated by late 1945. Because the Western Allies never recognized the annexation of Western Ukraine by the USSR in 1939, Ukrainians from Western Ukrainian territories were not considered Soviet nationals, and thus were not subject to forced repatriation. 

RIMINI, ITALY

Rimini is a city on the Adriatic coast in Northern Italy. After WWII it was the sight of British POW camps. The approximately 10 000 soldiers of the 14th Waffen SS Division Galicia who surrendered to the British in May 1945 were interned at Rimini. They were held in Camp 5C from June to October 1945 and then in Camp 1B from October 1945 to June 1947.

Because the veterans of the 14th were from Galicia and the Allied powers did not recognize the legitimacy of the Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine in 1939 the veterans were not subject to forced repatriation. The Soviet repatriation mission, promising amnesty, persuaded some 900 veterans to return to the USSR. They were promptly sent to labor camps in Siberia

The Ukrainian officers of the 14th controlled the internal life of the camp; a high standard of discipline and morale was maintained throughout the two years of internment. Four Ukrainian Catholic chaplains and one Orthodox chaplain held religious services. There was a cultural department, which held concerts by choirs and orchestras organized by the prisoners. There were also several theater productions. An educational department held courses in elementary and secondary levels. There was also a commercial and pedagogical college and a technical, farming and forestry program.

There was also a vibrant press scene in the camp. There was a daily bulletin, Zhyttia v tabori (Life in Camp), a weekly paper Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), and a satirical biweekly Osa (The Wasp).

Under the circumstances the standard of living provided by the British for the internees was fairly good. The Ukrainian Relief Commission in Rome was also very active in helping the veterans.

During the Division’s internment at Rimini, it was investigated by the British authorities and cleared of war crimes. The British Commission responsible for the investigation noted that the veterans of the Division held no affinity for Hitler but were united by their aversion to Stalin and the USSR. In June 1947 the veterans of the 14th were taken to England, and released. Most settled in Canada, the United States and Britain.

ROBERT CONQUEST

A senior research fellow and scholar-curator of the Russian and Commonwealth of Independent States Collection at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University. He is the author of seventeen books

on Soviet history, politics and international affairs, including The Great

Terror (1968) and the acclaimed Harvest of Sorrow (1986), a study of the

man-made famine in Ukraine 1932/32 which has appeared in many

translations. He was born in the USA in 1917 and lives in California.

JOHN ARMSTRONG is professor emeritus of political science,

University of Wisconsin-Madison and has also taught at the University of

Colorado and Columbia. He is the author of Ukrainian Nationalism (1955,

2nd ed.1963) and The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite (1959). He was born in the

USA in 1922 and lives in Florida.

ROMAN SHUKHEVYCH

b. 17 July, 1907, Yavoriv County, Galicia, d. 5 March, 1950, near Lviv

Shukhevych was the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and chairman of the General Secretariat of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UVHR). Shukevych began his nationalist activity at an early age, joining the Ukrainian Military Organization in 1923. In 1929 he joined the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and was active in its combat branch.

In 1926 Shukhevych took part in the assassination of the school superintendent of Lviv, and from 1930-4 he headed the combat branch of OUN. He was arrested for his involvement in the assassination of a leading Polish politician, and was sentenced in 1936 to four years in prison. After serving two years, Shukhevych was released as part of an amnesty. After the declaration of an independent Carpatho Ukraine, Shukhevych served as a staff officer in its military formation, the Carpathian Sich.

From 1941 to 1943 Shukhevych served as an officer in the Nachtigall and Roland Battalions, Ukrainian units under German command; after the battalions were demobilized, disarmed and it officers arrested, Shukhevych escaped and joined UPA. In August 1943 at the Third OUN Congress he was appointed head of OUN Home Leadership, and in November appointed Supreme Commander of UPA.

As Supreme Commander of UPA, Shukhevych led the desperate struggle of the Ukrainian insurgency against both the German and Soviet occupations. Though under equipped UPA enjoyed the support of the local Ukrainian population and soon proved to be a formidable opponent of both tyrannical regimes. It is largely due to Shukhevych’s organizational abilities and personal courage that UPA carried on its struggle for Ukrainian independence for years after the end of WWII.

The Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) hunted Shukhevych for years; only in March 1950 did MVD troops find him and surround the safe house in which he was staying. Shukhevych died in a firefight with MVD troops on 5 March 1950. He was posthumously awarded UPA’s highest decorations. For Ukrainians both under Soviet occupation and abroad Shukhevych came to symbolized the struggle for independence.

RUSSIAN LIBERATION ARMY

The Russian Liberation Army was formed in 1943, under the command of Lt. General Andrey Vlasov. After the disastrous defeat of German forces at Stalingrad, German treatment of the citizens of occupied areas of the USSR was improved, in order to encourage support for the German regime. As part of this effort, the German High Command sought to take advantage of the malevolent feelings that most citizens of the USSR held towards Stalin and the Soviet regime.

In this context the RLA was formed out of Red Army POWs. Those who joined the RLA saw it as a chance to fight against Stalin, which they saw as being in the best interests of Russia. The RLA would eventually number some 300 000 men by mid-1944. About 40% of those who served in the RLA were Ukrainian. The German High Command used the RLA primarily for propaganda purposes; Vlasov’s army was never committed to a major military operation.

