Страница 287 из 340
truck at Lvov station. One of them was Simon Wiesenthal's mother, then
sixty-three. ... His wife's mother was shortly afterwards shot dead
by a Ukrainian police auxiliary on the steps of her house. (Peter
Michael Lingens, in Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p.
8)
"My mother was in August 1942 taken by a Ukrainian policeman," Simon
says, lapsing swiftly into the present tense as immediacy takes hold.
... Around the same time, Cyla Wiesenthal [Mr. Wiesenthal's wife]
learned that, back in Buczacz, her mother had been shot to death by a
Ukrainian policeman as she was being evicted from her home. (Alan
Levy, The Wiesenthal File, 1993, p. 41)
We see, therefore, that Morley Safer seems to have advanced the date of arrest of your
mother as well as the shooting of your mother-in-law by more than a year in order to
lend credibility to the claim of Ukrainian-initiated actions against Jews prior to the
German occupation of Lviv.
As this error appears to be Mr. Safer's and not your own, I do not ask you to
account for it. However, I do ask if you at any time subsequent to the 60 Minutes
broadcast became aware of Mr. Safer's error, and if so, if you as a result asked him to
issue a correction?
Also, if you are only now for the first time learning of Mr. Safer's error, I
wonder if you could tell me if you now intend to ask Mr. Safer to issue a correction?
Sincerely yours,
Lubomyr Prytulak
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL 886 hits since 18Jan98
Wiesenthal Letter 23 Sep 23/97 The pious executioners
September 23, 1997
Simon Wiesenthal
Jewish Documentation Center
Salztorgasse 6
1010 Vie
Austria
Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:
I wonder if you are aware that during the German occupation of Lviv, the Greek
Catholic church, headed by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, was courageous and outspoken
in defense of Jews? Here are four quotations which provide some details as to the role
played by Sheptytsky, and which demonstrate that this role is widely acknowledged:
There is little doubt as to the almost saintly role of Ukrainian
(Greek) Catholic Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. Sheptytsky,
Archbishop of L'viv and head of the church, was widely known as being
sympathetic to the Jews. ... The elderly metropolitan wrote directly
to SS commander Heinrich Himmler in the winter of 1942 demanding an end
to the final solution and, equally important to him, an end to the use
of Ukrainian militia and police in anti-Jewish action. His letter
elicited a sharp rebuke, but Sheptytsky persisted even though the death
penalty was threatened to those who gave comfort to Jews. In November
1942 he issued a pastoral letter to be read in all churches under his
authority. It condemned murder. Although Jews were not specifically
mentioned, his intent was crystal clear.
We can never know how many Ukrainians were moved by Sheptytsky's
appeal. Certainly the church set an example. With Sheptytsky's tacit
approval, his church hid a number of Jews throughout western Ukraine,
150 Jews alone in and around his L'viv headquarters. Perhaps some of
his parishioners were among those brave and precious few "righteous
gentiles" who risked an automatic death penalty for themselves and
their families by harbouring a Jew under their roof.
The towering humanity of Sheptytsky remains an inspiration today.
(Harold Troper Morton Weinfeld, Old Wounds, 1988, pp. 17-18)
He [Sheptytsky] dispatched a lengthy handwritten letter dated August
29-31, 1942 to the Pope, in which he referred to the government of the
German occupants as a regime of terror and corruption, more diabolical
than that of the Bolsheviks. (Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims,
Bystanders, 1992, p. 267)
One of those saved by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was Lviv's Rabbi
Kahane whose son is currently the marshal commander of the Israeli Air
Force. (Ukrainian Weekly, June 21, 1992, p. 9)
Sheptitsky himself hid fifteen Jews, including Rabbi Kahane, in his own
residence in Lvov, a building frequently visited by German officials.
(Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust, 1986, p. 410)
However, despite the widespread agreement that the Catholic church headed by
Sheptytsky was outspoken and courageous in its defense of Jews, you have consistently
portrayed Christianity in general, and the Catholic church in Lviv in 1941 in
particular, as being virulently anti-Semitic. I refer, for example, to your fable of
the alcoholic priest in Western Ukraine who incites a pogrom (Alan Levy, The Wiesenthal
File, 1993, p. 24), which fable I have already brought to your attention in my letter
to you of December 8, 1994; and I refer as well to your story of the Ukrainians who you
say almost executed you:
As the shots and shouts of the boisterous Ukrainians drew closer to
Wiesenthal, he heard a new sound: church bells. The Ukrainians heard
it, too. Good Orthodox Catholics all, they laid down their arms for
evening mass.
Wiesenthal and his friend had stood five or six bullets away from
extinction. (Alan Levy, The Wiesenthal File, Constable, London, 1993,
p. 36)
Now if it is the case as we have just seen above that the Catholic church
unambiguously and unequivocally stood for the defense of Jews, then we would expect
devout Catholics to not be among the executioners of Jews. Conversely, given that
someone is among the executioners of Jews, we would expect him not to be a devout
Catholic. Your portrayal of sadistic executioners as being simultaneously devout
Catholics is incongruous and elicits incredulity.
But your story goes beyond the incongruous to the grotesque. You portray a team
of executioners who have been repeatedly drinking vodka - and may therefore be depicted
as drunk. You say that they have also just been shooting prisoners in the back of the
neck, and then lifting the bodies from the floor and placing them into makeshift
coffins - therefore, the executioners are also covered with blood. Assuming that these
executioners did not have a place to shower and had not brought with them a change of
clothing, and assuming that the church bells are signaling the imminent commencement of
mass so as not to leave time for showering and changing, then I have trouble conjuring
up a credible image of these executioners arriving at the church for mass. To accept
your image requires us to accept that the appearance of drunk and blood-spattered
executioners at a mass would not attract notice and repugnance - a supposition which is
erroneous and offensive. And it requires us also to accept that the mind set of
executioners engaged in genocide is so similar to Christians engaged in devotion, that
they make the transition instantaneously and seamlessly - another supposition which is
erroneous and offensive.
Mr. Wiesenthal, I entreat you to either explain and defend your bizarre story, or
else to withdraw it.
Yours truly,
Lubomyr Prytulak
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL 3285 hits since 18Jan98
Wiesenthal Letter 24 Jan 18/98 Reversing victim and victimizer
The caption at the top of the photographs shown below is from LIFE magazine, 11Jun45, p. 50. The caption in German
and Latin at the bottom of the Simon Wiesenthal drawing below was, of course, included with the drawing in Simon
Wiesenthal's KZ Mauthausen, 1946, p. 64. This caption says: