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biographies create the negative image of someone who just spews tall tales off the top of his head, without any
consideration for making them consistent with earlier versions of those same tales. For example, Mr. Wiesenthal, what
impression do you imagine is created in the mind of a reader who is told in Justice Not Vengeance that Bodnar saved
you alone and took you to his apartment, but then is told in The Wiesenthal File that Bodnar saved you together with
another prisoner and took the two of you to the office of a "commissar" which office the two of you spent the entire
night cleaning? I will tell you what impression is created, Mr. Wiesenthal - it is that of a person lying so
clumsily, that one almost imagines that he does so in order to be caught and exposed so as to finally be able to
confess and to purge his conscience.
Sincerely yours,
Lubomyr Prytulak
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Wiesenthal Letter 15 Sep 8/97 The elusive Lviv pogrom
September 8, 1997
Simon Wiesenthal
Jewish Documentation Center
Salztorgasse 6
1010 Vienna
Austria
Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:
According to your testimony on the 60 Minutes broadcast of October 23, 1994, "The Ugly Face of Freedom," in three
days following the evacuation of the Communist forces and before the arrival of the German troops, Ukrainian police
killed between five and six thousand 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.
Now before going beyond what was actually said in the broadcast, we already see a discrepancy which I ask you to
comment on. Specifically, you are the expert on the Holocaust who is testifying on 60 Minutes, and more than that you
are the eyewitness to the Lviv pogrom - the only eyewitness - and you tell Morley Safer that 5 to 6 thousand Jews were
killed in three days - but then Mr. Safer turns around and changes it to 3 thousand killed in two days. This does not
seem fair - after all you were there and Morley Safer wasn't, and whereas for Mr. Safer, this is just a story that he
is covering, for you it is the pivotal experience which determined the course of your life, the experience which in
the words of Mr. Safer, "compelled Wiesenthal to seek out the guilty, to bring justice."
So I wonder why Morley Safer changed your numbers? As you are the only witness adduced, Mr. Safer seems to have
lowered your figures on his own initiative. I wonder if you have contacted Mr. Safer concerning his revision of your
estimate, or if in your subsequent discussions with Mr. Safer, you might have by now arrived at a mutually-agreed
estimate? If you have, I wonder if you would be able to tell me whether Mr. Safer has agreed to raise his estimate,
or if you have agreed to lower yours?
Be that as it may, it must surprise you to learn that when I consulted Leni Yahil's The Holocaust: The Fate of
European Jewry, Oxford, New York, 1990 for further information on the Lviv pogrom, I found nothing. There is no
indication in Yahil's book that such a pogrom ever took place. If Yahil's book were cursory or carelessly researched,
then the oversight of the single largest pogrom of the War might be understandable, but if we are to believe the
book's dust jacket, then it is one of the best works on the Jewish Holocaust ever written:
When The Holocaust first appeared in Israel in 1987, it was hailed as the finest, most
authoritative history of Hitler's war on the Jews ever published. Representing twenty years of
research and reflection, Leni Yahil's book won the Shazar prize, one of Israel's highest awards
for historical work.
Well, in my continuing quest to learn more about the Lviv pogrom which you describe on 60 Minutes, I turned next
to Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews, Holmes Meier, New York, 1985. This work too cannot be
accused of being either cursory or carelessly researched. For example, the publisher's promotional material claims:
This landmark work, now substantially revised and expanded, is destined to remain the foremost
source to which historians and others must turn in any exploration of the most infamous crime in
history.
...
This definitive edition of THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EUROPEAN JEWS is the most complete,
comprehensive, and authoritative account of the Nazi Holocaust.
As well, this same promotional material cites critical acclaim for Hilberg's work in Michael R. Marrus's review in The
Times Literary Supplement which ends in the words:
No single book has contributed more, even to its critics, to an understanding of Nazi genocide.
In its originality, scope, and seriousness of theme, this is one of the great historical works
of our time.
But what does Hilberg say about the Lviv pogrom, this most massive pogrom of the Second World War; what does he