nd all Bolsheviks were Jews. Hence it
     was the Jews who were really to blame for the atrocities committed
     by the Soviets.
     All the Germans needed to do was to exploit this climate of
     opinion. It is said that after their arrival they gave the
     Ukrainians free rein, for three days, to 'deal' with the Jews.
     (Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 36, emphasis
     added)


     Also, whereas on your 60 Minutes broadcast you gave the impression that
Simon
     Wiesenthal  was making his appearance  on 60 Minutes in the role of  an
eyewitness to
     the Wiesenthal-Safer  Lviv Pogrom, or at least as  a researcher who had
documented it,
     yet  in  the quotation immediately above, Simon Wiesenthal's use of "It
is said that"
     gives the contrasting impression that he is no more  than passing along
a rumor
     concerning events that he has neither witnessed nor verified.

     In conclusion, the Wiesenthal-Safer story of  a massive pre-German Lviv
pogrom is not
     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:
     A Concise Encyclopaedia, University of Toronto Press, Toronto,
     Volume 1, p. 886)


     (4) Mainly members of the city's [Lviv's] intelligentsia.

     Before fleeing the German advance the Soviet occupational regime
     murdered thousands of Ukrainian civilians, mainly members of the
     city's [Lviv's] intelligentsia. (Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Volume
     3, p. 222)


     (5) NKVD slaughtered their prisoners en masse.

     The Soviets' hurried retreat had tragic consequences for thousands
     of political prisoners in the jails of Western Ukraine. Unable to
     evacuate them in time, the NKVD slaughtered their prisoners en
     masse during the week of 22-29 June 1941, regardless of whether
     they were incarcerated for major or minor offenses. Major
     massacres occurred in Lviv, Sambir, and Stanyslaviv in Galicia,
     where about 10,000 prisoners died, and in Rivne and Lutsk in
     Volhynia, where another 5000 perished. Coming on the heels of the
     mass deportations and growing Soviet terror, these executions added
     greatly to the West Ukrainians' abhorrence of the Soviets. (Orest
     Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 1994, p. 461)


     (6) Liquidated with a shot at the scruff of the neck.

     Right after the entry we were shown 2,400 dead bodies of Ukrainians
     liquidated with a shot at the scruff of the neck at the city jail
     of Lemberg [Lviv] by the Soviets prior to their marching off.
     (Hans Frank, In the Face of the Gallows, p. 406)


     (7) The city stank.

     In Lvov, several thousand prisoners had been held in three jails.
     When the Germans arrived on 29 June, the city stank, and the
     prisons were surrounded by terrified relatives. Unimaginable
     atrocities had occurred inside. The prisons looked like
     abattoirs. It had taken the NKVD a week to complete their gruesome
     task before they fled. (Gwyneth Hughes and Simon Welfare, Red
     Empire: The Forbidden History of the USSR, 1990, p. 133)


     (8) Many of them were found mutilated.

     We learned that, before the Russian troops had left, a very great
     number of Lemberg [Lviv] citizens, Ukrainians and Polish
     inhabitants of other towns and villages had been killed in this
     prison and in other prisons. Furthermore, there were many corpses
     of German men and officers, among them many Air Corps officers, and
     many of them were found mutilated. There was a great bitterness
     and excitement among the Lemberg population against the Jewish
     sector of the population. (Erwin Schulz, from May until 26
     September, 1941 Commander of Einsatzkommando 5, a subunit of
     Einsatzgruppe C, in John Mendelsohn, editor, The Holocaust:
     Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, Garland, New York, 1982,
     Volume 18, p. 18)


     (9) The killed people in Lemberg [Lviv] amounted to about 5,000.

     On the next day, Dr. RASCH informed us to the effect that the
     killed people in Lemberg [Lviv] amounted to about 5,000. It has
     been determined without any doubt that the arrests and killings had
     taken place under the leadership of Jewish functionaries and with
     the participation of the Jewish inhabitants of Lemberg. That was
     the reason why there was such an excitement against the Jewish
     population on the part of the Lemberg citizens. (Erwin Schulz,
     from May until 26 September, 1941 Commander of Einsatzkommando 5, a
     subunit of Einsatzgruppe C, in John Mendelsohn, editor, The
     Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, Garland, New
     York, 1982, Volume 18, p. 18)


     (10) Hardly 20% of Ukrainian intelligentsia has remained.

