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Ukraine's New Memory Czar Tones Down Glorification of War Criminals

(Times of Israel) Sam Sokol - Over the past five years, streets all over Ukraine have been named after people like Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its offshoot, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), whose men collaborated with the Nazis and were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles during World War II. But Dr. Anton Drobovych, the new director of Ukraine's Institute of National Memory (UINP), appears to be questioning such moves. Drobovych said the institute has stopped actively promoting the legacy of far-right leaders, but that does not mean he has fully repudiated them. He told the Times of Israel that he was focusing on rehabilitating people condemned by the communists, locating Ukrainian war graves in Poland, compiling oral histories of the current Russo-Ukrainian conflict, and collaborating with the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies to distribute textbooks and hold seminars for teachers. Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, said that "on the issues of the glorification of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators," Drobovych "is more objective, he is more correct in terms of historical memory." Yet memorials to Nazi collaborators are still going up around the country, albeit not as frequently as in previous years.
2020-06-26 00:00:00
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