In the spring of 1945 many units of the RLA surrendered to the Western allies; veterans of the RLA, however, were repatriated to the USSR on the insistence of Stalin. Branded as ‘traitors of the Fatherland,’ most of the ‘Vlasovites’ were either executed upon their return to the USSR or given long sentences in the camps of the Gulag.

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest autocephalous Orthodox Church. The Church officially traces its history to the introduction of Christianity in Rus by Volodymyr the Great. However the existence of the Church in reality dates from the sacking of Kyiv by the Mongols in 1240; at that time the Kyivan metropoly was transferred from Kyiv to Vladimir on the Kliazma. During the expansion of the Russian Empire from the 16th century onward, the Church served as an agent of Russification; this was particularly true in Ukraine, where the Kyiv metropoly was banned from cultivating its traditional liturgical style and language, and forced to conform to Russian rituals.

During Soviet times, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union controlled the Church closely. There was a Council on Religious Affairs at the Council of Ministers of the USSR and similar councils in all the Soviet republics, through which the activities of the Church were controlled. When other churches were banned, as for example the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the 1930s and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in 1946, the Russian Orthodox Church absorbed their property and parishes. Starting in Stalinist times, then, the Russian Orthodox Church became another tool of control used by the Soviet regime.

After the collapse of the USSR and the re-establishment of the Greek Catholic and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, the Russian Orthodox Church lost many parishioners. However, it remains the largest single church in Ukraine today.

SCORCHED EARTH POLICY

Scorched earth is military policy whereby retreating armies destroy or dismantled everything in their path in order to deprive the advancing armies of food, shelter, natural resources, manufacturing, communications, or anything else that may be of use to them. Scorched earth has a devastating impact on civilian populations left behind by retreating armies.

Scorched earth was practiced with great ruthlessness and efficiency by the Red Army under direct orders of Stalin. Thousands of factories in Ukraine were destroyed or removed, the Dniprohes Dam at Dnipropetrovsk, the largest hydroelectric dam in Europe, was blown up, Khreshchatyk Street, Kyiv’s main street, was mined and blown up. Collective farms were ordered to destroy their crops and animals or to surrender them to the retreating armies. Because all of Soviet Ukraine was occupied by the Germans, the Ukrainian people suffered terribly from the scorched earth policy. The economy of Soviet Ukraine was almost completely destroyed by the retreating Red Army. The civilian population was thus abandoned by the Soviet regime.

During WWII, Ukraine suffered through two episodes of scorched earth – as the Wehrmacht retreated from Ukrainian territory in 1943-44, Hitler also ordered a scorched earth policy; some 28 000 villages were burned by the retreating Germans, and any and all resources that could be used by the advancing Red Army were either evacuated or destroyed.

The scorched earth policy had a fundamental impact on the war on the Eastern Front. More than half of the victims of war on the Eastern Front were civilians. This was the first time in the history of warfare that civilian casualties outweighed military casualties. Scorched earth, while depriving advancing armies of valuable resources, also ensured that the civilian population left behind would suffer enormous privation and misery.

SERHII PUSHCHYK, WITNESS FROM VOLYN

He was born in 1924 in the Volyn region and lived in Kovel. The interview was taken on April 5, 1994 in Lviv.

THE “LIBERATION” OF WESTERN UKRAINE

After the occupation of Western Ukraine by the Red Army in September 1939, the Soviet authorities sought to be seen as “liberators” of the Ukrainians inhabiting these territories from the Polish bourgeois imperialist yoke. To this end in the first weeks and months of the occupation, Soviet authorities abolished several discriminatory laws that had been part of Polish rule over these lands. Educational instruction in elementary and secondary schools, as well as the University in Lviv, whose name was changed to the Ivan Franko University was changed from the Polish to the Ukrainian language. Banks, trade and commercial businesses were nationalized, and land was redistributed to the peasants.

On 22 October 1939 General Tymoshenko, commander-in-chief of the western front, organized elections to the Popular Constituent Assembly of Western Ukraine. In the grand tradition of Soviet elections, the overwhelming majority of mandates went to the candidates supported by Moscow. On 26 October, the Constituent Assembly unanimously adopted a motion requesting that the Supreme Soviet of the USSR unite Western Ukraine with Soviet Ukraine. The Supreme Soviet graciously acceded to this demand and Western Ukraine was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR.

Despite initial optimism about Soviet rule by some segments of the population of Western Ukraine, after the incorporation of Western Ukraine into the Ukrainian SSR a two-year period of terror and repressions gripped the region, interrupted only by the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941.

SOVIET OCCUPATION OF WESTERN UKRAINE, 1939-41

As part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of Non-Aggression, eastern territories of Poland, most importantly Halychyna, were incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. After the Red Army marched into Lviv on 17 September 1939, the peoples of Western Ukraine were proclaimed liberated from the bourgeois nationalist government of Poland and a sham Assembly was convened in October, which asked the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to untied Western Ukraine with Soviet Ukraine. Thousands of Party activists and NKVD operatives were dispensed to Western Ukraine to carry out the Sovietization of Western Ukraine.

