Antisemitism in Ukraine

It is estimated that one third of Europe's Jews lived in Ukraine, which from 1791 to 1917 partly belonged to the Pale of Settlement. The concentration of Jews in this region made them an easy target for pogroms and massive, anti-Jewish riots.

History

See also: Khmelnytsky Uprising, Koliyivschyna, Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire, Pale of Settlement, and Lviv pogroms

Background

The activities of the Union of Russian People and of other Black Hundreds organizations nurtured antisemitism in Ukraine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Soviet authorities conducted a powerful and baseless defamation campaign against the Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura (1879–1926), whom they accused of anti-Semitic sentiments. A number of Jewish historians such as Mark Vishnitser have pointed out that anti-Semitic pogroms occurred during both incidents of Soviet aggression against Ukraine in 1917–1921.

Between 1918 and 1921 a total of 1,236 violent incidents against Jews occurred in 524 towns in Ukraine. The estimates of the number of killed range between 30,000 and 60,000. Of the recorded 1,236 pogroms and excesses, 493 were carried out by Ukrainian People's Republic soldiers under command of Symon Petliura, 307 by independent Ukrainian warlords, 213 by Denikin's army, 106 by the Red Army and 32 by the Polish Army.

During the dictatorship of Pavlo Skoropadsky (29 April 1918 to December 1918), no pogroms were recorded. When the Directorate replaced Skoropadsky's government, pogroms once again erupted.

Directorate of Ukraine (1918–1920)

In December 1918 Hetman of the Ukrainian State Pavlo Skoropadskyi was deposed and the Directorate (also called the Directoria) was established as the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic (Ukrayins'ka Narodnia Respublika, abbreviated UNR).

This new Ukrainian government immediately reacted to the acts of violence which happened in January 1919 in Zhytomyr and Berdychiv. The Ukrainian government informed the Jewish leaders and the government of Berdychiv on January 10 that the instigators had been shot, and that the army squadron which took part in the action had been disbanded. The head of the government, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, stated that the pogrom actions were initiated by the Black Hundreds. He also stated: "the Ukrainian government will actively fight anti-Semitism and all occurrences of Bolshevism".

The pro-Bolshevik delegate of the Bund, Moisei Rafes, who initially stated that “the special detachment that was sent to Zhytomyr and Berdychev to fight the Soviets initiated a pogrom”, later in a speech at the meeting of the Labour Congress of Ukraine on January 16, 1919 changed his mind: "The Directoria states that it is not to blame, that it is not to blame for the pogroms. None of us blames the Directoria for the responsibility of the pogroms."

Symon Petliura made attempts to stop the occurrence of pogroms among Ukrainian detachments. When he discovered from the Minister of Jewish affairs of the UNR that the transiting squadron at the Yareska station had initiated violent acts against the Jewish population, he immediately sent a telegram to the military commandant of Myrhorod: “I command that the matter be investigated and reported back to me, and to use immediate measures so that similar excesses do not have a place and will be punished – 28 January – Head Otaman S. Petliura.

When Petliura took charge of the Directoria in 1919, at his initiative the government investigated the Jewish pogroms in Kamianets-Podilskyi and Proskuriv, demanding that the commanders “use decisive actions to totally liquidate the pogromist anti-Jewish actions, and the perpetrators are to be brought before a military tribunal and punished according to the military laws of war”.

A representative of the Jewish party Poale Zion, Drakhler, told Petliura: “We understand, having enough facts, that the Zhytomyr and Berdichev pogroms took place as acts against the (Ukrainian) government. Immediately after the Zhytomyr pogrom the Russian and Polish Black Hundred members boasted 'The planned pogroms had worked extremely well, and will bring an end to Ukrainian aspirations'”. Drakhler continued: “I am deeply convinced that not only we, but all Jewish democracy in its activities will take active participation in the struggle to free Ukraine. And in the rows of the army the Jewish Cossack hand in hand will fight, carrying its blood and life onto the altar of national and social freedom in Ukraine”.

