supported in historical writing, and is even contradicted by other testimony, some
of it leading Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg's, and some of it your own expert
witness Simon Wiesenthal's. Thus, unless you are able to substantiate the
Wiesenthal-Safer pre-German Lviv pogrom, you will invite the conclusion that it
never took place, and that your implanting it into the minds of 30 million 60
Minutes viewers constituted an attempt on the part of two individuals Simon
Wiesenthal and yourself - to fabricate a piece of history.
In Fact, the Consensus Seems to be that in
the Days Prior to German Occupation, it
was the NKVD that was Killing Ukrainians
In contrast to what appears to be a lack of substantiation of the Wiesenthal-Safer
story that in the days prior to German occupation Ukrainians were murdering Jews, I
do in my reading keep stumbling across quite a different story - that in the days
prior to German occupation, it was the NKVD that was murdering Ukrainians. Below
are 22 such statements. These statements were discovered not through any systematic
or exhaustive search, but rather only through casual reading. A systematic and
exhaustive search would turn up a much larger number of such statements.
In order to demonstrate that the NKVD had a general policy of killing Ukrainians
prior to retreating, of which the Lviv massacre was but a single instance, I include
descriptions of such killings in several locations.
"NKVD," in case you are interested, is an acronym for the Russian "Narodny
Komisariat Vnutrenikh Del," which translates as "National Commissariat of Internal
Affairs," and which bland title gives no hint of the NKVD's true role.
Please note that the block quotation immediately below is attributable to Simon
Wiesenthal, and that in it he demonstrates an awareness of the NKVD massacre of
Ukrainians, such that omitting mention of this massacre on your 23Oct94 60 Minutes
broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom, must be considered not an oversight, but a
willful suppression of relevant information:
(1) Thousands of detainees were shot dead.
When the German attack came on 22 June the Soviets had no time to
take with them the people they had locked up. So they simply
killed them. Thousands of detainees were shot dead in their cells
by the retreating Soviets. (Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not
Vengeance, 1989, p. 35)
(2) The NKVD burned prisons with prisoners in them.
While the movement to the East was taking place, the NKVD carried
out mass arrests and executions, chiefly of Ukrainians - especially
those who tried to avoid evacuation. In the jails most prisoners
whose period of imprisonment was more than three years were shot;
others were evacuated if possible. In several cities the NKVD
burned prisons with prisoners in them. (Volodymyr Kubijovyc,
editor, Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, University of Toronto
Press, Toronto, 1963, Volume I, p. 878, Vsevolod Holubnychy and H.
M. wrote this section)
(3) Succeeded in annihilating some 10,000 political prisoners.
The Bolsheviks succeeded in annihilating some 10,000 political
prisoners in Western Ukraine before and after the outbreak of
hostilities (massacres took place in the prisons in Lviv, Zolochiv,
Rivne, Dubno, Lutsk, etc.). (Volodymyr Kubijovyc, editor, Ukraine: