Simon Wiesenthal. HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER < Safer Safer > 979 hits since 15May99 Morley Safer Letter 9 15May99 Who murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk? But in the meantime, those who come too near to the truth concerning what happened to Volodymyr Ivasiuk have been the victims of an unusual number of accidents. One man's wife unexpectedly hangs herself, another man throws himself from a balcony, still another drowns, yet another falls under the wheels of a car.... But remember, butchers, God's punishment will descend even upon you! May 15, 1999 Morley Safer 60 Minutes, CBS Television 51 W 52nd Street New York, NY USA 10019 Morley Safer: Who Murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk? Volodymyr Ivasiuk is best known as a composer and poet, author of the widely popular song Chervona Ruta whose first two lines appear below as he wrote them in his own hand, which song more than anything else made him beloved throughout Ukraine, and even beyond the borders of Ukraine. On top of that, Volodymyr was a man of many talents, having earned a degree in medicine, and having demonstrated talent in art, photography, and cinematography. However, having reached his prime showing so much promise, it was not given Volodymyr Ivasiuk to develop his talents further. He was dead at the age of 30. To the right is a photograph of his funeral procession, attended by thousands of mourners despite the suppression by the state of the publication of information concerning his burial, despite official warnings to not attend funeral services, and despite the calling of Komsomol meetings, which carried mandatory attendance, on the same day. The magazine Halas, on whose information I rely in the present letter, states that Rostyslaw Bratun who was the first to step forward and speak at Volodymyr's funeral lost his job two months later. Words spoken at the funeral by the Sichko family landed them in prison. To the right is a second photograph showing the statue that was eventually erected in Volodymyr Ivasiuk's memory. And just how did Volodymyr Ivasiuk meet his end? His death certificate which appears below states that he died on 24-27 April 1979 from mechanical asphyxiation caused by hanging in a noose, and attributes the hanging to suicide. The details of Volodymyr Ivasiuk's death, however, do not support the official view that he killed himself: They waited and searched for Volodya for 24 days. Following the mysterious disappearance of the composer, the search for him was not disclosed to the public, the explanation being given that such an announcement would create a disturbance. However, the mass media are daily used not only to help locate people, but sometimes even their pets. [...] It was not until May 18, 1979 that Volodymyr Ivasiuk's body was accidentally discovered in the heavy forest near the village Briukhovych near Lviv. One couldn't bring oneself to believe it. The parents were allowed to identify their son only on the following day, even though it was only a five-minute walk from the apartment where Volodya lived to the morgue; and the identification was conducted with gross violations of law. The father was allowed to view the body only after he repeatedly telephoned the Oblast Procurator threatening to send a telegram of complaint to the General Procurator of Ukraine. The local authorities eventually gave in with the exasperated reply: "Take your son home, and look at him there at least a hundred years!" His death certificate reported that he died 24-27 April 1979 at the age of 30. The cause of death: mechanical asphyxiation. Hanging from a noose - suicide. The death certificate was issued on May 21, 1979, and even back then, a mere three days after the body had been discovered, without any evidence or investigation it had been written in black and white that Volodymyr Ivasiuk had committed suicide. There immediately arises the question that if the composer had indeed hung himself on 24-27 April, and was not found until 18 May, whether he could have remained hanging from a tree for 21-24 days. Volodya weighed 80 kg (176 lb), such that hanging for so long, the noose would have cut into his neck to the depth of the bones. Also during May the weather was warm and dry. The body would have decomposed during this interval, and from it would have emanated an intolerable odour. All these substantiating signs were missing, and missing too were the autopsy photographs. On May 22 of every year let us remember that Volodymyr Ivasiuk became another innocent victim of a totalitarian regime. M. Masly, Volodymyr Ivasiuk: Light and Shadow of a Legend, Halas (Clamor), 3Jun97, pp. 11-12, as translated by Lubomyr Prytulak. Halas is a Ukrainian-language magazine which reviews popular music and is published in Kyiv. The section commemorating Volodymyr Ivasiuk in the 3Jun97 issue was sponsored and supported by Coca Cola Ukraine. And truly, the administration hated him while he was alive, and feared him once he was dead. Volodya's mother, Sophia Ivanivna Ivasiuk met with the first secretary of the Lviv administration, V. Dobryk to plead with him to permit a monument to be placed on the grave of her son. "The war took from me my father and three brothers. My sister's husband did not return from the front," wept