Petliura replied to the Jewish delegates that he would use "the strength of all my authority to remove the excesses against the Jews, which are obstacles to our work of establishing our statehood".

The Volunteer Russian Army led by General Denikin had a different attitude to the Jews and pogroms in Ukraine. In a special memorandum sent to the Central Committee for Jewish Aid who had suffered in the pogroms at the end of 1919 he stated: "The politics of general Denikin regarding these deceitful people (all Jewish Bolsheviks), is that they are in the dark, an invisible mass, responsible for the disgusting rows of cruelty and pogroms, which have no boundary."

One document states in reference to the Kiev pogroms of June–October 1919: "When General Dragomirov, known for his liberalism, had to leave Kiev because of the Bolshevik offensive, turned to his officers (recorded in a stenogram) with the following words: 'My friends, you know, as much as I do, the reasons for our temporary failures on the Kievan front. When you, my heroic and never dying eagles, retake Kiev, I grant you the possibility to take revenge on the grubby Jews.'"

When Denikin's Volunteer army ru ( 31 August [O.S. 18 August]  1919) it inflicted robbery and murder on the civilian population. Over 20,000 people died in two days of violence. After these events, the representative of the Kharkiv Jewish Community, Mr. Suprasskin, spoke to General Shkuro, who stated to him bluntly: "Jews will not receive any mercy because they are all Bolsheviks."

The government of the Ukrainian People's Republic in a communication with the governments of the Entente dated October 7, 1919 stated:

"Especially disgusting are the violent acts by the representatives of General Denikin on the Jews, which along the roads taken by his army, instigate unimaginable pogroms, which by their size, brutality and obscenity have surpassed all other excess that we have had at any time in any place on the Ukrainian terrain."

In 1921 Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky, the father of Revisionist Zionism, signed an agreement with Maxim Slavinsky, Petliura's representative in Prague, regarding the formation of a Jewish gendarmerie which would accompany Petliura's putative invasion of Ukraine and protect the Jewish population from pogroms. The agreement did not materialize and most Zionist groups heavily criticized Jabotinsky. Nevertheless, he stood by the agreement and took pride in it.

In May 1926 the Jewish anarchist Sholom Schwartzbard assassinated Petliura (then head of the Ukrainian government-in-exile), in Paris. Schwartzbard fully admitted to the crime, citing revenge as his motive. His defence, led by the French lawyer Henri Torres, focused on Petliura's alleged responsibility for the 1919–1920 pogroms in Balta in which Schwartzbard had lost all members of his family. The court eventually acquitted Schwartzbard; this acquittal soured Jewish-Ukrainian relations in the West.

Other early 20th-century pogroms

When the Tsentralna Rada proclaimed the III Universal in November 1917, the Imperial Russian Army initiated a pogrom in Uman in southern Ukraine.

In February 1919 a brigade of UNR troops killed 1500 Jews in Proskurov. In Tetiev on March 25, 1919, Cossack troops under the command of Colonels Cherkovsky, Kurovsky and Shliatoshenko murdered 4000 Jews.

During the Russian Civil War the Jews of Uman in eastern Podolia were subjected to two pogroms in 1919, as the town changed hands several times. The first pogrom, in spring, claimed 170 victims; the second one, in summer, more than 90. This time the Christian inhabitants helped to hide the Jews. The Council for Public Peace, with a Christian majority and a Jewish minority, saved the city from danger several times. In 1920, for example, it stopped the pogrom initiated by the troops of General Denikin.

Historiography

The Jewish community suffered significant losses in the period of the Russian revolution. Many documents dealing with the pogroms, however, remained unavailable and indeed were deliberately concealed from the public in the Soviet-era anti-semitic climate. These documents remained hidden until the Ukrainian historian Volodymyr Serhiychuk (born 1950) discovered them in the Ukrainian State Archives. Study of the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine has shown that the government of the UNR directed by Petliura had no connection to the organization of Jewish pogroms in Ukraine. In fact the Directoria from its very conception fought against pogroms, but its power remained limited, even in the territory under its control.

