Tag Archives: Ukraine

Fântâna Albă Massacre—Soviet War Crime

Of all the atrocities Nazis committed prior to and during World War II, one could not forget that the USSR also committed awful crimes. In fact, between 23 August 1939 and 22 June 1941, Germany and the USSR were partners via the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

A German and a Soviet officer shaking hands.

After signing the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in 1939, the USSR occupied Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertza region in 1940. Thus, overnight, approximately three million displaced Romanians found themselves in foreign territory; where their traditions, origins, culture, and religion they practised, were not accepted.

Many arrested Romanians from Bukovina were killed or deported; churches were closed; properties confiscated; and many families began to cross the new border and went to Romania.

In January 1941, the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) issued rumours that people would be allowed to cross the border. As a result of this information, on 1 April 1941, on Easter day, a large group of people from several villages in the Siret Valley headed to the Soviet-Romanian border carrying a white flag and religious insignia (icons, church flags, and crosses).

Approximately 2,000 to 3,000 unarmed civilians walked together towards the new Soviet-Romanian border. The Soviet border guards attempted to turn back the group several times, issuing a final verbal warning and firing shots in the air when the people arrived at Varnystia, near the border.[12] After the convoy pressed on, the border guards began to shoot, reportedly after a few members fired. According to the Soviet official report, casualty figures amounted to 44 people (17 from Pătrăuții de Jos, 12 from Trestiana, five each from Cupca and Suceveni, three from Pătrăuții de Sus, two from Oprișeni), and although the numbers were reportedly higher according to survivor testimonies. Partial listings of victims later identified some of them. Most of them were cut by bullets and thrown into mass graves, some buried alive. The pursued were re-captured, tortured, and then deported. Today, Fântâna Albă (now Stary Vovchynets or Bila Krinicya) location is in the territory of Ukraine.

sources

80th anniversary of the Fântâna Albă Massacre
https://bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com/2021/03/31/what-was-the-fantana-alba-massacre-1941/
75 years since ‘the Romanian Katyn’ massacre at Fântâna Albă – 3,000 Romanians killed
Masacrul de la Fântâna Albă: Preţul pe care l-au plătit românii care au vrut să treacă graniţa în 1941, în ziua de Paşte. ”A fost un genocid”

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Interview with Ciarán Cuffe-Member of European Parliament

Ciaran was first elected to Dublin City Council in 1991. Back then he campaigned for a light rail system for Dublin, and for greater protection of Dublin’s heritage. Since then, He has served as a TD (Irish MP) for Dún Laoghaire, a Minister of State with responsibility for Climate Action, and a councillor for Dublin’s North Inner City. He sits on the European Parliament’s TRAN (Transport and Tourism) and ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy) committees, and is president of EUFORES (European Forum for Renewable Energy Sources). He trained as an architect and urban planner at UCD and the LSE, and he set up an MSc Programme in Urban Regeneration and Development at the Technical University of Dublin (TU Dublin).

He grew up in Shankill and now lives in Stoneybatter with his family. He is proud to serve as Dublin’s Green MEP (Member of the European Parliament) for the term 2019-2024.

sources

CV

http://www.eufores.org/index.php?id=9

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197654/CIARAN_CUFFE/home

My Interview with Author and Podcaster Jeremy Strozer

Jeremy Strozer writes first-person historical flash fiction to expose the wanton waste of war. Fascinated by ideas and personal stories, he finds connections between seemingly disparate phenomena. By enjoying thinking and learning about the past he understands the present by creating its context. He has faith in the links between all things; believing there are few coincidences and almost every event has a reason. Jeremy is also inspired by the future and what could be; thereby inspiring others with his visions of what occurred and what is possible.

Jeremy’s inspiration comes from education in improvisational acting; the actions and writing of Gene Sharp, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Woody Guthrie, Studs Terkel, and Henry David Thoreau; and an affinity for history. He believes all stories are best told from the personal perspective and learning about history should be an emotionally driven experience. Therefore, Jeremy pushes the conviction all history is simply a personal story, compounded and woven with the personal story of everyone else, throughout time.