the woman, "and now my son too has been lost. Do I not after all that have the right to consecrate his memory?" In reply, Dobryk (what evil irony that such a soulless individual should have a name denoting goodness) pressed a concealed button and said in Russian to the lackey who entered, "Take that lady out." Following this visit, Sophia Ivanivna Ivasiuk received the "insult in the name of Dobryk." She has been in ill health ever since. Sooner or later will arrive the day when truth will emerge victorious. But in the meantime, those who come too near to the truth concerning what happened to Volodymyr Ivasiuk find themselves the victims of an unusual number of accidents. One man's wife unexpectedly hangs herself, another man throws himself from a balcony, still another drowns, yet another falls under the wheels of a car.... But remember, butchers, God's punishment will descend even upon you! M. Masly, Volodymyr Ivasiuk: Light and Shadow of a Legend, Halas (Clamor), 3Jun97, p. 12, as translated by Lubomyr Prytulak. Mr. Safer, you went to Ukraine determined to come back with a story of Ukrainians persecuting Russians and Jews. You failed to find any substantiation for such a story. You failed to find any Russian composer and poet who had been found hanging in a forest under mysterious circumstances. You failed to find any Jewish composer and poet who had been found hanging in a forest under mysterious circumstances. And you were not interested in a Ukrainian composer and poet who had indeed been found hanging in a forest under mysterious circumstances. You went to Ukraine determined to prove that Ukrainians persecute Russians and Jews, and you reported that story to tens of millions of 60 Minutes viewers despite a lack of evidence, and despite plentiful evidence that it is Russians and Jews who persecute Ukrainians, as they have done throughout history. In your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom, then, you sided with the strong against the weak. You sided with the oppressors against the oppressed. You sided with the butchers against the butchered. You sided with those who hang composers and poets and against Volodymyr Ivasiuk. Lubomyr Prytulak cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal. HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER < Safer Safer > 669 hits since 17May99 Morley Safer Letter 10 17May99 Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky? It is conceivable that had you not broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom, Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today. And it is all the more conceivable that had you used the opportunity of your broadcast to defend Ukrainians against their oppressors, Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today. May 17, 1999 Morley Safer 60 Minutes, CBS Television 51 W 52nd Street New York, NY USA 10019 Morley Safer: Who Murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky? The death of Volodymyr Katelnytsky My source is a Ukrainskyi Holos (Ukrainian Voice) article mailed to me by someone that knew Volodymyr Katelnytsky. The citation that is hand-written on the article is "4-20 August, 1997, p. 1." The Ukrainskyi Holos article reports that Volodymyr Katelnytsky was tortured to death in his apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine on the night of 7-8 July 1997. His mother, Lykeria, who was 81 years old, was tortured and died before the eyes of her son; her body was found with 21 stab wounds. When Katelnytsky's sister tried to enter the apartment in which the crime had been committed, she was roughed up by Kyiv police. Some members of the Katelnytsky family were arrested. The murders are considered to have been politically motivated. Volodymyr Katelnytsky's funeral was attended by some two thousand mourners. The life of Volodymyr Katelnytsky Volodymyr Katelnytsky was a professional journalist. He was active in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kyiv Patriarchate, was head of the Brotherhood of St. Andrej Pervozvanyi in Kyiv, and supervised the tour of the chief cities of Ukraine by Metropolitan Wasyl in May 1993. He was also active politically, serving as Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Christian Democratic Party. In Canada and the United States, he may be best remembered for the role he played as President of the Committee for the Defense of John Demjanjuk. Also prominent among Volodymyr Katelnytsky's activities was the dissemination of a Ukrainian version of what happened at Babyn Yar, similar, I believe, to the version advocated on the Ukrainian Archive. One result of Volodymyr Katelnytsky's Babyn Yar activities is that he was sued for them by Jewish organizations in Ukrainian court, that in his defense he brought forward historical aerial reconnaissance photographs showing that none of the activities said to have taken place at Babyn Yar was visible from the air - not visible, that is, were signs of the execution and burial of 33,771 Jews, or the later disinterment and burning of their bodies. As a result of his convincing defense, the court acquitted Volodymyr Katelnytsky of the charges brought against him. Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky? As we have no direct evidence of who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky, we can only perform a Cui bono? analysis which will at least tell us where to start looking. That is, if it is the case that the three most prominent events in Volodymyr Katelnytsky's life were: (1) that he defended John Demjanjuk, (2) that he contradicted the Soviet-inspired Holocaust version of the Babyn Yar story, and (3) that he was tortured to death along with his mother, then it would take a mental paralysis with which I have not as yet been seized to refuse to consider the first two of these events as possibly having caused the third. I don't accuse you of having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination. As you broadcast the Ugly Face of Freedom on 23 October 1994 and Volodymyr Katelnytsky's assassination did not take place until 7-8 July 1997, I obviously do not accuse you of having failed to cover the Katelnytsky assassination in your broadcast. But I do accuse you of having missed the big story of which Katelnytsky's assassination is but one piece. However, the persecution and assassination of Ukrainians did not begin in 1997. It began hundreds of years earlier, carried right up until your broadcast in 1994, and continued through 1997 to this day. What I do accuse you of, then, is ignoring a centuries-long stream of evidence attesting to the persecution of Ukrainians, and of broadcasting instead the story of the persecution of Russians and Jews even in the absence of evidence. Your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up anything like a story of a prominent Russian activist being tortured to death in his apartment, whether along with his mother or alone. And your investigations in Ukraine failed to turn up anything like a story of a prominent Jewish activist being tortured to death in his apartment, whether along with his mother or alone. The story that you would have been able to document, but that you chose to ignore, is that Ukraine is a nation which is ruled by Russians and Jews, and in which Ukrainians are routinely persecuted and murdered. And I do accuse you of having helped cause Katelnytsky's assassination. But even though you could not have covered Katelnytsky's assassination in 1994, you could have in 1994 avoided giving encouragement to assassins who were at that time plotting such assassinations. Instead, you did give encouragement to Katelnytsky's assassins by demonstrating to them that the world press can be counted upon to continue broadcasting anti-Ukrainian calumnies even while Ukrainians were being victimized in their own land. It is conceivable that had you not broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom, Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today. And it is all the more conceivable that had you used the opportunity of your broadcast to defend Ukrainians against their oppressors, Volodymyr Katelnytsky would be alive today. Lubomyr Prytulak cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal. HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER < Safer Safer > 630 hits since 30Jun99 Morley Safer Letter 11 30Jun99 Who murdered Vadim Boyko? We cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is reported that 8,000 people a year in the former Soviet Union die due to their television sets exploding, we all believe that Vadim would have survived this kind of accident. June 30, 1999 Morley Safer 60 Minutes, CBS Television 51 W 52nd Street New York, NY USA 10019 Morley Safer: The conclusion that you offered in your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom was that Ukraine is a place where Jews and Russians are oppressed by militant Ukrainian nationalists, and where they are the targets of Ukrainian violence. The closest that you came to substantiating this claim was to broadcast Rabbi Bleich's allegation that an elderly Jewish couple had been attacked and robbed somewhere in Western Ukraine. However, this allegation was devoid of substantiating detail, and my request for specifics (both in my letter to you of 24May98, and in my letter to Rabbi Bleich of 23May98) was answered with silence. I repeat that request to you now - please inform me of the details of this attack, which minimally would include the time, the place, the names of the victims, and the address where a police report is available. If you do not have such information, please retract the allegation. You must be aware that I. M. Levitas, Head of the Jewish Council of Ukraine as well as of the Nationalities Associations of Ukraine has questioned whether such an attack on the two elderly Jews ever took place. Levitas's doubt was first expressed in an open letter to you, and I reminded Rabbi Bleich of it in my letter to him of 23May98, of which you were mailed a copy. In view of I. M. Levitas's doubt, and in view of your and Rabbi Bleich's silence in response to my request for particulars, the impression grows daily stronger that you and Rabbi Bleich made the incident up. The chief purpose of the present letter is to demonstrate to you yet again that your conclusion which I summarize in my first sentence at the beginning of the present letter is exactly backward. Ukraine is not a place where Ukrainians attack and murder, it is a place where Ukrainians are attacked and murdered, as has been the case for the last three hundred years, at least. Below is documented one further instance in support of this conclusion. It is the story of Vadim Boyko, member of parliament, and popular television investigative journalist. I would have expected that the story of Vadim Boyko would have appealed to you, and for that reason that you might have included it in any broadcast that you prepared about Ukraine, as his life - at least up to the final moments - was not unlike your own: February 23, 1992 Journalist's notebook in Ukraine by Marta Kolomayets Kiev Press Bureau A colleague's tragic death "He was a man engaged to a young Ukraine," said Volodymyr Yavorivsky, as he bid farewell to Vadim Boyko, who died tragically on February 14, at the age of 29. Hundreds of mourners crowded into the third floor atrium of the Ukrainian State Television and Radio headquarters, tearfully passing each other on the steps Vadim so often bounded, rushing to the studios where he recorded his popular television programs. Now, on February 17, the mourners paid their last respects to Vadik (as he was affectionately known), searching for a reason why such a promising, talented life was cut short. As slow dirge-like music played over the loudspeakers, they filed past the closed coffin, sewn up in black cotton and laden with bunches of carnations of all colors. At the foot of the coffin stood a black and white photo of the young journalist and politician. An enlarged copy of the same photo, decorated with a black mourning band, hung above the coffin. To the left, the newly adopted Ukrainian national flag, also decorated with black bunting, kept guard over its native son. Wreaths from the Ukrainian Parliament, co-workers and friends surrounded the coffin. Perhaps as a carryover from the Communist-atheist state of the past, the wake of devoid of all Christian symbols and rites. Vadim's father sat at the foot of the coffin, numb to the proceedings. As a few speakers addressed the crowd, he wiped tears away from his weary, red eyes. Vadim's mother was too weak to make the trip from the family's home in Svitlovodsk to Kiev. Mykola Okhmakevych, the stagnant, Communist head of the State Television and Radio, whose removal has been pressed for by both democratic deputies and workers of the television station, said a few uninspiring words. Often harshly criticized by Vadim and his colleagues, Mr. Okhmakevych now spoke of how Vadim had always loved his job. An angry mourner, who saw this hypocrisy, cried out: "He loved Ukraine above all. He loved Ukraine, say it." We all descended the steps with Vadim for the last time. The coffin was then placed in a vehicle for Vadim's journey home to Svitlovodsk, Kirovohrad Oblast, his final resting place. x x x It has been almost a week now since my phone rang just before midnight, on Valentine's Day, February 14. It was my friend and colleague Dmytro Ponamarchuk. Yet his voice sounded different. "I don't know how to say this, Marta. Vadim Boyko burned to death tonight." I could not believe what I was hearing: "What is this, a cruel joke?" Dmytro, working at the radio station, had been called about a fire at Vadim's apartment; the fire department reported that his television had blown up. Dmytro arrived at the scene just an hour or so after the reported fire, only to find Vadim's body sprawled across the floor, burned beyond recognition. There was nothing left of his apartment, a dormitory-type dwelling in a building that housed quite a number of State television and Radio workers. News of Vadim's death spread quickly among fellow journalists - many of whom had attended Kiev State with Vadim, many of whom worked with him on numerous projects. He was an elected democratic deputy from Kremenchuk, Poltava Oblast. He had come from the neighboring town in Kirovohrad oblast, just across the Dnipro River, arriving in the capital city of Kiev in the early 1980s to obtain a college education. And from then on, he gained popularity as the founder and host of "Hart," one of the first serious investigative shows on Ukrainian television, reporting on everything from Chornobyl to Shcherbytsky. After he was elected a deputy to the Ukrainian Parliament in March 1990, he was appointed vice chairman of the standing parliamentary Committee on Glasnost and the Mass Media, a job he took very seriously, often going to Moscow to discuss problems of disinformation in Ukraine, as presented by central television. But Vadim never forgot his first vocation - journalism - and he would often join his colleagues, including a few of us foreign correspondents, on the press balcony of Parliament during the sessions to give us some inside news or highlights of his commission's work. He was our friend, and with his death, our circle has been broken. Many of us - Ukrainian journalists and foreign correspondents, as well as a few of his close friends outside this journalistic fraternity - spent last week trying to come to terms with the tragedy that has struck us. We cannot believe that his death was just pure accident; although it is reported that 8,000 people a year in the former Soviet Union die due to their television sets exploding, we all believe that Vadim would have survived this kind of accident. We have gone through the story over and over. Most of us saw him in Parliament on Wednesday afternoon; he was excited and