Lviv, Ukraine – A documentary film about the Holocaust has incited the wrath of the Ukrainian nationalist organization Freedom.
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The film, an amateur production entitled Two Tangos, was shown once in Lvov to older Polish-speaking school children at a state school at the end of last year. The showing was sponsored by the Jewish NGO Chesed Aryeh as part of a program in the local schools to encourage tolerance.
Local Freedom leader Ivan Grynda sent a complaint to the city prosecutor, claiming the showing constituted anti-Ukrainian activity. Grynda was offended by historical footage in the film showing women in traditional Ukrainian dress welcoming Nazi soldiers with flowers.
After a month’s investigation, the prosecutor found that there was no criminal element in the showing of the film. Local authorities pressured schools to avoid the film in any case. The intervention of Polish diplomats was necessary to save the director of the Polish school from dismissal.
Freedom then insisted that a commission, made up of city officials and Grynda, be formed and that it send the film to educational experts. The experts commented that the film was inappropriate for young children due to its violent content. As a result, Chesed Aryeh was banned from conducting any activities in the Lvov school system.
Freedom gained attention last month after it financed a campaign of posters praising the local Waffen-SS Galicia division. The large posters depicted the emblem of the division with the words “They defended Ukraine” written on them in Ukrainian. Freedom also successfully pressed for a plaque to be erected to the memory of that division.
Lvov (Lviv in Ukrainian) is an ancient city in the west of Ukraine with a population of almost three-quarters of a million people. It had large Jewish and Polish communities before the Second World War. Those communities were nearly completely annihilated.
Lviv, Lwow or Lemberg is the hometown of my mother’s family. In 1941 my mother A’H who did not suggest I should go to the movies ask me to go to the movie in Vienna. The “Wochenschau” or newsreel showed the occupation by the Nazis of Lwow. Yidden with beards and peyes were dragged by the Ukrainian Nazi helper and the headlines read here are the Bolshevik conspirators, erliche Yidden. In Concentration Camp the Ukrainian SS was more brutal than the Germans. In Treblinka and Sobibor Ukrainians picked small Jewish children who needed help and smashed their heads against the cement. The Ukrainians pushed Jews into the gas chambers of Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec. I worked in a government agency and an Ukrainian brought to the office Nazi propaganda books until ordered to cease by a government official. They are the drags of society and worst killers
The Ukranians were worse than the Germans, if that is possible. They were vicious sadists and loved killing women and children. They were the brutal sub humans of WWII. Horrible people, like trolls, goblins and demons. The worst slobs on earth.
Chmielnicki lives on.
Yemach Shmom.
To this day they are farbisene ugly Jew haters.
Let them eat their hearts out.
Chmielnicki is for the ukranians the father of their ciountry or something like that, and he was the one responsible for the gzeros of tach vetat where hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered by his hords . Imach shmo.
I think that the shpoler zaide nigun is today ukraines national anthom. Let me know if true.
in germany throughout the ages the killing of jews was on and off but in ukraine its relentless mostly in western ukraine
I wish Rabbi Bald and his Rebbetzin a lot of Hatzlocho. They are a real kiddush Hashem in the west Ukraine. Chazak V’emotz.
The Ukranians welcomed the Nazis with open arms, and in large part were the hands-on operators of the death machinery in the concentration camps. They profited from property plundered by the Nazis including the clothing taken from Jews murdered by Einsatzgruppen. They deserve all the tsoris they have had in past decades. HaShem is the dayan emes. The Jewish people should not lose one minute’s sleep over these animals. Instead let’s use the energy to strengthen Israel and Jewish life.
It is our responsibility to teach all children,in the public schools & in yeshivas, of the brutal murder of our people during the shoah…this is a vital part of our history,not of thousands of years ago,but only 65 years ago.. Zoln mir keynmolnisht fargesn undzer zeks milyon kedoshim ..un zoln mir oich nisht fargesn oder fargebn di nazi merder fun undzer folk yisroel
My Mishpucha was from Lvov/Lemberg and I read that the Israelis finally caught and executed the Nazi SS Lvov Ghetto Commandant ten years after the war ended. That murderous coward Fritz Katzman YMSVZ was caught and justice was rendered. May HKBH render nekomah on all of his enemies. Yidden say Tellim Pay Gimmel, 83 to bring nekoma on Ukraine !!! Justice will not be denied.
The words of hate in any culture or language only incite more hate. It is disappointing to read these words, from what I can only assume are my lantzmen. Ukraine, as most nations have their own sins to atone for, we should do what is in our power help them as they mature into statehood and not further isolate and promote the vicious cycle of hate. As one who has fought for being called a Zhid by his classmates, I hold only pity for the narrow minded fools who are being left behind as their nation indeed leaps into the world community, despite of its often tragic history.