text:
"But let us return, Rabbi, to our Ukrainian-Jewish affairs," I woke him from his reveries. "According to your affirmations, Ukrainians are anti-Semitic not because they're Ukrainians but simply because they're Christians, right?"
"Not quite - because Christianity made them like that and, in general, the Ukrainians are traditionally anti-Semitic. Besides a doctorate in Jewish Theology, I also have a doctorate in History. And you, I'm aware, besides having a law doctorate, also have a doctorate in history. Therefore, we can talk about these matters as historians, can't we?"
"Not quite. Because my historical outlook leans inadvertently on legal principles and demands, facts, dates and ciphers. And you unintentionally reveal a theological-religious attitude: a belief in the illogical, the acceptance of 'manifestations' as incontrovertible truth, the transformation of legends into historical facts".
"What do you mean by that?"
"We'll see in a moment, in our discussion. According to you, the history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations begins with the terrible Khmelnytsky, who destroyed more innocent Jews than the biblical Haman. And he tormented them, more than Haman, right?"
"Yes, Khmelnytsky destroyed half a million Jews - men, women, children..."
"You see, we've already touched on our respective educations, mine - legal, and yours, theological. .In the Pentateuch it is written that when Moses, at Jehovah's command, transported the first community of Jews who fled from Egypt, it turned out that there were over six hundred thousand men over twenty years of age who were fit for army service. Add to this as many girls and women of that age, as well as everyone under twenty, and the old, unfit for service - it comes out to over two million. That is what Moses reports in the Pentateuch. As a rabbi, you probably believe that these numbers are real. But I'm asking you as a historian: Is it possible for two million people to wander through the Sinai desert? Don't you think that, logically speaking, it couldn't have been more than twenty thousand?"
"Hmm... possibly, the number is symbolic, hence exaggerated..."
"I have no doubts that it's exaggerated, and a hundredfold at that: twenty thousand became two million. So wrote Rabbi Hannover in his memoirs about Khmelnytsky and you repeat it, accepting as truth everything which is presented in Jewish books. But, I ask: What scientifically statistical proofs and sources are given? And I find that there were no more than fifty thousand Jews in Ukraine in Khmelnytsky's time. So logically, it seems that the Cossaks beat every Jew to death ten times over, and also: at least half of them remained alive, because one hundred years later in Ukraine there were again fifty thousand of them".
The rabbi grasped his beard in pure astonishment: "And where did you get such a number?"
"Read your 'Universal Jewish Encyclopedia' and you'll find that according to the census taken in 1578 in Poland there were 75 thousand Jews. In the Lithuanian territory to which Ukraine belonged there were 27 thousand Jews; therefore, on Ukraine's own territory there were about twenty thousand. And seventy years later there should have been twice as many, that is, no more than fifty thousand Jews in Ukraine in Khmelnytsky's time. I admit that during wartime activity half of them died - thus about twenty-five thousand. In addition, don't forget that, according to the Jews' own testimonies, the then Polish "Hetman" Czarnecky massacred Jews, more than Khmelnytsky: therefore, fifteen thousand Jewish sacrifices of war in Ukraine must be attributed - in conformance with the truth - to the Poles. And to the Tartars".
"To Tartars? How and why to the Tartars?"
"Well, you know that during the Khmelnytsky's war against the Polish invadors Tartars had been Khmelnytsky's allies and took part in fighting in Ukraine".
"Yes, that's correct".
"Tartars in that time were interested not in killing Poles and Jews but in taking as many prisoners as possible. They took them to Crimea and sold them to Turkish slave traders. In Turkey lived many rich Jewish businessmen who purchased the Jewish slaves in order to free them. All Jews in Ukraine knew this very well. Therefore, in critical situations, in order to escape death at the Cossack's hands, the Jews voluntarily surrendered to the Tartars".3
"Hm... might be. Do you think something like that happened often then?"
"No doubt about that. I would guess that at least five thousand Jews saved their lives in this way during the Khmelnytsky's wars. Accordingly, I would say that of the twenty-five thousand Jews who perished in Ukraine during the Khmelnytsky's wars ten thousand fell victim to the Polish massacres, and five thousand were captured by Tartars.
To the account of Ukrainians and Khmelnytsky was left a total of ten thousand Jews. Not half-a-million, but ten thousand. Over three hundred thousand Ukrainians perished then".
The rabbi lost countenance.
"But, nevertheless, that brutality, the killing of women, children... And the fact that the killing was accompanied by barbarous tortures".
"That's according to the Jewish sources. As you know, there are many memories about all those events written by the Polish contemporaries. None have any good words for Ukrainians, especially for Khmelnytsky. And yet, not one of the Polish contemporaries reports about any barbarous tortures of Jews by Cossacks. Does this not puzzle you an unbiased historian?"
"Why, then does Hannover report all this so vividly?"
"Even here, Rabbi Hannover exaggerated; that is, he simply attributed to Ukrainians that which he read in the Pentateuch about what the Jews did at the time. Incidentally, I have excerpts on this from the Pentateuch, The Five Books of Moses, so for recollection's sake allow me to read them".
The rabbi nodded his head as a sign of consent and I read:
"PENTATEUCH". Book of Numbers.
Chapter 31. Extermination of the Medianites. (1) The Lord said to Moses, (2) "Avenge the Israelites on Medianites... (7) They waged war against the Medianites, as the Lord had commanded Moses, and killed every male among them. (8) Besides those killed in battle, they also killed the five Medianite kings... (9) But the Israelites kept the women of the Medianites with their little ones as captives, and all their herds and flocks and wealth as spoil, (10) while they set on fire all the towns where they had settled and all their encampments... (14) Moses became angry with the officers of the army, the clan and company commanders, who were returning from combat... (17) 'Slay every male child and every woman who has had intercourse with a man. (18) But you may spare and keep for yourselves all girls who had no intercourse with a man.'
The Book of Deuteronomy
Chapter 2. (32) So Sehon and all his people advanced against us to join battle at Jahas, (33) but since the Lord, our God, had delivered him to us, we defeated him and his sons and all his people. (34) At the time we seized all his cities and doomed them all, with their men, women and children; we left no survivor.
Chapter 3. Defeat of Og. (3) And thus the Lord, our God, delivered into our hands Og, King of Basan, with all his people. We defeated him so completely that we left him no survivor. (4) At that time we captured all his cities... (6) As we had done to Sehon, King of Hesebon, so also here we doomed all the cities, with their men, women and children; (7) but all the livestock and the loot of each city we took as booty for ourselves.
Chapter 7. (2) And when the Lord, your God, delivers them up to you and you defeat them, you shall doom them. Make no covenants with them and show them no mercy. You shall not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to their sons, nor taking their daughters for your sons.
The Book of Josue
Chapter 6. (2) And to Josue the Lord said, 'I have delivered Jericho and its kings into your power'... (20) The wall collapsed, and the people stormed the city in a frontal attack and took it. (21) They observed the ban by putting to the sword all living creatures in the city; men and women, young and old, as well as oxen, sheep and asses.
Chapter 8. Capture of Hai. (24) All the inhabitants of Hai who had pursued the Israelites into the desert were slain by the sword there in the open down to the last man. Then all Israel returned and put to the sword those inside the city. There fell that day a total of twelve thousand men and women, the entire population of Hai... (29) He had the king of Hai hanged on a tree until evening.
Chapter 10. (22) Then Josue said: 'Open the mouth of the cave and bring those five kings to me.' (24) When they had done so, Josue summoned all the men of Israel and said to the commanders of the soldiers who had marched with him, 'Come forward and put your feet on their necks.' (26) Thereupon Josue struck and killed them, and hanged them on five trees, where they remained hanging until evening.
Chapter 11. (10) At the time Josue, turning back, captured Hasor and slew its king with the sword; for Hasor formerly was the chief of all those kingdoms. (11) He also fullfilled the doom by putting every person there to the sword, till none was left alive".
"Rabbi! Is that written in the Pentateuch? Here on your shelf is the original in the Hebrew language; we can check immediately - maybe something is improperly translated".
"I'm not denying it. So it is written in our books".
"You see, then. Everything that Israel did to the Medianites and other inhabitants of ancient Palestine was attributed by Rabbi Hannover, the Jewish chronicler of Khmelnytsky's times, to Ukrainians and Khmelnytsky. If Moses or his successor Josue were in the Ukrainians' place, they would probably have done the same with the Jews in Ukraine that Israel did at their command to the Medianites, Philistines and others. But in reality, Khmelnytsky didn't give such commands, didn't refer to the Jehovah's orders, and Ukrainians didn't do such things, because the Ukrainian' Jehovah' is merciful, man-loving, and not as bloodthirsty as the Jewish one, who regards only the Jews as his children and demands that others be destroyed without mercy - even the old, women and children".
"So, according to you, the Chronicler Rabbi Hannover made things up and exaggerated?" Rabbi Kahana wondered thoughtfully.
"Absolutely. You'll come to this conclusion yourself, when you critically analyze everything he wrote - not as a rabbi but as a doctor of historical studies - and confront this with other sources and facts. To put it nicely, the Jewish chronicler of Khmelnytsky's times, Rabbi Hannover, wrote in the biblical style, the style of the Pentateuch. Allow me one illustration as to the trustworthiness of Hannover's testimony. In your literature, there is a very popular tale of Hannover's about the heroism of the young Jewess from Nemirov. He wrote that in the time of Khmelnytsky a Cossack wanted to marry a beautiful Jewess. She told him she was willing but she wanted the marriage to take place in a church behind the bridge where she used to walk as a child. The Cossack agreed, and when they were riding there past the bridge, the Jewess jumped in her bridal dress into the river and drowned, so as not to become a Christian.
"Oh, yes, I know the story! Are you questioning the authenticity of the reported fact?"
"Rabbi, please take a map and see if there was ever any kind of river by Nemirov. It is ten miles to the Boh river, a day's ride by wagon on which wedding guests always rode in Ukraine. Hannover, you see, knew the then very popular Cossack 'Duma' (Ballad) about the church warden's daughter from Nemirov, Tytarivna-Nemyrivna, who, when courted by a Polish nobleman, 'turned her white little hand and gave it to him in the mug' and fled on her horse. When the Polish "pan" with his henchmen caught up with her by the river, she jumped into the water and drowned. Your Hannover redid this ballad and replaced the Ukrainian girl, daughter of a church warden from Nemirov, with a Jewess. The same way that the ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Assyrian legends and tales were redone in the books of Moses, the Pentateuch, into 'facts of Jewish history'".4
"So, your're probably going to say that Khmelnytsky didn't kill one Jew?"
