bandera_picture_ 21

Fig. 21. Samostiina Ukraina, 10 July 1941, 1.

bandera_picture_22

Fig. 22. Ukrains’ke slovo, 24 July 1941, 1.

heading, to the “leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Stepan Bandera”[1074] or to the “leader of the German people Adolf Hitler”[1075] or to the “head of the government of the Ukrainian state Iaroslav Stets’ko.”[1076] In some letters, a plea to Hitler to release Bandera and Stets’ko and let them come to Ukraine was added, as in the one from Ksaverivka, which was probably drafted by a local person with a strong affiliation to the OUN-B. The letter is composed in a very simple style. It includes numerous grammatical errors that suggest the author was a peasant with a weak grasp of the written language:

To the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Stepan Bandera.

Announcement

We, the citizens of the village Ksaverivka, assembled on Sunday, 19 July 1941, in the square to demonstrate before the world that the Ukrainian Nation fights for its rights and for an Independent Ukrainian State.

We are firmly subordinated to the Ukrainian Government that was proclaimed in Lviv and we will faithfully carry out all the orders that will be given us. We ask the leader of the German Nation to confirm the temporary council of the village.

We are grateful to the German Army and its Leaders. First of all we are grateful to Chancellor Adolf Hitler for his command to his heroic Army to drive out the Bolshevik Jewish bandit and Polish treason, which oppressed the Ukrainian People in jails and camps. We met the German Army with great happiness because it drove out the bandit army from our Ukraine and liberated us.

We believe that Germany will not desire to enslave the Ukrainian Nation and that it will once and for all make the Ukrainian People a Nation of will and deed, which will join the fight against Jewish Communism [zhydo komuna] and all oppressors of the Ukrainian people who oppressed the Ukrainian People, and severely opposed Germany and Hitler.

We ask Adolf Hitler, the great Genius of the German People, to release for us our OUN Leader Stepan Bandera who led the Ukrainian people many years under the terror of Poland and Moscow and we believe that he will now also lead us on the right path as he has so far. The Ukrainian people and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists believe in his forces and also that only he as the Leader of the Ukrainian Nationalists is able to lead us and to put a stop to the whole communist diversion and to make collaboration with great Germany possible.

Glory to the German Army

Glory to the Führer [firerovi] of the German Nation Adolf Hitler

Glory to Ukraine

Glory to the Heroes.[1077]

This letter is reasonably representative of the other letters addressed to Bandera, Hitler, and Stets’ko. It provides important evidence about the OUN-B, as well as about the mental and political state into which it was trying to push the revolutionary Ukrainian masses. The disdain for Jews and communists, who in popular opinion became one and the same, was sometimes expressed more vividly than in the quoted letter. In the village of Steniatyn, for example, three elaborate letters were written to Bandera, Hitler, and Stets’ko.[1078] The authors of this correspondence called themselves “peasants and intelligentsia.” They expressed deep gratitude to and admiration for the German Führer and his army. They believed that the “Great Leader of the German Nation ... has destroyed forever the enemies of our nation, and the communist threat to the civilized world.”[1079] Hitler had delivered them from communist barbarity, thus allowing them to re-join the “civilized world.” That Nazi morality made this “civilized world” one of modern barbarity did not influence their expressed desire to become a part of it. In this and other letters, the writers admired Hitler for his “invincible world-famous army,” his “fairness,” and his will to liberate the Ukrainian people from the “yoke of the Jewish-Muscovite and Polish Bolshevist subhuman beings, the hangmen of the Ukrainian people.”[1080]

However fair and glorious Hitler may have seemed to the “revolutionary masses,” he had arrested and imprisoned Bandera in Berlin. Some letters were open in expressing the desire to have Bandera come home. The OUN-B must have informed the writers and signatories of the leader’s arrest and convinced them that only Bandera could lead the Ukrainian nation to independence. These authors hoped that the “fraternal German nation” would understand the crucial importance of their leader.[1081]