     Chief of Einsatzgruppe B reports that Ukrainian insurrection
     movements were bloodily suppressed by the NKVD on June 25, 1941 in
     Lvov. About 3,000 were shot by NKVD. Prison burning. Hardly 20%
     of Ukrainian intelligentsia has remained. (Operational Situation
     Report USSR No. 10, July 2, 1941, in Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel
     Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, The Einsatzgruppen Reports:
     Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads' Campaign
     Against the Jews July 1941-January 1943, Holocaust Library, New
     York, 1989, p. 2)


     (11) The corpses are dreadfully mutilated.

     Location: Lvov
     According to reliable information, the Russians, before
     withdrawing, shot 30,000 inhabitants. The corpses piled up and
     burned at the GPU prisons are dreadfully mutilated. The population
     is greatly excited: 1,000 Jews have already been forcefully
     gathered together. (Operational Situation Report USSR No. 11, July
     3, 1941, in Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, The
     Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi
     Death Squads' Campaign Against the Jews July 1941-January 1943,
     Holocaust Library, New York, 1989, p. 4)


     (12) The prisons in Lvov were crammed with the bodies of murdered
     Ukrainians.

     Location: Zviahel (Novograd-Volynski)
     [...]
     Before leaving, the Bolsheviks, together with the Jews,
     murdered several Ukrainians; as an excuse, they used the attempted
     Ukrainian uprising of June 25, 1941, which tried to free their
     prisoners.
     According to reliable information, about 20,000 Ukrainians have
     disappeared from Lvov, 80% of them belonging to the intelligentsia.
     The prisons in Lvov were crammed with the bodies of murdered
     Ukrainians. According to a moderate estimate, in Lvov alone
     3-4,000 persons were either killed or deported.
     In Dobromil, 82 dead bodies were found, 4 of them Jews. The
     latter were former Bolsheviki informers who had been killed because
     of their complicity in this act. Near Dobromil an obsolete salt
     mine pit was discovered. It was completely filled with dead
     bodies. In the immediate neighborhood, there is a 6X15m mass
     grave. The number of those murdered in the Dobromil area is
     estimated to be approximately several hundred.
     In Sambor on June 26, 1941, about 400 Ukrainians were shot by
     the Bolsheviks. An additional 120 persons were murdered on June
     27, 1941. The remaining 80 prisoners succeeded in overpowering the
     Soviet guards, and fled. [...]
     As early as 1939, a larger number of Ukrainians was shot, and
     1,500 Ukrainians as well as 500 Poles were deported to the east.
     Russians and Jews committed these murders in very cruel ways.
     Bestial mutilations were daily occurrences. Breasts of women and
     genitals of men were cut off. Jews have also nailed children to
     the wall and then murdered them. Killing was carried out by shots
     in the back of the neck. Hand grenades were frequently used for
     these murders.
     In Dobromil, women and men were killed with blows by a hammer
     used to stun cattle before slaughter.
     In many cases, the prisoners must have been tortured cruelly:
     bones were broken, etc. In Sambor, the prisoners were gagged and
     thus prevented from screaming during torture and murder. The Jews,
     some of whom also held official positions, in addition to their
     economic supremacy, and who served in the entire Bolshevik police,
     were always partners in these atrocities.
     Finally, it was established that seven [German] pilots who had
     been captured were murdered. Three of them were found in a Russian
     military hospital where they had been murdered in bed by shots in
     the abdomen. [...]
     [...] Prior to their withdrawal, the Bolsheviks shot 2,800 out
     of 4,000 Ukrainians imprisoned in the Lutsk prison. According to
     the statement of 19 Ukrainians who survived the slaughter with more
     or less serious injuries, the Jews again played a decisive part in
     the arrests and shooting. [...]
     The investigations at Zlochev proved that the Russians, prior
     to their withdrawal, arrested and murdered indiscriminately a total
     of 700 Ukrainians, but, nevertheless, included the entire [local]
     Ukrainian intelligentsia. (Operational Situation Report USSR No.
     24, July 16, 1941, in Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel
     Spector, The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches
     of the Nazi Death Squads' Campaign Against the Jews July
     1941-January 1943, Holocaust Library, New York, 1989, p. 29-33)


     (13) Ukrainians thrown into cauldrons of boiling water.

