(1888PressRelease)
October 05, 2006 - The second World Holocaust Forum which took place in Kiev, Ukraine on September 26-27 was accompanied by massive protests. Crowds led by the Ukrainian political party of anarchists chanted, “Khmelnitsky – Petlyura – Babi Yar.” The slogan connected Babi Yar, an infamous place on the outskirts of Kiev where dozens of thousands of Jews were massacred in 1941-43, with national heroes of Ukraine: Bogdan Khmelnitsky (1595-1657) and Simon Petlyura (1879-1926) who massacred similar numbers of Jews. In Kiev and other cities, the protesters distributed about a million leaflets detailing the Ukrainians’ crimes against the Jews.
Protesters demanded abrogation of state honors to Khmelnitsky and Petlyura, introduction of an extensive program on Holocaust in schools, and an official investigation of the Ukrainians’ participation in genocide of 1918-21 and 1941-43. Ukrainian anarchists are historically close to the Jews; anarchist army of Nestor Makhno executed hundreds of perpetrators of pogroms.
The SamsonBlinded’s founder Obadiah Shoher said, “The President of Ukraine promotes ultra-nationalist values which led to the genocide before. Ukraine is nearly the only European country which lacks the Holocaust program in schools. Common Ukrainians don’t know that most murderers in Babi Yar were their compatriots, and that the Ukrainians cheered as the Jews departed from their cities. Hardly anyone knows of the genocide perpetrated by the national heroes Khmelnitsky and Petlyura. The Ukrainians still hold plenty of the confiscated Jewish property.” Shoher also blasted Jewish establishment for allowing the Ukraine, Poland, and Latvia – the countries most implicated in the World War II massacres of the Jews – to sponsor the Holocaust Forum. He called the forum’s name, Let my people live, a tasteless parody on Louis Armstrong’s song, Let my people go.
SamsonBlinded was formed around the Shoher’s manifesto, Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict. The group, in particular, aims at providing physical security for the Diaspora Jews, restitution of the confiscated Jewish property, and popularizing the facts of state-sponsored anti-Semitism worldwide.
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