Let us begin. Heading the list of anti-Ukrainian calumniators are the following nine: Yitzhak Arad, Dov Ben-Meir, Yaakov Bleich, Alan
Dershowitz, Sol Littman, Morley Safer, Neal Sher, Elie Wiesel, and Simon Wiesenthal. If we expand this list to include prominent calumniators
of Slavs, Jerzy Kosinski makes it a list of ten. In order to express my disapproval of these individuals, and in order to encourage in Slavs in
general, and in Ukrainians in particular, an attitude of bold intolerance toward their misdeeds, I propose that they be called "the gang of ten,"
as I myself do below.
Incidentally, the link to Sol Littman above will take the reader to the very section in "The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes" that deals with Littman,
but only when using a Netscape browser - readers relying on other browsers will have to use CTRL+F to get down to the section titled "Sol
Littman's Mengele Scare."
Examining the gang of ten, it is possible to arrive at several generalizations, the chief of which may be the following:
(1) The gang of ten is Jewish. One notices immediately that all ten of these calumniators of the Slavs are Jewish. This
observation reminds us that in examining those who were responsible for the 23Oct94 60 Minutes story, The Ugly Face of Freedom, seven
out of seven of those in the chain of command proved to be Jews (three being common to both lists).
But are there any non-Jewish calumniators? Of course there are, and where I find them, I impartially include them on the Ukrainian Archive.
Trouble is, I don't find many, and their calumniation does not rank as high. One of these is University of Toronto historian Robert Magocsi,
and another is Harvard University historian Omeljan Pritsak. Offhand, I can't think of any others. But while Magocsi and Pritsak distort, they
cannot compare with any of the gang of ten (or with any of the CBS gang of seven). The really egregious calumniation comes only from
Jews.
Henryk Sienkiewicz. Henryk Sienkiewicz (among my favorite novelists for his Quo Vadis) comes to mind as a Polish calumniator of Ukraine
(in his novel about Bohdan Khmelnytsky, With Fire and Sword), but he is not discussed on the Ukrainian Archive primarily because he is not
contemporary, and also because, like Magocsi and Pritsak, he is more subtle. The Ukrainian Archive restricts attention to contemporaries
whose calumniation is egregious.
The Ukrainian archive does not focus on Jews. It has been more than once remarked that the Ukrainian Archive focuses on Jews, which
is incorrect - which is no more than an additional calumniation of Ukrainians. The truth is that the Ukrainian Archive focuses on
calumniators, and it incidentally happens that the chief of these are Jews. If the leading calumniators of Ukraine had proven to be Czechs or
Poles or Romanians or Hungarians or Russians or Germans or Armenians or Iranians or Palestinians or Chinese or whatever, I would have
impartially and disinterestedly featured them instead of Jews. If someone can bring to my attention prominent contemporary non-Jewish
calumniators of Ukraine that I have been overlooking, I will gladly give them generous representation on the Ukrainian Archive, and if such
non-Jewish calumniators overwhelm the Jewish calumniators by their numbers, then all the better. The prominence of Jews on the Ukrainian
Archive is not to be explained by looking into my psyche, it is to be explained by examining the characteristics of calumniators of Ukraine. It
is not for me to justify why Jews appear so frequently on the pages of the Ukrainian Archive, it is for Jews to explain why no Gentiles can be
found whose anti-Slavic calumnies are able to compete with those of the Jews in the gang of ten (or with those of the Jews in the CBS gang
of seven).
(2) The gang of ten is prominent. One notices too that these are not ten obscure Jews, but highly placed ones. Their
names are recognizable. They constitute a Jewish leadership. They hold high office within the Jewish community, or within society
generally. Two have been spoken of as candidates for Nobel prizes. They frequently appear on television or are quoted in the media or are
cited in the discussion of Jewish affairs. Perhaps the only other Jews who equal or exceed them in prominence fall into three categories: (i)
Jews functioning in a non-Jewish capacity, as for example musicians and scientists; (ii) North American Jewish politicians, particularly
Congressmen, Senators, or Mayors in the United States, but again functioning only in small part as Jewish representatives; and (iii) Israeli
politicians and military leaders. However, restricting our attention to Jews who live in, or who are influential in, North America, and to those
who appear expressly as representatives of Jewish interests, the gang of ten constitutes a dominant clan. They set the agenda for
Jewish-Slavic dialogue. Even the one who lives in Austria (Simon Wiesenthal), and the two who live in Israel (Yitzhak Arad and Dov
Ben-Meir), are able to make their presence felt in North America either during their visits, or in being covered by the media, or by means of
their court room testimony either in Israel or in North America. American Jews such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein are also highly
prominent, and do speak on Jewish affairs, but speak primarily of the State of Israel, and - unfortunately - have little to say about the
Slavic world. Overwhelmingly, the Jews who step forward to speak on the Slavs do so only to calumniate. Whereas individual Jews have
occasionally stepped forward to defend Ukrainians, I know of none who does so on an ongoing basis the way that the gang of ten defames
Ukrainians on an ongoing basis.
Raul Hilberg. Jewish historian Raul Hilberg deserves mention as falling in a class by himself. I do not agree with everything he says, but in
cases where I disagree, I do not regard Hilberg as guilty of calumny, but only as falling within the range of responsible but divergent opinion