invigorated by new opportunities: he was applying for a National Foundation internship for the spring in Washington, D.C., he was going to travel on business with Ukraine's deputy prime minister. His dancing blue eyes were smitten with the possibilities of new TV shows and programs in an independent Ukraine. None of us saw Vadim in Parliament on Thursday or Friday, February 13-14; he missed a few meetings he had scheduled on Friday. Currently, there are many rumors flying around Kiev surrounding Vadim's death, based on political, business and personal motivations. Parliamentary committees have promised to work on an investigation, although no special committee has been formed to investigate what many democratic deputies, among them Les Taniuk and Stepan Khmara, have labelled as murder. Some speculate that Vadim's TV work in Chornobyl may have triggered an early death... On Friday, February 14, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper) in Moscow ran an interview with Vadim on journalists' responsibilities and cooperation between Moscow and Kiev. "At this time, we (referring to Russian and Ukrainian journalists) can be friends, if we are honest to the end. We are currently living in a commonwealth, the root of the word is found in the word "druh," friend... We will never become true friends, until we journalists understand that we are the ones who can, who have the responsibility to stop our peoples from total degradation, from the catastrophe that can occur between our peoples," he said. "If we cannot prevent this we stop being journalists. We will become persons who today do their work and tomorrow, one by one, are destroyed." Vadim's deep sense of responsibility, his courage and commitment to the truth will always be admired by his friends and colleagues. And we are all committed to learning the truth. Given the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, I can only hope that his last interview prophecy did not become self-fulfilling. Mr. Safer, you travelled to Ukraine looking for stories of persecution and violence against Jews and Russians, you failed to find the evidence, but you broadcast the story anyway. All the while, you were surrounded by stories of persecution and violence against Ukrainians, but that plentiful evidence you ignored. In other words, you went to Ukraine not to discover its reality, but to confirm your prejudice. You played the role not of journalist, but of propagandist. Given the opportunity to make a contribution toward protecting the lives of journalists in Ukraine by broadcasting the story of Vadim Boyko, you declined. Showing anything on 60 Minutes that might win sympathy for Ukrainians was contrary to your plan. Had you managed to find a Jewish member of parliament and television broadcaster who had died in Ukraine under mysterious circumstances, then you would have had one small piece of evidence for the anti-Ukrainian conclusions that you offered. Had you managed to find a Russian member of parliament and television broadcaster who had died in Ukraine under mysterious circumstances, then you would have had one small piece of evidence for the anti-Ukrainian conclusions that you offered. However, you found neither of these things. In Ukraine, death under mysterious circumstances is reserved for prominent Ukrainians, which conclusion you had no interest in broadcasting. Below, I identify four incidents which I have brought to your attention either in three earlier letters, or in the present one. Although the first two cases occurred before your broadcast of 23Oct94, and the second two occurred after, all serve to support the conclusion that within today's Ukraine, it is Ukrainians who are the targets of violence: Date of my letter Subject of my letter Date of Attack Violence that you should have reported in your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom 15May99 Who murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk? April 1979 30Jun99 Who murdered Vadim Boyko? February 14, 1992 Violence that you might have caused by your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom 09Apr99 Who blew the hands off Maksym Tsarenko? Summer 1995 17May99 Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky? July 7-8, 1997 As the first two of the above attacks occurred prior to your 23Oct94 broadcast, then your fault is that you neglected to report them. And as the second two attacks occurred after your 23Oct94 broadcast, then your fault is that you may have helped cause them. That is, your 23Oct94 broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom, served to demonstrate to Ukraine's assassins not only that violence against Ukrainians would go unreported in the world press, but also that even as Ukrainians continued to be butchered, the world press would portray them - the victim Ukrainians - as themselves butchers. You did not yourself wield any knife or pull any trigger or tighten any garotte, but you informed those that were predisposed to do so that they might expect impunity if they did. For this reason, I consider you to have blood on your hands, some of it Maksym Tsarenko's, and some of it Volodymyr Katelnytsky's. Lubomyr Prytulak cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal. HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER < Safer Safer > 