     Location: Pleskau [Pskov] [...]
     The population is in general convinced that it is mostly the
     Jews who should be held responsible for the atrocities that are
     committed everywhere. [...]
     As it was learned that the Russians before they left have
     either deported the Ukrainian intelligentsia, or executed them,
     that is, murdered them, it is assumed that in the last days before
     the retreat of the Russians, about 100 influential Ukrainians were
     murdered [in Pleskau]. So far the bodies have not been found - a
     search has been initiated.
     About 100-150 Ukrainians were murdered by the Russians in
     Kremenets. Some of these Ukrainians are said to have been thrown
     into cauldrons of boiling water. This has been deduced from the
     fact that the bodies were found without skin when they were
     exhumed. [...]
     [...] Before leaving Dubno, the Russians, as they had done in
     Lvov, committed extensive mass-murder.
     [...] Before their flight [from Tarnopol], as in Lvov and
     Dubno, the Russians went on a rampage there. Disinterments
     revealed 10 bodies of German soldiers. Almost all of them had
     their hands tied behind their backs with wire. The bodies revealed
     traces of extremely cruel mutilations such as gouged eyes, severed
     tongues and limbs.
     The number of Ukrainians who were murdered by the Russians,
     among them women and children, is set finally at 600. Jews and
     Poles were spared by the Russians. The Ukrainians estimate the
     total number of [Tarnopol] victims since the occupation of the
     Ukraine by the Russians at about 2,000. The planned deportation of
     the Ukrainians already started in 1939. There is hardly a family
     in Tarnopol from which one or several members have not
     disappeared. [...] The entire Ukrainian intelligentsia is
     destroyed. Since the beginning of the war, 160 members of the
     Ukrainian intelligentsia were either murdered or deported.
     Inhabitants of the town had observed a column of about 1,000
     civilians driven out of town by police and army early in the
     morning of July 1, 1941.
     As in Lvov, torture chambers were discovered in the cellars of
     the Court of Justice. Apparently, hot and cold showers were also
     used here (as in Lemberg [Lviv]) for torture, as several bodies
     were found, totally naked, their skin burst and torn in many
     places. A grate was found in another room, made of wire and set
     above the ground about 1m in height, traces of ashes were found
     underneath. A Ukrainian engineer, who was also to be murdered but
     saved his life by smearing the blood of a dead victim over his
     face, reports that one could also hear screams of pain from women
     and girls. (Operational Situation Report USSR No. 28, July 20,
     1941, in Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, The
     Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi
     Death Squads' Campaign Against the Jews July 1941-January 1943,
     Holocaust Library, New York, 1989, p.38-40)


     (14) Had their noses, ears, tongues and even genitals cut away.

     F. Fedorenko

        MY TESTIMONY

     When the bolsheviks retreated before the German onslaught in
     the Second World War they took care in advance not to leave any
     prisoners behind when the Germans arrived.
     The prisoners were driven, en masse, under heavy NKVD guard
     deep into Russia or Siberia, day and night. Many of them were so
     tired that they could go no further. These were shot without
     compunction where they fell. Terrible things happened then.
     Sometimes, wives recognized their husbands among the evacuees, as
     the prisoners were being driven through the villages. There was
     great despair when they saw their loved ones taken under the
     muzzles of automatic guns, to far, unknown places.
     The villagers took care of those who did not die at once from
     the NKVD bullets, but this was a very dangerous thing to do before
     all the bolsheviks cleared out.
     But the NKVD could not evacuate all the prisoners, there were
     so many arrests, and jails were replenished constantly. In such a
     case the NKVD, before making a hasty retreat, would murder the
     prisoners in their cells.
     I recall that when the Germans came, in the fall of 1941, to a
     little town, Chornobil, on the Prypyat River, 62 miles west of
     Kiev, 52 corpses of recently murdered people, slightly covered with
     earth, were found in the prison yard.
     These corpses had their hands tied at the back with wire; some
     had their backs flayed, others had gouged eyes or nails driven into
     their heels; still others had their noses, ears, tongues and even
     genitals cut away. Instruments of torture which the communists
     used were found in the dungeon of the prison.
     Many of the tortured people were identified because they were
     mostly farmers from the local collectives who had been arrested by
     the NKVD for some unknown reason.
     For instance, one girl (whose name I cannot recall now) from
     the village of Zallissya, a mile and a quarter from Chornobil, was
     arrested because one day she failed to go to dig trenches. All
     were compelled at that time, to dig anti-tank trenches. The girl
     was sick but there was no doctor to examine her and the NKVD
     arrested her, never to return.
     Two days later, when the Germans arrived, she was found among
     the fifty-two corpses. (F. Fedorenko, My Testimony, in The Black
     Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of
     Victims of Russian Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, pp. 97-98)