Bandera was the most admired object of the revolution. Some authors stated that words were inadequate to express the strength of their admiration for the Providnyk and that their love for him was immeasurable. A few specified that they loved Bandera with “pure peasant hearts [sertsia chysto selians’ki]”—the highest form of love. Their only wish was to be the “faithful servants of their Providnyk and their nation.” They wanted to be like him and other great heroes of the Ukrainian nation.[1082]

In a leaflet published by the homeland executive of the OUN “To the Ukrainian Nation,” which circulated during the revolution, Bandera was depicted as the telos of the Ukrainian nation. He was placed at the summit of Ukrainian history as the Vozhd’ of all Ukrainians. Ukrainian history was reduced to a glorious past, which ended when vicious strangers destroyed the magnificent Ukrainian medieval state and enslaved the Ukrainians. Then followed centuries of revolutionary struggle for independence, of which the last stage was the revolutionary struggle of the OUN under the leadership of Bandera. The text ended with “Glory to Ukraine,” “Glory to the Heroes,” “Glory to the vozhd.’”[1083]

Throughout the “Ukrainian National Revolution,” Stepan Bandera, the embodiment of the revolution, was not to be found in the revolutionary territories. His person was controlled by the Germans, first in Cracow and then in Berlin. But the spirit and the charisma of the Providnyk were with the revolutionary masses. Bandera’s presence was palpable in the proclamation ceremonies and in all the letters addressed to Hitler, Bandera, and Stets’ko. Ivan Klymiv wrote to Stepan Bandera that he had immediately known where to place his loyalties after the split in the OUN, because he and other fellow OUN-members “saw Bandera twice under the gallows, unconquerable and loyal to the idea.”[1084] It was obvious to them that Bandera was the true Ukrainian Providnyk and that, during the “Ukrainian National Revolution,” the whole revolutionary territory should be covered with posters and leaflets extolling Bandera.[1085]

The last object of admiration, Iaroslav Stets’ko, was depicted in the letters as a famous freedom fighter and leading figure in the OUN. The writers greeted Stets’ko with a nationalist salute. Stets’ko was for them the person who had proclaimed statehood in Lviv and thus performed the most revolutionary of deeds, a model now acted out in villages, towns, and cities across Ukraine. As the main hero of 30 June 1941 Stets’ko evoked almost the same admiration and filial love as the Providnyk did.[1086]

According to Klymiv, the OUN-B tried to establish statehood in 213 districts (raions) across Ukraine, 187 in western Ukraine and twenty-six in eastern Ukraine.[1087] In the Zolochiv district, the OUN-B found 8,000 supporters.[1088] This suggests that the OUN-B might have persuaded a total of more than 1.5 million people to back its project. Considering the short time in which the OUN-B was working to establish statehood, the “Ukrainian National Revolution” of the OUN-B evidently spread quickly, but it ended abruptly due to conflicts with the Germans. In contrast, according to Klymiv, the OUN-M proclaimed statehood in only two districts.[1089]

A violent nationalist “uprising,” to some extent similar to the “Ukrainian National Revolution,” occurred in Lithuania after Germany attacked the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. It was organized by the Lithuanian Activist Front (Lietuvos aktyvistų frontas, LAF), which had constituted itself in November 1940 in Berlin and was composed of radical-right and national conservative politicians who had left Lithuania after the Soviet Union occupied their country in June 1940. Headed by Kazys Škirpa, the LAF established a few commissions that were intended to become the Lithuanian government after the German attack on the Soviet Union. On 23 June 1941, Lithuanian nationalists seized a radio station in Kaunas, over which Leonas Prapuolenis announced that an independent Lithuanian state with a provisional government had been created. As in Ukraine, the government was not accepted by the Germans and existed only for a few days. The process of establishing the state went along with a number of pogroms, as a result of which several hundred Jews were killed by locals, the LAF, other Lithuanian groups, and Germans.[1090]