1302 hits since 01Jul99 Morley Safer Letter 12 01Jul99 Who murdered Borys Derevyanko? The plainest moral to be drawn from the Derevyanko-Hurvits story is that when a muckraking Ukrainian editor takes on a corrupt Jewish politician, the Ukrainian editor ends up dead. July 1, 1999 Morley Safer 60 Minutes, CBS Television 51 W 52nd Street New York, NY USA 10019 Morley Safer: The Committee to Protect Journalists described the contract killing of Ukrainian editor Borys Derevyanko thusly: Borys Derevyanko, Vechernyaya Odessa Date of Death: August 11, 1997 Place of Death: Odessa Derevyanko, editor in chief of Vechernyaya Odessa, a popular and influential thrice-weekly newspaper, was fatally shot at point-blank range on his way to work on the morning of August 11 near the Press House, where the newspaper's offices are located. Colleagues believe the killing of Derevyanko, who was editor of Vechernyaya Odessa for 24 years, was related to the newspaper's opposition to the policies of Odessa's mayor. The chief regional prosecutor declared the murder a contract killing and launched an official investigation. Local authorities announced in September that they had arrested a suspect, described as a professional assassin, who confessed to killing Derevyanko, but they gave no details about his confession. I would add that the Odessa mayor which the above account neglects to name was the corrupt Eduard Hurvits, who was particularly threatened by Borys Derevyanko's opposition because of municipal elections that were coming up in 1998. The comment concerning the arrest of an assassin gives a misleading impression - in today's Ukraine, contract killings are never solved, and those who order them are never punished. Today, Borys Derevyanko is dead, and Eduard Hurvits, barred by his corruption from holding the office of mayor of Odessa, continues his criminal career as a member of the Ukrainian parliament. Photographs of Derevyanko and Hurvits are shown below: Newspaper editor Borys Derevyanko Odessa Mayor Eduard Hurvits The table which I began in my letter to you of 30Jun99 can now be elaborated with another entry: Date of my letter Subject of my letter Date of Attack Violence that you should have reported in your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom 15May99 Who murdered Volodymyr Ivasiuk? April 1979 30Jun99 Who murdered Vadim Boyko? February 14, 1992 Violence that you might have caused by your 23Oct94 The Ugly Face of Freedom 09Apr99 Who blew the hands off Maksym Tsarenko? Summer 1995 17May99 Who murdered Volodymyr Katelnytsky? July 7-8, 1997 01Jul99 Who murdered Borys Derevyanko? August 11, 1997 As the conclusion of your 23Oct94 60 Minutes story, The Ugly Face of Freedom, was that Ukraine is a place in which Ukrainians practice violence against Jews, it is highly relevant that Borys Derevyanko is Ukrainian and Eduard Hurvits is Jewish. You went to Ukraine looking for evidence of Ukrainians harming Jews, you failed to find such evidence, but you broadcast your conclusion anyway. The true story that you would not broadcast, and that was readily documentable, is that Ukraine is a place in which Jews harm Ukrainians. The plainest moral to be drawn from the Derevyanko-Hurvits story is that when a muckraking Ukrainian editor takes on a corrupt Jewish politician, the Ukrainian editor ends up dead. That is the reality of Ukraine. It was the reality of Ukraine when you visited it in 1994, it was the reality of Ukraine before 1994, and it has been the reality of Ukraine since 1994. As in earlier letters, I fault you for not reporting such incidents as are in the above table that took place before 1994, and I fault you for precipitating such incidents that took place after 1994. Thus, to the blood that is already on your hands, I add the blood of Borys Derevyanko. You had the opportunity in your 1994 broadcast to come out on the side of the victims against the butchers, but you preferred to side with the butchers against the victims, and Borys Derevyanko has been one of the casualties of your decision. Lubomyr Prytulak cc: Yaakov Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, Simon Wiesenthal. HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER < Safer Safer > 2082 hits since 04Jul99 Morley Safer Letter 13 04Jul99 The Wiesenthal-Safer Calumny Thus, it is possible that you contributed to Maksym Tsarenko losing his hands, and to Volodymyr Katelnytsky together with his mother, and Borys Derevyanko, losing their lives. Additional information on the Lviv massacre can be found in Alfred M. de Zayas, The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945. July 4, 1999 Morley Safer 60 Minutes, CBS Television 51 W 52nd Street New York, NY USA 10019 Morley Safer: You Broadcast to 30 Million 60 Minutes Viewers that in the Days Prior to German Occupation, Ukrainians Killed Jews In your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom, you joined with Simon Wiesenthal in charging that in the days preceding the arrival of German forces in June 1941, Lviv Ukrainians killed thousands of Jews: SAFER: He [Simon Wiesenthal] remembers that even before the Germans arrived, Ukrainian police went on a 3-day killing spree. WIESENTHAL: And in this 3 days in Lvov alone between 5 and 6 thousand Jews was killed. [...] SAFER: But even before the Germans