     (15) Executed 180 persons.

     Andriy Vodopyan

        CRIME IN STALINE

     In this city in the NKVD prison factory the communists executed
     180 persons and buried them in two holes dug in the prison yard.
     The corpses were liberally treated with unslaked lime, especially
     the faces.
     My brother was sentenced to three months in jail for coming
     late to work. After serving 18 days in the factory prison he was
     set free, and a month later was drafted to the Red Army because
     this was in July 1941.
     Later, his wife and my mother found him among the corpses,
     identifying him by the left hand finger, underwear and papers he
     had on him.
     This atrocity came to light when prisoners who remained alive
     were liberated. They had also a very close call. Six days before
     the arrival of the German troops they heard muffled shots.
     The prison was secretly mined by NKVD agents in preparation for
     the German invaders. (Andriy Vodopyan, Crime in Staline, in The
     Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of
     Victims of Russian Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 121)


     (16) Had their breasts cut off.

     Yuriy Dniprovy

        INNOCENT VICTIMS

     In the little town of Zolotnyky in the Ternopil region the
     bolsheviks murdered a captain of the former Ukrainian Galician Army
     (UHA) of 1918-1922, Mr. Dankiw, and clerks of the Ukrainian
     cooperative store, the sisters Magdalene, Sophia and Clementine
     Husar from the suburb of Vaha. Clementine and Magdalene were
     tortured in a beastly manner and had their breasts cut off.
     Other people executed at that time were: Slavko Demyd, Yosyp
     Vozny, Vasyl Burbela, Zynoviy Kushniryna, Pavlo Kushniryna and a
     non-commissioned officer of the UHA, Mr. Tsiholsky. (Yuriy
     Dniprovy, Innocent Victims, in The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A
     White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian Communist
     Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 122)


     (17) The chopped bones and flesh of the victims fell into the sewers.

        P. K.

        THE INFERNAL DEVICE OF THE RUSSIAN COMMUNISTS
     (By an eyewitness)

     In the year 1942, when the Red Army, harassed by the German
     divisions, retreated from Katerynodar (Krasnodar), the regional
     NKVD division evacuated all the prisoners and sent them in the
     direction of Novorossiysk. The railway line between Katerynodar
     and the station of Krymska was jammed by nearly two hundred freight
     boxcars filled to capacity with political prisoners.
     Suspecting that all these prisoners might fall into German
     hands the Russian NKVD men, as a precautionary measure, poured
     gasoline on the cars and let them burn.
     Thus a few thousand people perished in inhuman torture merely
     because they were suspected of anti-communism.
     When the Germans entered Katerynodar they found in the regional
     divisional building of the NKVD in Sinny Bazar, a horrible torture
     chamber. In the vault of this building there was a dark passage
     which ended with a wooden platform which dipped down at a sharp
     angle. Right underneath it there was a machine which resembled a
     straw chopper. It was a disk equipped with a system of big knives
     that revolved at great speed. It was powered by a motor.
     After questioning, the innocent victims were driven by the NKVD
     agents towards the wooden platform and rolled under the knives of
     the hellish meatchopper. The chopped bones and flesh of the
     victims fell into the sewers and were carried away with a stream of
     sewage into the river Kuban.
     Having discovered this horrible place, the Germans gave
     permission to all who wished to view this inhuman device.
     Thousands of people visited the place, among them the author of
     these lines.
     Other nations direct their talents towards the discovery of
     better medicines, new materials, better means of communication to
     make living conditions better. The Russian people are using all
     their talents for the production of machines and new methods of
     mass murder and torture. (P. K., The infernal device of the
     Russian Communists (by an eyewitness), in The Black Deeds of the
     Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian
     Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, pp. 123-124)


     (18) Some had nails driven into their skulls.

