e-Poshta | 17Jun2009 | Myroslava Oleksiuk
Editorial
Nazi torturing trio of Wolf,
Wirzing and Shultz vs Demjanjuk
Today, when German law limits the prosecution of Germans for Nazi war
crimes, Germany is getting ready to prosecute, for Nazi war crimes, a
Ukrainian prisoner of war captured by the Germans, as they razed
Ukraine and brought its people to their knees (with 8 million
Ukrainians killed in WWII, 2.3 slave labourers in Germany and 10
million left homeless). As Germany is gearing up for a politically
motivated, justice impaired, show trial of the John Demjanjuk to teach
young Germans that their ancestors were not entirely to blame for the
Holocaust, Ukrainians are remembering another Nazi sacrifice
-- a leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, who at 37
years old was tortured to death by the NAZI trio of Wolf, Wirzing and
Shultz.
Sixty-five years ago, on June 10, 1944, Nazi torturers murdered Oleh
Olzhych (Kandyba), a 37-year-old archeologist, poet, publicist and
patriot. Prior to his arrest by the Gestapo in the spring of 1944, he
directed underground activities in Nazi-occupied Ukraine. He was the
acting head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists while the
actual leader, Col. Andrii Melnyk, was incarcerated together with
several other Ukrainian political leaders at the Sachsenhausen
concentration camp. Olzhych left Ukraine with his father, popular
Ukrainian poet Oleksandr Oles, after the Russian Communist takeover in
1923. He studied archeology in Prague (then Czechoslovakia), wrote
several scientific papers and later lectured at Harvard University in
Cambridge, Mass. In 1938 he returned to Europe, leaving his position at
Harvard and his American fiancée to represent the Ukrainian nationalist
leadership in the short-lived independent Carpatho-Ukraine. He was
arrested by the Gestapo in Lviv on May 25, 1944 and imprisoned at the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Today the German government and media are expending considerable effort
into trying to find a scapegoat, in order to minimize their culpability
by attempting to spread it to Ukraine and the peoples of other nations
they invaded and devoured. However, their Gestapo representatives such
as Wolf, Wirzing and Shultz undermine their own country's credibility.
Thus, Germany should stick to its achievements in the realm of tragedy,
for which it is historically and culturally known, rather than
venturing into the realm of farce, where it appears to be perilously
headed.
Myroslava Oleksiuk