ГУЛаг Палестины - Лев Гунин

hypothesis, but is one, rather, that is upheld from more than one direction:

As a Jew, I'm interested in another question entirely: Why were there so many

Jews among the NKVD-MVD investigators - including many of the most terrible?

It's a painful question for me but I cannot evade it. (Yevgenia Albats, The

State Within a State: The KGB and its Hold on Russia, Past, Present and Future,

1994, p. 147)

Jews abounded [also] at the lower levels of the Party machinery especially in

the Cheka and its successors, the GPU, the OGPU and the NKVD.... It is

difficult to suggest a satisfactory reason for the prevalence of Jews in the

Cheka. It may be that having suffered at the hand of the former Russian

authorities they wanted to seize the reins of real power in the new state for

themselves. (Leonard Shapiro, The Role of Jews in the Russian Revolutionary

Movement, Slavonic and East European Review, 1961, 40, p. 165)

More recently, I have compiled statistics from data presented by Shapoval which suggests that

out of every ten leading members of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine, 6 were Jewish, 2 Russian, 1

Ukrainian, and 1 other.

Now within this historical context - the Ukrainian Holocaust eight years previously, the

21-month Communist reign of terror, and the recent slaughter of Ukrainians by the retreating

Communists - would it be surprising if upon the arrival of the Germans, these Western Ukrainians

had felt liberated by the Germans and at the same time vengeful toward the Communists, and would

it be surprising if among their first actions was the seeking out and punishment of any

perpetrators and collaborators who had not been able to flee with the retreating Communists?

No, it would not be surprising - and yet that is not what happened.

Zero Retribution

Prior to the arrival of the Germans, there was no anti-Jewish or anti-Communist violence. If

any impulse for vengeance existed, then it was inhibited - the Ukrainian population had been

decimated, deprived of its leadership, throttled into submission. For all they knew, the

Communists who had just left might return that very same day and resume the slaughter, starting

first with any who had dared to lift a vengeful hand. For all they knew, this was just the calm

before a new storm, just a few hours' respite while names were taken for the next round of NKVD

executions. And the last person to lift a hand against would be a Jew because the Jew had

traditionally occupied the position of authority:

From the Ukraine Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C reported as follows:

Almost nowhere can the population be persuaded to take

active steps against the Jews. This may be explained by the

fear of many people that the Red Army may return. Again and

again this anxiety has been pointed out to us. Older people

have remarked that they had already experienced in 1918 the

sudden retreat of the Germans. In order to meet the fear

psychosis, and in order to destroy the myth ... which, in the

eyes of many Ukrainians, places the Jew in the position of

the wielder of political power, Einsatzkommando 6 on several

occasions marched Jews before their execution through the

city. Also, care was taken to have Ukrainian militiamen

watch the shooting of Jews.

This "deflation" of the Jews in the public eye did not have the desired

effect. After a few weeks, Einsatzgruppe C complained once more that the

inhabitants did not betray the movements of hidden Jews. The Ukrainians were

passive, benumbed by the "Bolshevist terror." Only the ethnic Germans in the

area were busily working for the Einsatzgruppe. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction

of the European Jews, 1961, p. 202)

The picture painted by Raul Hilberg is not at all the one of Ukrainians enthusiastically

slaughtering Jews that was painted by Morley Safer in his 60 Minutes broadcast:

The Slavic population stood estranged and even aghast before the unfolding

spectacle of the "final solution." There was on the whole no impelling desire

to cooperate in a process of such utter ruthlessness. The fact that the Soviet

regime, fighting off the Germans a few hundred miles to the east, was still

threatening to return, undoubtedly acted as a powerful restraint upon many a

potential collaborator. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews,

1985, p. 308)

Raul Hilberg is not the only historian testifying to the fact that the Einsatzgruppen organized

and instigated the pogroms, and that they were disappointed by the results. Leo Heiman below,

for example, reaffirms this, and adds the detail that the pogromists had a short attention span

with respect to the German-inspired motive of anti-Semitism, being instead readily diverted by