Raised in California, Jeremy moved to the Washington, D.C. area at the age of 18 to attend university. Through education and luck, he became a Fulbright Fellow, and a Presidential Management Fellow, and found ways to live and work across vast swaths of the world. Professionally, Jeremy helped remove unexploded ordnance from war-ravaged countries; stem the flow of the world’s most dangerous weapons; and potentially reduce the likelihood of war between a couple of the world’s most powerful countries. 

He lives in Ireland with his wife, son and daughter where he continues to work on preventing future war and warning the world about the human cost of violence.

A few days ago I had the privilege to talk to him

Being a Refugee: The Case of Ukraine Then and Now & an Interview with Dr Marta Harvryshko

On Sunday, January 22nd, 2023, I had the privilege to attend a presentation organized by the Ghetto Fighters’ House museum. The Ghetto Fighters’ House—Itzhak Katzenelson Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum—known as the House—is not only the first Holocaust museum in the world but also the first of its kind to be founded by Holocaust survivors.

The presentation was titled “Being a Refugee: The Case of Ukraine Then and Now”

Guest Speakers:
Dr Marta Havryshko – Institute Director, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center. Gender and Genocide: Sexual Assaults during the Holocaust and the Search for Justice in Post-War Soviet Ukraine

Chuck Fishman – Award-Winning Photographer
Survivors Saving Survivors:
Photographing the Ukrainian Refugee Experience in Poland

Jonathan Ornstein – CEO of the JCC Krakow
Tikkun Olam: The Response of JCC Krakow to the Ukrainian Crisis

This special Talking Memory program, marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, focused on the experiences of Jewish refugees in Soviet Ukraine after the Holocaust and Ukrainian refugees today.

Dr Marta Havryshko explored sexual violence during the Holocaust from the point of view of its immediate victims and witnesses —Jewish women and men who survived the Holocaust and became witnesses in postwar trials in Soviet Ukraine (the 1940s-1980s). She also shares her experiences as a refugee who had to leave Ukraine as a result of the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Jonathan Ornstein shared the incredible story of how JCC Krakow which has been taking in refugees from Ukraine since the Russian invasion is directly helping and supporting over one hundred and fifty thousand Ukrainians over the last eight months.

Chuck Fishman, who is an award-winning photographer, presented a photographic slice of the Ukrainian refugee experience in Poland, as seen, felt, and interpreted by a ripened American photographer.

This program is in partnership with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Israel.

Today I had the honour and privilege to interview Dr Marta Havryshko. This post includes both presentation and the interview.

Interview with Dr. Marta Havryshko

sources

https://www.gfh.org.il/eng

Might the U.S. Military Support Nuclear Disarmament?-By Robert Edwards

This a piece that was newly published On October 24,2022, for The New School’s online journal Public Seminar, responding to James Carroll’s epic six-part essay in that outlet, “Revelations of the War in Ukraine.” It was written by Robert Edwards a writer based in New York City (blogging at The King’s Necktie), and a former U.S. Army infantry and intelligence officer who served in Germany in the 1980s and Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.

Please read. And if you like this please like and follow his blog The King’s Necktie, where his brilliant and incisive writing never stops fighting the good fight. You will not be sorry! https://thekingsnecktie.com/

“Might the U.S. Military Support Nuclear Disarmament?
Its senior leadership is uniquely positioned in the present moment to pursue a revolutionary possibility.”

Might the U.S. Military Support Nuclear Disarmament?

Gideon Prager-1 year old boy murdered

It is stories like Gideon that make me want to give up doing blogs on the Holocaust, but paradoxically it also encourages me to continue with it. The reason why I want to stop is obvious. Every time when I see a picture of a beautiful innocent infant, knowing that child was murdered by an evil regime, I feel physical and mental pain. However, that is also the reason why I have to continue, to make sure it never happens again, although I feel like I and others are failing in that task.

There is not much to say about Gideon, how could there be he was only 1. He was born in the Hague ,Netherlands, on June 4,1942. On February 28,1944 he was transported to Westerbork but from there he was deported to Auschwitz on March 6,1944, together with 661 other men, women and children. Gideon was murdered in Auschwitz on March 6,1944.

There is more information about his family and especially about his mother and her family.

