Stepan Bandera (Ukrainian: Степан Бандера) was a Ukrainian fascist, nationalist and Nazi-collaborator who led the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). He instructed his organization to carry out the ethnic cleansing of Jews and Poles in Ukraine, culminating in the Holocaust where he helped murder more than 800,000 Jewish Ukrainians.
Stepan Bandera |
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Life[edit | edit source]
Bandera was born on 1 January 1909 in the village of Staryi Uhryniv, located in the eastern part of Galicia, the easternmost province of the Habsburg Empire. During World War 1 the region was a battleground between Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. Political partisanship was polarised between russophile Pan-Slavism and Austroslavism, which made fighting on this front a de-facto regional Civil War that resulted in physical extermination of the local russophile movement as part of the Habsburgs counterinsurgency operations[1]. This in combination with the polish recolonisation of the region as part of their phyrric victory in the Polish-Soviet War after World War 1 set the context within which Bandera grew up. He was involved in the nationalist movement from a very early age. He joined the UVO, a precursor to the OUN, in 1927, shortly before moving Lvov. The OUN was established in 1929, which the UVO merged into. Bandera became active in the nationalist movement, being arrested many times by Polish authorities until the Nazi invasion of Poland.
When the Nazis invaded Poland, Bandera escaped from prison and continued to organize with other nationalists under the new Nazi government. While most Ukrainian nationalists at the time were not anti-semitic, Bandera was a pioneer. Bandera even petitioned the Nazi governor of Poland, Hanz Frank, to kill all the Jews and Poles in what he considered to be Ukrainian territories.
Rise to leadership[edit | edit source]
A split grew in the OUN as some members didn't trust the Nazis. On February 10th, 1940, Bandera gathered members that supported the Nazis in Krakow to proclaim a new organization - the OUN-B (OUN-Bandera). The other faction became the OUN-M (OUN-Mel’nyk)
On 31 March, 1941, the OUN-B organized the second great congress of the Ukrainian nationalists. Since the first great congress was organized by the OUN, this second congress was intended to show that the new OUN-B was the real successor. At this congress several resolutions were adopted, such as the concept of “One nation, one party, one leader”, the beginning of Ukrainian "race science", and declaring Jews as an enemy of the OUN-B.
The congress also introduced a set of fascist rituals. This included the red-and-black flag, which symbolizes blood and soil as well as the slogan "Slava Ukrayini!" (Glory to Ukraine) to which the response was "Heroiam slava!" (Glory to the heroes).
Stepan Bandera was then declared Providnyk, their new equivalent to the Nazi Fuhrer.
Arrest[edit | edit source]
Because of their networking with other National Socialists in Europe during the repartition of the former austrian sphere of influence the OUN assumed that they could rally a sufficiently useful collaborator movement and act as the vanguard of ethnic cleansing of Russians to establish a culturally homogenous Ukraine, which the Nazis would have to contend with in their plans.
Hitler disagreed and Bandera was interned as a "guest of honor" because his plans and fanaticism were incompatible with the goals of Generalplan Ost, which encompassed the genocide of Galicians as well. This did not negatively affect the de-facto collaboration between Germany and the OUN in practice. The OUN(b) continued acting as an official auxillery police to the Nazi state and it's only significant units capable of limited conventional combat were under direct command and leadership of the german military.
After the Battle of Stalingrad and the OUN's hasty attempts to refashion themselves into anything other than a powerless collaborator gang, Bandera was transferred to a concentration camp because of his movement's nominal treason by attempting to align with the Allies. The first priority of his supporters on the ground remained the extermination of Poles and Jews.
On the initiative of the OUN(b), negotiations with the SS and its Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, SD) were resumed on March 5, 1944.[2] By March 1944, the UPA was sharing information with the German authorities on their murder of “Poles, bandits, and Jews.” Formal cooperation with the German Security Police, Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) and the SD was resumed in May 1944.[3]
Bandera was released in October 1944.
