Vlasov Army versus UPA/OUN

[mikeaverko]

The record shows that Andrei Vlasov's ROA or POA rejected Nazi ideology and that his forces didn't commit any violence against citizens. Keep in mind that Vlasov's army wasn't affiliated with the SS Don Cossack unit situated in southern Europe and the SS Kaminski Brigade located in Byelorussia and Poland. The latter two weren't Russian "nationalist" in agenda.

The same can't be said of the UPA/OUN which has been implicated in many fatal attacks against Poles, Jews, Russians and those Ukrainians who didn't agree with them.

After WW II, the UPA/OUN crowd set up shop in North America, where they involved themselves in the founding of such neo-Nazi organizations as the so called Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and Captive Nations Committee. Yushchenko's current wife Katherine Chumachenko headed the latter organization and staunchly defended its bigoted views. I hope to have more out about this soon.

I found this related thread:

http://www.russia.com/forums/showthr...threadid=18012

One of Vlasov's right hand men was a Trotskyite Jew by the name of Lev Zaikov. On at least one occasion, Vlasov saved Zaikov's life from Nazi extremists.

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This site seems to be a historical stretch:

http://hometown.aol.com/shukhevych/

The anti-Russian bigotry of the OUN/UPA is downplayed, while claiming that group was multi-ethnic during WW II. The problem with the latter point is that no historian who has written about this has said likewise. It's also noticeable how the anti-Russian bigotry that OUN/UPA had displayed over the decades is non-existent. The site's author is pr savvy. At issue though is the recorded rhetoric of people supporting OUN/UPA over the decades since WW II.

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http://www.jewishtimes.com/scripts/e...nID=87&ID=4702

Ukraine Struggles With WWII Legacy

Vladimir Matveyev Special to the Jewish Times
MAY 08, 2005 Kiev, Ukraine
The upcoming celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory in World War II is bringing issues that long have roiled Ukrainian-Jewish relations to the surface.

In the center of the controversy are two wartime combat groups — the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Both fought for Ukrainian independence against both the Soviet Red Army and the Nazis during World War II.

According to many reports, these units also were responsible for killing Jews associated with the Bolshevik administration in Ukraine, although it is not believed that they specifically targeted Jews.

Earlier this year, Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko proposed a reconciliation between the members of those two groups and the Ukrainians who fought in the Red Army.

The idea was supported by some political parties in Ukraine. Backers included the moderate nationalist Ukrainian People's Party, which earlier had urged Yuschenko and Prime Minster Yulia Timoshenko to recognize the fighters from the two anti-Red Army groups as World War II veterans. That's the status already held by Red Army fighters.

The party, and some Ukrainian intellectuals who share this view, argue that this year in particular should be marked as well by what supporters call historical justice toward all Ukrainians who fought in World War II.

Yuschenko's idea was to have a street festival on Kiev's main avenue celebrating both the veterans of the Soviet army and their one-time enemies on May 9. That's Victory Day, which marks the German capitulation at the end of the war. The proposal met with fierce opposition from Red Army veterans, including Jews.

"The attempts to reconcile the veterans who fought for the Soviet army with UPA fighters is unreal, because we remember what the UPA did during the war," said Semyon Nezhensky, a retired Soviet army colonel and the leader of the Ukrainian Association of Jewish War Veterans. UPA are the Ukrainian-language initials of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Red Army veterans' organizations still wield considerable clout in Ukraine, and many expected Yuschenko to trade in his original plan for a Victory Day military parade in Kiev commemorating the Red Army. That parade was supported by all the country's veterans' groups.

But last week Ukrainian officials said instead that there would be no military parade in Kiev this year.

In the meantime, a former UPA leader told a national television channel last month that his fellow veterans were not eager to celebrate Victory Day together with the Soviet veterans.

This problem — a heated issue in Ukraine generally — appears to be even more controversial for Jewish war veterans here.

