Ukrainians served in Waffen SS models and have been complicit within the Holocaust throughout WWII, Andrzej Duda has stated in an interview
Ukraine has “issues” with its historical past, Polish President Andrzej Duda has stated, highlighting Kiev’s collaboration with Nazi Germany and its involvement within the Holocaust throughout World Struggle II.
In an interview with Polsat Information on Monday, the Polish chief stated there have been “tough subjects” between Warsaw and Kiev, referring to the Volyn bloodbath – the mass killing of ethnic Poles by Ukrainian nationalists throughout World Struggle II.
“Please keep in mind that Ukrainians have many issues with their historical past. This isn’t solely the issue of the Volyn bloodbath, but in addition service in SS models, collaboration with the authorities of the Third Reich, and participation within the Holocaust,” Duda stated.
The comment comes amid latest tensions between Ukraine and Poland, regardless of Warsaw being one among Kiev’s key backers in its battle with Moscow.
In August, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Protection Minister Wladyslaw Kosyniak-Kamisz threatened to dam Ukraine’s bid to affix the EU until it accedes to calls for for Volyn bloodbath victims to be exhumed. Overseas Minister Radoslaw Sikorski additionally supported this stance and raised the problem at a gathering with Ukrainian chief Vladimir Zelensky in Kiev earlier this month.
Militants with the Ukrainian Rebel Military (UPA) and the Group of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) slaughtered as much as 100,000 Poles between 1943 and 1945 within the areas of Volhynia and Japanese Galicia, which presently belong to Ukraine.
Whereas Warsaw has acknowledged the bloodbath as a genocide of Poles, fashionable Ukraine has been celebrating the perpetrators as “freedom fighters” and “nationwide heroes.” The OUN was led by Stepan Bandera, a infamous Nazi collaborator who’s broadly revered in fashionable Ukraine.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians served within the Soviet Pink Military throughout the conflict, however hundreds of others fought on the German aspect beneath the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, often known as the Galicia Division.
The division, shaped in 1943, attracted volunteers from what’s now western Ukraine. Its members took a private oath to Adolf Hitler and have been accused of atrocities towards Jews, in addition to Polish and Soviet civilians.
Duda, nonetheless, criticized his authorities for stirring up tensions between Warsaw and Kiev, saying that Poland mustn’t make the problem of restoring historic reality a situation for Ukraine’s accession to the EU.