"I think that Khmelnytsky actually did not kill a single Jew. I've already said, that in the wake of the bloody battles during Khmelnytsky's times, in addition to around three hundred thousand Ukrainians and approximately the same number of Poles, ten thousand Jews also died in Ukraine. No one of the objective witnesses attested to the Cossack's sadism. Only the Poles gained renown for sadism that - so wrote Polish historians - overtook even the sadism of the American Indians. They impaled rebels, who died in terrible agonies for hours. Of the Cossack officers, only Colonel Kryvonis, of Scottish descent, ordered the impaling of Polish gentlemen. Cossacks shot their enemies, chopped them with swords or pierced them with lances and spikes".
"And from where, then come all these descriptions of the Cossacks' terrible persecution of Jews: the gouging-out of eyes, disembowelment of pregnant Jewish women, throwing Jewish infants to the dogs, which the historian Rabbi Hannover mentioned so often?"
"All this is a figment of his imagination. Scared to death that the Cossacks might catch him, he imagined what could happen if they did. Before his eyes all those wrongs, done by the Jews to Ukrainian serfs, all the contempt, humiliation and dishonors that the Jews poured on Ukrainian serfs - became a method of retribution. As you know, Jews are very vengeful and savage. Even their 'kosher' slaying of calves, which Jews witness from childhood, is so savage! So Rabbi Hannover imagined what he, Hannover would have done, to the Jews, if he were a Ukrainian serf who had an opportunity for revenge. In his fantasies he saw his victims symbolically as the kosher-slain calves and he attributed the results of these fantasies to the Ukrainian Cossacks and rebels and wrote them down in his chronicles as facts".5
The rabbi leaned nervously on the edge of his chair and was silent.
"Well"', he said after a while, "maybe they didn't persecute them, only chopped them with swords. But they did hack all Jews!"
"No, Rabbi, not all. Only those who deserved punishment, for vengeance, or who fought with the Poles against the Cossacks. Do you know, Rabbi, who was Khmelnytsky's minister of finance?"
"Hertzik. Did you ever hear that surname? Isn't it a Ukrainianized version of 'Herzog'?"
"I assume you'll say he was a Jew?"
"I won't say it. It was his father and mother who told him repeatedly that he's Jewish because they were both full-blooded Jews. His ancestors were wealthy merchants in that part of Wallachia that was then settled by Ukrainians. Even before the uprising he became familiar with Khmelnytsky and conducted a 'business' with him. Then, when the uprising began, Herzog became the financial consultant to Khlnelnytsky and oversaw the buying of weapons in Wallachia, Moldavia, Hungary and Germany, and soon became Khmelnytsky's Minister of Finance, Ukrainianizing his surname to Hertsik. Another was Samuel, Son of Mark, who joined the Ukrainian insurgents of Chmelnytsky as Samiylo Markovich. His son was a Cossack colonel".
"So what does this mean?"
"It means that, first, there was no major destruction of Jews in Khmelnytsky's times. Hertsik and Markovich were both full-blooded Jews. But as good, honest merchants, they did no wrong to the Ukrainians, didn't suck the blood of the common man. So nobody murdered them; on the contrary, Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks accepted them into their group. Secondly, if Khmelnytsky had, indeed, murdered Jews, would Hertsik and Markovich, upon seeing this, have faithfully continued to serve Khmelnytsky? Wouldn't they have taken advantage of the first journey for merchant affairs to Wallachia in order not to return to Ukraine? Yet they never did this".
"Even so, if only ten thousand Jews were annihilated, it's terrible; they were also women, children..."
"Rabbi, every war is horrible and savage. What do you, the Israelis, do today not in wartime, but in times of peace? How many of your 'retributory actions' against the Arabs kill defenseless women and children? In one bombing of Iraq three hundred defenseless women and children were killed".6
"But we must defend ourselves, avenge ourselves".
"Avenge yourselves for what, Rabbi? Did those women and children that you killed in 'retributory actions' do any wrong?"
"They, themselves - no - but the Arabs in general. Everyone must pay for it".
"Therefore, it's 'a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye', no?"
"If someone has wronged the Jews, then, yes. Jehovah ordered vengeance for wrongs done to the children of God".
"So it is said in that excerpt from the Pentateuch which I read to you. You know, Rabbi, it was precisely from this book, and not Christian decrees, that Eichmann's plan was born, to utterly destroy all Jews. Eichmann carefully studied your Torah and Talmud and other books; he read how Jehovah told Moses to destroy completely, so that no one would be left alive - Medianites and whoever else lived then in Palestine and he came to a blasphemous conclusion: 'Now Jehovah has told me that Jews are guilty before me and must be destroyed to the last one. ' Here is the core of the 'Holocaust' ".
"So we, the Jews, are guilty of the Holocaust?"
"Rabbi, the problems of Jewish-German dealings is a separate theme, which I don't wish to discuss here. I only wanted to opportunely straighten out your affirmation, fondly repeated in Jewish publicistic and scientific works, that the Christian Church - Catholic and Protestant - engendered anti-Semitism and provoked the Hitlerite ideology of Jewish destruction. This is why I told you, that it was exactly from the Pentateuch, The Books of Moses, where Jehovah commands the annihilation of other nations, that Eichmann's plan was created to turn this 'Jehovah's command' against the Jews. Let's return to our question of Ukrainian-Jewish relations".
"You're saying, that we, the Jews, are guilty of our persecution and destruction by Ukrainians?"
"That they persecuted you is a fantasy of propaganda. That you, yourselves, are at fault - yes. In Ukrainian it is said, 'The pig tears the sack; and squeals while tearing it.' In Jewish, it is called 'chutzpah'. Obviously, you know the meaning of this Jewish word".
"A rabbi explained this word to me: if someone kills his father and mother and pleads mercy before the jury because he's an orphan, then he's got 'chutzpah' to say something like that. Therefore, if the Jews call Ukrainians 'traditional anti-Semites', and blame them for terrible wrong-doings to the Jews, then this is that special nerve for saying these things, which in Jewish you call 'chutzpah'.
"How so?"
"First of all, remember that Ukrainians didn't come to Israel and wrong you there, but Jews came to Ukraine. When you're in an other's house, you must behave in such a way that will earn you the respect and love of the hosts".
"What did we ever do to the Ukrainians? Ukrainians always beat us..."
"A Ukrainian proverb says: 'The boy complained that he was beaten but did not say why he was beaten.' We will talk candidly about the 'why'. You're a doctor of historical research; you're familiar with the history of Ukraine, right?"
"Yes, I am".
"So you know that the history of Jewish-Ukrainian relations does not begin with Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks. Already when our Scythian ancestors were changing their name to 'Rus', a nation of Khazars existed by the Caspian Sea, of which the leading stratum was Jewish".
"Oh, no, they weren't Jews, they were only of the Jewish faith".
"No one can verify this today. It is written that they were Jews.7 They were the scourge of our ancestors. The Khazar hordes attacked Rus and demanded that Rus pay them tribute. They enslaved the men and sold them to the Muslims and Romans; girls were sold into harems. Obvoiusly, one day the patience of these ancient Rus-Ukrainians snapped; under the leadership of King Svyatoslav they destroyed the Khazar nation of predators. Was this, according to you, the 'beginning of Ukrainian anti-Semitism'? After the destruction of the Khazar nation, the Ukrainian kings allowed the Jews to resettle from Khazaria to Ukraine and occupy themselves with trade, no?"
"Historically, yes; however, I repeat, they were not Jews".
"Why, then, are they chronicled as 'Jews'? At any rate, they eventually merged with the other Jews, who came to Ukraine from the West. Their blood became mixed, even if they weren't full-blooded Jews. Our ancestors, the 'Rus', regarded them as Jews. But did they destroy them?"
"In the chronicles it is written that there was a pogrom on the Jews in 11th century Kiev".
"Yes, something to that effect is in the chronicles, but that was the revolt of the Kievan poor against the merchants who cheated the buyers, charged high interest for loans and, thanks to this, wrong-doing and fraud".
"But these are distant times. We're not speaking of them".
"Yet they're worth mentioning, just to remind one, that on the one hand, even then the Jews plagued Ukrainians, and on the other, that Ukrainians did not seek revenge but gave the Khazar Jews shelter for over 500 years. During the entire existence of the Kievan-Rus nation, Jews had it immeasurably better than in any other medieval or ancient nation. This basically changed when the Mongolian hordes in the 13th century destroyed Rus-Ukraine and Ukraine fell into Polish enslavement".
"I am familiar with the story of the Polish King Casimir. At the urging of his mistress Esterka, a Jewish beauty, the king allowed a large migration of Jews to Poland from central and western Europe, where they were terribly persecuted, and hid in forests".
"Yes, and then the Jews - as you say - came to the Ukrainian land under Polish rule. That was the beginning. The Poles, having seized Ukraine, confiscated Ukrainian lands and turned entire Ukrainian villages into serfdom for their nobility. The Jews became the executors of the Polish lords' predatory exploitation of Ukrainians. Every lord had his own Jew - a tax collector, lease holder and money lender. A Ukrainian peasant worked for his lord from sunrise to sunset and, in addition, paid various huge taxes. The Jewish tax collector seized these taxes. To the lordly plunder he also laid an additional, ample, tax for himself. The nobleman made whiskey and allotted the amount that each peasant had to drink, because that was yet another desired method of stripping the peasants. The Jew introduced his own standards to the nobleman's: he added water to the whiskey obtained from the lord and seasoned it with tobacco. If the peasant could not pay, the Jewish money lender lent him money but took 100 percent interest. At every step he exploited mercilessly. Even Rabbi Hannover admits this in his memoirs.8
"Yes, it's true that the Polish nobility exploited Jews for such unpleasant work. But the Jews had to do this in order to live".
"They had to fleece Ukrainians for the acquisition of wealth? The Jew came to the village utterly poor, and in twenty years, he was lending thousands of thalers to the king himself?"
"Well, there were all kinds of..."
"But that's not all. The Jew-tax-collector even rented the church from the nobleman - because the Polish nobleman-predator considered the church, built by Ukrainian peasants, to be his own property. And the Jew-tax collector/money lender used the church as a means of barter. If the Ukrainian people wanted to pray in church, they had to pay the Jewish lessee to open the church. To this day, Ukrainians sing a song('hahilka') at Easter, about the Jew-tax-collector 'Here comes Zelman a 'riding, a riding' to open the church for Easter after everyone has paid. Even the Hitlerites didn't do such things with Jewish places of worship. Tell me, Rabbi, was there anything for which Ukrainians could love the Jews?"
