In
an exclusive interview with Radio Sputnik, Israeli publicist Avigdor Eskin
explains how history is in danger of repeating, as Kiev is allowed to rewrite
the history of the Holocaust, and the lessons of the Second World War are being
forgotten.
How
strong are neo-nationalist sentiments within present-day Ukrainian
society?
Eskin: There is a question mark about the legitimacy of this
government, and not only in terms of the means and the ways they use
power in Ukraine.
On the day of Ukrainian independence, the British
Daily Mail newspaper carried an article about the Holocaust,
about what the Ukrainian nationalists, those who followed Bandera and
Shukhevych, what Ukrainian Nazis did during the war, and this is something
which is going to be discussed now more and more, I believe.
We have questions about how the West looked
at the current Ukrainian conflict, and now we see that there is a new
angle which we are going to take into consideration as well,
don't you think?
I take that you mean that the neo-nationalist
sentiments inside Ukraine are being exemplified by the Azov
Battalion, and the Right Sector, and people can see it, if they really want to?
Eskin: Well I would rather put the emphasis on something else. The truth
is, that you can see some Nazi ideology, racist ideology, anti-Semitism, you
can see that in places like Britain especially. There is a
discrimination campaign against Israel, which is unacceptable. But this is
[limited to] private, little, tiny groups usually, who carry Nazi ideology, and
you can see them in Russia.
But in Russia and in other civilized
countries, the Nazi ideology is suppressed. People are put on trial and
isolated from society if they preach Nazism.
But in Ukraine today, what happened is that not
just certain military groups such as you have mentioned, but the
president of Ukraine speaks openly about Bandera and Shukhevych being
the heroes of the Ukrainian nation.
He claimed officially that the ideology of Ukraine
today is Nazi ideology.
The parliament of Ukraine voted for a law
which makes all the fighters, who fought on the side of the Nazis,
on a par during the war, they made them heroes.
We are not talking about just a few anti-Semitic
neo-Nazis or racists or nationalist or ultra-nationalist battalions.
We are
talking about the ideology which comes from the president,
from the parliament, and this is what makes Ukraine very different.
I want to insist upon this point
of importance. When we face today this Ukrainian system, we ask what will
be the precedent for it, how can we deal with it, because nothing
like this happened for the last 70 years, since the Second World
War.
And you know, at the Nuremburg trials, one
of the defendants there was Julius Streicher. Now, Julius Streicher, who,
by the way, was sentenced to death, was not a killer like Himmler,
he didn't torture anybody, he wasn't violent. He was nothing more than the
head of the Nazi propaganda machine, and he spread hatred and a criminal
ideology.
So, the international court and the Nuremberg trials
stated that there is such a thing as criminal ideology. And the criminal
ideology of Julius Streicher was the cause of his death sentence.
Now, talking about Ukraine today and when the
president and the state parliament declare that Nazism is their ideology, how
should we treat Ukraine today?
You've touched upon something that I'd
really like to discuss, you mentioned that inside the Rada they are
making the followers of Stepan Bandera heroes. Do you think that Kiev is
trying to rewrite the history of the Holocaust?
Eskin: Well, Bandera is exactly what Julius Streicher was. These are people
who were behind mass murder.
The Mail wrote that there were 1.6 million Jews murdered
in Ukraine due to the ideology of Julius Streicher, and Stepan
Bandera.
When we face something like this, in Kiev
today, we have to ask ourselves, "what is the legitimacy of this
government, no matter what they do?"
No matter what they do today, the moment they announce
that their ideology is rewriting history, which of course is one
of their goals, and making the worst criminals of the war their
heroes, they cease to be a part of any civilized society.
I don't see sanctions against Ukraine, and I wonder
why.
How can other Europeans look to Ukraine
as someone to have a serious dialogue with?
Eskin: How could the Europeans make peace with Hitler in 1938? How
could Mr. Chamberlain in 1938 and 1939 become a close friend of his
German counterpart Mr. Ribbentrop. How could the West betray the people
during these years, pre-Second World War.
If the West hadn’t agreed to the partition
of Poland, if the West hadn’t agreed to this aggression
against Czechoslovakia before, if the West hadn't agreed to all that
it agreed with Ribbentrop and with Hitler, probably the Second World
War could have been prevented.
Let's begin from that, this appeasement ideology.
Source: Sputnik News 26-08-2015
Source: Sputnik News 26-08-2015
