January 19, 2023
January 19, 2023
Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust: A Book Discussion
John-Paul Himka (University of Alberta)
Moderator: Jared McBride (UCLA)
The 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies
The author and Jared McBride discuss the book Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust, which appeared in 2021 in ibidem-Verlag. The book looks at the ideology and practices of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its armed force, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, in relation to the Jewish population during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. It shows that the nationalists held antisemitic views and formed militias that were deeply involved of the pogroms and other anti-Jewish violence in the summer of 1941. The nationalists also infiltrated Ukrainian police forces in German service, who were major accomplices in the almost total liquidation of Jews in 1942 and the first half of 1943. Even when the nationalists broke with the Germans in spring 1943 they continued a policy of murdering Jews and Ukrainians who hid Jews.
John-Paul Himka is emeritus professor of history at the University of Alberta. He has written five major monographs on Ukrainian history, including Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust (Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2021). Aside from the monographs, he has served in an editorial capacity for another ten books on Ukrainian and East European history, including, with co-editor Joanna Beata Michlic, Bringing the Dark Past to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Post-Communist Europe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013). He has also authored numerous articles on Ukrainian history and on the Holocaust in Ukraine in particular.
A Leve Center Talks podcast release
Leve Center Talks podcast release, available 1/19/2023