"I'm not talking about love. We know that no one loves us".
"You know that but don't want to say why. And I haven't finished saying everything yet. The Jewish innkeepers carried out one more task. In the inn, or public-house, they eavesdropped on what the peasants or Cossacks said about the Polish oppressors and immediately informed the Polish landlord. If the lord decided that a given peasant or Cossack was an 'insurgent' on the basis of such information, then the lordly henchmen seized him, tortured him and impaled him, so that he would die in terrible agony before the eyes of an assemblage of peasants, to their intimidation. Often, the Jewish lessee-taxholder would inform the lord that a certain peasant was a 'rebel' if that peasant had failed to bow properly to the Jew or had dared to say something that contradicted the Jew-taxcollector. The nobleman punished savagely, whether someone was guilty or not, as 'an example' - as the Poles said - that is, to terrorize all the peasants".
The rabbi started. "Well, there could have been such Jews..."
"You can say that as a rabbi. But as a historian, a doctor of historical studies, you must say: 'Perhaps there was Jews who didn't do this.' Because these terrible sores had to be borne by the Ukrainian peasants, bound in serfdom to the Polish "aristocracy" in every village throughout Ukraine. This fate met even Bohdan Khmelnytsky, whom the Jews supposedly had espied conspiring with the Cossack officers to organize a new uprising. The Polish henchmen seized Khmelnytsky and imprisoned him and, if not for Colonel Krychevsky's secret assistance in the flight from prison, Khmelnytsky would have been impaled or hung. So what do you think, Rabbi: When the uprising occured, should Khmelnytsky have rewarded the Jews with gold medals for all this, and the peasants had to reward the Jews with gold, taken from the Polish bloodsuckers?"
"I'm not saying that. But, nonetheless, your Cossack chronicles clearly state that Khmelnytsky 'cleaned out' all Ukraine of Poles and Jews".
"Yes, except 'cleaned out' does not necessarily mean 'murdered' or 'exterminated'. When the fires of the revolution flared in Ukraine, and Khmelnytsky decimated the Polish army above the 'Zhovti Vody' and by Korsun, Poles, and with them Jews, began fleeing en masse to Poland. I believe that half the Jews fled, and later, when the Poles again seized Ukraine, they returned to where - as you say - they were perpetually beaten".
"That they were beaten is true: And what did the 'Hajdamaky' do to the Jews? Especially in the time of 'Kolyivshchyna'. How many Jews were butchered, in 1768, in Uman alone?"
"I don't understand, Rabbi, how the 'Hajdamaky' could have butchered Jews, when you, yourself, have just stated that 120 years earlier, in 1648, Khmelnytsky had slain everyone of them. Comparing the Jewish statistics of the Jews then murdered with the actual numbers of Jews then living in Ukraine, it turns out that Khmelnytsky murdered each Jew ten times over. From where did hundreds of thousands of Jews appear again in Ukraine, after Khnelnytsky?"
"You said they returned, after having fled to Poland".
"You see, Rabbi, you have understood and acknowledged that Khmelnytsky did not decimate all of the Jews. But tell me, did those who fled to Poland fare better there?"
"Fare better? Well, nobody likes the Jews, including the Poles, but they didn't destroy the Jews in Poland, like the Cossacks".
"So why did they leave beautiful, safe Poland and hustle back to anti-Semitic Ukraine, where the Cossacks, and later the 'Haidamaky', persecuted them?"
"Well, you know that the Jews like business, 'handeles', and Ukraine was better suited for this".
Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1593-1657), Hetman of Ukraine, 1648-1657.
As leader of the Ukrainian national revolution, Bohdan Khmel'nytskyj freed Ukraine from Polish occupation and created a new independent Ukrainian State. Because, in addition to some three hundred thousand Ukrainians and as many Poles, about ten thousand Jews perished in the bloody battles brought on by the revolution - either as armed soldiers in the Polish Army, or at the hands of avengers for their part in the oppression of Ukrainian serfs - the Jews hate Khmel'nytskyj with a passion. In their histories, they label him one of the worst 'pogromists' and 'anti-Semites' of the past, despite the fact that a Jew, Herzog, was his financial minister and another Jew, Markowitz (Markowycz), was an officer in the Kozak army.
"There, you see, they returned and continued doing the same things they had done until Khmelnytsky's time. They even did the same thing to one of the leaders of Kolyiwshchyna, Ivan Honta, that they had once done to Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Honta was the lieutenant of the court Cossacks of Lord Potocki. Prior to the Kolyiw insurrection, the Jews informed the Poles that they had eavesdropped on Honta, who was conspiring with the messengers of Zaliznyak to cross over with all the court Cossacks to the insurrectionists' side. Honta was arrested, tortured under interrogation and brought to the gallows to be publicly hung. Potocki dearly loved the educated Cossack lieutenant, so he personally came to investigate the matter. Honta denied the charges. At Potocki's demand Honta swore, under the gallows, that he would never betray his homeland and would fight to the death for it. Satisfied, Potocki bade Honta be freed from the gallows. Obviously, Honta outfoxed Potocki and the Jews because, while swearing loyalty to his motherland, his thoughts were on his actual homeland - Ukraine - for which he indeed died - and not for Poland, as Potocki thought. So once again the same question arises as before, with regard to Khmelnytsky and the Jews. Having seized Uman, should Honta have paid those who had done him this 'service' in gold and given an order that they not be touched, because they were the 'sons' of the chosen nation'?"
"Be that as it may, but then again the Ukrainians in Uman itself destroyed tens of thousands of defenseless Jews".
"You, Dr. Kahana, are again shifting from being a doctor of history to a doctor of Jewish religion, and are exaggerating tenfold, old-Testament style. There is quite accurate statistical data about the era of Kolyivshchyna. I personally researched and published a work on Kolyivshchyna and I advise you to read it. Polish statistics have it that on the right bank of Ukraine where Kolyivshchyna was located, there lived then over two million Ukrainians, two hundred thousand Poles and over a hundred thousand Jews. On Ukraine's entire territory there lived six million Ukrainians. Kindly explain to me logically, Rabbi: How did it come about that, from Khmelnytsky's time, when there was a total of three million Ukrainians, to the time of Kolyivshchyna, that is, after a span of 120 years' time, the number of Ukrainians merely doubled, while the number of Jews multiplied ten times - granted, that after Khmelnytsky's wars, there were indeed ten thousand Jews remaining in Ukraine?"
"Well, you know that the Jews were then fleeing from western Europe".
"Why fleeing? And why running to Ukraine? Because there, under the protection of the Polish usurpers - "aristocracy" it was most convenient to suck the blood of the defenseless Ukrainian serfs?"
"The Poles must answer for serfdom. It was the Poles who nourished such a bestial system and the unfortunate Jews had to bear the brunt of the Cossacks' and Hajdamaky's rage for this. Butchery in Uman was terrible. It is thus written in our books".
"I think, Rabbi, that the Israelites' butchery of innocent nations, under the leadership of Moses, as is written in your holy books, was even more terrible. The Jews really carved everyone up, then; it is so written. And for what? And in Uman, around five thousand Jews died along with seven thousand Poles in an all out battle of life and death, because - besides everything else - the Poles armed all the Jews, and the Jews warred against the Kolyis. When the siege of Uman began, Honta called upon all Poles and Jews to leave Ukraine and assured them that nothing would befall them during their exodus. Why didn't the Jews leave - desiring instead, along with the Poles, to decimate all the Kolyis. When a Jew killed a Ukrainian insurgent in that bloody battle, that was 'heroism'; when a Ukrainian killed a Jew, this was 'a terrible butchery of defenseless Jews', since 'what wrong did a Jew ever commit, to be thus beaten ?' "
"You say this because you don't like Jews".
"That I don't like Jews, Rabbi, is propaganda. We have to clear the atmosphere and in order to do so it's absolutely necessary that we overtly tell the truth straight to your face, and you to ours. Do you agree, Rabbi?"
"I agree, Doctor. But weren't there pogroms in Ukraine in the time of czarist Russia? Is this also only anti-Ukrainian propaganda?"
"You tell the honest truth, Rabbi, when you say it's anti-Ukrainian propaganda! But allow me to again quote a few statistics. I mentioned that, in the time of Kolyivshchyna, there were six million Ukrainians in Ukraine and about a hundred thousand Jews. A century and a half later, there were already 30 million Ukrainians, therefore, five times as many; there were over two million Jews, that is, twenty times as many as before. And this was after the Kolyis supposedly, as you say, massacred almost all of them. Is this not a miracle?"
The rabbi stroked his beard with dissatisfaction:
"Well, let's leave statistics alone. Tell me about the pogroms in Ukraine during czarist Russia".
"Everyone knows that in czarist Russia there were pogroms on the Jews. Obviously, this was in Ukraine, as the Jews were forbidden to live in Russia. Only in exceptional instances did the czar allow certain Jews to live in Moscow or Petrograd. The Jews lived in Ukraine; therefore, the pogroms were possible only there. Except for one thing: who instigated them?"
"Who instigated them, indeed! The Cossacks and civilians!"
"Rabbi! As a doctor of historical studies you must know that the Czarist 'Cossacks' had nothing in common with the real Ukrainian Cossacks, other than their name, which the sly Muscovites had willfully appropriated to compromise latter-day Ukrainian Cossacks. The Ukrainian Cossacks, 'Zaporoztsi', were Ukrainians, fighters for freedom, for the equality of all people, for the respect of human dignity. The Russian government savagely destroyed them, having ruined the 'Sitch', once at the command of Czar Peter in 1709 and a second time at the order of Czarina Catherine in 1775.
"Rather, the Czarist 'Cossacks', in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, were the czarist mounted police, assembled from all the Russian nations, with the least number of Ukrainians in it. They blindly obeyed the orders of the Russian government, and the Czar; this is why everything they did should be attributed to the Russian government and nation. The relation of Ukrainians to this is the same as was the relation of the Jews to the Roman legions and Romans in Palestine during the time of their occupation there".
"What about that which the civilians did? The pogroms on Jews in Ukraine?"
"If you ever met anyone who saw these pogroms, what did they say was the cry of the pogromists: 'Beat the Jews, save Ukraine', (uttered in Ukrainian) or 'Beat the Jews, save Russia', (uttered in Russian)?"