     M. Kowal

        BOLSHEVIK MURDERS

     I am Michael Kowal, from the town of Kaminka Strumylova in the
     Lviw Region in Ukraine. During the communist occupation of Western
     Ukraine I personally witnessed three arrests in my native town on
     June 22, 1941, those of Bohdan Mulkevich, and Michael Mulkevich who
     lived on Zamok Street, and Michael Mulkevich's blacksmith
     apprentice, presumably from the village of Rymaniw in the same
     Region. They were suspected of disloyalty to the communist regime.
     After the communist retreat from Kaminska-Strumylova they were
     found in the town prison with 33 other victims, murdered in a
     horribly sadistic manner. All the corpses were tied together with
     barbed wire and all bore signs of terrible beatings. Some had
     nails driven into their skulls. None of them had been shot to
     death. Their bodies, nude and badly mauled, were practically
     unrecognizable to their relatives.
     Bohdan Mulkevish's wife recognized her husband, but, trying to
     verify her identification by his gold teeth, found them missing.
     All the bodies were taken away for interment.
     That Same day 19 other bodies were discovered near the village
     of Todan about 9 or 10 kilometers from Kaminka-Strumylova. They
     were tied to trees and their chests were pierced with bayonets.
     These were all identified by relatives and taken away for burial.
     (M. Kowal, Bolshevik Murders, in The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A
     White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian Communist
     Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 529)


     (19) Shot the children in cold blood.

     Andriy Vodopyan

        A RAVINE FILLED WITH THE BODIES OF CHILDREN

     I was serving in the Soviet Russian Army. Our artillery unit
     was retreating before the Germans in the direction of Yeletsk. On
     September 18, 1941, our unit came to a wide ravine situated about
     14 miles from Chartsysk station, and about 60 miles from the city
     of Staline. The ravine stretched from the station of Chartsysk to
     the station of Snizhy. When we approached the ravine we were taken
     aback by a horrible sight. The whole ravine was filled with the
     bodies of children. They were lying in different positions. Most
     of them were from 14 to 16 years of age. They were dressed in
     black, and we recognized them as students of the F.S.U., a
     well-known trade and craft school. We counted 370 bodies
     altogether. All of them had been killed by machine gun fire.
     This group of children was being evacuated from Staline when
     the Germans neared the city. The children had marched 60 miles,
     and, exhausted and unable to continue walking, asked for
     transportation. The officers in charge promised to send them
     trucks. Instead of trucks, a detachment of the Russian political
     police (NKVD) arrived, and shot the children in cold blood with
     machine guns. This ravine, filled with hundreds of bodies of slain
     children, moved even the soldiers, accustomed as they were to the
     sight of death. (Andriy Vodopyan, A Ravine Filled With the Bodies
     of Children, in S. O. Pidhainy (ed.), The Black Deeds of the
     Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian
     Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 529)


     (20) Throwing hand-grenades into the crowded cells.

     Rev. J. Chyrva was imprisoned in 1941 when the Russian Communist armies
were withdrawing from the city of Riwne. He happened to be
     cast into one of those jails in which the communists, fleeing from
     advancing German armies, attempted to rid themselves of as many
     prisoners as possible by throwing hand-grenades into the crowded
     cells. When the first grenade was thrown into the cell where Rev.
     J. Chyrva was kept, he was the first to fall - his foot shattered.
     On him fell many mutilated bodies, covering him, thus saving his
     life. Later, when people came into the cell, they found all the
     prisoners dead with the exception of Rev. J. Chyrva. He is alive
     today, a witness of that horrible manslaughter. (Rev. Lev Buchak,
     Persecution of Ukrainian Protestants under the Soviet Rule, in S.
     O. Pidhainy (ed.), The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book,
     Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian Communist Terror,
     Toronto, 1953, p. 529)


     (21) Exhumed corpses were found without skin.