Austro-Hungarian rule (to 1918) and then Polish rule (1919-39) in Western Ukraine had been more benign than Tsarist and Soviet rule in the rest of Ukraine. Western Ukraine therefore became the piedmont of the struggle for an independent Ukraine. The two years of occupation that followed saw the use of repression and terror in Western Ukraine that equaled and even surpassed the Great Terror of 1936-38 in the USSR. Real and perceived enemies of the Soviet regime were ruthlessly attacked. The primary organ of repression was the NKVD; the Sovietization of Western Ukraine was overseen by Stalin’s envoy in Ukraine, Nikita Khrushchev.

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Ukrainian cooperatives, the Greek Catholic Church, the Communist Party of Western Ukraine and Ukrainian press were brutally repressed. The collectivization of the villages began, which was met with stiff resistance; by 1941 15% of agriculture in Western Ukraine was collectivized. The Russian language became mandatory for all pupils.

From 1939 to 1941 1.2 million people were deported from Western Ukraine to the Soviet East, including 400 000 Ukrainians. These numbers represented some 10 % of the population of Western Ukraine. Many of the members of the nationally conscious intelligentsia and national leadership in Western Ukraine were repressed “on the spot.” It is estimated that some 15 000 people were shot during the Red Terror in Western Ukraine from September 1939-June 1941. After the outbreak of war between the USSR and Germany in June 1941 22 000 people were shot in eastern Ukrainian NKVD prisons in June-July 1941 as the Red Army retreated.

The brutal repression of Western Ukraine from 1939-1941 is but one of the cycles of repression that were a fundamental characteristic of the Soviet political system.

STEPAN BANDERA

b. 1 January, 1909, Kalush County, Galicia, d. 15 October, 1959, Munich

More than any other nationalist leader, Stepan Bandera has come to symbolize the Ukrainian struggle for independence in the 20th century. Bandera was born into a clerical family and became active in the nationalist movement from a very early age. In 1927, as a student at Lviv Polytechnic Institute, he joined the Ukrainian Military Organization, and in 1929, became a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Bandera rose quickly through the ranks of OUN, and in 1931 became chief of propaganda in the national executive. In June 1933 he became the head of OUN’s executive in Galicia. In Galicia Bandera oversaw OUN sabotage and assassination operations, directed against both the Poles and Soviets – in 1933 an official of the Soviet consulate in Lviv was assassinated on the order of Bandera. Bandera also directed mass boycott campaigns against Polish monopolies of liquor and tobacco. Bandera was arrested in 1934 and tried in Warsaw for the assassination of the Polish Minister of Internal Affairs. He was also tried in Lviv along with other members of the OUN executive. He was sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment.

Bandera was released after the fall of Poland in September 1939. He and several other young leaders of OUN split with OUN leader Andriy Melnyk over what they saw as a lack of revolutionary radicalism in Melnyk’s leadership; many of the OUN cadres operating on Ukrainian territory sided with Bandera. Bandera was responsible for the formation of the Ukrainian National Committee, under which Ukrainian political forces were consolidated.

After the German invasion of the USSR, OUN-Bandera declared an independent Ukrainian state in Lviv on 30 June 1941. After Bandera refused to rescind this declaration, the Germans arrested him, and from July 1941 to September 1944 Bandera was interned in German prisons and concentration camps.

Bandera was elected to the OUN leadership in 1945 and elected head of OUN in 1947. Bandera continued to have contacts with and oversee the activities of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, under the command of Roman Shukhevych. In May 1953 he was elected head of OUN-abroad. He remained leader until 15 October 1959, Soviet agent Bohdan Stashynsky assassinated him in Munich. During Stashynsky’s trial, it was established that the order for Bandera’s assassination came directly from the head of the KGB Shelepin. Throughout his life Bandera consistently held to principles of integral nationalism and the establishment of a Ukrainian independent state through revolutionary violence.

Due to Soviet propaganda Bandera became an extremely controversial personality in Ukraine. The Soviet propaganda machine went to great lengths paint Bandera as a fascist and extreme nationalist who was a traitor to the Ukrainian people; the word “Banderovets” became a Soviet euphemism for a fascist and traitor. Despite this campaign of lies and disinformation, which, to some extent, is still being carried out by leftist forces in contemporary Ukraine, who continue to deny the crimes of the Soviet regime, Bandera has deservedly remained a symbol of the Ukrainian struggle against imperialism – Soviet, German and Polish – in the 20th century.

SYMON PETLIURA

b. 10 May 1879, Poltava, d. 25 May 1926, Paris.

Petliura, more than any other Ukrainian leader, personified the struggle for Ukrainian independence during and after WWI. He began his political activity at a young age; in 1901 he was expelled from the Poltava Theological Seminar for belonging to an underground Ukrainian organization. From 1901 he was active in the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party; he was arrested in December 1903. He was released in May 1904 and lived in Lviv for a short time, where he was editor of the RUP’s press organ Selianyn.

After the general amnesty that followed the 1905 Revolution, Petliura moved to Kyiv and later to Moscow, where he continued his work as an editor and publisher. From 1916 to 1917 he was deputy plenipotentiary of the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos aid committee on the Russian front. After the February 1917 Revolution Petliura became the head of the Ukrainian Military Committee. In June 1917 he became general secretary of military affairs in the General Secretariat of the Central Rada. During this time he built up the Ukrainian armed forces.

Petliura was instrumental in the popular uprising against the Hetmanate regime of Skoropadsky, and in February 1919 he was elected president of the new Directory government that re-established the Ukrainian National Republic. He led the Ukrainian armies against the Red and White armies of Russia, and in 1920 after the UNR signed the Treaty of Warsaw with the Polish government Petliura led the UNR armies that liberated Kyiv from the Red Army in May 1920 but was forced to retreat in June. In October 1920 Poland and Soviet Russia signed an armistice; Petliura and his armies were forced to retreat into Polish-held territories and submit to internment.

The UNR government went into exile in Poland. The Polish government was faced with increased pressure to hand Petliura over to Soviet Russia; as a result he had to flee to Budapest. He settled in Paris in 1924, where he founded the weekly newspaper Tryzub and oversaw the activities of the UNR government-in-exile. He was assassinated in 1926 by a Bessarabian Jew who claimed vengeance for Petliura’s supposed responsibility for the pogroms in Ukraine of 1918-20.

Petliura throughout his entire political and editorial career was uncompromising on the issue of Ukrainian independence. There is no evidence that he was responsible for the pogrom activities by UNR troops; in fact, all documented evidence points to the fact that he tried to stop pogroms carried out by UNR troops.

Petliura has remained a symbol of the fight for Ukrainian independent statehood, both in the diaspora and the Ukrainian population despite concerted effort by the Soviet government to present him as a cynical opportunist and a traitor of the Ukrainian people.

TARAS BOROVETS

b. 9 March, 1908, Volyn, d. 15 May 1981, New York

Borovets was a political and military leader in the Ukrainian struggle for independence. He was imprisoned for nationalist activity by the Polish regime, and freed with the fall of Poland in 1939. From 1939-1941 Borovets organized and led a Ukrainian underground in the region of Polisia, occupied by the Soviet regime after the fall of Poland.

After the outbreak of war between Germany and the USSR, the Borovets’ underground organization, now named Polisian Sich, fought Soviet units. Polisian Sich was allied with OUN-Melnyk and the UNR government-in-exile. After the arrest of Bandera and Melnyk by the Germans, Borovets’ organization fought the Germans as well. Polisian Sich was absorbed into the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in summer 1943. The Germans arrested Borovets in late 1943 and imprisoned him in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

After the war, Borovets organized the Ukrainian National Guard in West Germany and was editor of its organ Mech i volia, from 1951 to 1953. He immigrated to the United States, where he lived as a private citizen.

THE BIG BLOCKADE

The Big Blockade, also known as the Great Blockade, was a massive offensive carried out by Soviet forces against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), from January to April 1946. The operation focused on the Carpathian Mountains, where a large part of UPA forces were deployed.

MVD troops were stationed in villages to prevent the local population from assisting UPA with supplies and food. At the same time, some 585,000 troops were sent into the forests and mountains to root out UPA fighters. Some 1500 major engagements were fought, and UPA faced not only huge numerical inferiority, but also heavy weaponry, armor, air attacks and bacteriological warfare. Almost half of UPA’s fighting forces were destroyed; after the Big Blockade UPA units were ordered to continue the struggle underground. Although the Big Blockade severely crippled the ability of UPA to engage in major operations, UPA continued to operate in the underground until at least 1952.

THE BREADBASKET OF EUROPE

The “breadbasket of Europe” refers to the fertile lands of Ukrainian territory. The chornozem (black earth) of the Ukrainian steppes, combined with the climate of the region make it uniquely suited to the growth of agricultural crops and grain in particular. While this natural resource is certainly a blessing for those inhabiting the territory it has also proved to be a curse.

The reason through this is that throughout history countless foreign powers have tried to seize the region for their own use. Indeed, it seems that since the land has been inhabited armies have been clashing in a struggle for control over the territory. As a result, the region has been subject to one foreign occupation after another.

The chornozem of Ukraine was a key objective for Hitler. In Nazi plans, the fertile plains of Ukraine were to provide lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic peoples. In a very real sense, then, the most destructive war in the history of humanity was fought over control of the “breadbasket of Europe.”

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR

Germany and the Western Allied powers were all signatories of the Geneva Convention of 1929, which set out the rules for treatment of prisoners of war. The complete collapse of the Polish and French armies in 1939 and 1940 left the Germans with more than 2 million POWs on their hands. For the most part, British and American soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans were treated fairly well until the last winter of the war. The International Red Cross was allowed to provide food and comfort parcels, which supplemented the rations of the POWs. Officers, as per the Geneva Convention, were not made to work. In the autumn of 1944, however, Himmler took control of the German Replacement Army, and with it the POW camps. After this, the International Red Cross parcels were seldom delivered.

The treatment of Soviet POWs by the Germans, on the other hand, can be described only as abominable. In the first months after Germany’s attack on the USSR, entire Soviet armies surrendered; in the Battle of Kyiv (August-September 1941), for example, more than 600 000 Red Army soldiers surrendered. The Germans had no adequate facilities for these prisoners, nor did they concern themselves with providing any. Quite often Soviet POWs were forced to live in open-air camps without any shelter and only the most meager food rations. Officers and political commissars were usually shot upon capture. Because the USSR had not signed the Geneva Convention (according to Stalin, no Red Army soldier would ever surrender, and those who did were traitors and their fate therefore did not matter), the Germans held that they were not bound by the terms of the Convention in their treatment of Soviet POWs.