"Well, they said the cry was 'Bej zhydov, spassaj Rassyu' ('Beat the Jews, save 'Russia') in Russian. But that was Russia!"
"Ukraine, Rabbi, not Russia. Ukraine was enslaved. The Russian government announced that 'Ukrayiny nye bylo, nyet i byt nyemozhet!' ('Ukraine never was, is not and cannot be!') and clamped the death penalty on the Ukrainian language and culture. So the Ukrainians beat the Jews for this and shouted 'Beat Jews, save Russia', right? Had you never heard of the 'Black Hundred' of the Russian Nazis, who were pogromists in czarist times, naturally, where else but in Ukraine, with the covert support of the Russian government? Isn't it known to you, a historian, with what extreme enmity the Russian czars and the entire Russian nation regarded the Jews? I believe that you know all this very well but it's inconvenient for you to voice it because the Russians even today have an empire. This is why you selected the Ukrainians as scapegoats, in order to credit all this, and the pogroms, to them, since nobody will rise in defense of the Ukrainians - and the Ukrainians themselves are defenseless today".
"I'm not referring to Ukrainian pogroms on the Jews for the purpose of conducting anti-Ukrainian propaganda. I'm referring to facts. At least, as they are written in history by historians".
"No, Rabbi. You're not controlling your reproaches toward the Ukrainians - even with those facts which are presented by your Jewish historians".
"For example?"
"For example, even that which is given by your distinguished Jewish historian, Semion Dubnov. Of him I will speak separately, but first about what Dubnov states regarding the pogroms in czarist Russia. Describing the pogroms on the Jews in Russia in 1905, Dubnov clearly states - and reiterates - that all the pogroms were organized and led by a Russian Nazi organization which was called the 'Black Hundred', and that for this purpose the 'Black Hundred' especially transported 'katsaps', from Russia to Ukraine".
"'Katsaps'?" the Rabbi wondered.
"Yes, precisely - 'katsaps'. You must have Dubnov's work, 'The History of Jews in Russia and Poland' in the Russian, German or English language. Please take it and carefully read the chapter on the Revolution in 1905. Therein Dubnov stresses that, for the pogroms on Jews in Zhytomyr, Troyaniv and other Ukrainian cities, the pogromists - Russian patriots - brought in the 'katsaps', that is, Great Russian workers. Dubnov cites the testimony of a Jew who survived a pogrom in Zhytomyr, in which over ten Jews were killed, and this witness also constantly affirms that the 'katsaps' massacred Jews. And everyone knows that Ukrainians called Russians 'katsaps' and Russians called Ukrainians 'khakhly'. Not one of the witnesses, not even Dubnov himself, ever once mentioned that the Ukrainians (or, as they were called 'khakhly' or 'mahlorossy' (Little Russians), instigated any pogroms on the Jews".
"And how do you come to know Dubnov's work so well?", wondered the rabbi, astonished.
'I mentioned that in my memoirs about Auschwitz. At the time when I, a prisoner, worked there in the laundry, one of the Jews brought all three volumes of Dubnov's work in the German language. During the night shift I carefully read the entire work. Recently, when Judeo-Nazis had begun an assault on the Ukrainians, reviling them as anti-Semites, I once again reviewed Dubnov in the English translation. That self-taught person does not have an inkling of the history of the Ukrainian nation, and at every mention of the Ukrainians refers to them insultingly, as about half-savage Africans. Yet never once does he blame them for the pogroms. On the contrary, time after time he blames the Russian (or Great Russian, as he calls it) government for anti-Semitism and the organization of pogroms, as well as the Russian intelligentsia and the entire Russian nation. He states that the Russians organized similar pogroms in Belorussia, Lithuania and Poland (then under Russian occupation)".
"It's possible that during czarism, pogroms in Ukraine weren't made by Ukrainians but by the czarist mounted police, called 'Cossacks' and the Russian Nazis, the 'Black Hundred.' But Petlura was the Ukrainian commander-in-chief and all the army units which he commanded were also composed of Ukrainians only. Is this not true? What about his and his detachments' terrible pogroms on the Jews in 1917-1920?"
"You, Rabbi, have formulated the truth inaccurately. You should have phrased it thus: 'What sort of horrible pogroms did the Jews expect at that time from Petlura and the Ukrainians?"
The rabbi startled nervously.
"What do you mean, 'did expect'? What are you trying to say?"
"The same thing I was saying about other eras: how did the Jews conduct themselves toward Ukrainians in this era of our history? A contemporary Jewish historian, M. Franklin, in his recent work, 'The Nationalist Freedom Movement in Russia during the February Revolution of 1917', - excerpts of which appeared in the Ukrainian periodical 'Sutchasnist' ('The Present (Times)') - testifies, with documentary support, as to the attitude of Jewish-Communists toward Ukraine's demand for freedom. I have, here with me, that edition of 'Sutchasnist': 'Pyatakov, Horowitz, Obolyensky, Bosch and others (Jews) took a 'Great Powers' position. As a political argument against a Ukrainian national freedom movement, they advanced the notion that Russia could not exist without the Ukrainian sugar industry, coal and wheat.' They 'fatly opposed Ukraine's separation'. Living in Ukraine, off the Ukrainian people, the Jews were already on the eve of the revolution firmly opposed to Ukraine's independence thereby strengthening the Russian imperialists in the Communist party".
"Eh, all sorts of things were babbled there..."
"No, not just babbled. Already in the first days of the revolution, the Jewess Eugenia Bosch led a bolshevized regiment of Russians on Kiev! Ukrainian General Skoropadsky disarmed that regiment, steered the Russians back to their Russia and did not shoot Eugenia Bosch, as he should have done, but set her free. And she? She went to Kiev, organized a red Russian-Jewish detachment there and, when the Ukrainian Supreme Council 'Tsentralna Rada', proclaimed Ukraine's independence through the Fourth Universal Declaration of Independence, that detachment revolted, seized the arsenal, and if not for Colonel Eugene Konowaletz and his 'Sitchovi Striltsi' (musketeers), furthermore, the restoration of Ukrainian independence would have been drowned in a sea of blood at the hands of the bolsheviks. The war of bolshevik Russia against Ukraine was begun by the 'National Commissioner of War, Leo Trotsky' - the Jew Leyba Bronstein".
All the while, we had been touching upon 'controversial' questions and Dr. Kahana nervously kneaded his beard from time to time. Now he became particularly agitated, arising, interrupting me, passionately contradicting.
"These are all anti-Jewish fabrications. Actually, all this was caused by the Russians and the Ukrainians themselves. Ukrainians themselves wanted Communism and they themselves liquidated the Ukrainian National Republic. The Jews took no part in it!"
"Can you name those Ukrainian leaders? I mentioned Jews: Pyatakov, Horowitz, Eugenia Bosch, Bronstein-Trotsky, further: the Kaganowiches, Zinovyev-Apfelbaum, Kamyenyev-Rosenfeld, Litvinov and hundreds of commissars. But who were the Ukrainians?"
"I cannot recall their surnames - I forgot".
"No, Rabbi, you didn't forget: you never even heard them. So don't try to recall what never was. Every detachment of bolsheviks in Ukraine was steered by a 'politruk', ('political instructor' - the real commander), almost always a Jew. The commissars of the militia, particularly of the bloody G.P.U. in Ukraine, were mainly Jews. These 'political instructors', or 'politruks', led the wars against the Ukrainian army and the commissars of the G.P.U. tortured and shot wounded Ukrainian soldiers who had fallen into captivity; they conducted massacres of the civilian Ukrainian population".
"I've heard all this - the Ukrainians all talk like that - but it's anti-Jewish propaganda".
"No, Rabbi, it's the bitter truth. Jews willingly became the bulwark of the red Russian occupation of Ukraine, the bloody bolshevik terrorism. And very often they also became the organizers: overt and covert leaders".
"These are hollow accusations. Stick to facts!"
"Very well, Rabbi! Here's one horrendous example from those tragic times, as incontestable proof. In the history of the emancipatory competition of the Ukrainian nation in 1917-23, these events are called 'Zymovyj Pokhid ('Winter Crusade'). Let us recall: In the beginning of November, 1921, twelve squadrons of U.N.R. soldiers broke through the Polish-Bolshevik cordon in the region of Korosten, in order to unite with the 'Povstantsi'(insurgents) for the purpose of driving out the Russian bolshevik hordes from Ukraine. But the red hordes, having the superior advantage, completely devastated the Ukrainian troops in heavy battle. Approximately 500 soldiers of the Ukrainian army were captured. In civilized nations, prisoners of war rely on protection in accordance with international laws. But not with the blood-thirsty bolsheviks. All their Ukrainian prisoners were turned over for interrogation under the bestial torturing of the inglorious Cheka. They were questioned and condemed to death by the Cheka fivesome - comprised of whom? - one Russian and four Jews. Understandably, I don't remember their names but, upon my return home to the United States, I will research them in documents and send them to you.9 The verdict: Turn over approximately forty commissioned officers for further questioning and condemn to death 359 fighters who survived the interrogations. They were ordered to dig their own communal grave outside the small village of Bazar, and then were mowed down by a firing squad. The tragic destruction at Bazar of 359 Ukrainian fighters is known to every Ukrainian, as their memory is honored every year. This barbarian crime against the Ukrainians fighting for the right to be free on their own soil is added to Red Moscow's tally. But documents affirm that, of the six wartime criminals - members of the dreadful Cheka Commission - five, including the president - were Jews!"
"That Cheka was Russian. It wasn't Jewish. When a Jew became a member of the Cheka, he ceased to be a Jew. He became Russian".
"But when such a 'Russian', a Cheka executioner who murdered Ukrainian patriots, was condemned to death by the Ukrainians, then this, according to you, was 'anti-Semitism' and 'pogroms on the Jews.'"
The Rabbi nervously tugged at his beard.
"You're probably going to say, then that even Lenin was Jewish".
"No, he was half-Jewish: a Russian father and a Jewish mother. And Marx, Engels, Rosa Luxemburg: you won't deny, Rabbi, that they were one hundred percent Jewish".
"Oi! What kind of Jews are they: that they were born Jews? They renounced their Jewishness!"
