Zuzak GRC Report; Wed., April 07, 2010

(1) Holodomor/Genocide: http://www.willzuzak.ca/tp/holodomor/holodomor.html
No articles archived this month. The new Yanukovych administration continues to downgrade the issue. 

(2) Ukrainophobia: http://www.willzuzak.ca/tp/ukrainophobia/ukrainophobia.html
No articles archived this month. There was a huge outcry and public demonstrations in Ukraine when Ukrainophobe Dmytro Tabachnyk was appointed Education Minister. A Donetsk court ruled that the Hero status award to Stepan Bandera was invalid. It appears that all pro-Ukrainian functionaries are being fired and are being replaced by Yanukovych loyalists.

(3) John Demjanjuk: http://www.willzuzak.ca/fc/2009/2009.html
Due to lack of time and energy, there were no articles archived this month, although the trial in Munich continues. Under cross-examination by defense lawyer Uli Busch, prosecution witness Dieter Pohl admitted that the Danilchenko statement concerning Mr. Demjanjuk was likely elicited under torture.

(4) John Demjanjuk: http://www.willzuzak.ca/tp/Demjanjuk2009/Demjanjuk2009.html
trawniki1393.html (archive)
transcripts2001.html (archive)
Analysis of Trawniki ID 1393 card
A. Winterberg analysis
B. April1988 analysis
C. Overview of 51 OSI-supplied pdf files
D. Soviet attitude toward Ukrainian independence (Reproduced below)
E. Discussion of Trawniki material in sections A to C above [Work continuing]

(5) XoXoL:  http://www.xoxol.org/
Dr. Lubomyr Prytulak has placed much Demjanjuk material at
http://www.xoxol.org/dem/dem.html
wherein one finds
http://www.xoxol.org/dem/blurb.html  Blurb biography of John Demjanjuk case.
http://www.xoxol.org/traw/forge.html  “Forged and Obliterated”: Demjanjuk signature on Trawniki ID card.
http://www.xoxol.org/traw/photo.html “Who glued Demjanjuk photograph to Trawniki card 1393?”
http://www.xoxol.org/dem/letter-from-death-row.html “Letter from Death Row”

(6) Roman Korol site: http://www.halychyna.ca/
http://halychyna.ca/B-Introduction-eng.htm “Introduction”

Respectfully submitted
Will Zuzak,  2010.04.07

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http://www.willzuzak.ca/tp/Demjanjuk2009/Demjanjuk2009.html#D.z

D. Soviet attitude toward Ukrainian independence
Ukraine's struggle for independence over the centuries, and especially since World War I, is well documented. The ill-fated Treaty of Versailles placed Western Ukraine under the occupation of Poland without the indigenous Ukrainian population having been consulted. Poland soon abandoned its obligations toward the Ukrainian majority and embarked on a program of assimilation, pacification and incarceration [Ukr. pdf] of patriotic Ukrainians in the Bereza Kartuzka concentration camp [Ukr. review]. During the 1930s, this region was in a state of civil war between the Polish colonizers and indigenous Ukrainians motivated into armed resistance by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

When World War II broke out shortly after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact on 23 August 1939, Germany (under the Nazi banner) occupied Poland and the Soviet Union (under the Bolshevik banner) seized Western Ukraine. The immediate result of the Red Army occupation was internment of the surrendering Polish Army units with liquidation of some 20,000 officers and intelligentsia in the Katyn Forest Massacre and banishment of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) rank and file to Siberia. [Much later, Stalin allowed many of these soldiers to be evacuated via Iran to fight with General Anders Polish Army for the Western Allies.]

