Hatred with interest

Speech at the conference "Ukraine - Russia: free from myths" in the Paris House of Europe ("Branes" - an information partner of the conference). Author's translation from French.

Galina Ackerman - writer, historian, translator, participant Comité Ukraine.

The accusation of anti -Semitism has been pursuing Ukrainians for many decades. Often it comes from Jewish organizations that continue to follow the old stereotypes. Even such a prominent intellectual as Bernar-Henri Levy, who warmly supported the Euromaidan and contributed to the establishment of good relations between Francois Olland and Petro Poroshenko before the election of Poroshenko by the president, did not resist the pressure of Jewish organizations. In his last book, the spirit of Judaism, Levy is forced to make excuses for his passion for the Maidan: he explains that he went to Ukraine in order to call Ukrainians to repent of his anti -Semitism and participation in the destruction of Jews during the German occupation.

No one denies that terrible pogroms took place on the territory of modern Ukraine during the Russian Empire and the Civil War. No one denies the fact that thousands of Ukrainians, especially in Western Ukraine, collaborated with German invaders, including participated in the mass executions of Jews. However, anti -Semitism was the official policy of the tsarist government, and collaborators were enough throughout Europe.

Recall some facts from the history of World War II. In a posthumously diary of fifteen -year -old Iskhok Rudashevsky, who spent the last two years of his life in the Vilnius ghetto, it is told about the participation of the Lithuanians in the destruction of Jews. Itshok also describes the arrival of the Belarusian Jew in the ghetto, who miraculously could escape from the Minsk ghetto. According to him, the Belarusians attached a hand to the destruction of their Jews. We know that Poland was an anti -Semitic country in the years that preceded the German occupation and followed it. In the prewar years, frankly anti -Semitic laws acted in Poland, and after the war the anti -Semites organized a series of pogroms, including a terrible pogrom in the cell (July 4, 1946), where about 200 surviving Jews - prisoners of concentration camps returned.

It is impossible not to mention the Vishist France, where anti -Semitic laws acted and where the deportation of Jews to the death camps was carried out by French police. There were both the divisions and legions of the SS, formed on a voluntary basis by Norwegians and Belgians, Croats and Albanians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians, Armenians and Belarusians, etc. It should not be forgotten that several SS military formations consisted of ethnic Russians: the Varangian Volunteer Regiment, the 29th and 30th grenadier divisions (1st and 2nd Russian SS divisions) and others. So why do the Russian press, as well as some circles in the west, continue to “poke a finger” only in the SS division of Galicia?

The roots of these accusations should be sought in the post -war situation in the USSR. As you know, the resistance of the Soviet occupation in Western Ukraine was fierce. The Ukrainian rebel army (UPA) was officially operating from the spring of 1943 to September 1949, but individual groups continued the partisan war until 1956. The actions of the UPA and its predecessors of the OUN (organization of Ukrainian nationalists) led to the death of thousands of Soviet military and party workers. The Soviet authorities could not forgive this Soviet government - everyone who fought with her was by definition by enemies and fascists. And in the post -war period, the Soviet Union led a wide anti -Ukrainian propaganda in the West, using the facts of Ukrainians' participation in the destruction of Jews to denigrate the entire Ukrainian people. Of course, it is useless to look in the then Soviet press (and in today's Russian) mention that 2515 Ukrainians received the title of righteous of the peoples of the world in Israel for their participation in the salvation of Jews.

Today, when the archives in Ukraine are available to historians, it is time to objectively assess the activities of the OUN and UPA. The activities of people such as Stepan Bandera or Roman Shukhevich, such military units as the Nachtigal battalion, etc., should be re -examined. Even if some of the accusations are fair, the anti -Semitic policy and genocide of Ukrainian Jewry were not the policy of the Ukrainian state (it simply was not there during the occupation), but the actions of groups or individuals who collaborated with the Nazis.

While UPA fought with the Soviet regime, the Soviet Union itself pursued anti -Semitic policy. It gradually began back in 1939, when Stalin tried to please his ally Hitler, removing Jews from leading posts. The peak of state anti -Semitism began with the murder of the great Jewish actor Mikholes by order of Stalin in 1948. Following the destruction of this informal leader of Soviet Jewry, which enjoyed authority and in the United States, a campaign began on the charges of Jews of Cosmopolitanism, accompanied by mass exceptions from the party, dismissal from prestigious positions, prohibition of Yiddish culture (the second fatal blow to this culture after the Nazis was destroyed). Almost all members of the Jewish anti-fascist committee were shot by absurd accusations, the process of Jewish "killer doctors" was prepared, and only the death of Stalin in March 1953 saved Jews from possible mass deportation.

Anti -Semitic policy continued until the collapse of the USSR. When admitted to universities and to work, when hiring in a party and checks for traveling abroad, the questionnaires, where the “fifth point”, the column “nationality” were present, and it was necessary to indicate the ethnic origin of both parents. Some profiles needed to indicate the nationality of not only parents, but also grandparents, and the presence of Jewish blood was an insurmountable obstacle for entering prestigious universities, for a career in the army, in diplomacy, and other fierce anti -oinist propaganda, which was conducted for tens of years, served as an incentive for inciting both official and folk anti -Semitism.

