ГУЛаг Палестины

it is incumbent upon me to give you a view of the other side of Jewish life.

In Lviv, where seven thousand Jews live, there are thirteen Jewish organizations.

There are also active organizations in the rest of the region - in Drohobych,

Boryslav, Truskavets. I can send you all their addresses. Lviv was the first city

in Ukraine to have a Jewish Society (1988), the first Ukraine-Israel Society (1989),

and the first to publish a Jewish newspaper (1989). A Center for the Study of

Jewish History is functioning in the city. Two Jewish-Ukrainian conferences have

been held here. We have a Jewish ensemble, a Jewish theater, a philharmonic

orchestra which recently, at the opening of the season, performed the works of

Tchaikovsky and of two Jewish composers. A Jew, Kotlyk, head of the Jewish Society,

was elected as a member of the City Council.

Two years ago, in the center of the city, not far from "Hitler Square," a monument

dedicated to the victims of the Lviv ghetto was unveiled. This is the biggest and

most prominent Jewish memorial in all of Europe. Haven't you seen it?

As head of the Jewish Council, I was present at all the events that I am describing,

and I can document them. Your discussing these events in a future broadcast would

present a wonderful balance which together with your video footage would paint an

accurate picture of Jewish life in Ukraine, and not a deliberately one-sided one.

One cannot indict any nation on the grounds that a few of its members were evil.

Evil individuals exist in every nation. But why didn't you show those Ukrainians

and Poles who rescued Jews? There are many of them. Initially, we ourselves didn't

know about them, as they remained silent, and our former regime forbade them to

speak on such topics. In Lviv, Simon Wiesenthal himself was rescued from death, and

in Boryslav, the head of the Israeli parliament, Shevakh Weiss, with whom in 1992 I

personally visited his own rescuers.

We have a list of almost 2,500 Ukrainians who rescued Jews, and many of these are

precisely from the Western region. We have brought these rescuers to Israel,

presented them with certificates, and are now supporting them with pensions. We are

presently in the process of submitting this list of rescuers to the Holocaust Museum

in Washington. Concerning this I have been making particular arrangements, as I

will be in the United States later this year.

You broadcast that Lviv is being depopulated of Jews. However, this has been

happening throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and began not

recently, but even during the Bolshevik regime - but nobody is blaming this on

anti-Semitism. Rather, other motives are responsible: economics, Chornobyl, the

reunification of families. Anti-Semitism plays a far weaker role. Our Council

interviews Jewish emigrants and has definitive information on this question.

Jews, perhaps more than others, should avoid throwing blanket insults and

accusations at other peoples because they themselves - as a people and not as

individuals - have been blamed by the Fascists for all sins. Why do you, then,

proclaim all Ukrainians to be genetic anti-Semites? Why, in addition to talking

about the police did you not also talk about the rescuers of Jews, did not show a

single one of them? And in Lviv, there are many of them. Is it that you couldn't

find any, or that you didn't want to look?

I wish to declare to you officially: in the new Ukraine, there is no state-sponsored

anti-Semitism. Not long ago, a Jew fulfilled the obligations of the prime minister

of Ukraine. The mayors of Odessa and Vynnytsia are Jews. The mayor of Cherkasy was

a Jew. There are six Jews in parliament. Some Deputy Ministers are Jews. It is

such outstanding facts as these that convey the predominant attitude of Ukrainians

to Jewish rebirth, to Jewish culture.

Among the CIS, Ukraine was the first to hold a Jewish Congress. The Days of Jewish

Culture were celebrated this year as a National holiday, dedicated to the 135th

anniversary of Shalom Aleichem. In Ukraine, there are active Jewish organisations

in 89 cities. Eleven Jewish newspapers are published. Ten schools are in

operation. Jewish groups have been formed within Pedagogical and Theatrical

Institutes (composed of 80% Ukrainians who have mastered Hebrew). We have held a

festival of children's vocal and dance ensembles in which 46 groups applied to

participate. Ukrainian television broadcasts two Jewish programs. Jewish

spectacles are performed on the stages of Ukraine.

For the fifth year now we have honored the victims of Babyn Yar, where there has

been erected the Jewish monument "Menorah," and at which have been placed wreaths

both from the President of Ukraine and from the Kyiv City Council. Just this year,

the Days of Babyn Yar commemorations were conducted over the period of an entire

week. In all cities (in all!) in which Jews were shot during the War, annual

remembrance days are observed.

All this you failed to see, and so you did great harm not only to Ukrainians, but to

Jews as well.

In our work of resurrecting Jewish life, we receive help from such prominent

Ukrainian intellectuals and parliamentarians as B. Oliynyk, P. Osadchuk, O. Yemets,

D. Pavlychko, V. Yavorivskyi, I. Drach, P. Movchan, M. Shulha, I. Dziuba, V.