LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (05/12/02)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

To UNA candidates: present your credentials

Dear Editor:

In a few weeks, the delegates to the Ukrainian National Association's convention will be faced with a serious problem affecting the future of our "soyuz" organization. The primary concern will be the election of officers to lead this multi-million-dollar organization.

What are we doing to ensure that we will be able to examine the qualifications of the people who are aspiring to the important leadership positions in the UNA? Are you going to depend upon "throwaways" left at night at the door of each delegate's room? Will these "throwaway" leaflets brag about the candidate's Ukrainian affiliations or will we get a better understanding of the candidate's qualifications? Isn't it important that we see their job experiences, titles, job descriptions and vision for the future of the UNA?

Today a position such as the president of the UNA should require a headhunter, or a national search. That's how you find a qualified person to head an organization of this stature.

Or, on the other hand, will delegates be forced to make a decision based upon a "throwaway"?

Candidates, here is your opportunity to present yourself to the delegates prior to the conventions, so that they can take time to evaluate your qualifications and be able to make an intelligent choice for this important position. I challenge the candidates to present themselves, in some manner, in a publication like the The Ukrainian Weekly or Svoboda.

At this late date, maybe all we can hope for is that the candidates will take some time to make those "throwaways" a bit more worthwhile, by providing some in-depth explanations about their qualifications to lead our organization. Do you think enough of your qualifications to do this?

Eugene Woloshyn
Poland, Ohio

The Halychyna Division and Ukrainophobia

Dear Editor:

Recently I have noticed a strange form of mental disease: a pathological hatred of everything Ukrainian (genus: Xenophobia, subspecies: Ukrainophobia).

Example 1: Russian and Jewish community leaders in Kyiv and the United States vehemently protesting a resolution by the Ivano-Frankivsk City Council which would extend combat veteran status to members of the Halychyna Division of the Ukrainian National Army, a World War II Ukrainian fighting force that battled against both the Soviet Army and Nazi forces. The All-Ukraine Jewish Congress has vehemently protested the decision, and Vadim Rabinovich, president of the congress, called the decision a crime against the Ukrainian and Jewish people.

Only the Ukrainian people and their duly elected government should, can and will decide what constitutes a crime against its citizens.

Example 2: Speaking of the Halychyna Division, leaders of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, located in Los Angeles, stated: "Those who volunteered to fight on the side of Germany and Hitler are the moral equivalent of Bin Laden and the terrorist cells of Al Qaeda."

Example 3: Two Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry officials condemned the move by Ivano-Frankivsk city officials on March 20, calling it "a shameful act of betrayal" of millions of Nazi victims, and stated that Russia could not accept recognition of a fighting force that had murdered thousands of "our fathers and grandfathers." The Russians should be reminded very strongly of the ROA Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Armiya, which translates into English as Russian Liberation Army. This 500,000-strong army was composed exclusively of Russians, former Red Army soldiers organized, equipped and trained by Germans who for four years fought exclusively under German command.

Is the ROA also quilty of "betrayal" and the murder of the Russian nation's "fathers and grandfathers"?

Example 4: A recent statement by a Russian journalist, politician or TV "talking head": "10 years of Ukrainian independence was much worse for Ukrainian people than 300 years of Russian domination of Ukraine."

This beats everything! I rest my case.

Eugene L. Kuz, M.D.
Savage, Minn.

P.S.: The two best books to learn the truth about the Halychyna Division are: "The Ukrainian Division Galicia, 1943-45" by Wolf-Dietrich Heike, ISBN: 0-9690239-4-4; and "Galicia Division: The Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division 1943-1945" by Michael O. Logusz, ISBN: 0-7643-00810-4 Library of Congress Catalogue Number: 96-67287.

| Home Page |