During the period of Soviet-German collaboration from September 1939 until Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941, the NKVD methodically arrested, incarcerated and sent to Siberia or murdered any Ukrainian intellectuals or patriots suspected of harbouring thoughts of an independent Ukraine. Immediately after the German attack on 22 June 1941, the NKVD massacred thousands of Ukrainians held in the prisons of Western Ukraine. On 30 June 1941 in Lviv, Stepan Bandera, newly-elected leader of OUN, declared Ukraine's independence in the face of Hitler's opposition. [Although there were many German intellectuals and officers in the Wehrmacht, who supported the idea of Ukraine's independence, no one suspected that Martin Bormann was a Russian agent constantly fomenting Hitler's Ukrainophobia.] Hitler's response was to arrest Stepan Bandera, premier-designate Yaroslav Stetsko and the OUN leadership and send them to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for the rest of the war. Further arrests of suspected Ukrainian "nationalists" continued methodically.

The covert opposition of Ukrainians to German occupation policies blossomed into overt opposition with the "official" launch of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) on 14 October 1942 under the leadership of General Roman Shukhevych. For the rest of the German occupation the UPA and Germans were bitter enemies. The Chronicle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army is archived on the infoukes.com website.

The second Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine started in the spring of 1944 as the Red Army relentlessly pushed the Germans back off Ukrainian soil. Stalin issued orders that Ukrainian males in the re-occupied territory be conscripted and used as human mine sweepers and cannon fodder against the retreating Germans. NKVD/SMERSH units spread their tentacles throughout the countryside searching for any hint of resistance to Soviet rule. Members of the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee, such as Ilya Ehrenberg and Vasily Grossman, accused Ukrainians of killing Jews and demanded that they be arrested and punished. The NKVD was only too happy to arrest, torture and send to Siberia or execute Ukrainians on any pretext.

The best description of the conditions of that era that I have read is the book  SPALAKH: UPA resistance in the Bereziv region by the late Michailo Tomaschuk, a book review of which is archived on my Telusplanet website and in which I have highlighted the life of Oleksandra (Tomych) Payevska: "The spirit of "Orysia" from Nyzhni Bereziv reflects the aspirations of hundreds of thousands of her compatriots, who fought for freedom from the Polish, German and Soviet occupations -- and for an independent Ukraine."

All the evidence indicates that Stalin's genocidal policies during the Holodomor and the Great Terror of the 1930s in Eastern Ukraine were repeated in Western Ukraine from 1939 to 1953.

I have written previously:

Contrary to the official policy of the United States towards the Soviet Union at that time, this unfortunate meeting [between Ryan/Rockler and Rekunkov/Rudenko in January 1980] facilitated the use of Soviet-supplied evidence in future OSI prosecutions and placed American justice at the mercy of KGB manipulation. That the OGPU/NKVD/KGB utilized torture to obtain false confessions from targeted individuals is a historical fact. From the time of Lenin through the Holodomor, the Great Terror, World War Two, the Ukrainian Partisan Army Insurgency and even the Dissident era from the 1960’s intimidation, threats and torture were utilized by the repressive organs of the Soviet Union. Even in the 1990’s, when naive Canadian judges traveled to Ukraine to interview eyewitnesses under the direction of and preparation by former-KGB personnel, several of these witnesses later recanted their testimony after recounting their “preparation” and expressed surprise and disgust that Canadian authorities would side with their tormentors.

The purpose of the material in this section is to convince the reader that the "Soviet attitude towards Ukrainian independence" was unremittingly hostile. And that the purpose of the KGB initiating the case of John Demjanjuk in 1974 was to besmirch the Ukrainian independence movement that continued to evolve in Ukraine and in the Diaspora. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state, the policy of the Russian Federation has been to delegitimize Ukraine's independence and to try to re-incorporate it within a re-formulated Russian Empire. The Kremlin's hysterical response to the award of "Hero status" to Stepan Bandera and OUN-UPA on 22 January 2010 confirms this assessment.

It is the height of irony that the descendants of the true collaborators in the initiation of WWII, in the rape and pillage of Ukraine and in their virulent opposition to Ukraine's independence are once again collaborating via the persecution of John Demjanjuk to sully and delegitimize the independence of Ukraine.

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