The treatment of Soviet POWs was consistent with the plans of the highest German leadership. While the war with the Western allies was a political war fought along the same basic principles as WWI, the war on the Eastern Front was a war of annihilation; part of Germans’ plan was to completely wipe out Bolshevism. It is estimated that five of every six Red Army soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans did not survive the war. Those who did returned to the USSR only to find out that they were considered traitors to the Fatherland, and many were sentenced to terms in the Gulag.

UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALOUS ORTHODOX CHURCH

The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (Ukraiinska Aftokefalna Pravoslavna Tserkva) was formed on Ukrainian territory after the 1917 Revolution; the Moscow Patriarchate had dominated the Orthodox Church in Ukraine for centuries previously. With the rebirth of the Ukrainian state, efforts were made to set up an independent Church as well. The All-Ukrainian Church Council set up an independent organizational structure for the Church, and in May 1920 the AUCC declared autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church. In 1921 Vasyl Lypkivsky was consecrated as the Church’s first metropolitan.

In the following years, the Church experienced rapid growth; at its height the Church had more than 6 million followers. The Church played a fundamental role in the national and cultural revival experienced in Ukraine during the Revolution and the 1920s. The Church played an important role in raising national consciousness; it was also committed to the social reforms of the Ukrainian National Republic governments.

The UAOC adopted several tenets that separated it from the Russian Orthodox Church. Perhaps the most important was the separation of church and state, which had not existed in tsarist times. Furthermore, the UAOC stressed the need for decentralization and democratization of Church life, and the inclusion of the laity in the decision making process. The UAOC also replaced Church Slavonic with the vernacular Ukrainian in its services.

Because the UAOC supported Ukrainian independence and cultural and political revival, it was seen as a major threat to Soviet rule in Ukraine. Soviet authorities sought to reincorporate the UAOC into the Russian Orthodox Church, over which the Soviet government had established control by the late 1920s. The first repressions of the Church began in 1926, when Lypkivsky was arrested; after a brief respite, the Church saw massive repression return in 1929 with the adoption of collectivization. In January 1930 the Church was officially abolished; most of its clergy and hierarchy were either executed or sent to labor camps where many perished.

While the UAOC was virtually eliminated in Soviet Ukraine, it survived in Ukrainian territories under Polish occupation. When Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 and the Wehrmacht swept through Ukraine, the UAOC was reestablished on former Soviet Ukrainian territories; by 1942 there were some 500 parishes in the former Soviet Ukraine. By mid-1944 all of Ukraine had been re-occupied by the Red Army; UAOC clergy and many faithful fled west and by 1947 the Church had 71 parishes in Western Europe, and was established in all places to where Ukrainians emigrated after the War. During the perestroika years the UAOC was reestablished in Ukraine. By 1991 the Church had over 900 parishes in Ukraine.

UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Ukrainian Catholic Church was formed in the Church Union of Berestia (1596); until the 1960s it was known as the Greek Catholic Church. The Ukrainian Catholic Church was one of the dominant churches in the Western Ukrainian territories that did not come under Russian or Soviet rule until 1939. The Church gave allegiance to the Pope and to Rome but at the same time maintained traditional Eastern religious customs of the Byzantine rite.

The Church was officially liquidated in 1946, with the re-occupation of Western Ukraine and its re-incorporation into the USSR. Clergy and faithful who refused to convert to Russian orthodoxy were severely persecuted; most of the Church hierarchy died in concentration camps. Metropolitan Josyph Slipyj was released from prison in 1963 and permitted to emigrate. The Church survived in the underground and the diaspora; Poland and Canada had the largest numbers of faithful.

In the USSR, secret services continued to be held, and priests and bishops continued to be ordained in the underground. With the liberalization of the 1980s, the Ukrainian Catholic Church re-emerged in public and demanded legalization. This movement, supported by the Vatican, quickly gained momentum, and the Church was given official permission to register by the Council for Religious Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR in December 1989, and parishes were established throughout Western Ukraine. There are currently between three and five million members of the Church in Ukraine.

UKRAINIAN CATHOLICS FORCED TO LIQUIDATE THEIR CHURCH

After the re-occupation of Western Ukraine by the Red Army in 1944, a campaign against the Ukrainian Catholic Church began quickly. The Soviet authorities saw the Church as a threat to Soviet power. Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky died in November 1944 and Josyf Slipyj was installed as his successor. Under his leadership the Church refused to bow to Soviet pressure to take part in Soviet propaganda efforts and to denounce the Ukrainian nationalist movement. As a result attacks on the Church began in earnest in early 1945. Slipyj and several other bishops were arrested in April 1945 and in June 1946 sentenced to lengthy terms in the Gulag.

In May 1945 a “Sponsoring Group for the Re-Union of the Greek Catholic Church with the Russian Orthodox Church” was established, and proclaimed itself the only legitimate leadership of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. An intense campaign began to convince the clergy of the Church to agree to “re-unification.” Those who would not agree were subject to pressure and threats by the secret police; many were arrested.

After the resistance of the clergy was broken a Sobor was held on March 8-10 1946 in Lviv. In order for the liquidation of the Ukrainian Catholic Church to appear canonical, a vote was held on a resolution abolishing the Union of Berestia and ‘returning’ the Ukrainian Catholic Church to the patriarchy of Moscow. The Soviet electoral tradition was extended to the Church as well – the delegates voted unanimously with a show of hands for ‘re-unification.’

