The Forties: World War II and its aftermath (10/10/93)

ANNIVERSARY REVIEW

The Forties: World War II and its aftermath

At the beginning of the 1940s, The Ukrainian Weekly focused on internal Ukrainian American affairs, while keeping an eye on war developments in Europe.

Much space was devoted to news connected to the first Congress of American Ukrainians, which was sponsored by 19 national organizations, including the "Big Four" fraternals: the Ukrainian National Association, the Ukrainian Workingmen's Association, the Providence Association and the Ukrainian National Aid Association. The one-day congress was held Friday, May 24, 1940, in Washington, with 805 delegates representing 1,425 societies, in 18 states participating. The conclave organized the Congress Council (which evolved into the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America) to continue to coordinate actions in support of the movement for Ukraine's independence.

Throughout the decade, The Weekly continued to focus attention on the work of the UCCA and its second, third and fourth congresses, all the while urging unity and political maturity in pursuit of Ukrainians' common causes. Another prominent Ukrainian community organization of the time was the Ukrainian Youth League of North America; judging by the amount of coverage it received on the pages of The Weekly, it was one of the most active as well.

Major milestones marked by articles in The Weekly were the 50th anniversaries of Ukrainian settlement in Canada (1941), Svoboda (1943) and the UNA (1944).

At the same time, the newspaper wrote about the plight of Ukrainians in the "old country." There were news reports on the starvation in western Ukraine as Russia, then experiencing a food shortage, was taking foodstuffs out of the recently annexed western Ukrainian lands, on the persecution and exile into "inner Russia" of Ukrainian activists, and about anti-Soviet protests in that region.

The Weekly exposed the "Russo-American friendship myth," and in the editorial of November 22, 1940, called for "realistic talk." "If our government is to remain true to democratic principles, if it is to remain the hope of all the oppressed and the downtrodden throughout the world, and if it is to command the respect of all men of conscience, then it must ... revise its present policy of condemning one totalitarian power and condoning another, by condemning not only Nazi Germany but Soviet Russia..."

As the Nazis began their occupation of Ukraine in June 1941, The Weekly reported: "Retreating Reds Massacre Ukrainians in Western Ukraine," noting that thousands (a figure of 14,000 was cited in one story) were reported killed by the Soviets and many others were exiled to Siberia. Soon thereafter, there was news of Nazi atrocities: "Nazis execute 200 in Ukraine," "52,000 massacred in Kiev." Simultaneously, there was more and more information on Ukrainian revolts against the Nazis in the western regions of Ukraine. On July 28, 1941, The Weekly outlined "Our Stand." The editorial noted that Ukrainians were opposed to both Hitler and Stalin and explained why Ukrainians could not cheer for a "Red victory."

At about the same time, The Weekly expounded on the need for a Ukrainian information service or press bureau in the United States since Ukraine is "one of the chief battlegrounds in the titanic Nazi-Soviet conflict," and its history and the aspirations of its people are being grossly distorted and misrepresented as pro-Nazi and fascist. Indeed, The Weekly expended much effort on countering the disinformation campaign aimed against Ukrainians - much of it Communist inspired.

In August, The Weekly reported on historic events in Western Ukraine where independence had been proclaimed on June 30, 1941. Yaroslav Stetsko became head of state, and a Ukrainian National Revolutionary Army was established to continue the fight against foreign domination of Ukraine. Soon afterwards, the leaders of this short-lived independent state were arrested by German authorities.

After the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, The Ukrainian Weekly and the entire Ukrainian American community strongly supported the war effort. The paper carried numerous promotions for war bonds and reported extensively on Ukrainians in the American armed forces - their accomplishments, heroic deeds and sacrifices. In 1943, The Weekly reported that the Congressional Medal of Honor had been awarded to the mother of Pvt. Nicholas Minue of Carteret N.J., who had died while on a courageous one-man charge against a German position in Tunisia. As the war went on, sadly, there were more and more reports of servicemen who had made the ultimate sacrifice.

On October 9, 1943, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America sent a memorandum to U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, which argued: "The Ukrainian people desire equality of treatment. They believe that in the post-war settlement their inalienable right to an independent free state in a free Europe should be granted and that the Ukrainian question should be included in any just and permanent settlement of Europe."

