Ukrainian Collaboration

Two Histories

There are two histories current in every country and in all popular publications. The first consists of stories, beliefs, common prejudices, rumors, fairy tales, and a small portion of truth. This may be called popular history. For example, the belief that Paul Revere shouted “The British are Coming” to warn the American colonists. Revere did not ride or shout because he was a prisoner of the British. Nor is it true that the Holocaust began with the appointment of Hitler to be chancellor of Germany in 1933. The mass murder of European Jews began in 1919 in the Ukraine.

There is also a history based on facts as supported by eyewitnesses, letters, documents, pictures, statistics, and the use of numerous research methods.

Until the nineteenth century, historians included all kinds of stories in their books which were not supported by any documents or any effort to segregate the facts from fiction.  Even Gibbon, the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, included in his vast volumes stories about the emperors which were only rumors.

Then, in the 1870’s, the Berlin historian Leopold von Ranke demanded of his students that history be based only on “Wie es eigentlich gewesen ist,” or, “As it actually occurred.” Von Ranke did not follow his own advice, as his books are full of prejudices common to Germans.

What is true all over the world is also true with reference to the Holocaust. According to popular writing, the mass murder of the European Jews began in 1933 with the advent of Hitler as German dictator. Yet, the evidence shows that the mass murder of the European Jewish population began in the Ukraine in 1919. The Ukrainian population forced Jews into synagogues (Greek for assembly) and set the buildings on fire so the Jews would die inside. Guns were pointed at the doors so that any Jew trying to escape would be shot down at the door. Mothers bought their children to this Ukrainian amusement. These methods were also used in Poland and other eastern European countries, so that these populations were accustomed to killing Jews when the German armies arrived in 1941. Then, the Ukrainians force 33,000 Jews into a ravine called Babi Yar and killed all of them They also entered Jewish homes with the Germans by breaking down the doors of Jewish homes and killing all inside, including little children and people sick in bed. Thereafter, the Ukrainians and Poles volunteered to kill Jews in the numerous killing camps established by the Germans all over Poland. Finally, the Ukrainians formed a division of Nazi soldiers who fought under the command of German officers, killing all in their paths. Even after the Germans had been defeated and none were left in the Ukraine or Poland, the locals seized the few Jewish survivors of the death camps and burned them to death.

Today, the Ukrainians play the victims, although every American Jew who has ever met an American Ukrainian will testify that even in this country, the descendants of Ukrainian immigrants are major Jew haters who repeat ad absurdum all the diatribes always used to justify the murder of available Jews.

Indeed, there are here in America Christians who associate with the National Alliance of Christians and Jews. There are here many Christians who are our friends and our helpers. Not so in Europe, where hate is a public amusement and the few Jews who remain there are sitting on a time bomb ready to explode any time. Tacitus (56 – 120 CE) wrote in his book De Rerum Natura, “Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.” How well he understood mankind so many years ago. As the philosopher George Santayana wrote, “All we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history” Shalom, my friends, and may you love and learn for 120 years.

Shalom u'vracha.

  Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including The American Jewish Community in the 20th and 21st Century (2021).

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