On June 30, 1941 as the Soviets were fleeing and the Nazis invading the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists convened an assembly at the Lviv “Prosvita” building and there proclaimed the renewal of Ukrainian statehood. The proclamation was read by the head of the temporary government Jaroslaw Stetsko. The Germans insisted that Stetsko rescind the proclamation. When he refused he was arrested, incarcerated, sent first to Berlin, then to the Saksenhausen concentration camp where he spent most of the war years like his leader and colleague, Stepan Bandera.
After the war, Jaroslaw Stetsko headed the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, an international structure composed of leaders of the many nations that had fallen captive to the USSR. From 1968 for almost twenty years Stetsko headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Bandera faction). Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was that he managed to place the struggle against the USSR and the evils of communism on the international agenda.
Jaroslaw Stetsko was the subject of much Soviet propaganda. Beginning with the late 1960’s in such books as “Hopeful of foreign bayonets”, such as “Mouthpieces of the Cold War” in the 1970’s and newspapers such as “News from Ukraine”, “Literary Ukraine”, and the satirical journal “Pepper” throughout, Stetsko was branded a bourgeois Ukrainian nationalist, a war criminal, a war monger, an imperialist western agent, and even a Zionist advocate.
In 1975 “Literary Ukraine” wrote about the apparent imminent ending of the cold war, intimating that the world was establishing at last a political climate conducive to settling the most complex international disputes through negotiations. Yet Jaroslaw Stetsko had maintained his hostile attitude, opined the Soviet publication. The Soviets hearkened to 25 years earlier when at an ABN news conference in Frankfurt, Stetsko allegedly had stated:
“Now, it’s too late to consider how to avoid war. Now we need to prepare in order to win it.” The Soviet newspaper then went on to add some creativity attributing it to Stetsko and the ABN leadership: “(they) wrote more than one hateful military slogan which included an appeal to imperialistic leaders with tearful pleas, ‘Drop an atomic bomb on the Kremlin.’”.
In June of 1977, the Soviet satirical magazine “Pepper” carried a full page dual caricature of Stetsko with a Swastika and the Trident from 1941 on one side and the Star of David and the Trident from 1977 on the other. The canard labeled Stetsko a war criminal and anti-Semite who supported Hitler’s policy against the Jews in 1941 but in 1977 became a Zionist, appearing at Zionist rallies, bemoaning the persecution of Jews in the USSR.
Stetsko’s 1941 proclamation of Ukraine’s independence was endorsed by both the Ukrainian Catholic and the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. The Catholic Church was represented at the assembly by then Bishop Josef Slipyj who went on to head the Church after the death of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptycky. Subsequently Metropolitan Slipyj was arrested and spent seventeen years in Soviet gulags. Upon his release through the intervention of the Vatican and U.S. President John F. Kennedy, he came to the West. Stetsko befriended then Cardinal Josef Slipyj after his arrival in the West and for many years served as a most influential secular advisor. Stetsko had always been close to the Catholic Church since he was the son of a Ukrainian Catholic Priest and, himself, deeply religious.
In the 1970’s Cardinal Slipyj introduced the concept of the Ukrainian Catholic Church Patriarchate. Stetsko was one of the first to embrace the idea and began addressing Cardinal Slipyj as Patriarch. In a publication by the notorious KGB affiliated “Ukraine Society” in 1973 entitled “Mouthpieces of the Cold War” the Soviets lambasted Stetsko and his Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists for taking over control of even religious publications in order to “support non-existential positions in all major world religions – the Vatican, the World Council of Churches, Buddhism and the like.” The Ukrainian Patriarchate was a non-existential position for enemies of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
Jaroslaw Stetsko was born one hundred years ago in 1912. For many in my generation he was a source of inspiration, one to emulate, an indefatigable and principled warrior. He was despised by both the Nazis and the Soviets. He was determined to attain a just and independent Ukraine. Sadly, he died five years before the 1991 independence proclamation, but after the Chornobyl disaster. Before his death he insisted that Chornobyl would be the demise of the USSR. Like Moses, he never entered the “promised land,” but he saw it before others.