     The Bolsheviks had arrested thousands of Ukrainian patriots, and
     prior to their retreat, they killed them savagely. For some reason
     even highly regarded Jewish authors understate the number of
     Ukrainian victims of Bolshevik terror. Gerald Reitlinger gives a
     figure of three to four thousand in Lviv alone. Hilberg speaks of
     "the Bolsheviks deporting Ukrainians," but he does not furnish any
     overall figures. But on the basis of a German document (RSHA
     IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR no. 28, 20 July 1941, No-2943),
     which I was unable to verify, he recounts one particularly horrible
     episode:
     In Kremenets 100-150 Ukrainians had been killed by the
     Soviets. When some of the exhumed corpses were found
     without skin, rumors circulated that the Ukrainians
     had been thrown into kettles of boiling water. The
     Ukrainian population retaliated by seizing 130 Jews
     and beating them to death with clubs.

     He also quotes the French collaborator Dr. Frederic as saying that
     the Bolsheviks killed eighteen thousand Ukrainian political
     prisoners in Lviv and its outskirts alone.

     Basing his remarks on an anonymous article entitled "The
     Ethnocide of Ukrainians in the USSR," in the dissident journal
     Ukrainian Herald, Issue 7-8, the Ukrainian-American publicist Lew
     Shankowsky gives the following number of victims of Bolshevik
     terror in Galicia and Volhynia: as many as forty thousand killed in
     the prisons of Lviv, Lutsk, Rivne, Dubno, Ternopil, Stanyslaviv
     (now Ivano-Frankivsk), Stryi, Drohobych, Sambir, Zolochiv and other
     towns and settlements. The fact of the matter is that, justifiably
     or not, some Ukrainians felt that some Jews were in the employ of
     the Stalinist secret police, the NKVD. For instance, it was
     pointed out to me by a resident of Western Ukraine that a high NKVD
     official in Lviv, a certain Barvinsky, was Jewish, despite his
     Ukrainian name. (Yaroslav Bilinsky, Methodological Problems and
     Philosophical Issues in the Study of Jewish-Ukrainian Relations
     During the Second World War, pp. 373-394, in Howard Aster and Peter
     J. Potichnyj (eds.), Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical
     Perspective, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Edmonton,
     1990, footnotes deleted)


     (22) From 15,000 to 40,000 prisoners were killed

     In their hasty and often panic-stricken retreat, the Soviet
     authorities were not about to evacuate the thousands of prisoners
     they had arrested, mostly during their last months of rule in
     western Ukraine. Their solution, implemented at the end of June
     and in early July 1941, was to kill all inmates regardless of
     whether they had committed minor or major crimes or were being held
     for political reasons. According to estimates, from 15,000 to
     40,000 prisoners were killed during the Soviet retreat from eastern
     Galicia and western Volhynia. (Paul Robert Magocsi, A History of
     Ukraine, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1996, p. 624)





     However, the Membership of this NKVD was
     Predominantly Jewish

     What  was  the  membership of  this  NKVD that  we see  above  being so
repeatedly blamed
     for the massacre of Ukrainians in the days before occupation  by German
forces? In
     my  analysis  of  data presented by  Yuri  Shapoval,  I  arrive  at the
conclusion that the
     senior membership  in Ukraine of  the organization one of  whose  names
became the NKVD
     was as follows:

     Out of every 10 senior members of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine:
     6 were Jewish,
     2 were Russian,
     1 was Ukrainian, and
     1 was other.