This farce was followed by an intense wave of repression against clergy and laypersons that refused to accept the liquidation of their Church. The Church went into the underground; secret liturgies were held, priests were ordained in secret, and many people in Western Ukraine continued to practice their faith in the underground. The Soviet authorities legalized the Church in December 1989.

UKRAINIAN CENTRAL COMMITTEE

The Ukrainian Central Committee (Ukrainskyi tsentralnyi komitet) was the only officially sanctioned Ukrainian political and community organization that existed in the German Generalgouvernment.

After the fall of Poland, several Ukrainian committees and organizations were formed in the Generalgouvernment. In April 1940 the various relief and community organizations were reorganized under the umbrella UCC, which had as its mandate the defense and protection of the interests of Ukrainians under German occupation. The UCC was granted official recognition by Hans Frank, Governor of the Generalgouvernment territories. The UCC elected Volodymyr Kubijowych as its head.

After the outbreak of war between Germany and the USSR, the UCC expanded its area of operation to include the territories of Halychyna, previously occupied by the USSR. The Germans agreed to limited Ukrainian involvement in the administration of Halychyna territories under the Generalgouvernment. In order to protect the civilian population the UCC urged, at the request of Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky, an end to revolutionary military resistance to German rule.

The UCC’s main activities focused on relief for the civilian population. The UCC organized food supplies, public health and assistance to Ukrainian POWs, as well protecting the interests of Ukrainians taken to work in Germany. The UCC was also instrumental in setting up and overseeing Ukrainian educational institutions under German occupation.

Working in extremely difficult conditions of occupation and war, the UCC, until its disbandment in 1945, played a significant role in easing the impact of war on the population of Ukraine.

UKRAINIAN INSURGENT ARMY

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukraiinska povstanska armia – UPA) was a partisan force that fought against both the Soviet and German occupations. UPA fought for an independent Ukraine, and the Army was to be the foundation for the army of the Ukrainian state. It was hoped that as the Germans and Soviets fought themselves to exhaustion, an independent Ukraine would be established. UPA was formed in late 1942; it was made up of units of various partisan forces operating in Ukraine, most importantly those led by Taras Borovets. The political leadership of the UPA was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists- Bandera faction (OUN-B). In the fall of 1943, General Roman Shukhevych took command of UPA.

UPA was designed to be a large-scale partisan force; owing to the extensive experience and underground networks of OUN-B that existed in Ukraine, the UPA soon grew into a well-organized and effective fighting force. It took control of large areas of Volyn, Polissia, and Galicia. Unlike Soviet partisans that fought behind German lines, UPA could not rely on support or supply by any foreign power – it was supported by the local Ukrainian population and was thus a true “peoples’ army.” It is estimated that at its height UPA counted some 80 000 members. In 1944 UPA had about 40 000 fighting troops, organized into four groups – UPA North, South, East and West. Its area of action encompassed one quarter of the territory of Ukraine.

The Germans committed many units to the battle against UPA; the largest battle between UPA and German forces took place in July-September 1943. Despite the commitment by the Germans of a massive force, UPA managed to take twice as many German casualties as UPA itself lost. As the German army retreated from Ukrainian territory in 1944, UPA staged frequent raids for weapons and materiel.

As Soviet forces re-occupied Ukraine, UPA began an open struggle against the Red Army and the NKVD. Some large-scale battles were fought, in which UPA was, as a rule, outnumbered and outgunned. However, using the landscape and environment to their advantage, UPA managed to fight effectively against Soviet forces. The German capitulation did not mean the end of the war in Ukraine, as UPA continued to fight against the Soviet occupation. In January-April 1946 Soviet forces opened an offensive against UPA in the Carpathian Mountains named the “Great Blockade.” More than

500 000 troops, and massive amounts of artillery, aircraft and tanks were committed to this battle. More than 1500 engagements were fought, and UPA lost about half of its fighting force.

Many units of UPA were demobilized and the rest were ordered to continue the struggle underground. UPA remained an active force and a serious thorn in the side until 1952, two years after the death in a firefight with MVD troops of its commander, Roman Shukhevych.

The legacy of UPA continues to be a complex issue in contemporary Ukraine. Owing to effective Soviet propaganda of presenting UPA as Nazi collaborators (which has no basis fact – UPA fought against the Germans as fiercely as they later fought the Soviets), many Ukrainians still equate UPA with collaboration. The contemporary Leftist forces in Ukrainian politics – most notably the Communist Party and the Progressive Socialist Party, have continued the lies of Soviet propaganda. As a result, to date UPA veterans have not been granted official recognition as veterans by the Ukrainian government, a bitter irony for those who fought precisely for an independent Ukrainian state.

UKRAINIAN (NATIONAL) PEOPLES’ REPUBLIC

The Ukrainian Peoples’ Republic was established on 20 November 1917 in the Third Universal of the Central Rada, whose president was Mykhailo Hrushevsky. The Central Rada, which began as a Ukrainian umbrella organization that united political, cultural and professional organizations, became, in April 1917 the revolutionary parliament that presided over the movement for Ukrainian independence.

The Ukrainian Peoples’ Republic was proclaimed after the fall of the tsarist empire and the seizure power by the Bolsheviks in Russia. The UNR’s borders correspond with contemporary Ukraine’s eastern and northern borders, and stretched to the river Buh (Bug) in the west. Halychyna was not incorporated into the UNR.