Family Prager

Fany Feingersch came as a German refugee from Celle to Zevenaar on 9 March 1939. She lived from March 9, 1939 to November 22, 1939 at the Jewish Youth Farm in Gouda, the villa Catharinahoeve with over two hectares of land. On April 1, 1940 she left for Rotterdam.

Fany’s parents, Isaak (Yitzkhak) and Rebekka (Rivka) Feingersch-Aswolinskaya, left Odessa,Ukraine for Germany in 1912. Because they had the Russian nationality, they were interned,seperately in Holzminden during the First World War. Once out of the camp they moved to Ovelgönne near Celle. There Fany was born in 1918. She was the fourth child; after her, a sister and five brothers are born.

Fany managed to reach the Netherlands together with her sisters Marie and Rosa. As a so called Palestine Pioneer, she had an agricultural education and lived in different places. Four of her brothers went to British Mandated Palestine. Her parents and two youngest brothers remained behind in Celle.

On August 30, 1939, Fany addressed a personal, handwritten letter to Princess Juliana, the Crown princess and future Queen of the Netherlands, pleading for her parents and youngest brothers to temporarily stay in a refugee camp in the Netherlands, The request was denied.

Fany married Wilhelm (Willy) Prager on December 3, 1941.

They lived above the pastry shop on Korte Poten in The Hague. Their son Gideon is born on June 4, 1942.

Fany was pregnant with their second child when she arrived in Westerbork on 28 February 1944, together with her husband, their son Gideon and Gerda Klein, her husband’s niece who lived with them at the time . On March 3, 1944 they are deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz (transport no. 89). Fany is murdered simultaneously with Gideon and Gerda on March 6, 1944.

Fany was 25 years old, Gideon was aged 1 and Gerda was 9 years old. Willy Prager survived the war. He was liberated in Dachau on April 29, 1945.

sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/144723/gideon-prager

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Gideon-Prager/01/20001

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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What happened Comrade Putin?

Dear Comrade Putin,

What happened? You tell your people that Ukraine is nearly defeated. You tell the citizens of Mother Russia that Ukraine is only popular in the west.

But I was watching the Eurovision Song contest last night and I noticed this strange thing. Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra has won the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin, Italy. It did get votes from all European countries

The same Russian threat actors that this week targeted Italian parliamentary and military websites and threatened to disrupt U.K. National Health Service (NHS) services, could now have the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 final in their crosshairs.

The Killnet threat group had threatened to “send 10 billion requests” to the Eurovision online voting system and “add votes to some other country.” But even that didn’t happen, although there were some glitches in the transmission of some countries which have some loyalties to Russia, like Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Comrade Putin maybe you haven’t heard and seen the winning song, so here it is, especially for you.

The 2nd Battle of Kharkiv

I don’t think not too many people would have expected at the start of 2022, that Kharkiv would be dailyin the news in relation to battles happening in the area.

It is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.Kharkiv was founded in 1654 as Kharkiv fortress, and after these humble beginnings, it grew to be a major centre of industry, trade and Ukrainian culture.

The 2n battle I am referring to is not in relation to the current war between Ukraine and Russia , but a battle which started on May 12,1942 during WW2.

The Second Battle of Kharkov, so named by Wilhelm Keitel, was an Axis counteroffensive against the Red Army Izium bridgehead offensive conducted from May 12 to May 28, 1942, on the Eastern Front during World War II. Its objective was to eliminate the Izium bridgehead.

On May 12, 1942, Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launched an offensive against the German 6th Army from a salient established during the winter counteroffensive. After initial promising signs, the offensive was stopped by German counterattacks. Critical errors by several staff officers and by Joseph Stalin himself, who failed to accurately estimate the 6th Army’s potential and overestimated their own newly-trained forces, led to a successful German pincer attack

The Soviets struck first. At 0630 hours, on May 12 an hour of artillery bombardment began, with the final 20 minutes joined by aircraft. At 0730 hours, the ground offensive began, meeting tough German defense from the start. By the end of the first day, the deepest penetration achieved by Soviet troops was merely 10 kilometers. Soviet generals realized that poor intelligence prior to operation led them to misjudge German strength in the region, which was twice as strong as they originally expected; part of that German advantage was possibly due to the Germans detected a possible Soviet attack, thus had bolstered strength at strategic locations. By the end of 14 May, both sides had suffered serious casualties. On the German side, the German 6th Army saw 16 of its battalions nearly wiped out.

