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Wiesenthal Letter 14 Sep 4/97 The forgotten Bodnar
September 4, 1997
Simon Wiesenthal
Jewish Documentation Center
Salztorgasse 6
1010 Vienna
Austria
Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:
In your testimony on the 60 Minutes broadcast of October 23, 1994 "The Ugly Face of Freedom" I notice a startling
omission:
MORLEY SAFER: I get the impression from people that the actions of the Ukrainians, if anything,
were worse than the Germans.
SIMON WIESENTHAL: About the civilians, I cannot say this. About the Ukrainian police, yes.
That's all you said! You just left it at that! But in that case, there is something very big missing from your
statement, isn't there Mr. Wiesenthal - something very interesting, very important, very relevant? Something that the
60 Minutes viewer would have found to be quite remarkable? Do you know what it is?
It is the story of the Ukrainian policeman with the surname Bodnar the one who saved your life? Remember him?
Don't you think that this forgotten Bodnar is someone who should have been mentioned in your statement? And doesn't
the story of the forgotten Bodnar somewhat contradict your unqualified statement that the Ukrainian police
collectively were worse than the Germans? And if among what you say is the worst of the Ukrainians (the auxiliary
police) some are saving Jews, then what heroic acts can we expect among the rest of the Ukrainian population?
To refresh your memory about this story which seems so forgettable to you now, I may remind you that you were
about to be executed, but:
The shooting stopped. Ten yards from Wiesenthal.
The next thing he remembers was a brilliant cone of light and behind it a Polish voice: "But
Mr. Wiesenthal, what are you doing here?" Wiesenthal recognized a foreman he used to know, by
the name of Bodnar. He was wearing civilian clothes with the armband of a Ukrainian police
auxiliary. "I've got to get you out of here tonight."
Bodnar told the [other] Ukrainians that among the captured Jews he had discovered a Soviet
spy and that he was taking him to the district police commissar. In actual fact he took
Wiesenthal back to his own flat, on the grounds that it was unlikely to be searched so soon
again. This was the first time Wiesenthal survived. (Peter Michael Lingens, in Simon
Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 8)
But the story of the forgotten Bodnar is even better than that - Bodnar not only saved you, not only risked his
life to save you, but possibly gave his life to save you. I say that because Bodnar must have known that the
punishment for saving a Jew from execution and then helping him escape would be death. And how could he get away with
it? In fact, I ask you now, Mr. Wiesenthal, whether the forgotten Bodnar did get away with it, or whether he paid for
it with his life, for as you were tiptoeing out, you were stopped, Bodnar offered his fabricated story, and then:
The German sergeant, already a little drunk, slapped Bodnar's face and said: "Then what are you
standing around for? If this is what you people are like, then later we'll all have troubles.
Report back to me as soon as you deliver them [Wiesenthal along with a fellow prisoner]." (Alan
Levy, The Wiesenthal File, 1993, p. 37)
These passages invite several pertinent conclusions which a man of integrity and conscience would have insisted
on bringing to Morley Safer's attention:
(1) You yourself, Mr. Wiesenthal, can see a Ukrainian police official having his face slapped by a German
sergeant, which serves to remind you that Ukraine is under occupation, to show you who is really in charge, to suggest
that the German attitude toward Ukrainians is one of contempt and that the expression of this contempt is
unrestrained.