     Statements made  by others  support  the  conclusion that  the NKVD was
predominantly a
     Jewish  organization.  For  example,  Yoram  Sheftel, Ivan  Demjanjuk's
Israeli defense
     attorney, reports that in connection with  his visit to the Simferopol,
Ukraine, KGB
     headquarters in 1990,  a plaque memorializing the "KGB" dead of the war
showed that
     all thirty of the thirty names were Jewish:

     On the right-hand wall was a stone memorial plaque engraved with
     the names of about thirty KGB men from Simferopol who had fallen in
     the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets call World War II. I was
     shocked and angry as I read the names: the first was Polonski and
     the last Levinstein, and all those between were ones like
     Zalmonowitz, Geller and Kagan - all Jews. The best of Jewish youth
     in Russia, the cradle of Zionism, had sold itself and its soul to
     the Red Devil. (The Demjanjuk Affair: The Rise and Fall of a
     Show-Trial, Victor Gollancz, London, 1994, p. 301)


     Of course Sheftel's  sample of 30  is not necessarily  a sample that is
representative
     of the  entire NKVD  in Ukraine; however  the Jewish domination of  the
entire NKVD is
     not a rare or  dubious  hypothesis,  but is one, rather, that is upheld
from more than
     one direction:

     As a Jew, I'm interested in another question entirely: Why were
     there so many Jews among the NKVD-MVD investigators - including
     many of the most terrible? It's a painful question for me but I
     cannot evade it. (Yevgenia Albats, The State Within a State: The
     KGB and its Hold on Russia, Past, Present and Future, 1994, p. 147)


     Jews abounded [also] at the lower levels of the Party machinery -
     especially in the Cheka and its successors, the GPU, the OGPU and
     the NKVD.... It is difficult to suggest a satisfactory reason for
     the prevalence of Jews in the Cheka. It may be that having
     suffered at the hand of the former Russian authorities they wanted
     to seize the reins of real power in the new state for themselves.
     (Leonard Shapiro, The Role of Jews in the Russian Revolutionary
     Movement, Slavonic and East European Review, 1961, 40, p. 165)


     But if in  the pre-German interval Ukrainians were being killed by  the
NKVD, and if
     the NKVD was disproportionately,  or even overwhelmingly,  Jewish, then
one might
     summarize by  saying  that in the pre-German  interval, Ukrainians were
being killed by
     Jews.



     I Expand My Summary Table Once Again

     The table which I have been developing in my letters  to you of 30Jun99
and 01Jul99
     can now be elaborated with the uppermost entry:

     Date of my letter
     Subject of my letter
     Date of Attack
     Violence that you should have reported in your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of
Freedom
     04Jul99
     The Wiesenthal-Safer Calumny
     Summer 1941
     15May99
     Who murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk?
     April 1979
     30Jun99
     Who murdered Vadim Boyko?
     February 14, 1992
     Violence that you  might have caused by your  23Oct94  The Ugly Face of
Freedom
     09Apr99
     Who blew the hands off Maksym Tsarenko?
     Summer 1995
     17May99
     Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky?
     July 7-8, 1997
     01Jul99
     Who murdered Borys Derevyanko?
     August 11, 1997


     The new "The  Wiesenthal-Safer Calumny" entry  in the table above is of
particular
     importance not  only because of  the  large number of victims involved,
but also
     because  it demonstrates your  going  beyond the  fault of  overlooking
Ukrainians being
     victimized, to  the greater  fault of replacing the real  killing of  a
large number of
     Ukrainians by Jews  with an imaginary killing of a large number of Jews
by
     Ukrainians.



     And I Find My Earlier Conclusions
     Strengthened

     What a  convincing broadcast your The Ugly Face  of Freedom would  have
been if all the
     instances  in the  above table  had been ones of Jews or Russians being
tortured and
     mutilated and murdered by Ukrainians, instead  of the other way around!
However, in
     your  broadcast  you  documented  not  a  single  such  story featuring
Ukrainians
     victimizing Jews or  Russians.  Evidence of Ukrainians being victimized
was
     plentiful,  but you  ignored  it.  Much  worse,  in  the  case  of  the
pre-German violence,
     you reversed it.

