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Ukrainian state does not officially support denial of Holocaust or Nazi glorification, VAAD alleges

11.05.2018, 11:18
The Association of Jewish Community Organizations and Communities of Ukraine (VAAD) responded to a letter from US congressmen expressing anxiety about the situation with anti-Semitism in Poland and Ukraine.

The Association of Jewish Community Organizations and Communities of Ukraine (VAAD) responded to a letter from US congressmen expressing anxiety about the situation with anti-Semitism in Poland and Ukraine.


According to VAAD, accusations made by congressmen that the Ukrainian government ostensibly “supports anti-Semitism” are ungrounded.


“This accusation is absurd. We are not aware of any single fact that the Ukrainian state would support the denial of the Holocaust in one form or another. We doubt that one of the congressmen who signed the letter may even name one such case,” – VAAD claims in its statement.


The document notes that in post-Soviet Ukraine the memory of the Holocaust victims is mostly preserved through teaching, research, memorialization. And the state gets increasingly involved in this process.


“It follows from the text of the letter that its authors consider the Ukrainian Insurgent Army to be “Nazi collaborators”, which, of course, is a somewhat free interpretation of reality than is supposed not only by historians, but also by politicians. The congressmen’s statement about the “state-sponsored Nazi glorification” is a similar defamation of Ukraine as the statement about the “state-backed Holocaust denial,” Ukrainian Jews say.


“In addition, we can recall that the previous times when American congressmen wrote similar letters, in 2009 and 2013, they were initiated by political technologists who worked for the Kremlin, which may be told for sure. Although the last letter does not contain (perhaps not yet) information about who was engaged in writing the text (Ro Hannah is unlikely to have done so), and in what ways its signature was lobbied by the congressmen, one may suppose that its emergence is part of a new wave of anti-Ukrainian propaganda and speculation on the theme of anti-Semitism.


In connection with all the statements, VAAD Ukraine thinks it necessary to state:


- The letter signed by the congressmen contains allegations and false charges that do not correspond to reality;


- Contrary to what is stated in the letter, in fact, in Ukraine there is no state-backed Holocaust denial or glorification of the Nazis;


- There is no significant increase in anti-Semitism in Ukraine - for almost two years now, there has been no incidents related to anti-Semitic violence in the country at all;


We regard this letter as anti-Ukrainian defamation, which is already used in the propaganda sector of the hybrid war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.


We urge all those who are interested in reliable information about anti-Semitism in Ukraine to address her to the VAAD Ukraine,” goes the statement of the Presidium of the Association of Jewish Community Organizations and Communities of Ukraine (Vaad).


American congressmen Ro Hannah and David Cecelin have collected more than 50 signatures for the appeal to the US Department of State regarding the diplomatic pressure on Poland and Ukraine because of the manifestations of anti-Semitism and the policy of glorifying Nazi collaborators and the Holocaust denial.


In particular, the statement points out that recently a law was passed in Warsaw, which establishes a criminal liability for the statement that Poland was involved in the Holocaust.


Anti-Semitism and the glorification of the Nazi collaborators, in the opinion of Congress are part of the pro-UPA campaign 2017 of the National Memory Institute, renaming streets in honor of the UPA leaders Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, holding of the festival, as well as the activities of “neo-Nazi battalion Azov”, which, according to Congressmen, should be dissolved, and not included in the National Guard. In addition, congressmen noted the involvement of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov in the activities of the regiment.