March 6, Rick Halperin, director of the SMD Dallas Human Rights Program, for a piece criticizing Russia for attempts to erase The Ukriane’s Jewish heritage and sacrifice during war. Published in the Austin American-Statesman under the heading Putin’s vile bid to erase the Jewish sacrifice in Ukraine: https://bit.ly/370FY4x
Much of the world remains captivated and appalled at the Russian invasion of Ukraine; the unprovoked attack promises to bring much more suffering, tragedy and death to its people, and possibly its president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that he wants to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, a vile and outrageous statement especially given that President Zelensky is Jewish. During World War II, Ukraine was a major area of fighting, death and genocide. Two-and-a-half million soldiers were killed in Ukraine between 1941-1944, and 4.5 million civilians were killed there in the same timeframe. The 7 million deaths constituted almost 11 % of the country’s pre-war population, a figure exceeded only by Poland’s loss of 19.6 % of its population during WWII.
By Rick Halperin
Much of the world remains captivated and appalled at the Russian invasion of Ukraine; the unprovoked attack promises to bring much more suffering, tragedy and death to its people, and possibly its president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that he wants to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, a vile and outrageous statement especially given that President Zelensky is Jewish. During World War II, Ukraine was a major area of fighting, death and genocide. Two-and-a-half million soldiers were killed in Ukraine between 1941-1944, and 4.5 million civilians were killed there in the same timeframe. The 7 million deaths constituted almost 11 % of the country’s pre-war population, a figure exceeded only by Poland’s loss of 19.6 % of its population during WWII.
Ukraine has come to be known as the site of the “Holocaust by Bullets,” where Nazi Einsatzgruppen killing squads shot to death the Jews they could find. The site at Babi Yar, outside the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, epitomizes the fervor of Nazi killing.
On Sept. 29-30, 1941, Nazi soldiers murdered 33,771 Jews in the largest two-day massacre at a single site in the entire war. The site would be used throughout the Nazi’s occupation of Ukraine, and a total of more than 100,000 people would be murdered there.
After the war, the Soviet Union immediately and consistently refused to recognize the Nazi crime against Soviet Jews. Josef Stalin’s antisemitism was extended by successive leaders who refused to allow a memorial at the site until 1976, and even then, the memorial was dedicated to only “Soviet citizens” shot at Babi Yar; there was no recognition of the murder of Soviet Jews.
The Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991, and it would take another 25 years, in 2016, before Ukraine itself allowed the establishment of a memorial specifically to commemorate the onslaught against and the death of Jewish victims.
Thus we should not be surprised at the Russian desecration of the Holocaust memorial at Babi Yar. It does not matter whether the destruction was caused by errant missiles or was a deliberate target on Putin’s instructions. The attack represents a more-than-80-year effort by Russian leaders to degrade, disgrace and deny a people their fundamental right to dignity, recognition and justice.
The attack also represents an ongoing effort to distort the realities of the Holocaust at one of its most infamous killing sites.
Anyone with a conscience and moral center, anywhere in the world, regardless of faith, nationality, race or ethnicity, should loudly condemn the attack at Babi Yar and commit themselves to eradicate such hatred from our world. Putin and his military must ultimately be held accountable before the bar of history.
The triumph of human rights must, and shall, prevail. The following was true in 1941, and is just as valid for those of us alive today: There is no such thing as a lesser person.
Rick Halperin is the director of the Human Rights Program at SMU Dallas.