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broadcast became aware of Mr. Safer's error, and if so, if you as a result asked him to
issue a correction?
Also, if you are only now for the first time learning of Mr. Safer's error, I
wonder if you could tell me if you now intend to ask Mr. Safer to issue a correction?
Sincerely yours,
Lubomyr Prytulak
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL 886 hits since 18Jan98
Wiesenthal Letter 23 Sep 23/97 The pious executioners
September 23, 1997
Simon Wiesenthal
Jewish Documentation Center
Salztorgasse 6
1010 Vienna
Austria
Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:
I wonder if you are aware that during the German occupation of Lviv, the Greek
Catholic church, headed by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, was courageous and outspoken
in defense of Jews? Here are four quotations which provide some details as to the role
played by Sheptytsky, and which demonstrate that this role is widely acknowledged:
There is little doubt as to the almost saintly role of Ukrainian
(Greek) Catholic Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. Sheptytsky,
Archbishop of L'viv and head of the church, was widely known as being
sympathetic to the Jews. ... The elderly metropolitan wrote directly
to SS commander Heinrich Himmler in the winter of 1942 demanding an end
to the final solution and, equally important to him, an end to the use
of Ukrainian militia and police in anti-Jewish action. His letter
elicited a sharp rebuke, but Sheptytsky persisted even though the death
penalty was threatened to those who gave comfort to Jews. In November
1942 he issued a pastoral letter to be read in all churches under his
authority. It condemned murder. Although Jews were not specifically
mentioned, his intent was crystal clear.
We can never know how many Ukrainians were moved by Sheptytsky's
appeal. Certainly the church set an example. With Sheptytsky's tacit
approval, his church hid a number of Jews throughout western Ukraine,
150 Jews alone in and around his L'viv headquarters. Perhaps some of
his parishioners were among those brave and precious few "righteous
gentiles" who risked an automatic death penalty for themselves and
their families by harbouring a Jew under their roof.
The towering humanity of Sheptytsky remains an inspiration today.
(Harold Troper Morton Weinfeld, Old Wounds, 1988, pp. 17-18)
He [Sheptytsky] dispatched a lengthy handwritten letter dated August
29-31, 1942 to the Pope, in which he referred to the government of the
German occupants as a regime of terror and corruption, more diabolical
than that of the Bolsheviks. (Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims,
Bystanders, 1992, p. 267)
One of those saved by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was Lviv's Rabbi
Kahane whose son is currently the marshal commander of the Israeli Air
Force. (Ukrainian Weekly, June 21, 1992, p. 9)
Sheptitsky himself hid fifteen Jews, including Rabbi Kahane, in his own
residence in Lvov, a building frequently visited by German officials.
(Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust, 1986, p. 410)
However, despite the widespread agreement that the Catholic church headed by
Sheptytsky was outspoken and courageous in its defense of Jews, you have consistently
portrayed Christianity in general, and the Catholic church in Lviv in 1941 in
particular, as being virulently anti-Semitic. I refer, for example, to your fable of
the alcoholic priest in Western Ukraine who incites a pogrom (Alan Levy, The Wiesenthal
File, 1993, p. 24), which fable I have already brought to your attention in my letter
to you of December 8, 1994; and I refer as well to your story of the Ukrainians who you
say almost executed you:
As the shots and shouts of the boisterous Ukrainians drew closer to
Wiesenthal, he heard a new sound: church bells. The Ukrainians heard
it, too. Good Orthodox Catholics all, they laid down their arms for
evening mass.
Wiesenthal and his friend had stood five or six bullets away from
extinction. (Alan Levy, The Wiesenthal File, Constable, London, 1993,
p. 36)
Now if it is the case as we have just seen above that the Catholic church
unambiguously and unequivocally stood for the defense of Jews, then we would expect
devout Catholics to not be among the executioners of Jews. Conversely, given that
someone is among the executioners of Jews, we would expect him not to be a devout
Catholic. Your portrayal of sadistic executioners as being simultaneously devout
Catholics is incongruous and elicits incredulity.
But your story goes beyond the incongruous to the grotesque. You portray a team
of executioners who have been repeatedly drinking vodka - and may therefore be depicted
as drunk. You say that they have also just been shooting prisoners in the back of the
neck, and then lifting the bodies from the floor and placing them into makeshift