The Holocaust

This study analyzes policies and public attitudes concerning the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) after the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine. The issue of the political rehabilitation of these nationalist organizations, which relied on terrorism and were involved in Nazi genocide and ethnic cleansing of Poles during World War Two, became one of central political issues in this post-Soviet state. The question is which factors determine attitudes towards the OUN and the UPA in contemporary Ukraine. The hypothesis is that regional factors are the main determinants of the public opinion concerning these organizations. This paper uses analysis of historical studies and archival data to examine policies and controversies concerning the OUN and the UPA. It employs comparative and regression analyses of the 2009 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology survey to determine effects of regional factors, compared to other factors, such as ethnicity, language, and age, on attitudes towards the Stepan Bandera faction of the OUN and the UPA. The paper shows that that regional factors and perceptions of the involvement of the Bandera faction of the OUN and the UPA in mass murder are strongest predictors of views concerning these nationalist organizations.

""This article examines policies and public attitudes concerning the issue of Soviet and Nazi genocides in Ukraine after the 'Orange Revolution'. The central question is whether such factors as regional political culture affect contemporary policies and public attitudes towards these important historical issues. The article uses a 2008 survey conducted for this study by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology to analyse determinants of public attitudes concerning the question of whether Soviet and the Nazi policies were genocidal. It finds that regional political culture is the most significant factor affecting policies and attitudes towards the Soviet genocide in Ukraine.

Europe-Asia Studies, 62, 6, 2010, 973-997""

This paper analyzes the involvement of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Nazi genocide during World War II in Ukraine. The issue of the political rehabilitation of these organizations became one of the central political issues in this post-Soviet state. The research question is whether leaders and members of the Bandera faction of the OUN (OUN-B) and the UPA were involved in the Nazi-led genocide. This article devotes particular attention to Volhynia where the UPA was established by the OUN-B in 1943. The study analyzes the biographies of 329 OUN-B and UPA leaders and documents concerning the OUN-B and the UPA, local police, and Nazi mass executions of Jews, Ukrainians, and Poles from the State Archive of the Volyn Region, the State Archive of the Rivne Region, the Archive of the State Security Service of Ukraine in the Volyn Region, the Archive of the State Security Service of Ukraine, the National Archives in the US, and other archives. This paper shows that large proportions of leaders and members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army served in various police and militia formations, collaborated with security and intelligence agencies of Nazi Germany, and took part in the Nazi genocide, primarily in assisting roles during mass executions of Jews in the first two years of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine.

Just as in so many places in the world, the French-speaking Belgian stage has taken a consistent interest in the Holocaust. If our theatres had a tendancy at first to pick up on successful attempts from abroad (coming principally from Germany, France, or the U.S.), beginning in the 70s local voices began to be heard. The latter have appeared as often in dramatic writing (that of Kalisky notably) as in theatre directing. Since the year 2000, original works have proliferated, at times in innovative forms, but sometimes also intended for a younger audience.

"The way people think about the Holocaust is changing. The particular nature of the transformation depends on people’s historical perspectives and how they position themselves and their nation or community vis-à-vis the tragedy. Understandably, European Muslims perceive the Holocaust as less central to their history than do other Europeans. Yet while the acknowledgment and commemoration of the horrors of the Holocaust are increasingly important in Europe, Holocaust denial and biased views on the Holocaust are widespread in European Muslims’ countries of origin.

In this book, a number of distinguished scholars and educators of various backgrounds discuss views of the Holocaust, explore the backgrounds of biased perceptions but also highlight positive approaches and developments. Many of the contributions were written by people working in the field and reflecting on their experiences.

This collection also reveals that problematic views of the Holocaust in Europe are not limited to Muslim communities.

The authors include: Joëlle Allouche-Benayoun, George Bensoussan, Juliane Wetzel, Michael Whine, Esther Webman, Rıfat N. Bali, Philip Spencer, Sara Valentina di Palma, Evelien Gans, Günther Jikeli, Monique Eckmann, Remco Ensel, Annemarike Stremmelaar, Mehmet Can, Karoline Georg and Ruth Hatlapa.

A free preview is available. For review copies, the table of contents and further information see

http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/religious+studies/book/978-94-007-5306-8"""

"Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, published in November 1944, was the first place where the word "genocide" appeared in print.
Raphael Lemkin coined the new word "genocide" in 1943 (see the book's preface, dated November 15, 1943) both as a continuation of his 1933 Madrid Proposal and as part of his analysis of German occupation policies in Europe. In this 670 page book, Axis Rule, Lemkin introduced and directly addressed the question of genocide in 16 pages of Chapter IX entitled "Genocide" (below).
Lemkin uses the word genocide broadly, not only to describe policies of outright extermination against Jews and Gypsies, but for less immediate Nazi goals as well. In Lemkin's analysis Nazi Germany had undertaken a policy for the demographic restructuring of the European continent. Therefore he also used the word genocide to describe a "coordinated plan of different actions" intended to promote such goals as an increase in the birthrate of the "Aryan" population, the physical destruction of the Slavic population over a period of years, and policies to bring about the destruction of the "culture, language, national feelings, religion" and separate economic existence (but not physical existence) of non-German "Aryan" nations thought to be "linked by blood" to Germany.
In recent years the word "genocide" has most often been used to refer to the destruction of groups within a single country ("domestic genocide"). In Axis Rule, however, the word applies to occupation polices conducted across an entire continent. Policies within Germany are addressed only to the extent that these policies impacted Austria, and those parts of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, the Memel Territory and Poland formally incorporated into Germany.
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