"'Then may they burn!' as our Poltavtsi say. Let us return to our topic. Here, Rabbi, is the reality of that revolutionary time: the blood-stained commissars were Jews; the G.P.U. executioners - Jews; the commanders of the Red Militia - Jews; 'politruks' - Jews. Upon the entrance of Ukrainian military, or insurgent detachments into Ukrainian towns, Jews with red armbands would shoot at them from windows. Is it any wonder that Ukrainian fighters, enraged beyond endurance, saw to it that not only the armbands of those 'militiamen' were red, but their entire heads became red? And this retribution against these Russian bolshevik regiments you' call pogroms on Jews? Why don't you admit, Rabbi, that these were Jewish-Russian pogroms on Ukrainians, on Ukrainian soil?"
"Well, I wasn't there - I didn't see any of it".
"So don't repeat unfounded accusations, after those who turn the truth inside out, that the Ukrainian anti-Semites instigated pogroms on the Jews. Ask any ordinary Ukrainians, from any part of eastern or central Ukraine, who lived there at the time, and everyone of them will re-affirm the same thing, that the Jews mocked them by saying: 'Now we have all of you in a sack and we'll tie you up so that you won't even be able to squeak!' And tie us up they did!..."
"I simply can't believe any of this! All of this Ukrainians did themselves! Perhaps a few Jews were mixed up in it somewhere..."
"No - there were a few respectable ones: a group of intelligentsia who cooperated with Ukrainians. And this group was enough for Ukrainians to give Jews in Ukraine a broad personal autonomy, which the Jews have never had beyond Ukraine; they were accepted into the government of an independent Ukraine two as Ukrainian citizens, and one was selected as a special representative of the Jews. You, the Jews, don't even have this in America, even though you say that the United States is a Jewish colony".
"It's true that Jews were ministers in Ukraine's government, that there was a special Jewish representative and personal autonomy for Jews in the U.N.R.'s constitution, that there were Jewish signatures on U.N.R. money; but there were also pogroms in Petlura's time. Who was behind them?"
"The same ones who were behind it during czarism: Denikin's army. Earlier, the Russian 'Black Hundred' members, with their cry of 'Bej zhydov, spassaj Rassiyu!' (Beat the Jews, Save Russia), did indeed merely beat Jews, but in the uniforms of Denikin's czarist-Russian army they beat them to death, and robbed them. How could the U.N.R. government have conducted pogroms on the Jews when the very head of that government - Vynnychenko - was married to a Jewess? Who ravaged her: Petlura or Vynnychenko himself?
Chief Otaman Simon Petlura (1880-1926)
Simeon (Simon) Petlura is the victim of a double murder. The first was physical, in that he was shot to death in Paris by a Bolshevik agent, the Jew Szwartzbart, who supposedly acted in the role of avenger for "crimes against the Jewish people". The second is murder by defamation, since till this very day the Jews besmirch Petlura as a "bloody murderer of Jews". And yet, there is no concrete evidence that Petlura participated in, directed or instigated any pogroms against the Jews. On the contrary, as Supreme Commander of me Ukrainian Armed Forces, he issued a special directive to all soldiers of the Ukrainian National Republic, ordering them to refrain from any pogroms and to avoid provocations to pogroms against Jews. What is more, he was responsible for the adoption of a clause into the Ukrainian Constitution, granting widespread autonomy to the Jewish minority of Ukraine - something Jews enjoyed nowhere else in the world.
"So you're saying that between 1918 and 1920 there were no pogroms on the Jews in Ukraine?"
"I said no such thing and am not saying it. I only clearly confirmed the fact of Jewish pogroms, widely and systematically led by units of the 'white' Russian army of Gen. Denikin. There were also other pogroms. That was a war of life and death among three main powers: the Ukrainian National Republic, bolshevik Moscow and White Russian followers of Denikin; and in addition, various kinds of outlaw military groups. The only point being: when Ukrainians fell in battle as victims, then they were 'sacrifices of war'. The sacrificed Russian bolsheviks and 'Denikinians' were also described thus. But when Jews perished, this was a 'Jewish pogrom', attributed, obviously, to the Ukrainians, regardless of who actually caused their death in the particular circumstance, and however they may have died. It was absolutely vital for bolshevik propaganda to disgrace and discredit the Ukrainians and Petlura, therefore - to drumbeats - the bolsheviks spread the ignominy: 'Ukrainians are anti-Semites, pogromists! Petlura is anti-Semitic and a pogromist! The same was done by the White Russian Nazis, the Denikinians, even though they knew quite well that they themselves were those anti-Semites who led pogroms in Ukraine. The Jews, as I've already told you, were engaged en masse on the side of the red Russian imperialists, and were - and continue to be - the loudest chanters of the deceitful chant, that the Ukrainians and Petlura likewise are anti-Semites, pogromists. This anti-Ukrainian work in the service of red Russia was sealed by the Jews with the murder of Simon Petlura, who was killed by the Jew-Communist Schwarzbart, thus throwing an uneradicated brand of infamy on the Jews".
"You're talking like a prosecutor who is blaming the Jews in the dock [of the defendants]".
"Well, something within me states that the one who accuses someone must reveal the entire truth, no matter how unpleasant it is for the accused. And you constantly have the rabbi in you responding, who believes that only Jews are the chosen people, the children of God, therefore innocent, never having caused anyone any harm. Instead, all 'goyem', particularly Ukrainians, are anti-Semites who all their lives have thought only about how to persecute the innocent, defenseless 'God's children'. Even when a Jew was choking a Ukrainian villager, sucking his blood as a nobleman's tax collector, or innkeeper, or torturing him in the basements of the Cheka, G.P.U., N.K.V.D., K.G.B., or as a bolshevik commissar - this was alright, honorable and just, in accordance with the commands of your Jehovah. And yet when that Ukrainian defended himself, then this was already criminal 'anti-Semitic' and a 'pogrom on the innocent, defenseless Jews'. But returning to history and facts: what was further happening in Ukraine?"
"What was happening? Weren't Jews, naturally, everywhere?"
"You see, the new name of the Russian empire became 'U.S.S.R.' [SSSR in Russian] after the revolution. Are you aware of how the 'goyem' within the empire read that?: 'Three Sruls10 and one Russian.' And why? A week before I traveled to Israel, I was one of the defense witnesses in the trial of a Ukrainian in Florida, whom the Jewish 'Holy Inquisition' had selected for themselves as a victim. There, in the witness stand I directed the jury's attention to a book, The Rulers oj Russia, by Rev. Denis Fahey. The author is a university professor of theology and history. I have this book with me. Look! On pages 9 to 12 there is a name-by-name list of the First Council of National Commissars and their respective nationalities: three Russians, one Georgian, one Armenian and seventeen Jews. A list of names of the First Central Executive Committee and respective nationalities: 5 Russians, 6 Latvians, 1 German, 2 Armenians, 1 Czechoslovakian, 1 Ukrainian (Suryupa) and 41 Jews. Central Command of Cheka: 1 Pole, 1 German, 1 Armenian, 2 Russians, 8 Latvians and 23 Jews. Here on page 36 is a list of U.S.S.R. Ambassadors: 3 Russians and 13 Jew". And so on throughout the entire book: facts, names..."
"No, no, no! That is all anti-Semitic propaganda! There were no Jews in the government of the U.S.S.R.! Jews were victims of the Bolshevik Russian anti-Semitism. Everyone who insists to the contrary is a criminal anti-Semite!"
"Rabbi, did you read Solzhenitsyn's THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO? I am positive you did, since the work is presently extremely popular. Do you think that Solzhenitsyn is an anti-Semite too?"
"No, I wouldn't say that. But why?"
"Because Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, in his THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO, v. 2, presents on one page pictures of six men who created the system of the Soviet concentration camps cailed "The Gulags", invented for destruction of prisoners, and their names indicating very clearly that all six were - Jews.11 Would you deny that the chief of the bloody GPU, commissar Genrich Yagoda, was a Jew? And his successor Yezhov? And Lavrentiy Beria.?"
"It's propaganda! It's all anti-Semitic propaganda! There is an abundance of this type of anti-Semitic literature. And you are repeating it on the basis that some Jews served in the Soviet administration, thus blaming all Jews in the formation of bolshevik rule in Ukraine! That's anti-Semitism!"
"Rabbi! Why do you brand every word of truth which is unpleasant to you with 'anti-Semitism'? At the very beginning of our dialogue, I told you that I desire harmonious collaboration between Ukrainians and Jews, but collaboration based not on our acceptance of your unsubstantiated blame for the 'traditional anti-Semitism of Ukrainians', the pogroms during the time of Khmelnytsky, the 'hajdamaky', Petlura, the Second World War - but on the peaceful clarification of historical truth. Every Ukrainian manifestation which you call a 'pogrom', was only a reaction to the Jews' own deeds in Ukraine. You'd like Ukrainians to forever remain submissive rabbits on which Jews can experiment. For every action there is a reaction, correct? Every wrong action must result in a reaction painful to the one who performed such an action. You, the Jews, must have the courage to admit your guilt toward Ukrainians, and also admit that there was no 'a priori' Ukrainian anti-Semitism; that in the period of the Ukrainian people's bloody settlement with Polish oppressors during the time of Khmelnytsky and the 'Hajdamaky' a considerable number of Jews died at the hands of Ukrainians, because of their actions in the service of the Polish predators, - a merciless economic stranglehold, their mockery of religion, their role as informers. They enraged Ukrainians to the utmost limit. At the time of the revolution and the Ukrainian-Russian war between 1918-20, many Jews also died, not because they were Jews, but because they fought as Communists in the Russian empire's service, against Ukraine's independence. Never in history did the Ukrainians do to the Jews what the Jews did in 1948 to the Arabs in Deir Jassin.12 Yes, Rabbi, there, in Deir Jassin, it was a real sadistic pogrom on innocent, defenseless people!"
"Beat your own chests, because we've no cause to beat ours! It's your religion that teaches 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!' Do you take this to mean that only a Jew must take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and a Ukrainian - upon having his eye taken by a Jew - must smile happily and say, 'Sir, Jew, I still have another eye, take that one out also?' Why are you so angered at the facts of truth?"
"Well, because the Ukrainians indeed do not like the Jews and persecute them. Tell the truth, about how it was in Poland - in Eastern 'Little Poland' - between the First and Second Wars? You remember as well as I do. Didn't the Ukrainian nationalists lead a campaign against Jews, so that Ukrainians would not buy anything from the Jews? And in Ukrainian villages - didn't the villagers, under the influence of this anti-Semitic propaganda, chase the Jews from the villages, and burn Jewish houses?"