The Ukrainian Peoples’ Republic entered a federation with Russia, until 22 January 1918, when, in the Fourth Universal issued by the Central Rada, the Ukrainian Peoples’ Republic was declared to be a fully independent state. From 29 April 1918 to 14 December 1918, the UNR was governed by the Hetmanate, under Hetman Skoropadsky; at this time the UNR was called the Ukrainian State. In December 1918 the name UNR was restored. UNR armies had to fight German and Austro-Hungarian forces in the west as well as the Red Army and the White (tsarist) armies in the east.

Despite demands by representatives of the UNR at the Versailles Conference, which produced the Versailles Treaty that ended WWI that the UNR be recognized as an independent European state, Western allied powers refused to support Ukrainian independence. As a result the armies of the UNR had to fight invasion from the Red and White armies from the east.

The UNR existed on Ukrainian territory until 1920, when its armies finally succumbed to the invading forces. The UNR government went into exile, first in Poland, and then, after the invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939, in France. In 1947 the Ukrainian National Council was established as the government-in-exile of Ukraine by Ukrainian émigré political parties, and continued its activity until the declaration of an independent Ukraine in 1991.

UKRAINIAN SUPREME LIBERATION COUNCIL

The Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (Ukrainska holovna vyzvolna rada – UVHR) was formed in the last years of WWII as political leadership for forces fighting for Ukrainian independence. The UVHR was chiefly by members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists- Bandera (OUN-B). OUN-Melnyk refused to participate in its formation.

The UVHR was founded in July 1944; it declared itself the “supreme organ of the Ukrainian people in its war of revolutionary liberation.” The UVHR adopted democratic principles of governance, and outlined a social and economic program that the future Ukrainian government would implement. Among the members elected to the presidium of the UVHR, as director of the general secretariat, was Roman Shukhevych, commander of the UPA. The UVHR was responsible for coordinating UPA resistance in Soviet-occupied Ukraine, and the propaganda campaign against Soviet occupation, guided by OUN-B.

Shukhevych was killed by Ministry of Internal Affairs troops in 1950; most of the leadership of the UVHR in Ukraine were either arrested or killed in the early 1950s. Several UVHR leaders had left Ukraine in the last year of the war, and established the External Representation of the UVHR (ZP UVHR). The ZP UVHR sent memoranda to the Western Allies concerning the situation in Ukraine, and organized assistance for UPA units that had escaped to the West. The ZP UVHR also set up a press bureau and publishing houses that continued to function into the 1980s.

UNTERMENSCHEN

Untermenschen was the Nazi term for inferior races. In the Nazi racial hierarchy, set forth by Hitler, Himmler and several crackpot racial theorists, such as Alfred Rosenberg, Jews were considered to be the lowest race, to be indiscriminately exterminated. After Jews, Slavs were considered the next lowest race; it was the duty of the Germanic peoples to conquer land on which Slavs lived and incorporate it into the Reich. Slavs were to be kept alive only insofar as they could provide manual labor in service to the German Reich; in Nazi racial theory the Slavic peoples were slowly to be worked to death. Within the Slavs, Poles and Ukrainians that had lived under Austria-Hungary were considered superior to eastern Ukrainians and Russians, who were thought to exhibit Asiatic tendencies, due to the fact that they had been conquered by the Mongol hordes centuries previous.

It is important to note that in Nazi racial theory, which can be described as a particularly twisted version of Social Darwinism, it was not only the right, but also the moral duty of the “superior” Aryan people to conquer and destroy the “inferior” populations – and thus ensure the continued development of the human species.

VICHY FRANCE

Faced with imminent defeat following the German invasion of France, on 10 June 1940 the French National Assembly granted full power to Marshall Phillipe Petain. Petain, a WWI hero, quickly suppressed the French parliament and set up a dictatorial regime that collaborated with the Germans.

The center of the collaborationist government was in Vichy, southeast of Paris. Though officially neutral Vichy France actively collaborated with the Germans, including questions of racial policy. Vichy had control of civil administration over all of metropolitan France, excluding the region of Alsace-Lorraine, which came under German administration.

After the Allied invasion of North Africa, the Wehrmacht occupied southern France. The Vichy government continued to exercise administrative power over France until liberation following the 6 June 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy. The Vichy government went into exile in Germany, where it was disbanded in April 1945. Vichy France was one of the puppet governments set up by Germany; though Vichy ostensibly retained both diplomatic and administrative powers and was supposedly an independent government, in reality it was almost totally controlled by the Germans.

VOLODYMYR KUBIJOVYCH

b. 23 September 1900, Nowy Sacz, Poland, d. 2 November 1985, Paris

Kubijovych was head of the Ukrainian Central Committee during WWII. From 1928 to 1939 he was a lecturer at Krakow University; in 1940 he became a professor at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague.

As head of the UCC during the War, Kubijovych was instrumental in organizing relief for the sick and aged. Kubijovych, through the UCC worked to protect the interests of Ukrainians under German occupation. Although the UCC had no political powers, under Kubijovych’s leadership the UCC served as a voice for the Ukrainian people to their German occupiers. In 1943, as Germany began to lose the War, Kubijovych helped to organize the Ukrainian Waffen SS Division Galicia.