Participation in the Holocaust[edit | edit source]
Operation Barbarossa[edit | edit source]
Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi operation to invade and occupy the Soviet Union, was planned alongside the OUN-B's "Ukrainian national revolution". When the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, Bandera commanded the OUN-B to carry out their revolution. The Nazis wouldn't allow Bandera to visit his organization or the invaded territories, instead he had to command the revolution from Nazi-occupied Poland. Bandera explicitly gave instructions for the OUN-B to cleanse Ukraine of Jews.
"The Jews are to be isolated, removed from positions to avoid sabotage, Muscovites and Poles even more so. If there is an absolute need to retain, for example, a Jew in the economic administration, one of our militiamen must be placed over him, and should liquidate him for the slightest transgression. Only Ukrainians, not foreign enemies, can be leaders in the various branches of life. The assimilation of Jews is excluded."[4]
“Don’t throw away your weapons yet. Take them up. Destroy the enemy . . . People!—Know this!—Moscow, the Hungarians, the Jews—these are your enemies. Destroy them.”[5] “We will butcher the Jews, strangle the Poles, and establish a Ukrainian state!”[6] - Lyrics from an OUN song
At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa the Nachtigall Battalion, a volunteer unit for the Brandenburger Commandos recruited exclusively from among the OUN(b) and commanded by Roman Shukheyvch, could rely on a local support network of the OUN to assist in identification of targets for liquidation and enthusiastic[7] assistance in the mass executions.
Pogroms[edit | edit source]
On July 1st, 1941, the day after Lvov had been captured by the OUN and the Nazis, a pogrom occurred. The OUN-B began mass killing Jews while inciting the local population to participate. Thousands of Jewish residents of Lvov were taken out of their homes by locals and taken to prisons, being beaten along the way. In the prison they were mistreated and over-worked, leading to an overwhelming mortality. Of the 2000 Jewish inmates imprisoned in the Brygidki prison, only 80 survived. As the pogrom was being carried out, the Nazis were continuing the invasion of the Soviet Union, and the OUN-B was building their new state. They put up posters in their new capital of Lvov reading “Long Live Stepan Bandera, Long Live Adolf Hitler.”
The OUN-B carried out 58[2] progroms. In July 1941 they murdered between 38,000 and 39,000[8] Jews in other towns surrounding Lvov.
Mass executions by hand were the OUN's favoured method of implementing the Holocaust. The german system of Concentration Camps was established by the SS in response to the problem that the enormous volume of death witnessed and inflicted by their professional executioners resulted in severe mental breakdowns and occasional crises of faith due to development of empathy for the victims. An often overlooked aspect of this outsourcing was making the direct killing more technical and the other approach was delegating the killing to more enthusiastic collaborators like the Banderites. Concentration camps were, sytematically speaking, a backup-measure for whoever wasn't caught by the collaborators. Furthermore the collaborators acted reciprocally as a dragnet for escapees from the Ghettos and specialised annihilation camps.
Survivor of the Galician Holocaust described the Banderites methods thusly:
"When the Bandera gangs seize a Jew, they consider it a prize catch. . . . They literally slash Jews to pieces with their machetes."[9]
"Bandera men . . . are not discriminating about who they kill; they are gunning down the populations of entire villages. . . . Since there are hardly any Jews left to kill, the Bandera gangs have turned on the Poles. They are literally hacking Poles to pieces. Every day . . . you can see the bodies of Poles, with wires around their necks, floating down the river Bug."[9]
Bladed weapons and farm tools were preffered weapons of murder.[10] Polish survivor testimonies contain accounts of how the UPA (at that time thoroughly infiltrated by and merged with the OUN-B) forced family members to take part in murders of their relatives. Mutiliation and torture were employed as standard procedure and a favoured method of exhibiting the results to the OUN's enemies was the crucifiction of victims.