"The question you have broached is worth a calm analysis, because it is a means of plainly viewing what the Jews meant by 'Ukrainian anti-Semitism'. But first, a more accurate definition: speaking of the 'Malopolska Vschodnya' ('Little Poland') and the 'Polske Zemye Vschodnye' ('Polish Eastern Land') you, Rabbi, have the Western Ukrainian land in mind, right?"
"Yes. Presently it's called, 'Western Ukraine', because it's a part of the U.S.S.R., but then it was called 'Malopolska Vschodnya'. But is this important?"
"Oh, very important, because it characterizes the attitude of Jews toward Ukrainians. As a historian, you know that Galitsya and Volyn, together with Polissya, were a part of Ukraine from time immemorial. In the middle of the 14th century, the Poles seized Galitsya, and then the rest of Ukraine, laid waste by the Mongols. But, however they may have called this territory and its inhabitants, it didn't alter the fact that it was still Ukraine, and it's legal owner was the Ukrainian nation. After the first World War, the Poles again seized western Ukraine and named it 'Malopolska Vschodnya', and its inhabitants, 'Rusini'. We - Ukrainians - the rightful owners of this land, explained that it wasn't 'Malo-Polska' as much as it was 'Vtsalye-nye-Polska' ('Not-at-all Poland'), because it was western Ukraine. All that time there was heavy battling of the Ukrainian nation against Polish occupancy. Whose side were you on - you, the Jews, who lived on that Ukrainian soil, and off the Ukrainian people? You, the Jews, became the bulwark - as once before - of the Polish occupancy. You are always on the side of those who have power. This is the reason why the indigenous, enslaved population did not like you".
"Jews didn't meddle in the politics of Polish government. They busied themselves with mercantile affairs, conducted 'handeles' - that is, in English, 'business' - and thus made their living. What's wrong with that? Is anyone in America against businessmen ?"
"Clearly not - although mainly when they're honest businessmen".
"So why, then, were Ukrainians against Jewish businessmen? Why were they always urging 'Don't buy from a Jew' - if not because they were born anti-Semites?"
"It's hard for me to believe, Rabbi, that you, an intelligent person, didn't understand what was happening in the Ukrainian lands under Poland, and between the first and second World Wars; that you didn't observe that the rebirth of the Ukrainian nation absorbed all aspects of life, therefore, it absorbed that of trade. As you know, up until that time, trade in Poland - thereby including the Ukrainian land occupied by Poland - was almost entirely in the hands of Jews. Why, then, couldn't trade (businesses) be taken over by the indigenous Ukrainian people on Ukrainian soil? All the more since many Ukrainians completed higher education, and the Poles would not permit them to enter professional work. What were they supposed to do: carry water for the Jews? They took to business. They organized Ukrainian cooperatives. The holy obligation of every Ukrainian person was to support his merchants, his brothers, his children. This is why the Ukrainian cry was: 'Sviy doh svoho poh svoye!' ('Each to his own for his own'). So what does anti-Semitism have to do with that?"
"What indeed! If a Ukrainian went to his own Ukrainian merchant or Ukrainian cooperatives - then he did not go to the Jewish merchant. He consciously boycotted the Jewish merchant because he was told, 'Don't go to a Jew?'"
"Yes, clearly, 'Idy [eedyh] doh svoho' ('go to your own') means 'Ne idy doh tchuzhoho' ('don't go to a stranger'). And because all the 'strangers' were Jews, it became a slogan, 'Don't go to a Jew!' Only, not because he was a Jew, but because he was foreign, and one must support one's own. Therefore, had these been Chinese merchants in some village or town, then they would have said, 'Don't go to the Chinaman, but to your own!' Would this have been 'anti-Chinese'? Rabbi: if you are carrying bread to your chickens, which a strange dog is eyeing very greedily, and if you throw that bread to your chickens instead of giving it to the stray dog, does this mean that you're 'anti-canine', that you hate dogs? You, the Jews, drive your attacking notions of 'anti-Semite', 'anti-Semitism' to the bounds of absurdity".
"But didn't you drive the Jews from the villages of Galitsya? Didn't you burn their houses?"
"No! It was the Jewish tavern keepers who fled from Ukrainian villages. These taverns (korshmas) were a curse to the Ukrainian villager. The tavern turned an honest, hard-working person into a drunkard, and drained him of his blood. Wives and children went hungry, they lacked even a piece of bread, because the alcoholic villager brought his last 'sotyk' (penny) to the tavern for whiskey. The tavern-keeper, naturally, rejoiced, because swiftly and unobtrusively the villagers' property became his. We carried on successful anti-alcoholic actions! Villagers stopped drinking. The tavern keeper had nothing more to do in the village, so he left the town complaining that the 'Ukrainian nationalist anti-Semites' had driven him out of the Ukrainian village".
"But why did they burn the Jewish businesses?"
"You think,Rabbi, that the taverns were burned? This was certainly not done by 'Ukrainian anti-Semites'. When the innkeeper decided to leave the village for the town, and had insured his tavern and house well, it was then that the tavern burned 'by itself', and the poor victim was 'forced' to accept a nice little insurance settlement. Such 'anti-Semitic actions' against bankrupt 'businessmen' in America are an everyday occurance. Except in this case, it's clear to everyone what's going on, and nobody calls them 'acts of anti-Semitism'".
"You have just said that almost all Jews in Ukraine, as well as in Poland, occupied themselves with trade. To express it another way: almost all Jews made their living by trade. Therefore, wasn't it a planned anti-Jewish action, when Ukrainians took trade right out of the Jews' hands in Ukraine?"
"It's true that the Jews were terribly displeased with the development of Ukrainian commerce and industry and, instead of a sincere cooperation, they raised a hue and cry that Ukrainians are anti-Semites, and consequently conduct anti-Jewish actions by wiping out Jewish merchants. Would you, the Jews, want Ukrainians to labor like oxen on their land, without a protesting word, for little pay, in order to feed with their sweat and blood the Polish lord and Jewish merchant, without even daring to dream about more profitable work for themselves? But - did Ukrainians in western Ukraine conduct pogroms of any kind on the Jews?"
"Absolutely not. God spared us from that".
"Have you forgotten about the Polish pogroms on Jews? Forgotten, how Polish students drove Jews from Polish universities, announced 'dzyen bez zhyduf' ('the day without Jews'), how they seated Jewish students in the university separately, on the left side, the 'ghetto'? Do you recall how many Jewish students died at the hands of Polish chauvinists? You're not raising a hue and cry about this, nor calling it 'anti-Semitism'. In your eyes only Ukrainians were anti-Semites because they took to business".
"We're not praising Polish chauvinism".
"So, you see, how aptly you have expressed it: You're not condemning Polish anti-Semitism, even though it existed; but you consistently condemn Ukrainian anti-Semitism, though it's a figment of your imagination".
"Maybe you'll say that Ukrainians always conducted themselves best of all toward the Jews?"
"You've just spoken the holy truth, Rabbi! This is why, in spite of everything, even today more Jews live in Ukraine than anywhere else outside of Israel and America!"
"But why, then, did the Ukrainians avenge themselves on the Jews when the Germans occupied Ukraine in 1941?"
"Pardon me, but among your books I see Raoul Hilberg's 'Destruction of the European Jews'. May I take it and use it to answer your question? I saw this book during the trial procedures in America, when Jewsunfoundedly blamed Ukrainians for 'war crimes against Jews'".
Dr. Kahana, astonished, handed me the book: "Be my guest!"
I opened the book to page 330 and translated into Polish:"In September 1943, a French collaborator of the Gestapo, who operated under the name of Dr. Frederick, had a discussion with Monsignor Sheptytsky, Metropolitan of the Greek Catholic Church in Lviv. The Metropolitan blamed the Germans for the inhuman actions against Jews... Dr. Frederick replied that in accordance with his sources of information, Ukrainians also participated in the rise of opposition against Jews, but in the face of facts - that in Lviv alone and nearly were found 18 thousand massacred Ukrainian political prisoners - this was a natural reaction. In addition, almost all the NKVD members were Jews".
The rabbi listened to my translation and carefully read it himself, since he understands the English language.
"Here, Rabbi, is the reply of a Jewish witness. After the Red Army's flight and the opening of the prison gates, the Ukrainian masses saw 18 thousand horribly massacred corpses of their sons, daughters, fathers in the cells, corridors and yards. Is it any wonder that they were ready to tear every degenerate sadist who was a member of the NKVD into shreds for this? Why are you calling this act of agonized revenge an 'anti-Semitic pogrom' caused by Ukrainians? Because - as testified in the documentation of the Jewish historian's book - almost all those monstrous sadists of the NKVD were Jews? Are Ukrainians at fault in this?"
The rabbi nervously stroked his beard and remained silent.
"You, Rabbi, were also there in Lviv at the time. Tell me, were those 'pogroms', as you say, perpetually led by Ukrainians?"
"No, that happened on the day the Germans entered Lviv. After that it quieted down. Persecution, the ghetto, firing squads, and deportations began in the Fall of 1941, when the Gestapo strengthened their forces in Lviv".
"You recall that on June 30, 1941, the Ukrainians announced a resurgence of the Ukrainian nation and created a Ukrainian government?"
"Yes, I remember".
"The Ukrainian militia was created then. Did that Ukrainian militia persecute Jews, kill and destroy them?"
"I'm not saying that, because it did not happen".
"I remember that the Ukrainian mayor of the city of Lviv immediately issued a special order that Jews were not to be removed to the end of the food lines. During the Ukrainian regime in Lviv, did you ever see the Ukrainian militia, who kept order, draw any Jews out of line and place them at the end of the line?"
"No, I never saw or heard about any such thing".
"Did you hear, then, what happened to the Ukrainian government?"
"I heard - they said that Hitler ordered the liquidation of the Ukrainian government; Bandera, Stetsko and others were promptly arrested and imprisoned. The Jews knew at that time that all the prisons in Lviv were overflowing with 'Banderivtsi' (followers of Bandera), who from there were taken to concentration camps. I remember that this was in August and September of 1941".
"Therefore, you yourself are stating that 'banderivtsi', Ukrainian independents, not Jews, were the first sacrifices of Hilter's reign of terror in western Ukraine in 1941".
"I'm not denying it, but not all Ukrainians were 'banderivtsi', there were also 'melnykivtsi', the UUC,13 Ukrainian police...
"Wait a moment, Rabbi! Weren't the Jews then subject to some Ukrainian organization - 'melnykivtsi', UUC members, Ukrainian police or their own Jewish Council, called the 'Judenrat'?"