After the War, Kubijovych emigrated to Germany and then to France, where he continued his impressive scholarly and academic work, which focused on geography and demography. He was chief editor of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine and the Ensyklopedia ukraiinoznavstva and published numerous scholarly works.

VOLODYMYRA SENYK

Volodymyra Senyk volunteered for the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) as a teenager. She was later incarcerated in the GULAG. The interview was taken in 1993.

VYNNYTSIA

Vynnytsia, in central Ukraine, was the sight of mass graves discovered by the Germans when they occupied the area. 66 graves were found. A total of 12 000 victims were discovered. Those found at Vynnytsia, like those found at Bykivnia, were murdered by the NKVD during the Great Terror purges that swept the USSR from 1936 to 1938.

The German authorities sought to use the discovery of mass graves for propaganda purposes, and they called an international commission to Vynnytsia to examine the sight. Forensic scientists from several European countries participated in the exhumation of the bodies in the summer of 1943. Most of the victims had been shot in the back of the head; some had been buried alive.

Soon after the opening of the mass graves, the Germans were forced to retreat, and a more thorough investigation of the crimes committed at Vynnytsia by the Soviet regime became impossible. Despite mountains of evidence of atrocities committed by Soviet rule in all corners of the USSR, the Western allies turned a blind eye, not wanting to upset their friend, Uncle Joe.

WAFFEN SS

The Waffen SS was the army wing of the SS (Shutzstaffeln – literally, protection squads). The SS became an independent organization within the Nazi Party in July 1934. The Waffen SS was established in November 1939 as a unification of several units of the SS. Waffen SS units were largely under the control of the German army, the Wehrmacht, and integrated into its command structures. At the same time, however, Waffen SS unites were subordinate to the SS High Command, headed by Heinrich Himmler, in questions of personnel, replacement training, and indoctrination.

By the end of the war in May 1945, over 800 000 men, organized into 38 divisions, had served in the Waffen SS. The Waffen SS played a major role in several important battles on the Eastern front, particularly the Battle of Kharkiv, and the Battle of Kursk. As the fortunes of war turned against Germany, volunteers from occupied territories began to be recruited into the Waffen SS. A Ukrainian division, the 14th Waffen SS Galicia, was formed in 1943.

The history of the Waffen SS is extraordinarily complex. Some units of the Waffen SS did participate in war crimes and wartime atrocities. However, organizationally the Waffen SS must be viewed as separate from the SS proper, which was responsible for several pre-war and wartime crimes. In particular, the SS proper was responsible for running concentration camps. The Waffen SS, in contrast, was committed to actual battles; many of the units distinguished themselves bravely, particularly as the tide of the war turned against Germany.

YAROSLAV STETSKO

b. 19 January, 1912, Ternopil, d. 5 July 1986, Munich

Stetsko was a leader and ideologue in the Ukrainian Nationalist movement. He joined the Ukrainian Nationalist Youth organization at a young age, and became a member of the Ukrainian Military Organization and then the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists upon its creation in 1929. He was appointed to the OUN executive in 1932, and made responsible for ideology.

Stetsko was arrested several times by the Polish authorities for his nationalist activities. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment in 1936 but freed as part of a general amnesty in 1937. In 1940 he joined the OUN-Bandera faction and was elected Bandera’s second-in-command. He was responsible for the preparation of the proclamation of Ukrainian statehood of 30 June 1941, and was chosen premier of the Ukrainian State Administration.

After refusing to rescind their declaration, Stetsko, Bandera and many other leaders were arrested by the Gestapo. Stetsko was imprisoned in Berlin and then at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He was released in the fall of 1944 as part of the German effort to gain the support of the Western Ukrainian population.

After the end of the war, Stetsko lived in Munich, where, in 1945 he was elected to the Leadership of OUN-B. He was very active in the anticommunist movement until his death. He was elected head of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and head of the foreign policy sector of OUN-B in 1946. Stetsko was a member of the World Anti-Communist League and was a founder of the European Freedom Council.

In 1968, Stetsko was elected head of OUN-B, and served in that position until his death in 1986.

YEVHEN KONOVALETS

b. 22 July, 1894, Lviv County, Galicia, d. 23 May 1938, Rotterdam

Konovalets was a colonel in the UNR Army, and became the first leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. After WWI Konovalets continued to work in the struggle for independence; in 1921 he became the leader of the Ukrainian Military Organization. He was instrumental in reorganizing the various groups striving for independence and unifying them in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

When OUN was founded in 1929 Konovalets became the head of the Leadership of Ukrainian Nationalists, which oversaw the work of OUN. For the ten years that he led OUN Konovalets used his organizational talents to consolidate the position of OUN and to oversee the development of all-Ukrainian organizations in the diaspora. He also worked tirelessly in bringing the Ukrainian national question to the attention of the League of Nations. As a result of his efforts Konovalets enjoyed tremendous authority in the national movements; indicative of his influence is the fact that shortly after his death OUN split into radical and moderate factions.

Konovalets’ activities on behalf of the Ukrainian national struggle, and his efforts to revive the national Ukrainian underground in Soviet Ukraine were seen as a dangerous threat by Soviet authorities; in May 1938 he was assassinated by Soviet secret agent Pavel Sudoplatov in Rotterdam.

Home  |  About us   |  Films  |  Exhibits  |  Archive |  Publications  |  Education