In general, it can be stated that anti -Semitism blooms where it is supported by state propaganda and relevant laws (sometimes unspoken, as in the USSR). So, anti -Semitism flourished in the Russian Empire, where Jews were significantly limited in rights and could live only in the so -called settledness. According to a number of historians, in the last period of the existence of the Russian Empire (starting in 1880), the pogroms took place either with the support of the authorities and the police, or with their connivance. The adoption of anti -Jewish laws, official support for extreme right -wing organizations, connivance in relation to the pogromers - all this created an atmosphere in which the pogroms became a mass phenomenon.

As soon as Soviet anti -Semitism ceased, Jewish life in Ukraine blossomed. In Ukraine, today, according to various estimates, from 100 thousand to 250 thousand Jews, who enjoy all the rights and play a prominent role in the political life of the country. It is enough to recall the Jewish origin of the current prime minister of the country Vladimir Groysman, the mayor of Kharkov Gennady Kernes, the former head of the information policy of the Right Sector Borislav Bereza and many others.

Jews are actively involved in the economic, scientific, cultural life of Ukraine and have complete freedom of religion. At their disposal are numerous synagogues, schools and kindergartens, they can send children to summer camps, etc. Of particular note are institutions such as the Judaica Center at the Kiev-Mogilyan Academy and the Ukrainian Center for the Study of the Holocaust Tkum in Dnipro (former Dnepropetrovsk), where one of the world's largest Jewish centers of Menora.

Ukraine has become the center of pilgrimage to Hasidov from around the world, because this country is the birthplace of Hasidism, where the graves of the most famous tzadiks are located. The grave of the rabbin of Nakhman in Uman is especially famous - every follower of Hasidism must visit it at least once in his life, for the New Year according to the Jewish calendar. These days, several tens of thousands of Hasids from many countries of the world come to Uman, which, of course, was impossible if anti -Semitic sentiments flourished in Ukraine. Recall that in Soviet times, the Jewish cemetery in Uman, where Tsadik Nakhman was buried, was given to the gardens for the population, and Tsadik was simply destroyed to the foundation.

It can be assumed that the accusations of Ukrainians of anti -Semitism, which are tired of the Russian media tirelessly, are part of the general campaign to discredit Ukraine, which has chosen the European Way of Development. In this regard, it is interesting to follow the activities of Avigdor Eskin, the odious character, who moved back to Moscow after a long stay in Israel. The ultra -right religious activist, who has been spent more than two years in an Israeli prison for extremism, Eskin became the active propagandist of the Putin regime and the frequent guest of Vladimir Solovyov’s programs. He stubbornly claims that the Maidan was the work of the rabid Nazis and anti -Semites. He is ready to condemn the “Jewish brothers”, since the Jewish population of Ukraine for the most part supported the revolution of dignity: long before the Maidan, I repeatedly exposed the top of Ukrainian Jewry in my speeches and publications. The management of affairs in the community is entirely in the hands of thicknesses and dirt. These are the clergy of the Golden Taurus. Instead of helping the remnants of Ukrainian Jewry to repatriate in Israel, these people are deceiving Jews with promises of paradise Europeanization in Ukraine and all as one help Bandera revive Nazism. Unfortunately, the Jewish oligarchs were in this case not better than others. And this is not surprising, for we are talking about people who snapped their capital doubtful, at best, or simply criminal. The trouble is that it is they who control all the Jewish organizations of Ukraine.

Eskin, whom the Russian media represent as a well -known Israeli political scientist (it is not clear that no one is considered to be in Israel), he also approved the annexation of Crimea, at the same time insulting the Crimean Tatars: only the Russian military are able to cope with the Islamic extremists in Crimea, for whom Allah Akbar stands next to Shukhevich and Bandera! Back in the spring of 2014, Eskin made a gloomy forecast: there is every reason to fear Jewish pogroms in Ukraine, what Ukrainian collaborators made during the Holocaust. Of course, this prophecy did not justify.

It cannot be argued that in Ukraine there are no manifestations of domestic anti -Semitism in Ukraine - from this poison there is no antidote from any European country. It is interesting, however, that the Putin regime, which violently protects Ukrainian Jews from an imaginary threat, often passes by what is happening on the websites of Russian nationalists, Orthodox fundamentalists and supporters of Back in the USSR. Despite the rampant hatred on these sites, modern Russia should not be considered an anti -Semitic country. Without the support of anti -Semitism by the state, this phenomenon - as in Ukraine - remains marginal.

We will summarize. It is pointless to blame modern Ukrainians of anti -Semitism. As for the Second World War, it is necessary to hold an authoritative conference of experts in order to remove the accusation of the Nazis from the Ukrainian people as a whole, while millions of Ukrainians served in the Red Army and thousands of Ukrainians saved Jews. At the same time, it is important to re -analyze archival materials and evidence to establish and condemn all the facts of the brutal persecution of the Jews in which Ukrainians participated. This double work will contribute to a change in public opinion in the world and promoting a positive image of Ukraine.