"Obviously, not to the Ukrainians. Of course, there was the German government. But what was the Judenrat? They were German collaborators, they did only that what the Germans ordered them to do".
"But the Jews voted for the 'Judenrat', obeyed it, went to the ghettos at its command, as well as to forced labor, fusillades, and gas chambers".
"What else should we have done? What could we do? We were beaten by everyone, death was everywhere!"
"We've already discussed that. I am only reminding you not to find fault with Ukrainians, the Ukrainian Central Committee and Ukrainian police, but with your own Jewish Council, the 'Judenrat', which obediently carried out the commands of Eichmann, and which all Jews that I met in Auschwitz cursed more than they did the German Gestapo. Jewish informants,14 for 'Judas' money, searched out and delivered those Jews who attempted to hide somewhere, to the Gestapo. Concentrate on those who really were to be blamed. Are you aware that in Auschwitz the executioner who always hung prisoners was a Jew, Jacob? I don't know his last name".
"Then I'll tell you what it was - his name was Jacob. Kozelchuk. We tried him in Israel, since he survived and moved to Israel. And the jury in Israel freed him".
"They freed him?!"
Now it was my turn to be amazed.
"Yes, because many former Polish prisoners of Auschwitz testified that he collaborated with a secret Polish organization, and at the time of execution he secretly conveyed letters from those condemned to death to the members of the Polish organization in Auschwitz. He did the same thing for Jews but he had to hang them. If he hadn't, somebody else would have hung them. That's why they absolved him from all guilt and punishment".
I must admit that, until my conversation with Rabbi Kahana, I had never heard of the fate of the Auschwitz executioner Jacob, and now I was astonished.
"Rabbi," I said, "How can anyone know whether he didn't first show all those secret letters, which he conveyed from those condemned for hanging, to the Gestapo in the 'Political Division' of Auschwitz, and inform the Gestapo from whom and to whom he was conveying them?"
This question was an unexpected one for the Rabbi.
"Hmm... Nobody brought this suspision up at the trial. But why do you suspect this, Doctor?"
"Because in Israel during the trial of the Jew for hanging prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp, there was enough testimony - that he helped convey secret letters but had to do the hanging since if he didn't, some one else would - for you to free him from all guilt and blame. But when in Philadelphia they accused the Ukrainian, W. Osidach, of working as a translator in the police force - as if he had been committing a crime against Jews - the judge did not take into consideration at all that the accused - as sworn by his wife - sheltered a Jewess and her child in his apartment. And for this not only was he in danger of death, but his wife and small son also. American judges, arbitrators - primarily the U. S. Office of Special Investigations, which truly appears to be a Jewish 'holy inquisition' - never takes into consideration that in some instances where there was some collaboration of the Ukrainian police with the Gestapo authoriries, then those Ukrainians were forced to obey the commands of the Germans since failure to do so meant the treat of the gallows or the firing squad, and 'if they had not done this, someone else would have.' Why, Rabbi, do you have such unequal measures, when you, the rabbis, called upon Jews to heed and obey all the orders of the German masters, to go with their wives and children to the ghettos, firing squads, gas chambers, and your Jewish police carried out all this at Eichmann's command, then you say, 'But what could we have done? We had to do it!' But when Ukrainian priests exhorted subjugation to the German masters, hard labor, and the surrender of wheat contingents - then this was criminal collaboration with Nazis? Why aren't you seeking those who issued these orders to shoot Jews and hang Ukrainians: the former sergeant majors of the German Gestapo, who are now living peacefully in Germany? Thousands of them are there".
"We are searching for them, as well as for those who assisted them. Because every crime against the Jews must be avenged!"
"Rabbi, it's horrifying for me to listen to this. To me this sounds like the cries of some festering disease that breeds and spreads anti-Semitism. Having the opportunity, you are avenging yourselves blindly and savagely, and thereby engendering a renewed loathing in us. Vengeance breeds vengeance for vengeance. And how long will this last? Isn't it time to forget all that? Your assaults and unhealthy desire for revenge turns your friends into your enemies - and you desperately need to seek friends, not new enemies. Are you really unaware that you have no friends anywhere in the world?"
"We know that, Doctor. We all know that very well. We know that everyone hates us".
"But why, Rabbi, why? Just a few days ago, your Prime Minister Begin called even the American President Reagan and Haig, and Weinberger anti-Semites. Anyone who doesn't want to be a puppet in your hands is an anti-Semite. In the U.S. there has already occured even this wonder: when the heads of the forty American-Jewish organizations judged Begin's unyielding attitude in the talks with Egypt as being harmful to Jewish interests, then the Jewish newspaper named even them - the Jewish leaders - anti-Semites".
"Because here in Israel we know better than any Americanized Jews in America what is good for the Jews".
"But, Rabbi, you haven't fully recovered from one terrible holocaust - the German Nazi one - when already a second Arab one is hanging over your heads; and you are laying the foundations for yet a third, transforming your friends in America forcibly into anti-Semites. You really can't see the menacing black cloud that is hovering over you?"
"We've lived through much, and Jehovah saved us. For three thousand years we've survived. We'll survive now, too".
"And what if in the event of a new Israeli-Arab war the American nation and government will say that 'it's none of our business'! It's a war between Jehovah and Allah, and it won't do for Christian America to intervene. Then Israel won't get any weapons, tanks, planes, ammunition, or even ten dollars - let alone billions' - worth of help. What then?"
"This will never happen - never! This has never happened and never will!"
"I don't know - it's not my affair. In conclusion, I want to underscore once again that I never was, and am not, an anti-Semite. The Ukrainian nation never was and is not 'traditionally anti-Semitic'. Don't take it upon yourselves to make it anti-Semitic".
The rabbi sat deeply in thought.
"So what concrete advice and suggestions do you have?" he asked.
"First of all - that, which I have mentioned several times. I'm convinced that the primary reason why no one in the world likes Jews - and many despise them - is Jewish Nazism; that is, the idea of the Jewish nation's superiority with a marked condescension toward all non-Jews as 'goys' created for the purpose of serving Jews; the idea of the 'chosen people', 'Ubermenschen', the only true 'children of God'".
"Doctor! What are you saying?" asked the rabbi, startled. "How can you call our faith 'Nazism' because we believe that we are God's chosen people? This is our religion. The Jews have believed this since Abraham, Isaac, Moses - and they must believe it until the end of the world!"
"Rabbi! I know that this is an unusually delicate subject. But it's vital to discuss it and think calmly and courageously. Yes, you must have courage to comprehend the consequences of such a decision. It makes no difference whether this is the consequence of religion, faith, or a coldly calculated political, moral, or immoral attitude. The fact is that every proclamation of one nation's superiority above all others always bring a reaction of hostility against that nation, and the degradations by the 'superior', 'chosen' nation of others breeds an unvanquished desire for vengeance against these unprovoked humiliations. In order to preserve the pride and faith of your people, you must announce that Jews are not superior to, but are equal with the rest of the world's people".
"That's absurd! This would be a suicide worse, even, than Hitler's holocaust! The unshakable conviction that we, the Jews, are the chosen people, the true children of God, who are under the special protection of Jehovah - is the basis of Judaism. Destroy this and Judaism is destroyed at the core. Tell me: Why would a Jew in any nation of the world stubbornly hold to his religion - and be persecuted for it - if he stopped believing that he is a member of the chosen people, with whose ancestors Jehovah Himself spoke and made agreements? Even your apostle Paul always wrote: 'First of all [he spoke] to the Hebrews, then finally to the Greeks and all others'. The Hebrews before all others!"
"If so, then you must constantly be aware that the reason no one likes you lies not with them, but with you, the Jews".
"We know this. And it must remain thus. And what next? Anything else that we, the Jews, are ourselves guilty of?"
"Yes, in the political area. Your fatherland is Israel. In all other nations of the world you are guests and should conduct yourselves accordingly. But you want to reign supreme over all. Everywhere, you want to be the secret leaders of power. First of all in the area of economics, then: in the press, radio, television and even in politics. This angers every landlord. It is especially aggravating when it concerns an enslaved nation, in which you, the Jews, stand in the service of the occupier against the native settlement. This does not pertain to the behavior of the Jews only in Ukraine, as we had discussed previously.
"Where else, then?"
"Everywhere, Here's an example. Yesterday, Mr. Suslensky gave me a pamphlet you published to glance over. World Zionist Organization. Jewish Heroism in Modern Times. Jerusalem, Hanuka, 5726. In it, I found very characteristic information on pages 122-123. Let's read it:
- "It was the Kielce pogrom of July 4, 1946, that served as the turning point in the Briha movement. After millions of Polish Jews perished during the Nazi occupation, it seemed as though the slaughter was still not over. The Kielce pogrom took the lives of 42 Jews, after 351 had died in the roiting that had occured prior to November 1945. The massacre was mainly planned and perpetuated by elements who opposed the new regime, and their incitement bore all the classic overtones of Polish anti-Semitism, with blood-libel chares of taunts of "Jewish Communism". The distressing novelty was that even the organized factory workers joined in the bloodshed. The attitude of the Polish Church was scandalous, both during the pogrom itself (as evidenced by the Bishop of Kielce) and subsequently (on the part of Cardinal Hlond, the Polish Primate). The utterances of these church dignitaries made it quite clear - to put it mildly - that the Church would not lift a finger to prevent such attacks on the Jews from recurring. What Hlond said was most illuminating: "The Jews fill too crucial roles in the life of Poland - they are playing with fire!"
"So, what do you want to say by that?"
"First," I continued, "I would like to show you that the Jews ceaselessly blame Ukrainians for pogroms, and here we see that even in recent times the Poles led bloody pogroms on the Jews. Second: shouldn't these new manifestations of 'anti-Semitism' make you, the Jews, wonder why this is recurring in
Poland, where just recently the Germans had destroyed millions of Jews? 'You're taking Cardinal Hlond's statement as a clear revelation of anti-Semitism coming from the highest hierarchy of Catholic Poland. Perhaps it is so, but doesn't it show you the reasons for the pogroms: the provocative meddling of Jews in local politics, in the service of the occupiers? Bolshevik Moscow bred its own Bolshevik-Russian rule in 'liberated' Poland and the handful of Jews who were redeemed from the German pogrom immediately went to serve Moscow against the Poles, at the very summit of the national administration. Exactly the way it had been in 1917 to 1923 and later, in Ukraine".
"So you're justifying those Polish pogroms, praising them and making the Jews themselves responsible for them?"
