Sol Littman Letter 13 09-Oct-1999 Guarantee publication of four inculpatory documents

Sol Littman Letter 13 09-Oct-1999 Guarantee publication of four inculpatory documents

"I promise you that upon receipt of any of the above documents, I will publish them on the Ukrainian Archive complete and unedited on the same day that I receive them, and without regard to how damaging they may be to the Galicia Division." � Lubomyr Prytulak

October 09, 1999

Sol Littman
Director, Simon Wiesenthal Center
8 King Street East, Suite 710
Toronto, ON
CANADA, M5C 1B5

Tel: (416) 864-9735
Fax: (416) 864-1083

Sol Littman:

I have been complaining that your Tryzub and Swastika Speech of 31Aug97 is short on the evidence that is needed to support your many astonishing accusations against the Galicia Division. Although your account of the Galicia Division is typically nebulous, at the following four points you refer to identifiable events, each of which should be readily documentable.

(1) Himmler praises the Galicia Division for ridding Ukraine of Jews?

You appear to be saying that you have a record of this Himmler speech:

On May 16, 1944, Himmler visited the Division. And he made a speech, in which we have a record, the record of it in the National Archives in Washington. And in that speech, he congratulated the Division for having made the Ukraine a much more beautiful place than it had been previously by eliminating the Jews, who had been a blemish on the landscape.

(2) British civil servants knew of war crimes committed by members of the Galicia Division?

You do unequivocally say that you have copies of these British documents:

Now the British knew this wasn't so, because we have documents we photostated from the British Archives which indicate that some of the top civil servants were very aware of the crimes committed by these people, but were quite prepared to cover it up because that was British policy at the time.

(3) Members of the Galicia Division bombed a Ukrainian labor temple in Toronto?

I would expect you would be able to produce newspaper clippings of this bombing, and if not that, then at least a date and address:

In the city of Toronto where I come from a bomb was set off on a Sunday afternoon, fortunately before the children's concert that was supposed to take place. In North Bay and in Timmins, the right-wing Ukrainians invaded the labor temple with baseball bats and beat the hell out of the Ukrainians who had come there for a meeting. And today if you talk to left-wing, formerly left-wing, Ukrainians � because they've all gone to the wall, they've virtually disappeared by now � you will find that they have many, many stories to tell of the outright brutality exercised by these people who came from the Ukrainian Waffen-SS Division, from the OUN, and so on.

(4) Members of the Galicia Division participated in the Huktyniachka Massacre?

I have already requested documentation concerning the Huktyniachka Massacre in my letter to you of 02Oct99 (is there such a town, was there such a massacre, was the Galicia Division involved?), and below reproduce only a part of the larger story that you told in your speech. As you claim that the Huktyniachka Massacre is among the "best documented" of all the atrocities of which you claim the Galicia Division was guilty, then you should have no trouble producing this documentation:

One of the atrocities that the Division committed which is probably best documented is what took place in a town called Huktyniachka. [... A] large contingent of German Wehrmacht, regular German soldiers, and a large contingent of Ukrainian policemen, and a large contingent from the Division, from the Waffen-SS Division, the Ukrainian Division, surrounded Huktyniachka. They gathered all the men in the village into the village square and they shot them there. Then they took the women and children and put them in the church. They had wooden churches in that area. They nailed all the doors and windows shut, and torched the building. And if anybody managed to get out, they were machine-gunned as they emerged from the smoke and flames.

I promise you that upon receipt of any of the above documents, I will publish them on the Ukrainian Archive complete and unedited on the same day that I receive them, and without regard to how damaging they may be to the Galicia Division.

Of course it surprises me not a little that such highly inculpatory documents as the four above have not already been published either on the Simon Wiesenthal Web site, or else in accompaniment of the audio presentation of your Tryzub and Swastika Speech, but perhaps this oversight can now be rectified by the instant publication that I am guaranteeing.

Lubomyr Prytulak

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