     Unless  you are  able to  offer some  credible defense, Mr.  Safer, two
conclusions that
     have already gained a foothold threaten to climb to wide acceptance:

     (1) that your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of 60  Minutes
demonstrated
     your lack of competence and integrity; and

     (2) that your  broadcast  served to demonstrate  to Ukraine's assassins
not only that
     violence  against Ukrainians  goes  unreported in the  world press, but
also that it is
     even  buried   under  fabricated   reports  of  violence  committed  by
Ukrainians. By means
     of this demonstration, you informed Ukraine's assassins that they might
expect
     impunity  for  their  work against  Ukrainians,  and  in this  way  you
encouraged them to
     violence that they might otherwise have feared  to commit. Thus, it  is
possible that
     you contributed  to Maksym Tsarenko losing his hands,  and to Volodymyr
Katelnytsky
     together with his mother, and Borys Derevyanko, losing their lives.





     Lubomyr Prytulak

     cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don  Hewitt, Steve Kroft,
Andy Rooney,
     Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal.





     HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER < Safer Safer > 569 hits since 25Jul99

     Morley Safer Letter 14 25Jul99 Who did Israel Roitman murder?

     "By the time the  Banderite's face was turned into a bloody-hairy pulp,
we were
     exhausted.  The Banderite slumped to his knees,  then fell  flat on his
face. We shot him."
     - Israel Roitman

     July 25, 1999


     Morley Safer
     60 Minutes, CBS Television
     51 W 52nd Street
     New York, NY
     USA 10019


     Morley Safer:


     I bring to your attention the following boastful confession of
     former SMERSH agent, Israel Roitman

     The  translation  of Isreal  Roitman's autobiographical  account below,
originally published
     in  the Russian-language periodical Our  View  in Thornhill, Ontario in
1998, recounts the
     experience  of a  Jew  participating  in  the  torture and murder  of a
Ukrainian during the
     Second World War, and boasts that this one crime was  only the first of
many:

        MUSIC
     by Israel Roitman

     Our View
     05May98

     [...]

     Once, on the occasion of  a talk with  students, I was asked:  "Did you
also kill
     people?"

     What  could I  answer?  It remained  only to smile sadly, and my memory
recalled the
     first  cruelty.  Afterward, there were  many  more,  but  the  first is
unforgettable.

     It happened, if memory  serves, in the Zolochiv region which lies along
the
     Ternopil-Lviv highway (Western Ukraine). The military SMERSH ("Death to
Spies", as
     military counter-intelligence was named during the war)  instructed  us
intelligence
     officers to investigate  the  cause of  death  of  one  of our sabotage
units. On the
     second or  third  day, we came upon the tracks  of the perpetrators who
were responsible
     for  the death of  our  comrades, and caught  them  relaxing  in  broad
daylight in a large
     house on a  forest farmstead.  There were three  men  sitting  around a
table with
     moonshine and snacks: a thin,  tall German, a heavily-armed  policeman,
and a
     fat-faced,  unshaven  Banderite  [Ukrainian   fighting  for   Ukrainian
independence] wearing
     a service  cap with a yellow-light blue  [colors of the Ukrainian flag]
cockade and
     some  kind  of stripes  sewn on his sleeve. It goes without  saying:  a
merry band.

     We had to shoot  the policeman right there in the house, his  abundance
of weapons not
     helping him  a bit. We took the German and the  Banderite out into  the
yard. The
     Banderite, a huge man  with long  hands  large  as shovels,  just stood
there with a
     crooked smile. On  his unshaven face, his eyes darted  nervously  about
like gimlets.
     Evidently, the worsening situation was completely unexpected by him and
he didn't
     know what to do, and couldn't hit upon any course of action. Of course,
under
     different  circumstances,  he  could have  tossed  us boys  around like
puppies, but this
     time the inveterate beast could not do so: we  were the  ones with  the
weapons.

     Oh, yes! By that time, we had seen a lot of these nationalists, as they
were
     contemptuously called,  the "Samostiynyks" ["Independents"] (the  motto
of the
     Ukrainian Nationalists was  "For an Independent  Ukraine"). These  were
veritable
     beasts, worse than some Fritzes [Germans].

     Volodka Seliverstov hit him  first, in the  solar plexus. The Banderite
groaned,
     gripped his  stomach  with his hands, and doubled  over like  a folding
knife. Then
     followed a  knee  upper-cut to the face. A sobbing  was  heard  and the
Banderite started
     falling backwards.  But we didn't let him fall.  There wer