"looting and plunder." "Lemberg," of course, is Lviv:

The results of diligent Nazi efforts to organize "Ukrainian pogrom mobs" were

disappointing.... According to official German documents introduced by the

prosecution during the Eichmann trial, the Nazi commander of S.D. Einsatzgruppe

"Kommando Lemberg" complained to his superiors that "...to rely on local people

to take the law of retribution in their own hands, and themselves carry out

final solution measures against Jews, is hopeless. We organized several action

groups, but they soon degenerated into ordinary pogrom mobs, more interested in

looting and plunder than in energetic and forceful measures against Jews. The

number of Jews eliminated by mobs runs less than two thousand in my area of

operations, and the damage done by mobs to property, as well as the disruption

of order, does not justify this kind of action. I have no choice but to employ

my own men." (Leo Heiman, Ukrainians and the Jews, in Walter Dushnyck,

Ukrainians and Jews: A Symposium, The Ukrainian Congress Committee of American,

New York, 1966, p. 60)

In reading the above Einsatzgruppe report, many question come to mind. Just how would a pogrom

mob be organized? - Might it be staffed entirely by criminals held in custody by the Germans?

What weapons would be given the pogromists? Would it be safe to give incarcerated criminals

weapons and then to release them on their own recognisance? Obviously, they would tend to

escape and then, being armed, would be particularly dangerous to recapture. Wouldn't armed

Germans have to accompany the pogromists in order to steer them to the proper targets, to keep

them from getting out of control, and to make sure that weapons were returned? - In which case,

how much of the killing would be done by the supervising Germans? What was the ethnic

composition of these pogromists? Above I cited Raul Hilberg stating "Only the ethnic Germans in

the area were busily working for the Einsatzgruppe," which brings us to the realization that a

pogrom within Ukraine is not necessarily a pogrom perpetrated by Ukrainians, and so brings us

also to the question of how many of the pogromists were Germans, Russians, Poles, or Jews?

Raul Hilberg discusses two motives for the Nazis to incite pogroms in Ukraine, the second of

which will be of particular relevance when we discuss further below the origin of the historical

documentary footage broadcast by 60 Minutes:

Why did the Einsatzgruppen endeavor to start pogroms in the occupied areas?

The reasons which prompted the killing units to activate anti-Jewish outbursts

were partly administrative, partly psychological. The administrative principle

was very simple: every Jew killed in a pogrom was one less burden for the

Einsatzgruppen. A pogrom brought them, as they expressed it, that much closer

to the "cleanup goal".... The psychological consideration was more

interesting. The Einsatzgruppen wanted the population to take a part and a

major part at that - of the responsibility for the killing operations. "It was

not less important, for future purposes," wrote Brigadefuhrer Dr. Stahlecker,

"to establish as an unquestionable fact that the liberated population had

resorted to the most severe measures against the Bolshevist and Jewish enemy,

on its own initiative and without instructions from German authorities." In

short, the pogroms were to become the defensive weapon with which to confront

an accuser, or an element of blackmail that could be used against the local

population. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1961, p. 203)

Two of the conclusions that Raul Hilberg draws concerning pogroms in Ukraine flatly contradict

the Wiesenthal-Safer story of a massive pre-German pogrom in Lviv:

First, truly spontaneous pogroms, free from Einsatzgruppen influence, did not

take place; all outbreaks were either organized or inspired by the

Einsatzgruppen. Second, all pogroms were implemented within a short time after

the arrival of the killing units. They were not self-perpetuating, nor could

new ones be started after things had settled down. (Raul Hilberg, The

Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 312)

Raul Hilberg describes what may have been the chief - or the only Lviv pogrom quite

differently - it occurred after the arrival of the Germans, and it did not involve the killing

of 5,000-6,000 Jews:

