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Alliance For Murder: The Nazi-Ukrainian Nationalist Partnership

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Most of this work rests upon Jewish eyewitness testimonies, not Soviet documents. Contrary to the title, and to the reactions of the negative reviewers who probably haven't read this book, Ukrainian-Nazi collaboration is a secondary issue. The main topic is the fate of the Jews of Tarnopol (Ternopil) and Trembowla (Terebovlia). Some were gassed at Belzec, others were locally shot; a few hid. Excepting those who had been in the USSR, less than 1% of the Jews of those two cities survived the Holocaust. (p. 34, 154). Sabrin is perceptive in realizing that the "resettlement" provisions of GENERALPLAN OST shouldn't be taken literally. It called for the eventual extermination of at least 120-140 million Slavs. (pp. 12-13).

Nor is this a bash-Ukrainians work, as there is frequent mention of gentile (including Ukrainian) rescuers of Jews. Elaboration is made of a Polish-Ukrainian family (p. 110, 119-120), and of various Polish rescuers. (p. 27, 208, 219), including the Polish Underground. (p. 128). Nor are Jews exempt from criticism by other Jews. "World Jewry" is fingered for its silence during the Holocaust (p. 33), and the Judenrats are described as institutions whose originally-benevolent members were replaced by entirely self-serving ones. (pp. 26-28). Jewish individuals who showed Germans the hidden bunkers (not at gunpoint, as in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) are described as scoundrels. (p. 33).

Goldfliess touches on the Zydokomuna: "When the Soviet army arrived initially, young leftist Jews came out of hiding; those who had left Hashomer Hatzair and those who belonged to the Communist underground movement that had been banned in Poland...They enlisted in the Red Militia and wanted to help the new regime set up an administration in the towns and cities." (p. 45).

A quoted 1938 Ukrainian Nationalist newspaper proclaimed a direct correspondence between the OUN, Hitlerism, and fascism (p. 15), while a 1941 one gave direct ideological support to (not merely tactical cooperation with) Hitler. (p. 225). Back in 1932, a Ukrainian newspaper, META, alluded to the genocidal plans of the OUN: "Ukrainian Nationalism must be prepared to employ every means in the struggle...not excluding mass physical extermination, even if millions of human beings, physical entities, are its victims." (p. 231). The OUN militias killed many Jews and Poles, on their own soon after the 1941 German invasion, and subsequently in collaboration with the Germans. (e. g., pp. 219-222). The OUN-UPA genocide of rural Poles came later. (pp. 138-139).

The presence of Jewish physicians in the UPA has been cited as proof that it wasn't anti-Semitic. Actually, Jewish doctors were recruited because there was a shortage of doctors, and, with few exceptions, they were all later murdered. (p. 34, 119, 139).

I know my history and this book is pure nonsense, fabrication and a revision of history to support a hidden agenda. Ukrainians also were in large numbers, inhabitants of the very same concentration camps as others. Put simply this book is pure racist and not worth the paper it is written on.

Another example of anti-Ukrainian propaganda, once very popular in pro-Soviet circles and amongst their adherents in the West. The Soviets are now gone, hurrah, but their fellow travellers are, alas, still with us. Serious scholarship demonstrates that Ukraine lost more of its people than any other nation in Nazi occupied Europe (to say nothing about losses a decade earlier, during the genocidal Great Famine of 1932-33). Among the millions enslaved or mudered by the Nazis were many Ukrainian nationalists of the OUN and UPA, more than a few of whom were destroyed in the infamous concentration camps, like Auschwitz. Indeed the two brothers of Stepan Bandera, the OUN leader, both died there. The Ukrainian nationalists were not pro-Nazi, although there are obviously still those who would like the world to think that.

Here is a most distinct sloppy and truly un reserched work on the issue of collaboration in Central and Eastern Europe. The author's reliance on KGB provided docuentation make one wonder what the purposes realy was in writting this "work". Purpose of the work seems to have been the inflamation of unfounded animosity of Ukrainians and Jews. A comparative study on the collaboration of other nations with the Nazi's vis-a-vis Jews would reveal that French and Polish and Czech collaboration lead to a much more significant toll on the Jewish population in those occupied territories than in Nazi occupied Ukraine.

Mr. Sabrin's book is nothing more than a fabrication of "historical" events. His sources for the book come entirely from the Soviet Ministry of Information and the KGB. Sadly, the book's purpose is indeed to exaggerate and inflame any differences between Jews and Ukrainians. Mr. Sabrin and the authors like him have few adherents in the post-Soviet era.