The propaganda organs of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union attempted to put the blame of all the Jewish pogroms on Symon Petliura. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine prepared a special document in order to compromise Petliura in the Schwartzbard court case.

Historians have claimed that Petliura himself did not have any history of antisemitism, and that he actively sought to stop anti-Jewish violence on numerous occasions, finally introducing capital punishment for the crime of pogroming.

Modern sources claim that the White Volunteer Army was the main perpetrator of pogroms, and that some were instigated by the Directory's forces, especially by the irregular otaman-led groups. The Red Army also initiated some pogroms.

Independent Ukraine

Antisemitic graffiti Lviv; Yids will not reside in Lviv

See also: Racism and discrimination in Ukraine

There were several incident of violence against Jews and antisemitic graffiti After Ukraine became independent.

There were a number of right-wing nationalist and antisemitic groups in Ukraine in the 1990s. Among the most conspicuous was the MAUP, a private university with extensive financial ties to Islamic regimes. In the March 2006 issue (No. 9/160) of the Personnel Plus magazine by MAUP, an article "Murder Is Unveiled, the Murderer Is Unknown?" revives false accusations from the Beilis Trial, stating that the jury recognized the case as ritual murder by persons unknown, even though it found Beilis himself not guilty.

Riots broke out in September 1993 in Vinnytsia, where UNA-UNSO members picketed the offices of the local Jewish mayor Dmitrii Dvorkis. During the same period, other Jewish mayors – Odessa's Eduard Gurwits and Donetsk's Yukhym Zvyahilsky – also became subjects of antisemitic campaigns.

During Ukrainian elections candidates such as Yulia Tymoshenko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk have been accused of being Jewish, in what appeared to be smear campaigns. The 2010 presidential elections involved Jews, Israel, and antisemitism as some officials made antisemitic statements, and others condemned these statements. Some candidates, who included a Jew and another claimed by rivals to be Jewish, blamed fellow candidate Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko for bringing antisemitism into the race.

More recently Jewish organizations in and outside of Ukraine have accused the political party All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" of open Nazi sympathies and being antisemitic. In May 2013 the World Jewish Congress listed the party as neo-Nazi. "Svoboda" itself has denied being antisemitic. In the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary elections "Svoboda" won its first seats in the Ukrainian Parliament, garnering 10.44% of the popular vote and the 4th most seats among national political parties.

Some Jews supported the 2013–2014 Euromaidan revolution which ousted the discredited Viktor Yanukovich from the presidency of Ukraine. A few antisemitic incidents were recorded during this period.

A report published by the National Minority Rights Monitoring Group revealed that during 2014 there were 23 incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism (comparing with 9 cases during 2013), 7 cases of antisemitic violence, and 9 events of public advocacy of anti-Semitic views. According to the report, there were also cases of exploitation of anti-Semitism and “the Jewish question” in propaganda campaigns, such as speculations used by the administration of President Viktor Yanukovich in the first days of the Euromaidan mass protests. The conclusion of the report describes a peak of antisemitic incidents in 2014, probably due to the unstably status in Ukraine. In March 2014, Yaakov Bleich, the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, accused Russian sympathizers and nationalists of staging antisemitic provocations to be blamed on Ukrainians. He claimed that these provocations were used by the Russian Federation to justify the Invasion of Crimea.

A repeating antisemitic act in Ukraine is the desecration of Holocaust memorials.

Anti-Semitic vandalism continued throughout 2015.

During October 2014, the National Minority Rights Monitoring Group published DATA concerning the status of the antisemitic incidents occurred in Ukraine. According to it, the number of antisemitic incidents through last ten years is declining.