After the disastrous Yalta Conference, The Weekly noted that "international justice, the right of a democratic people to determine their national destinies, played but a secondary role at the meeting. The emphasis was simply on power politics, and the devil take the hindmost." Stalin, it was stated, "now has all of Ukraine, and exactly where he always had wanted it - in the palm of his hand. ... his hold upon Western Ukraine, formerly under Poland, is now secure, for it has Churchill's and Roosevelt's approval... Now, with all of Ukraine under Kremlin rule, the Ukrainian problem is definitely an internal Soviet problem, to be dealt with in any manner that the Kremlin sees fit."

Then, as the San Francisco conference on international organization, at which the United Nations was created, approached, The Weekly emphasized that "the agenda ... appears to preclude any possibility of even discussing the inalienable right of the Ukrainian people to national independence." The Weekly editor Stephen Shumeyko, who was president of the UCCA, led a protest in San Francisco to focus the world's attention on the fact that the Ukrainian nation of 45 million people would have no voice at the United Nations Conference despite the seat voted to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic at the insistence of Russia.

As World War II ended in 1945, The Weekly noted: "The war brought liberation for many peoples. But not for the Ukrainians. And there lies the seed of future trouble, as the Ukrainians never have been and never will be passive to foreign rule and oppression." For the rest of the decade there were reports of continuing underground activity by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) on Ukrainian lands.

The paper reported on the plight of war refugees and forced laborers who had been brought by the Nazis to work in Germany. And, it stood up in defense of scores of thousands of displaced persons who were threatened with forced repatriation to the USSR. The UCCA appealed to President Harry Truman and to the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in London to stop forced repatriations and to grant these refugees asylum. The protest action was joined also by the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee, which had been founded in 1944. Later, the UUARC took its actions directly to Europe, establishing a warehouse for relief supplies in Munich and offices in several European cities.

In 1947, a Pan American Ukrainian Conference took place in New York and established a permanent Pan American Ukrainian Conference. It assailed the Soviets' genocidal policies against Ukrainians and appealed to U.N. to put a stop to such policies. The following year, the Secretariat of the Pan American Ukrainian Conference proposed summoning a worldwide congress of Ukrainians (which ultimately happened 20 years later).

From 1946, The Weekly focused much attention on religious persecution in Ukraine under the Soviet regime, in particular the liquidation of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, and repeatedly refuted Soviet assertions about religious freedom.

Of course, The Weekly continued its features on Ukrainian literature, history and culture through the 40s. Among the topics covered were: the Zaporozhian Kozaks, "The Scythians of Ukraine," artist George Narbut, "If Charles XII Had Won the Battle of Poltava," "Ukraine During the Last World War," "The Ukrainian Movement in Galicia," the centennial of Markian Shashkevych's death, "Vinnytsia: Katyn of Ukraine," "Ukrainian Women and Their Organizations" (a historical overview).

The Weekly itself underwent some major changes in the 1940s, expanding in July of 1941 from a four-page tabloid to six pages, and in 1947 to eight. In 1945 the UNA decided that the paper would no longer be distributed gratis; a year's subscription was pegged at $2 per year, or $1 for UNA members. Then, in 1949, it adopted a broadsheet format, and appeared as a three-page supplement to Svoboda on Mondays. Its cost 3 cents per issue in the U.S. (5 cents elsewhere).

As the decade came to a close, The pages of The Weekly reported on the post-war revival of Ukrainian community activity, including the founding congresses of the Ukrainian American Veterans and the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations in 1948, and the growth of the UNA, whose membership passed the 50,000 mark. As well, there was the establishment in Europe of the Ukrainian National Council, a coalition of various Ukrainian political groupings comprising the Ukrainian liberation movement.

In 1949, the community witnessed the mammoth "Echoes of Ukraine" pageant at Carnegie Hall in New York. Featuring recreations of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky's entry in Kyyiv, "The Great Ideal of Mazepa" and excerpts from the opera "Kozak Beyond the Danube," the concert was a benefit for the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee. Also that year, the UUARC's efforts to help war refugees bore fruit as the first group of Ukrainian displaced persons, 128 persons, arrived from Europe destined for Maryland. Their appearance on these shores was to change forever the face of the Ukrainian community.

- Roma Hadzewycz

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