Germany’s Policies Offensive to Ukrainians
The German Embassy in Kyiv recently hosted a lecture by a matriculating Polish-German history student, known for extremist positions. The lecture was brazenly entitled “Bandera – fascist.” There was some dispute as to whether the event had occurred through an oversight, but the German Ambassador readily and shamelessly reassured all that he was on top of this matter and felt that it was appropriate. Interestingly enough the self-proclaimed pro-Ukrainian Ukrainian “Pravda” published the Ambassador’s arrogant explanation but refused to publish any opposing view.
Unfortunately, this incident was not isolated. Ukrainians worldwide and, essentially anyone with a moral compass, were aghast when several years ago Germany decided to prosecute the recently deceased Ukrainian Ivan Demjanjuk on accessory allegations that no German or any other national had been prosecuted for in Germany. In fact all Germans had received an amnesty from prosecution on such allegations way back in the 1960’s. The irony here could not have been more extreme. By all accounts here was a German prisoner being tried by the very people who captured, confined and made him do whatever they were now accusing him of having done.
Following the recent clearly flawed presidential election in the Russian Federation neither the European Council nor the European Commission issued congratulatory statements on the election of Vladimir Putin. However Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, broke rank and called Mr. Putin offering him a “strategic partnership with Germany. This Merkel-Putin friendship officially dates back to 2006 when Merkel visited Putin in the Siberian city of Tomsk, they dined on “pelmeny” and Russian bear meat and the German Minister of Finance and Technology announced to Russian “Pravda” that Merkel and Putin “have become friends.” With both having a background from East Germany, perhaps this friendship is even more longstanding.
At a recent conference of Ukrainian civil society organizations held in Munich, Germany, an invited representative of the German Foreign Affairs Association openly and without hesitation expressed the opinion that Germany has little interest in Ukraine and simultaneously sympathizes with Russian President Medvedev’s daily ruminations “There isn’t a day that I don’t wake up and think about Ukraine.” This statement was made despite the fact that for Ukraine, Germany is the second largest trade partner, Ukraine’ geo-strategic location and the fact that gas from Russia to Germany passes through Ukrainian pipes.
The work of the German civil society in Ukraine (the Catholic church and other institutions) is significant, but that is not a credit to German government policies. Ukrainians need to wake up. Germans historically have never been friends to Ukrainians. A glaring example from history would be Catherine II of Prussian ancestry, one of the most vicious rulers of the Russian Empire who brutalized Ukraine. Hitler murdered not only Jews, but ravaged Ukraine and murdered Ukrainians as well. The arrogance of the current German Ambassador is a mild case on point as he extols the academic freedom of half learned extremists the like of which Germany has spawned more than its fair share over the years to defame Ukraine’s heroes. I cannot imagine anything more obscene than Stepan Bandera being labeled a fascist or Ivan Demjajuk being charged as a war criminal by Germans who personify those terms. To foster better relations between Germany and Ukraine, Germany needs to make a change beginning with its ambassador in Kyiv.
Then the healing should begin with Germany offering substantive restitution to the many Ukrainians who were mistreated by the Germans during World War 2 as prisoners and slave laborers and could not avail themselves of reparations or pensions because they were on the other side of the Iron Curtain. German industry needs to come up big in this regard since many German companies benefited greatly from Ukrainian slave laborers.
In the meantime and until there is tangible proof of Germany’s remorse and desire for reconciliation, Ukrainians in Ukraine and abroad should send a message by boycotting German products, not traveling to Germany and shunning contact with German government personnel and their representatives. Germany today is arguably the strongest economy in the European Union and can well survive this Ukrainian embargo, but it can be palpable even to an arrogant and hostile Germany. After all there are 46 million in Ukraine and 20 million Ukrainians abroad. Germany is today’s face of the EU. The only means by which the EU can grow is through integration, opening up new markets of both consumers and less expensive labor. It seems to me that it’s in Germany’s best interest to exhibit a human side.
Askold S. Lozynskyj
New York
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Footnote:
The restitution/compensation which Germany has accorded Ukrainian slave laborers and prisoners of the Nazis who resided in Ukraine after the war and were alive on February 16, 1999 (the cutoff date) was token rather than substantive. Some eleven billion German Marks were designated by Germany from the early 1990’s to 2000 for the three countries, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Ukraine received 1.724 billion German Marks which translates to 881.47 million Euros. The number of Ukrainians eligible for compensation was between 500,000 and 1 million. Thus the average payment was a one time payment of some 1000 Euros per survivor or his family. The rough average payment to such survivor previously on the other side of the Iron Curtain was the equivalent of ten times that amount.