In addition to those in Lithuania and western Ukraine, pogroms also took place after 22 June 1941 in other territories occupied by Germany, including north-eastern Poland and Latvia, and to a lesser extent in Belarus and Estonia.[1091] After the beginning of Operation München on 2 July, very bloody pogroms occurred in Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, which were invaded and occupied by Romanian troops.[1092] This indicates that the German invasion and the NKVD massacres were an important trigger for the pogroms. In western Ukraine, however, pogroms also took place in localities where the Germans were not present at the time of pogrom, or where the Hungarians had invaded, or in which there were no prisons with NKVD victims. These facts and also the OUN-B complaints about the Hungarian army and the Slovaks, who restricted the OUN-B’s anti-Jewish activities, or were “too friendly” toward Jews and Poles, indicate that a certain number of pogroms were organized and carried out by the OUN-B activists or the local population, without any encouragement or help from the Germans.[1093]

Ellen Pressler, for example, noticed that power in Bolekhiv was taken over by local Ukrainian nationalists, who formed the militia and organized a pogrom before the Hungarian army came to the town.[1094] Matylda Gelerntner, another survivor of Bolekhiv, noticed that the Ukrainians were heavily armed, and claimed that they were “Germans” in order to convince the Hungarian troops that they had more right to rule in Bolekhiv.[1095] In Khotymyr (Chocimierz) a troop of Hungarian soldiers would not allow a band of Ukrainian pogromists to drown a group of Jews from Tlumach (Tłumacz), in the Dniester river.[1096] On the way from Ternopil’ to Lviv, Uri Lichter observed “murderers with axes and scythes,” long before he saw a German.[1097] Izio Wachtel reported that, after the Soviet soldiers retreated from his town of Chortkiv and “before the Germans entered, the Ukrainians arrived in the town with … axes and scythes and other instruments, and slaughtered and killed and robbed the Jews. With the arrival of the Germans, the wild killing ceased and the murder by orders began.”[1098]

The vast majority of pogroms in Ukraine occurred in eastern Galicia and in Volhynia.[1099] After the German attack on the Soviet Union, in territories to the east of Galicia and Volhynia, Jews were killed in mass shootings. Alexander Kruglov estimated that, in July 1941, 38,000 to 39,000 Jews died as a result of pogroms and mass shootings. In August, between 61,000 and 62,000 Jews were shot in Ukraine, and in September between 136,000 and 137,000.[1100] An Einsatzgruppe C report from September 1941, when the German army was in eastern Ukraine, complained about the difficulty of persuading Ukrainians “to take active steps against the Jews.”[1101]

Although this study concentrates on Bandera and the OUN and explores their role in the pogroms and other events, it is also important to briefly outline the whole spectrum of perpetrators and motives. As already indicated, the pogromists in western Ukraine can be divided into three groups: the Germans, the OUN-B, and the local population.[1102] The Germans enabled the anti-Jewish violence, by attacking and conquering the Soviet Union. They also triggered pogroms in several places, but not all, and coordinated their execution. The OUN-B organized a militia, which both collaborated with the Germans and killed Jews independently. It also incited the local population to anti-Jewish violence, by spreading antisemitic propaganda and advocating, together with Germans, revenge on the Jews for the NKVD murders. The local population was driven to anti-Jewish violence by the German and OUN-B propaganda, especially by the instrumentalization of the NKVD murders. The local perpetrators came from different social groups and acted with different reasons, of which antisemitism, nationalism, racism, and fascism were important, but not the only ones. Other important motives were, as already indicated, connected with the economy and the perpetrators wish to enrich themselves. Thus, Jewish houses were also plundered by peasants who came to the towns and cities with carts for the purpose. Philip Friedman, survivor of the Holocaust in Galicia, and an early Holocaust historian, wrote that, among the perpetrators, one could find all kinds of people: peasants, teachers, municipal administrators, pharmacists, school inspectors, priests, judges, students, high-school pupils, and women.[1103]

Although it is not an easy task to explain in which sense and to what extent Bandera was responsible for the pogroms and other forms of ethnic and political violence in western Ukraine in summer 1941, this study requires to look for a nuanced, complex, and adequate answer to this difficult question.