entered Lvov, the Ukrainian militia, the police, killed 3,000 people in 2 days here. Some 60 Minutes viewers may have been struck by the observation that while the 60 Minutes expert witness - Simon Wiesenthal - claimed that the number of Jews killed was "between 5 and 6 thousand" in three days, you - supposedly the neutral interviewer - chose to reduce the number killed to "3,000" and the duration of the killing to two days - but without informing the viewer on what grounds you did so. One wonders what reason you would have had for undermining the testimony of your chief - and only - witness. One wonders what superior authority you discovered for your revised statistic, and why you did not bring this superior authority forward to testify in front of the CBS cameras instead of Simon Wiesenthal whose testimony you apparently distrusted and chose to contradict. And one wonders that you could have such low regard for the intelligence of 60 Minutes viewers that you would broadcast discrepant accounts without explaining the discrepancy. However, I Can't Find Anyone Else Substantiating the Wiesenthal-Safer Pre-German Lviv Pogrom In my reading, I have yet to come across a single account which supports the Wiesenthal-Safer claim of anywhere from 3,000 Jews killed in 2 days to 5,000-6,000 Jews killed in 3 days in Lviv during the pre-German interval. Had the Wiesenthal-Safer pogrom taken place, then it would have been one of the biggest pogroms of the war, and possibly the very biggest, and thus obligatory to describe in every history of the Holocaust, if not in every history of the Second World War. What I found, in contrast, was statements contradicting the possibility of the Wiesenthal-Safer pogrom, most notably the following three made by Raul Hilberg: From the Ukraine Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C reported as follows: Almost nowhere can the population be persuaded to take active steps against the Jews. This may be explained by the fear of many people that the Red Army may return. Again and again this anxiety has been pointed out to us. Older people have remarked that they had already experienced in 1918 the sudden retreat of the Germans. In order to meet the fear psychosis, and in order to destroy the myth [...] which, in the eyes of many Ukrainians, places the Jew in the position of the wielder of political power, Einsatzkommando 6 on several occasions marched Jews before their execution through the city. Also, care was taken to have Ukrainian militiamen watch the shooting of Jews. This "deflation" of the Jews in the public eye did not have the desired effect. After a few weeks, Einsatzgruppe C complained once more that the inhabitants did not betray the movements of hidden Jews. The Ukrainians were passive, benumbed by the "Bolshevist terror." Only the ethnic Germans in the area were busily working for the Einsatzgruppe. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1961, p. 202) The Slavic population stood estranged and even aghast before the unfolding spectacle of the "final solution." There was on the whole no impelling desire to cooperate in a process of such utter ruthlessness. The fact that the Soviet regime, fighting off the Germans a few hundred miles to the east, was still threatening to return, undoubtedly acted as a powerful restraint upon many a potential collaborator. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 308) First, truly spontaneous pogroms, free from Einsatzgruppen influence, did not take place; all outbreaks were either organized or inspired by the Einsatzgruppen. Second, all pogroms were implemented within a short time after the arrival of the killing units. They were not self-perpetuating, nor could new ones be started after things had settled down. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 312) Fearing that substantiation for the Wiesenthal-Safer Lviv pogrom did exist somewhere and that I had merely overlooked it, I made enquiry to leading Holocaust historian, Raul Hilberg, on 15Sep97. Professor Hilberg was good enough in his reply of 15Dec97 to outline for me instances that he knew of anti-Jewish activity conducted in that area at that time, and none of these instances gave credence to the Wiesenthal-Safer Lviv pogrom. Perhaps the most telling piece of evidence that the Wiesenthal-Safer Lviv pogrom was a fabrication is unearthed upon trying to substantiate it in Simon Wiesenthal's own writing. In one place, Simon Wiesenthal has the anti-Jewish activity postdating the arrival of the Germans, and mentions neither the number of fatalities nor the duration: The Ukrainian police ... had played a disastrous role in Galicia following the entry of the German troops at the end of June and the beginning of July 1941. (Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 34, emphasis added) And later in the same account, Simon Wiesenthal does mention a Lviv pogrom of three day's duration, but again without mentioning the number of fatalities, and again unambiguously placing it after the German occupation: Thousands of detainees were shot dead in their cells by the retreating Soviets. This gave rise to one of the craziest accusations of that period: among the strongly anti-Semitic population the rumour was spread by the Ukrainian nationalists that all Jews were Bolsheviks a