By the end of May 24, Soviet forces opposite Kharkiv had been surrounded by German formations. Hemmed into a narrow area, the 250,000-strong Soviet force inside the pocket was exterminated from all sides by German armored, artillery and machine gun firepower as well as 7,700 tonnes of air-dropped bombs. After six days of encirclement, organized Soviet resistance came to an end as the Soviet formations were either killed or taken prisoner. The battle was an overwhelming German victory, with 280,000 Soviet casualties compared to just 20,000 for the Germans and their allies. The Second Battle of Kharkiv is know as a major Soviet setback that put an end to the successes of the Red Army during the winter counteroffensive.

The failure is often attributed to the Soviet inability to account for the military strength of the Wehrmacht as well as the reorganize their troops. The initial purpose of the attack on Kharkiv was for the Soviets to retake the previously captured strategic city of Kharkov assuming that they were now better prepared to deal with the German troops that had caught them off guard the previous year.

sources

https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=50

https://worldhistoryproject.org/1942/5/12/the-second-battle-of-kharkov

https://ukrainetour.com/activity/kharkiv-battle-history-tour/

BloodyMir Putin

Dear Comrade Putin,

You tell us that you don’t want a war. You are only conducting this ‘military operation’ in Ukraine to create peace.

You say you want-Mir-I believe that is ‘Peace’ in the Russian language. But if this is really ‘mir’ then please do explain it to that poor man in Odessa, who went out to the shop just to come back home, to find that his Mother,Wife and 3 month old baby were murdered by your ‘mir’

Please do explain it to that man, and do it face to face, don’t hide behind your soldiers. Man up and face this man, person to person.

However I don’t believe a coward like you is able to do that. But I am giving you the opportunity to prove me wrong.

Your mir is a bloody one. Are you Vladimir Putin the leader of Russia? Or are you BloodyMir Putin, dictator and genocidal maniac?

Only you can answer that.

The USSczaR

Dear Comrade Putin,

You are telling the world that you have carried out this military mission in the Ukraine, to protect its citizens, to rid it of Nazis. However you have not fully explained to us what you consider to be Nazis.

I would love it of you could just clarify that matter to a simpleton like me. When you say Nazi, are you referring to the Ukraine’s Jewish president whose grandfather barely survived the Holocaust?

Or were you perhaps referring to the 10 year old school girl Polina, who was murdered on your orders?

Maybe it is the 2 year old Shpak who was murdered during a shelling ordered by you. Was he that Nazi you were referring to? Is that the type of funerals you want to see more in the Ukraine to achieve your goals?

Dear Comrade Putin, if you can’t explain it to me may you can explain it to Oleh,Shpak’s Father? Because he asked “I don’t know if there is a God. What is this all for? For what?”

Dear Comrade Putin, your actions look a lot like that of a nationalised German Austrian, he also said in the 1930’s that he wanted to liberated the people in the Sudeten land and Poland. But he was a Nazi, So are you perhaps a Nazi, Comrade Putin? If so, the only thing for you to do to rid the Ukraine from Nazis is by withdrawing your troops.

Perhaps that isn’t your goal. Perhaps you long to the Russia of the days of yore? Where it was still part of the USSR and maybe you want to rule like Czar Nicholas once did. Maybe you want to become the new USSczaR.

If you ask me that is what you want to be. But people will not remember you as a Czar. They will see you like cowards such as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. That is what you real legacy will be.

Is that what you really want? It is not too late yet, you can still change that.

sources

https://www.news.com.au/national/what-is-this-all-for-father-mourns-2yearold-son-killed-in-russian-shelling/video/bae940c1ab46c5291ed2848ba1e2c53b

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/schoolgirl-polina-shot-dead-by-russian-troops-among-at-least-16-children-killed-in-ukraine-invasion-41395376.html

https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/from-the-archives-vladimir-putin-the-new-czar-1917416-2022-02-24