Scholars share info on WWII killings of Jews

Kyt · Oct 4, 2007

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-10-03-ukraine_N.htm?csp=34

Who is to blame for the killing of 1.5 million Jews in Nazi-occupied Ukraine? And what can be done now to dispel age-old anti-Semitism in Ukraine, honor Jewish dead and move on?

For the first time, scholars from around the world shared documents and knowledge about the Holocaust in Ukraine at a conference this week in Paris dedicated to this poorly understood passage in Adolf Hitler's torrent of terror across the continent.

The talks were not easy, as resentment, frustration and emotion bubbled repeatedly to the surface among the researchers from Israel, Ukraine, Germany, the United States and elsewhere.

While no major surprises emerged, pieces of Ukraine's Holocaust story came together as never before: killings of Jews in western Ukraine before the Nazis arrived, botched Soviet orders to evacuate Jews from the encroaching Germans, mass grave sites only now being discovered — even as long-known Jewish grave sites are being abandoned, razed or used as open-air markets.

"We cannot underestimate this. It is historic, it is history that ... may be changed based on new information," said Mikhail Tyaglyy of the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies.

History books, too, may need to be changed — or written — to explain how an estimated 1.4 million of Ukraine's 2.4 million Jews disappeared in just three years from 1941-1944. After repeated waves of emigration, only about 100,000 remain today, according to official figures.

While the Holocaust has been well-documented in Western and Central Europe, few have studied what happened when the Nazis overran what is now Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and western Russia.

Soviet authorities discouraged such scholarship, content to keep history books focused on the costly Red Army victory over Hitler's forces. State-condoned suspicion of Jews, meanwhile, continued to proliferate as it had since the pogroms of pre-revolutionary times.

Official indifference continues today. Tyaglyy performed his research in near-isolation in his native Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, while colleagues worked in the capital Kiev or in Kharkiv in the east. Ukraine's central government has paid their studies little heed.

On Monday, they earned welcome recognition as they joined the dais at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne for two days of often electric, sometimes heart-rending talks. Related discussions were continuing at other venues in Paris throughout the week.

"This is two totally different universes coming together," said the Rev. Patrick Desbois, referring to the Ukrainian researchers long closed off from the rest of the world and their well-equipped counterparts in the West.

It was Desbois' recent work gathering testimonies from Ukrainian Holocaust witnesses that helped inspire the idea for the conference. These testimonies, including those of destitute villagers who had rarely, if ever, spoken about what they saw and did during the war, formed the most powerful evidence presented. Some testimonies are on display at Paris' Holocaust Memorial.

Omer Bartov, a renowned Holocaust expert and history professor at Brown University, said such testimonies are only one step in understanding the Holocaust in Ukraine.

He described, for instance, how Ukrainian police started rounding up and killing Jews in the summer of 1941 in anticipation of the arrival of German troops in an area of what is now western Ukraine. Little has been written about these killings in the past.

The question of collaboration haunted this week's talks. There was no consensus reached, however, on whether the witnesses interviewed by Desbois — as well as others since deceased — were willing participants or were just following orders in whatever actions they took.

Bartov said the gathering was also an important tool for confronting the apparent disregard for Jewish heritage in Ukraine today. He showed photos of Jewish schools, synagogues and cemeteries crumbling into disrepair across western Ukraine.

"I urge more money spent on preserving what there is," he said. "That would be a good start for a better relationship."

He pointed to Poland as an example of a country that is coming to terms with its role in the Holocaust and is revitalizing Jewish neighborhoods in cities such as Krakow.

Paul Shapiro, director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, urged Ukraine and the conference participants to focus next "not just on commemorating Jewish death but also on celebrating Jewish life" in today's Ukraine.

Not everyone agreed. One participant asked why Jewish scholars should even bother studying Ukraine, given its history of hostility toward Jews.

Most Ukrainian participants reveled in the opportunity to share with fellow scholars, and their presence was crucial to the event. A few, however, lamented that they were merely "invited to join" the conference and were not asked to play a larger role in it.

Tyaglyy took a long-term view, saying the history of the Holocaust "is tied to the history of Ukraine, the controversial, amorphous history of this country that is still defining itself. That is why today's leaders are not touching this question. It is too difficult."
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Scholars share info on WWII killings of Jews

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