On January 1, the world celebrated New Year’s Day—a holiday of self-reflection, self-renewal, and hope. In Ukraine, the focus was different. There, January 1 marks the birthday of Stepan Bandera, Ukraine’s Nazi national hero.
Bandera is the founding father of Ukrainian Nazism and his birthday is a national holiday. In Ukraine, paying homage to their most famous antisemite and leading Nazi collaborator of World War II, is a very big deal.
Calling All Nazis
Under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the level of Nazi influence and control in Ukraine has been unprecedented. Zelenskyy outlawed all 11 independent and opposition political parties but left the parties and organizations of his Nazi partners and allies intact and in power. So, it’s not surprising that on Bandera’s birthday, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament (with nobody but Nazis left in it)—erupted into wild cheers. Later, General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s military commander in chief, posted a photo of himself proudly posing in front of Bandera’s portrait.
The message from Ukraine’s top lawmakers and general was clear. Have no doubt as to who and what our government and army are fighting for in NATO’s proxy war with Russia.
The commemoration of Ukraine’s top Nazi didn’t go over well in Poland. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki angrily denounced Ukraine’s “continued glorification of (the) Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera . . .”
So, why the outrage?
To understand the reason for Polish fury over Ukraine’s Bandera worship, we must briefly review what happened in Ukraine during World War II—and separate facts from propaganda.
“Unimaginable Bestiality”
Bandera was the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)—Ukrainian Nazi collaborators who dreamt of a racially pure Ukraine, free of Jews, ethnic Russians, and Poles. During World War II, primarily in the Wolyn region of the Ukrainian countryside, the OUN massacred at least 100,000 Poles.
To make it appear that the homicidal rampage was a spontaneous peasant uprising (and out of sadistic pleasure), the OUN’s preferred modus operandi was to kill with axes, hatchets, scythes, knives, hammers, steel bars, and pitchforks. Banderites shoved victims by the hundreds into buildings and barns and burned them alive—a method still preferred by Ukrainian Nazis today.
Banderite mobs roamed like rabid dogs. Poland’s The First News recounts the barbarism:
In the blood frenzy, the Ukrainians tortured their victims with unimaginable bestiality. Victims were scalped. They had their noses, lips and ears cut off. They had their eyes gouged out and hands cut off and they had their heads squashed in clamps. Women had their breasts cut off and pregnant women were stabbed in the belly. Men had their genitals sliced off with sickles.
The 2016 Polish film, “Hatred,” (also titled “Wolyn” or “Volhynia”) is an historically accurate account of the Banderites’ crimes. The movie is shockingly graphic—many scenes are almost impossible to watch. Because of the truth it tells, Ukrainian authorities have banned its showing.
https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/26/inside-the-nazi-whitewash-of-ukraine/