Many elderly Jews have strong memories of what happened during and after World War II, when Ukrainian anti-Bolshevik forces formed during the Nazi occupation of 1941 to 1944 wreaked violence on Russians and Jews in Ukraine's western regions. Many Ukrainians blamed non-Ukrainians, including Jews, for what they saw as their role in bringing communism to this part of Ukraine, which was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939.

For many Jews, distinctions between those who collaborated with the Nazis and those who fought for an independent Ukraine are beside the point.

"I cannot support the idea of reconciliation with UPA fighters," said Evadiy Rubalsky, 87, who was a Red Army soldier during World War II.

"Collaborationists killed 11 members of my own family in Babi Yar: my mother, sister and other relatives," the pensioner from Kiev said, referring to the site of a Nazi massacre in the Ukrainian capital.

Some experts agree that the scale of mass killings of Jews could have been smaller had the Nazis not been helped by local collaborators, many of whom filled the ranks of Nazi-subordinated auxiliary units.

Another Jewish war veteran was similarly outraged by the idea of reconciliation.

"Now they want us, Soviet veterans, to apologize for what they consider as a fight against independent Ukraine. But they do not want to apologize themselves for their crimes against the people of different nationalities during and after the war," Boris Komsky said. Komsky, another Red Army veteran, is now editor of Shofar, a Jewish magazine in Lvov in western Ukraine.

But some Jewish veterans say a distinction should be made between those Ukrainians who fought for nationalist combat organizations and those who fought alongside the Germans, most notably in the SS division called Galicina and in two Nazi-subordinated combat units, Roland and Nachtigal, that filled its ranks with Ukrainians.

These latter forces are believed to have taken part in special operations against Ukrainian civil population, including Jews.

Giliary Lapitzky, a veteran Jewish activist, said that though "it would be impossible for Soviet veterans to shake hands with OUN-UPA veterans," they could still be given veteran status. They did not fight on the side of the Nazis, and they did not participate in Nazi-led killing of civilians to the same extent as the Ukrainian SS men.

At least one local government has joined the fray.

Recently the Lvov regional council asked Yuschenko to recognize UPA as a legitimate World War II army. "UPA is the only army in the world that fought during World War II against the two occupation forces simultaneously, against the [German] fascists and the Bolsheviks," the statement by the council reads.

In parts of western Ukraine, the anti-Bolshevik nationalist combat units continued their guerilla warfare, including the killing of Jewish Bolsheviks, until 1953.

The Lvov council also sent an appeal to the Supreme Court requesting that it speed up the revision of the bill that provides social service benefits to displaced rehabilitated Ukrainians. Under the council's proposal, OUN and UPA fighters, many of whom were tried in Stalin's USSR after the war and served sentences for their wartime activities, would qualify.

A leading lawmaker told JTA that the bill is being debated in Parliament. "Common language" on that matter should be found, Gennady Udovenko, head of the parliament Committee on Human Rights and National Minorities, said.

But many people disagree with Udovenko, saying that such a law would betray the memory of those who gave their lives to liberate Ukraine from the Nazis.

"Despite a few conflicts" with the Nazis, "Ukrainian nationalists sided with the Nazis during World War II, and were supporting Hitler again by 1944," a Jewish lawyer, Grigory Ginzburg, said.

A compromise may be in the works that would allow some pro-Ukrainian fighters — those who didn't wear the German army uniform and who never took part in any of the German-led punitive expeditions against civilians — to be rehabilitated. But, some say, time may provide a better solution.

"I disapprove the possibility of rehabilitation of UPA fighters in general but I'm ready to recognize some of them," said Yona Elkind, 81, a retired Soviet navy colonel.

He added, "Theoretically a peace is better than war, but the idea of making peace between UPA fighters and Soviet veterans is simply unreal, because we were enemies.

"Better leave it as it is. In two generations the problem will be resolved by itself."

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Here's an academically written Polish perspective on the OUN/UPA:

http://wolnapolska.boom.ru/index-Truth.html

Poles, Jews, Russians and most of those living in central, eastern and southern Ukraine have a low opinion of the UPA/OUN.