First, it is important to remember that the Gestapo advised Bandera not go to the “newly occupied territories.” He was, therefore, not present in Lviv when Ukrainian statehood was proclaimed, when the local OUN-B members and the task forces spread antisemitic propaganda, or when they organized the militia, which became one of the main perpetrators of the pogrom in Lviv and many other places. However, Bandera’s physical absence from Lviv, and many other localities in which the pogroms took place, does not exonerate him of the responsibility for the crimes committed by the OUN-B, because he had prepared the “Ukrainian National Revolution,” which anticipated establishing a state and eliminating the political and ethnic “enemies” of this state. The preparation included writing “Struggle and Activities,” together with Stets’ko, Shukhevych, and Lenkavs’kyi, and, with the help of this and other documents, informing the underground in Ukraine how to act after the beginning of the German attack on the Soviet Union. “Struggle and Activities” was unambiguous about what the Ukrainian nationalists should do with Jews, Poles, Soviets, and Ukrainian opponents. Klymiv, leader of the OUN-B in Ukraine, received “Struggle and Activities” in early May 1941 and was guided by it when he organized and conducted the violent uprising. “Struggle and Activities” consisted of a series of general and specific instructions to Klymiv, and to the OUN-B in Ukraine, which committed numerous war crimes during the “Ukrainian National Revolution,” while following the instructions included in this document.

Second, it is not known whether Bandera issued direct orders after 22 June 1941 to conduct or support anti-Jewish violence, nor how much he knew about the run of events. The fact that he was the Providnyk of the organization suggests that he must have been consulted by his underlings about the course of events. Stets’ko wrote that Bandera did not go to Ukraine but stayed in the General Government, close to the former German-Soviet border, to coordinate the actions of the task forces with the help of couriers. The OUN-B task forces, as already mentioned, organized the militia and other organs of the state. After 22 June, Stets’ko stayed in contact with the Providnyk by sending him telegrams. He also received telegrams from Bandera but, unlike Stets’ko’s correspondence, Bandera’s telegrams have not remained in the archives. The Germans, according to Stets’ko, confined Bandera on 29 June. But it is not clear if and how they limited Bandera’s actions. The Germans might have forbidden him to go to Lviv, but they did not arrest him at that time. This allowed him to continue coordinating the task forces and having an impact on the course of the uprising. The fact that he arrived late at a meeting organized by Ernst Kundt on 3 July 1941 in Cracow suggests that Bandera was not staying in Cracow but was coordinating the task forces from somewhere closer to the Ukrainian territories. Lebed specified in 1952 that it was somewhere in Kholmshchyna.[1104]

Third, Bandera was the Providnyk or Vozhd’ of the OUN-B, and thus he was the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist and genocidal movement, which organized and conducted the “Ukrainian National Revolution.” The OUN-B, like a number of other fascist and authoritarian movements, implemented the Führerprinzip and officially elected Bandera as its Providnyk. Bandera did not disagree with this decision, nor did he indicate that he disagreed with the general line of OUN-B policies. On the contrary, he was proud to be the Providnyk of the movement, actively engaged in the “revolutionary deeds,” and hoped to become the leader of the Ukrainian state and all Ukrainians. In this sense, Bandera bears political responsibility for the deeds of his organization, in a similar manner to Hitler, Pavelić, Antonescu, and other leaders of violent movements. Yet we should not overlook the fact that Bandera’s agency and power were more limited than Hitler’s, Pavelić’s, or Antonescu’s, especially after Bandera was arrested on 5 July 1941.