"No, nothing remotely like that! I only wanted to direct your attention to the warning words of Cardinal Hlond that the Jews go into service of the occupier against the native population and play with fire. In Poland, in Ukraine, everywhere. And when they create a conflagration and get burned, they lament throughout the entire world that the Jews never harmed anyone, that the blood-thirsty anti-Semites of a given nation create those bestial pogroms".
"So, in your opinion, Jews should not have any political rights in the country where they have settled?"
"Equal rights for the Jews in any free country are one thing, Rabbi, and the Jews in the service of the occupiers to the detriment of an enslaved nation, is another. We have already discussed that the government of the Ukrainian National Republic had given the same rights in its constitution to the Jews as to the Ukrainians. Consequently, as citizens of Ukraine, all the Jews should have stood in the ranks of the Ukrainian army against the Russian invaders, since having equal rights, the Jews also had equal responsibilities toward Ukraine. However, they went en masse into the service of red Moscow against the Ukrainian nation".
"I have already heard that. Continue with your suggestions for the future".
"Forthe future - let the Jews in Ukraine stop serving Bolshevik Moscow, chiefly the KGB, against Ukrainians; and beyond Ukraine, beginning with Israel, let them curb their Ukraine-devouring campaign, their filthy accusations regarding the pogroms during Khmelnytsky's time, during the Hajdamaky period, Petlura's time, during the Second World War. Show the Jews honestly that the fault lay entirely on the side of the Jews themselves. Stand in the defense of truth!
"W-h-a-a-t?" the rabbi shuddered. "You demand that we change and correct our textbooks of the Jewish nation's history, our national attitude?"
"Rabbi: Aren't the Jews, demanding from the Pope and the entire Catholic Church that they correct all that is not agreeable to the Jews in the New Testament, namely, all references to their blame in Christ's crucifixion? Didn't you, the Jews, demand that even the Germans in Oberammergau delete everything that displeases the Jews from their famous Passion Play because it's 'anti-Semitism'? Well, we demand the same from you because it's anti-Ukrainism. In addition, you demand that we not speak the unpleasant truth to you and we request that the Jews stop gouging us".
A moment of prolonged silence descended. At length the rabbi spoke:
"So you would want us, the Jews, to revise and correct all our school textbooks in Israel, and not only in Israel, but correct all our scientific works about the history of the Jewish people in Ukraine from the earliest times until today, and even our religious writings?"
"Yes, Rabbi. Even your prayers, in which you curse all our national heroes, Hetman Khmelnytsky and Simon Petlura - in the name of historical truth, in the name of scientific objectivity, and in the name of good relations between our nations, between Jews and Ukrainians".
"This is similar to your wanting to turn Mount Sinai upside down! For hundreds of years the wrongdoings against Jews by Ukrainians have been written and recorded in our history, and you want to turn it around: that Jews were wronging Ukrainians?"
"Because it's already time, Rabbi, to tell the Jews the truth. It will be unplesant for them, and they will grimace - but it will be the truth, nevertheless. For hundreds of years untruths have been written. Christians, as you know, recorded for almost two thousand years that Jews, during Christ's trial, shouted: 'Crucify, crucify him! May his blood fall on us and on our children!' And all Christians believe that it was indeed so. And you, the Jews, now demand that this be erased from Christian books, from the Gospel and prayers. So why then can't you throw out and correct in your books all those defamations and contempts against Ukrainians - when all honest Jews know that they are fanciful and intentional distortions of the truth? Obviously, this can't be done all at once, but step-by-step. First of all, stop all new defamations; next, clarify the old ones".
The Rabbi grew deeply thoughtful. At last he replied:
"Our conversation was extremely interesting!"
"And, I believe, beneficial. We've exchanged much food for thought. Let us think it all over once more, and yet again, so that we could sincerely wish each other well, unlike the two Jewish neighbors from one of your Jewish anecdotes".
"Oh? What was it? Try to remember!"
"Two neighbors, Itsyk and Moshko, were constantly quarreling and wishing each other ill. But on Judgement Day Itsyk says to Moshko: 'Neighbor, why do we always have to fight? We are neighbors, let us forget everything and live in harmony.'
"'Very well, Itsyk!'"
"'So, now I wish you...well, I wish you... well, the same thing you wish me!'"
And Moshko jumped up:
"Itsyk, are you starting that again?!"
"In jest, I'll relate one of our own Jewish jokes pertaining to our discussion. Christ was a Jew, was he not? So what concern is it of anybody's what Jews did to a Jew? It's our own Jewish affair, you understand?"
"I don't wish to broach on theological matters but, I'll reply to that with another of your Jewish witticisms. A Jew prays: "Jehovah, I know that we are your chosen nation. But I beg you, at least for a while, choose someone else: so that when the chosen nation is once again beaten, it will not be me and my children!"
[3] Jews fled to the Tartar camps and surrendered. As a rule the Tartars refrained from killing them but rather sold them into slavery in Turkey where there was an excellent chance of being purchased by their Turkish coreligionists". (P.E. Grooser. "Anti-Semitism". Syracuse, 1979, p. 180. Also S.M. Dubnow, "History of the Jews in Russia and Poland". Philadelphia, 1920, p. 145). "The Jews of Pohrelische, Zotov and Bozowka, about 3,000 in number, were more fortunate; for they gave themselves up to Tartars". (Jewish Enc., v. IV, p. 285).
[4] Ukrainian historian M. Hrushewsky in his ISTORIA RUSY-UKRAINY , v. VIII, 3, p. 38, cites the following instance of Hannover's "credibility": Describing the battle in Tulchyn, Hannover reports a macabre torture and brutal killing of Count Czetwertynski by Cossacks, and insists that the Cossacks raped the count's wife and daughters, and took them for themselves. Hrushewsky checked public and private archives, and other sources, and found out that Count Czetwertynski was killed in battle in Tulchyn, he had no children, and his wife was at the time outside of Ukraine and after her husband's death she married Polish nobleman Kozakowski.
[5] The Ukrainian historian, M. Hrushevsky, illustrates the Jews' macabre passion for vengeance with a passage from a travel account by Mayer: "In paying taxes to the Polish king, the Jews asked him to deliver Khmelnytsky to them, should he be captured alive. Asked what they would do to him, they replied that they will skin an ox and sew the naked Khmelnytsky into the skin so that his head would protrude. They would keep him in a warm place, serve him good meals and drinks, and let worms into the sack. The worms would then eat Khmelnytsky and multiply until he was eaten alive. That he should not die quickly from pain and malodor. they would administer the best medications to him. And when he finally dies, they will burn the sack and its contents, mix them with wine and serve to the captive Cossacks". ("Archyv Juzhno-Zapadnoy Rossyi", III, VI, pp.33-34.)
It is widely believed that the author of such a Jewish plan for revenge on Khmelnytsky was none other than the Jewish chronicler, Rabbi Hannover. This explains whence Rabbi Hannover produced such macabre fabrications about the Cossacks' and the Ukrainian insurgents' revenge on the Jews.
[6] According to the International Red Cross' reports, during Israel's invasion In Lebanon in June-August 1982, Israel's army annihilated more than twenty thousand innocent Lebanese civilians, women and children, - twice as many as all Jews who died in Ukraine during the wars of Khmelnytsky from Cossack's hands.
[7] E.J.Byng in his "The World of the Arabs", (Boston, 1944, p. 38) explains: "The Jews of Poland and Russia descend from the Khazars of the lower Volga and other Mongol and Mongoloid peoples converted to Judaism in the eighth and ninth century A.D".
[8] The Jew-money lender is not a figment of Ukrainian imagination. He was notorious allover Europe and appeared in European literature. European writers of renown, including Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott, have drawn vivid portraits of this character. He was not always sympathetically depicted.
Ukrainian chroniclers (e.g. Samovydets) and Ukrainian "Dumas" (folksongs) report that the Jewish executor of Polish land in Ukraine asked the enslaved Ukrainian peasants to pay him taxes for their home, for the road when passing the Jew's house, for their bee-hives, for each dove and pig, for each chicken, for each case of fishing or hunting, for whatever they brought to sell at market. The Jews requested that every Ukrainian peasant or Cossack bow deeply when meeting the Jew and call him "Your Honor" ("Velmozhnyj Pane") or, otherwise, face a danger of being reported to the Polish lord as a rebel. (M. Hrushewsky "ISTORIA RUSY-UKRAINY", v. VIII, 2, p. 123-125).
[9] Having returned, I discovered detailed facts about this in the memoirs of Col. Roman Sushko. The names of the members of the CheKa Commission are as follows: President: Harkavyj, a Jew; Members: Livshitz - Jew, Ivanov - Russian, Katovsky - Jew, Frinovsky - Jew, Litvinov - Jew; one Russian, five Jews. "Bazar", The Almanac "Chervona Kalyna" of 1930. pp. 104-123.
[10] Srul, an abbreviation for "Israel", is a derogatory term for Jew, as 'Ivan' for Russian.
[11] The pictures in question are presented on page 79 (first paper back edition, Harper & Row, New York): are of Aron Solts, Nataly Frenkel, Yakov Rappaport, Matvei Berman, Lazar Kogan and Genrich Yezhov. Solzhenitsyn explains (p. 99): "Six principal lieutenants of Stalin and Yagoda; six hired murderers each of whom accounted for thirty thousand lives - Firin - Berman - Frenkel - Kogan - Rapport - Zhuk. Yes, and the Curator of the Canal-Solts".
[12] "Philadelphia Inquirer", Aug. 8, 1982, p. 10-A, reports: "A 1948 letter to the New York Times that denounced Begin, is now getting wide circulation in Washington, including the White House... Signed by such prominent Jewish intellectuals as Albert Einstein and the late philosopher Hannah Arendt, the letter went to describe how Begin's terrorist organization the Irgun, had attacked the Arab village of Deir Jassin on April 9, 1948. The terrorists killed 240 men, women and children, and then they displayed the bodies and the few captive survivors for the press".
[13] Ukrainian Central Committee.
[14] The Jewish author, L. Gross in his "The Last Jews in Berlin" (Readers' Digest, Sept, 1982, pp. 202-3), reports about two of the most notorious Jewish Gestapo informers in Germany, called "catchers", Rolf Isaaksohn and Stella Kubler: "They were said to have accounted for the arrest of 2300 Jews, hundreds of whom were later murdered in concentration camps," Such Jewish informers, called "catchers", who voluntarily helped Nazis to annihilate Jews, were active in every city and town in German-occupied territory.


text:
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