[Edited by mikeaverko on 9th May 2005 at 09:03]

[AnarchistPatriot]

Vlasov was a Professional Army Officer and one of the darlings of the Stalinist Regeim before his capture by the Germans. His ROA was primarily a propaganda tool for the Nazis and not a very effective one because of the behavior of the Nazis themselves towards the Russian people and to captured soldiers of the Red Army.

Vlasov himself was often angered by the attitude of his German keepers. He disliked Nazi ideology but saw an advantage in playing their game. He secretely hoped that after the war there would be a chance that he and his men would get favorable treatment by the Western allies. But this never was to be as the Yalta Agreement forced the western allies to return all Russians to the Soviet hangmen.

Of the thousands of Russians who served under Vlasov only a handful survived until their release in 1991 (after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Ukrainians did fear much better since they were acknowledged as freedom fighters and had a status as "displaced persons". The UPA did continue the fight long after the end of the war and fought a partisan war against the Communist authorities in Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland. After laying down their arms in 1953 many went to the west where they were given their freedom.

[mikeaverko]

The UPA/OUN were from western Ukraine and because of that were able to claim Polish citizenship because that part of Ukraine was under Polish rule prior to 1939.

Vlasov had allies in those Baltic German Wehrmarcht officers who were on the side of Imperial Russia during WW I. They were pro-Russian and anti-Communist (Alfred Rosenberg being the excpetion). Unfortunately for them, the Nazi extremists Himmler and Rosenberg (the latter a Baltic German himself) loathed the idea of a continued Russian state under a Nazi world order.

I received this e-mail today from an acquaintance:

Thanks very much, Mike,

I totally agree with your assessment. Some of these *******s committed atrocities that even their SS overlords were surprised by... a Ukrainian friend of mine (A Yuschenko supporter from Kiev) admitted to these, but said that they were most probably provocations by the NKVD to blacken the Banderovtsy "reputation"... I certainly gave him an earful, including the episode of the "blessing statement" of Hitler by a Bandera bishop.

Unfortunately, my Explorer is not working properly today (happened last week as well, so I did not get to the links yet.

I also missed the 60 Minutes because I was at a Paschal reception near the Russian cemetery of Novo Diveevo (Spring Valley, NY), where there is a memorial to fallen soldiers of Vlasov's army, and there is a memorial service there every year on the Sunday after Easter.

[mikeaverko]

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@1....77473289/7218

MikeAverko - 07:39am Jun 11, 2005 BST (#7219 of 7219) Edit | Delete
rzezbiarz Sat 11/06/2005 02:37 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?8@10....77473289/7214

Vlasov's army wasn't 50% of the Kaminski Brigade after the latter was disbanded.

You're a flat out liar at worst or an ignorant repeater of a lie at best.

The Vlasov Army numbered up to 200,000 if not more (some put their figure as low as 60,000). On the other hand, the Kaminski Brigade numbered no less than 2,000 and no more than 10,000.

After the Kaminski Brigade was disbanded, SOME were put into the Vlasov Army. At that point, no war crimes have been cited on their part.

I will post this at the appropriate russia.com forum.

[mikeaverko]

I see that Petro Moskal has recently posted in the History section of Russia.com. He chose to stay away from this thread, despite his attacks on Vlasov over at the politically censored ukraine.com.

Some aspects of Soviet historiography are drop dead awful. In turn, many otherwise intelligent Soviet educated Russians remain blinded in terms of not objectively looking at what Vlasov did and didn't do.

I believe you can find Petro's comments on Vlasov over in the http://www.ukraine.com/froms thread on "Mykhola Gogol" under Politics.

I'm taking a breather from glancing over at that smelly cesspool of blatant inequity.

[Petro_moskal]

That's because I don't post at Russia.com.

Mike, did Vlasov betray the USSR?

[mikeaverko]

Did the USSR betray Russia?

ANSWER ME!

You know that old saying of what came first - the chicken or the egg?