Ghettos and concentration camps[edit | edit source]
The OUN-B established an organisation to carry out killings of Jews in western Ukraine called the Ukrainian People's Militsiya. This organization became the police of western Ukraine as instructed by the Nazis. The Ukrainian People's Militsiya alongside the Nazis transferred hundreds of thousands of Jews to ghettos and concentration camps. In the Ternopil Oblast of western Ukraine, 97% of Jews were killed, whereas ( for contrast) in the Kharkov Oblast of eastern Ukraine, 91% survived. The OUN-B was directly involved in the killing of some 820,000 Jews in concentration camps and ghettos.
Death[edit | edit source]
On 15 October 1959, Bandera was poisoned with hydrogen cyanide by the KGB and died later that day.
Rehabilitation[edit | edit source]
On 7th July, 2016, Kiev renamed Moscow Street to Stepan Bandera Street.
Monuments dedicated to Stepan Bandera have been constructured in a number of western Ukrainian cities. Statues have been erected in Lviv, Staryi Uhryniv, Kolomyia, Drohobych, Zalishchyky, Mykytyntsi, Uzyn, Buchach, Hrabivka, Horodenka, Staryi Sambir, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Strusiv, Truskavets, Horishniy, Velykosilky, Sambir, Velyki Mosty, Skole, Turka, Zdolbuniv, Chortkiv, Sniatyn, Berezhany, Boryslav, Chervonohrad, Dubliany, Kamianka-Buzka, Kremenets, Mostyska, Pidvolochysk, Seredniy Bereziv, Terebovlia, Verbiv, and Volia-Zaderevatska.
In 2010 and 2011, Bandera was named an honorary citizen of a number of western Ukrainian cities, including Khust, Nadvirna, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Kolomyia, Dolyna, Varash, Lutsk, Chervonohrad, Terebovlia, Truskavets, Radekhiv, Sokal, Stebnyk, Zhovkva, Skole, Berezhany, Sambir, Boryslav, Brody, Stryi, and Morshyn.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ ‘The Real History Of Ukraine’ (2021-05-28 17:58:09). (Russians with Attitude). Timestamp: ~36:00. Available at: https://kemono.party/patreon/user/45511713/post/51807374 (Accessed: 10 February 2023).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rudling, P.A. (2011) ‘The OUN, the UPA and the Holocaust: A Study in the Manufacturing of Historical Myths’, The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies [Preprint], (2107). Available at: https://doi.org/10.5195/cbp.2011.164
- ↑ Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien, 376; Frank Golczewski, “Shades of Grey: Reflections on Jewish-Ukrainian and German-Ukranian Relations in Galicia,” in Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower, eds., The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 143.
- ↑ “Instruktsii Revoloiutsiinoho Provodu OUN(B) dlia orhanizatsiinoho aktyvu v Ukraini na period viiny. “Borot’ba i diialnist’ OUN pid chas viiny” H. Vkazivky na pershi dni orhanizatsii derzhavnoho zhyttia,” TsDAVO Ukrainy, f. 3833, op. 2, spr. 1, ark. 33–57.
- ↑ “Ukrains’kyi narode!” OUN(b) flyer, July 1, 1941, TsDAVO Ukrainy, f. 3833, op. 1, spr. 42, l. 35. See also Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941–1944: Organization und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens, 2d ed. (Munich: Verlag Oldenburg, 1997), 57.
- ↑ Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat,” 100, citing Kommunikat Nr. 7, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Ambasada RP w Berlinie 3677, Bl. 262.
- ↑ Berndt Boll, “Złoczów, July 1941: The Wehrmacht and the Beginning of the Holocaust in Galicia: From a Criticism of Photographs to a Revision of the Past,” in Omer Bartov, Atina Grossmann, and Mary Nolan, eds., Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the Twentieth Century (New York: The New Press, 2002), 73.
- ↑ Dieter Pohl, “Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Western Ukraine: A Research Agenda,” in Barkan, Cole, and Struve, eds. Shared History—Divided Memory, 305–315.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Moshe Maltz, Years of Horrors—Glimpse of Hope: The Diary of a Family in Hiding (New York: Shengold, 1993), 147, entry for November 1944.
- ↑ Bruder, “Den ukrainischen Staat,” 146.