the pope having a russian and a ukrainian carry the cross during the good friday procession is exactly like that time when madonna performed at eurovision and had a dancer with the flag of israel and a dancer with the palestinian flag hug on stage, except the vatican couldn’t book quavo
When Adolf Hitler spoke about the United States it was generally, before the war at least, with admiration. And it was a question for Hitler who will the racial inferiors be, who will the slaves be in the German eastern empire? And the answer that he gave, both in “Mein Kampf” and in the second book and in practice in the invasion of 1941, the answer was “the Ukrainians”.
The Ukrainians. The Ukrainians were to be at the center of the project of colonization and enslavement. The Ukrainians were to be treated as Afrikaner or as Neger. This word was very often used, as those of you who read German documents from the war will know. By analogy with the United States the idea was to create a slavery driven exterminatory colonial regime in Eastern Europe with the center was going to be Ukraine.
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Now this is not only a matter of theory. This is a matter of practice. German policies, the policies that we remember, all of them focused precisely on Ukraine. The hunger plan with notion that tens of millions, zig Millionen, people are going to starve in the winter of 1941, Generalplan Ost with its idea that millions more people will be forcibly transported or killed in the five, ten or fifteen years to follow, but also the final solution, Hitler’s idea of the elimination of Jews, all of these policies hung together in theory and practice in the idea of an invasion of the Soviet Union, the major goal of which would be the conquest of Ukraine.
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When we think about the way that occupation ended we often overlook certain basic points, like this: far, far more Ukrainians died fighting against the Wehrmacht than fighting on the side of the Wehrmacht. Incomparably more Ukrainians were fighting against the Wehrmacht than on the side of the Wehrmacht. Which is not something that one can say about any country that is considered being an ally. It’s not something that one can say for example about France, which is why there is no official French history of the Second World War and why there will never be an official French history of the Second World War even under Macron. There are some things Macron cannot do and one of them will be this. He will not write the official history of the Second World War in France. Because more French soldiers fought on the axis side than on the allied side.
More Ukrainians died on the allied side than French. More Ukrainians fought and died on the allied side than British. More Ukrainians fought and died on the allied side than Americans. More Ukrainians fought and died on the allied side than French, British and Americans put together – put together.
Why do we not see this? Why do Germans not always see this? Because we forget that Ukrainians were fighting in the Red Army. We confuse the Red Army with the Russian Army, which it most definitively was not. The Red Army was the army of the Soviet Union in which Ukrainians because of the geography of the war were substantially over-represented.
When we thing about the way occupation ended, we also have to remember where Ukrainians were most of the time. That Ukrainians suffered in the German occupation – again roughly 3.5 million civilians, mostly children and women killed, and again, roughly 3 million Ukrainians who died in the uniform of the Red Army fighting against the Wehrmacht.
Where does this leave Germany? And why is this more complicated than it might otherwise seem to be? As an historian I know that the history of Ukraine is unfamiliar and it can seem complicated. But this is not the only problem. Part of the problem as I suggested when I mentioned my own country at the beginning has to do with habits of mind, habits of mind related to colonization, habits of mind related to wars of aggression, habits of mind related to the attempt to enslave another people. The attempt to enslave another people cannot be innocent even for the generations to come. The attempt to enslave another people, a neighboring people will leave its mark if not directly confronted.
“Russian troops are totally demotivated. They have no reason to fight against Ukrainians. They understand pretty well that they are not fighting for their own interests, they are not fighting for their country, they’re fighting for the interests of Russian oligarchs who want to take over a few Ukrainian enterprises.”
Ukrainian Jewish member of the anti-Nazi resistance in Kyiv Tatiana Markus (1921-1943)
She repeatedly participated in acts of sabotage against the Nazis: she threw a grenade disguised in a bouquet of asters into a marching column of soldiers, poured poison into SS officers’ food, personally shot a valuable Gestapo informant. Once she shot a Nazi officer and left a note: All of you, fascist bastards, are waiting for the same fate. Tatiana.
In Kyiv to protect her was developed a legend that she was the daughter of a Georgian prince shot by the Bolsheviks.
In 1942 she was captured by the Gestapo. For five months she was brutally tortured but did not betray anyone. In 1943 Tatiana Markus was shot. She was 22 years old.
Aid organizations in the United States and Europe say one group of Ukrainians has been particularly difficult to evacuate in the mass exodus since Russia invaded: people with disabilities.
At least 2.7 million Ukrainians are considered disabled, according to the country’s State Statistics Service, and relief organizations say they believe that many remain trapped in the country.
“It’s a dire situation,” said Anna Landre, the Ukraine crisis coordinator for the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, a U.S. disability-led disaster relief organization.
Among the situations that she said she was aware of is an orphanage in eastern Ukraine where about 100 children with disabilities are trapped, where food, medication and diapers are running out. Some of the children use wheelchairs, she said, and many cannot easily get out of bed. Ms. Landre said she did not want to name the orphanage or the town out of concern that doing so would further jeopardize their safety.
At a news conference on Thursday organized by European disability organizations, activists called on national governments and humanitarian aid groups to take further action to help those with disabilities in Ukraine by providing food, water, medicine and funding to organizations on the ground, as well as volunteers to help evacuate more people.
“We have seen two weeks of horror,” said Yulia Klepet, who has not been able to leave her apartment in Kyiv because she is caring for an adult daughter with autism and an 82-year old mother who cannot move.
“We cannot go downstairs to the bomb shelter,” she said, speaking through an interpreter at the news conference. “Even that, we cannot do.”
Many Ukrainians with disabilities are unable to walk or get to a train station, leaders of disability organizations said, or they need trains, buses and cars that are accessible. Others need to be transported on stretchers, or in a vehicle with electricity to power breathing machines.
Ms. Landre, the crisis coordinator, said that resources and accessible vehicles were hard to find.
“We could be doing this so much better if humanitarian organizations, who do this for a living, were actually inclusive of disabled people,” she said, adding, “it’s really frustrating, because we’re not equipped to do this work.”
