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collaborators were ubiquitous, and that it was Jewish collaborators who rendered the Jewish
Holocaust feasible and who stood as obstacles in the path of Jewish resistance:
Falsification of the Holocaust
Letter to the editor by Prof. Israel Shahak, published on 19 May 1989 in Kol Ha'ir,
Jerusalem.
Available online at:
http://www.kaiwan.com/codoh/newsdesk/890519.HTML
I disagree with the opinion of Haim Baram that the Israeli education system
has managed to instil a 'Holocaust awareness' in its pupils (Kol Ha'Ir
12.5.89). It's not an awareness of the Holocaust but rather the myth of the
Holocaust or even a falsification of the Holocaust (in the sense that 'a
half-truth is worse than a lie') which has been instilled here.
As one who himself lived through the Holocaust, first in Warsaw then in
Bergen-Belsen, I will give an immediate example of the total ignorance of daily
life during the Holocaust. In the Warsaw ghetto, even during the period of the
first massive extermination (June to October 1943), one saw almost no German
soldiers. Nearly all the work of administration, and later the work of
transporting hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths, was carried out by
Jewish collaborators. Before the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (the
pla
in Warsaw), the Jewish underground killed, with perfect justification, every
Jewish collaborator they could find. If they had not done so the Uprising
could never have started. The majority of the population of the Ghetto hated
the collaborators far more than the German Nazis. Every Jewish child was
taught, and this saved the lives of some them "if you enter a square from which
there are three exits, one guarded by a German SS man, one by an Ukrainian and
one by a Jewish policeman, then you should first try to pass the German, and
then maybe the Ukrainian, but never the Jew".
One of my own strongest memories is that, when the Jewish underground
killed a despicable collaborator close to my home at the end of February 1943,
I danced and sang around the still bleeding corpse together with the other
children. I still do not regret this, quite the contrary.
It is clear that such events were not exclusive to the Jews, the entire
Nazi success in easy and continued rule over millions of people stemmed from
the subtle and diabolical use of collaborators, who did most of the dirty work
for them. But does anybody now know about this? This, and not what is
'instilled' was the reality. Of the Yad Vashem (official state Holocaust
museum in Jerusalem - Ed.) theatre, I do not wish to speak at all. It, and its
vile exploiting, such as honouring South Africa collaborators with the Nazis
are truly beneath contempt.
Therefore, if we knew a little of the truth about the Holocaust, we would
at least understand (with or without agreeing) why the Palestinians are now
eliminating their collaborators. That is the only means they have if they wish
to continue to struggle against our limb-breaking regime.
Kind regards,
[Israel Shahak]
To bring closer to home and closer to the present day the inadvisability of attributing
collective guilt, we may note that more than one out of every hundred Americans is presently
sitting in jail, and yet we do not from this condemn Americans as a nation of criminals. And so
if we extract from this the conclusion that a participation rate as high as one out of every
hundred is insufficient to depict the entire population as participants, then Ukrainians should
be allowed a total of 360,000 criminal collaborators - a number never yet broached - without
Ukrainians being collectively condemned as Nazis.
The plea to avoid ascribing collective guilt is not new to Ukrainian-Jewish relations, and has
been put forward by both sides. It is time that the plea was heeded:
Even as we Jews justly disclaim responsibility for the acts of the Jewish
Bolshevist commissars and for the disgraceful actions of those Jews who
participated in the work of the Bolshevist chekas (Secret Police), the
Ukrainian people has a full right to disclaim any responsibility for those who
have besmirched themselves by pogrom activities. (Arnold Margolin, The Jews of
Eastern Europe, 1926, p. 124, in Andrew Gregorovich, Jews and Ukrainians, Forum
No. 91, Fall-Winter, 1994, p. 30)
Additional material on Jewish collaboration with the Nazis can be found in my discussion of the
Jewish Ghetto Police in my Letter 17 to A
CONTENTS:
Preface
The Galicia Division
Quality of Translation
Ukrainian Homogeneity
Were Ukrainians Nazis?
Simon Wiesenthal
What Happened in Lviv?
Nazi Propaganda Film
Collective Guilt
Paralysis of the Comparative
Function
60 Minutes' Cheap Shots
Ukrainian Anti-Semitism
Jewish Ukrainophobia
Mailbag
A Sense of Responsibility
What 60 Minutes Should Do
PostScript
Paralysis of the Comparative Function
Positions taken by Morley Safer acquire meaning - can only be evaluated - following relevant
comparisons, but Mr. Safer fails to make these comparisons. For example, Ukrainian assistance
to Jews during the Jewish Holocaust acquires significance - indeed, may be thrown into a wholly
new light - when compared to Jewish assistance to Jews during the Jewish Holocaust, but Mr.
Safer does not make such a comparison. Ukrainian cruelty on behalf of the Nazis acquires
significance when compared to Jewish cruelty on behalf of the Nazis, but Mr. Safer does not make
this comparison. Ukrainians saving Jews (a possibility totally ignored by Mr. Safer) is given a
new significance when compared with Jews saving Ukrainians at times when such aid was possible
and of course Mr. Safer never reaches a point where he could make such a comparison.
Comparison 1: Ukrainians Helping Jews Compared to Jews Helping Jews
We have seen above that countless Ukrainians risked their lives and gave their lives to save
Jews. And what, let us now ask, were those who today level accusations of genetic anti-Semitism
against Ukrainians doing at the same time? What, for example, were American Jews doing? The
generous view is that they were doing little:
No American Jew appeared to have altered his life style once news of the
Holocaust was revealed. Even at the time, some observers were repelled by the
often festive atmosphere of Jewish social life in a period of wartime
prosperity. (Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, 1992, p. 550)
Over the centuries the dispersion of the Jews had a functional utility:
whenever some part of the Jewish community was under attack, it depended on
help from the other Jews. In the period of the Nazi regime, this help did not
come. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 1052)
This question has haunted me ever since the war: Why did the Jews of the free
world act as they did? Hadn't our people survived persecution and exile
throughout the centuries because of its spirit of solidarity? ... When one
community suffered, the others supported it, throughout the Diaspora. Why was
it different this time? (Elie Wiesel, Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea,
1995, p. 63)
A less indulgent view, however, is that Jews not under Nazi occupation - particularly American