The Galician capital of Lvov was the scene of a mass seizure by local

inhabitants. In "reprisal" for the deportation of Ukrainians by the Soviets,

1000 members of the Jewish intelligentsia were driven together and handed over

to the Security Police. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews,

1961, p. 204)

But even this milder version of an anti-Jewish eruption - now a post-German one - is not easy to

credit. The arrest of one thousand targeted individuals within a city is something that can

only be done by a large team of professionals backed by a research staff, weapons,

telecommunications equipment, vehicles. Before anyone would undertake such a daunting task,

furthermore, they would need to be assured that the thousand prisoners would be wanted and that

they could be processed - only an ambivalent gratitude might be expected for having herded a

thousand prisoners through the streets to the local police station which was not expecting them

- and so it is implausible that local inhabitants would act without at the very least

consultation and coordination with the occupying authorities. From what we have discussed

above, we would expect the local inhabitants to be devoid of initiative, able to follow orders

perfunctorily in order to save their lives, but quite unable to muster the resources to round up

one thousand individuals on their own. If any such round-up did occur, then, it would more

plausibly have been at the instigation of, and under the direction of, the German occupiers.

But to return to 60 Minutes, the reality is that the sort of pogrom described by Simon

Wiesenthal - massive in scale and initiated by Ukrainians independently of German instigation

never took place. The most that the Germans could incite a small number of Ukrainians to

contribute - and who knows exactly how large a contribution these few Ukrainians really made

alongside the Germans in such actions - was closer to the following:

In Kremenets 100-150 Ukrainians had been killed by the Soviets. When some of

the exhumed corpses were found without skin, rumors circulated that the

Ukrainians had been thrown into kettles full of boiling water. The Ukrainian

population retaliated by seizing 130 Jews and beating them to death with

clubs. ... The Ukrainian violence as a whole did not come up to

expectations. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1961, p.

204)

But on the principle that the person readiest to contradict Simon Wiesenthal is Simon Wiesenthal

himself, we turn to other statements that he has made:

The Ukrainian police ... had played a disastrous role in Galicia following the

entry of the German troops at the end of June and the beginning of July 1941.

(Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 34, emphasis added)

In the same account, Wiesenthal does mention a Lviv pogrom of three day's duration, but

unambiguously places it after the German occupation:

Thousands of detainees were shot dead in their cells by the retreating

Soviets. This gave rise to one of the craziest accusations of that period:

among the strongly anti-Semitic population the rumour was spread by the

Ukrainian nationalists that all Jews were Bolsheviks and all Bolsheviks were

Jews. Hence it was the Jews who were really to blame for the atrocities

committed by the Soviets.

All the Germans needed to do was to exploit this climate of opinion. It is

said that after their arrival they gave the Ukrainians free rein, for three

days, to 'deal' with the Jews. (Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989,

p. 36, emphasis added)

In conclusion, Mr. Wiesenthal's story of a massive pre-German Lviv pogrom is contradicted by

other testimony, some of it his own. Mr. Safer had the good sense to subtract 3,000 fatalities

from Mr. Wiesenthal's upper estimate of 6,000, suggesting that he too is aware of Mr.

Wiesenthal's unreliability. Had Mr. Safer dared to subtract another 3,000, he would have hit

the nail right on the head. If one were to sum up within one short statement the picture that

emerges from a consideration of the evidence, and if in doing so one were to be uninhibited by

considerations of political correctness, then an apt summary might be that during the very

interval that Morley Safer claims that Ukrainians were killing Jews by the thousands, in fact it

was Jews that were killing Ukrainians by the thousands. George Orwell's 1984 has arrived and is

in place - now our media drum into us that black is white, love is hate, war is peace,

Ukrainians killed Jews.

Morely Safer Invents Corroborative Events

Furthermore, in connection with the possibility of a massive, pre-German Lviv pogrom, 60 Minutes

insinuated into the pre-German interval three events which gave the viewer the impression that

the pre-German pogrom in question was well-documented and incapable of being doubted: (1) the