Considering all these factors, we may conclude that Bandera was responsible for the ethnic and political mass violence in the summer of 1941, although his responsibility certainly differed from Hitler’s, Pavelić’s, Antonescu’s and other leaders whose movements committed war crimes or were involved in atrocities. To estimate Bandera’s responsibility we should differentiate between a legal moral, ethical, and political responsibility and explain if Bandera was guilty of any of them. Because the Germans did not allow Bandera to go to the “newly occupied territories,” confined him on 29 June, when he might have tried to go to Lviv, and took him into honorary arrest on 5 July, the spectrum of his involvement in atrocities after 22 June 1941 was limited. We also do not know what kind of orders (if any), he issued after 22 June 1941, although we know that he participated in the uprising while coordinating the task forces with the help of couriers, and that thereby his actions may have impacted the general course of events. If he was indeed only a “passive personality,” a national or international court of justice may have convicted him by means of the principle of “universal jurisdiction” over crimes against humanity as happened to Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1962.[1105] More solid evidence for Bandera’s legal involvement is in the document “Struggle and Activities,” which he prepared together with other leading OUN-B members prior to the uprising. This document clearly included ethnic and political mass violence as a means of revolution and was, as already mentioned, a line of general and specific instruction to the underground in Ukraine, which fulfilled it. Had a Ukrainian court, which was interested in the transformation of Ukrainian society toward democracy, considered this document and applied the notion of transnational justice, it would have convicted Bandera and several other OUN-B leaders involved in the preparation and conduct of the “Ukrainian National Revolution,” in order to provide recognition to the victims and promote civic trust and democracy in Ukraine.[1106]

Bandera’s moral, ethical, and political responsibility, on the other hand, seems to be more evident. It resulted from the fact that he prepared the “Ukrainian National Revolution,” and wanted to realize its goals. Furthermore, Bandera never condemned the results of the “Ukrainian National Revolution” nor suggested that he disagreed with them. After the National Ukrainian Revolution, the OUN-B published Bandera’s letter from 15 July 1941 to Ivan Klymiv, the leader of the OUN-B in Ukraine, in which the Providnyk gave thanks to Klymiv and other “Friends-Heroes” for what they had done. Before publishing the letter, Stets’ko must have given Bandera details of the revolutionary events in person.[1107]

Unlike Bandera, his three brothers—Bohdan, Vasyl’, and Oleksandr—were not prevented from participating in the “Ukrainian National Revolution” in the “newly occupied territories.” Bohdan and Vasyl’ arrived in Ukraine from the General Government, and Oleksandr from Rome. Vasyl’ organized a meeting in Stanislaviv, and Bohdan in Kalush, at which they announced the proclamation of the OUN-B state as “Struggle and Activities” and other documents instructed them.[1108] According to testimonies of Jewish survivors, in addition to these “revolutionary” activities, either Vasyl’ or Oleksandr organized pogroms around Bolekhiv, not far from their home village of Staryi Uhryniv.[1109]

 

 

The Second World War set Bandera free. He went to Lviv but soon left for Cracow because the OUN realized that the international situation did not lend itself to conducting a national revolution. The conflict between the generations led to a split of the OUN in 1940 into the Bandera and Mel’nyk factions. The OUN-B in collaboration with the Nazis prepared itself for Operation Barbarossa and the “Ukrainian National Revolution.” It attempted to establish a Ukrainian state after the German attack on the Soviet Union and hoped that the Germans would approve of it, as they had accepted the states established by the Hlinka Party and the Ustaša. After the German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the OUN-B task forces assisted the German troops and together with them and the local Ukrainians organized a number of pogroms in western Ukraine as the result of which several thousand Jews were murdered, robbed, or otherwise mistreated. Bandera’s responsibility for these acts of mass violence is a question that can only be answered in a nuanced and complex way because his agency was restricted by the Germans.

A few hours after the outbreak of the pogroms in Lviv on 30 June 1941, the OUN-B proclaimed Ukrainian statehood. In the following days, Stets’ko wrote letters to Hitler, Mussolini, Pavelić, and Franco and asked them to accept the new Ukrainian state, but the leading Nazi politicians did not give their approval. They had plans for Ukraine and the Baltic states that were different from those for Croatia and Slovakia. The Germans arrested some members of the OUN-B leadership, among them Bandera and Stets’ko, and took them to Berlin. Some Ukrainians, motivated by the OUN-B, tried in numerous letters to convince Hitler to release Bandera and Stets’ko and allow them to rule a Ukrainian state. They hoped that Bandera would be allowed to be their Providnyk and would be able to rule a state apparatus that would transform Ukraine into a purely Ukrainian country.