Just another Monday: Nazi collabo propaganda in the Guardian
Lenin killed 70,000,000? Why not 1,000,000,000!
70,000,000? Wow! That’s really efficient! (Source)
This weekend, Canada was roiled by scandal: Someone sprayed “Nazi war monument” on a big chunk of marble in Ontario that’s dedicated to the fighters of a Ukrainian SS division. Local police responded by classifying this graffiti a hate crime. Yep, apparently correctly calling a Nazi a Nazi is “problematic” and a crime in Canada.
Now, on Monday, I fire up my computer to find that the Guardian’s The Observer — which had led the fake antisemitism campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters — published a bunch of old propaganda stamps that had been pumped out by related Ukrainian fascist groups. They were part of a movement that had collaborated with Nazi Germany and played a leading role in the genocide and mass murder of Jews and Poles. Some of its members served in the very same Ukrainian SS division that’s honored in that monument in Canada.
But to The Observer, it’s all about cool stamps — stamps for freedom!
Ukrainian photographer Oleksandr Kosmach collects 20th-century stamps issued by Ukrainian groups in exile during the Soviet era.
Artists and exiles around the world would use stamps to communicate the horrors of Soviet oppression. “These stamps show us the ideas and values of these people, who they really were and what they were fighting for,” Kosmach says.
So what are these “ideas and values” for which they were fighting?
As I’ve written before, these groups — the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its paramilitary offshoot, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — played a central role in the genocide of over a million Ukrainian Jews during World War II.
Their “values” were focused on creating a racially pure, fascist state that was free from Poles, Jews, and Russians. To achieve their aims, their leaders pledged allegiance to Adolf Hitler and received training from Nazi Germany. Many of their members had volunteered for the Ukrainian Waffen-SS division, joined Nazi auxiliary police battalions, and helped the Nazis administer occupied Ukraine.
Aside from killing Jews, the OUN/UPA was known to slaughter entire Polish villages. Survivors of their atrocities told gut-wrenching tales…
This is a short version of a longer piece only available to subscribers. Read it here.
Subscribe to Immigrants as a Weapon and get full access to member-only notes and letters.