Edmonton Statue of Nazi War Criminal Still Remains After Fifty Years

Discussions on Shukhevych’s war crimes came to the fore in the mainstream media two years ago. David Pugliese, writing in the Ottawa Citizen May 17, 2018, referenced the layers beneath Shukhevych’s repugnant past.

“Before going to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Shukhevych was commander of the Ukrainian battalion called Nachtigall,” wrote Pugliese. “The men of Nachtigall rounded up Jews in Lviv …  massacring men, women and children.” (It was then Lwów in Eastern Poland, now called Lviv, Ukraine)

Simon Wiesenthal Center estimated that the Nachtigall Battalion, along with other German military, murdered around 4,000 Jews in Lviv, with other historians estimating around 6,000.

In his 2016 research paper “The Cult of Roman Shukhevych in Ukraine: Myth Making with Complications”, Per Anders Rudling, a Swedish-American historian and an associate professor of the Department of History at Lund University in Sweden, delved into the soldier’s Nazi connections.

Soldiers of Nachtigall – or nightingale in English – partook in the Lviv pogrom, “as well as massacres of Jews in the vicinity of Vinnytsia,” wrote Rudling.

Elaborating in a recent Progress Report podcast, Rudling said to host Duncan Kinney: “Shukhevych became a symbol of armed resistance for control of Western Ukraine,” explaining how post-war immigrants perceived the man.  

Paula Kirman, a Jewish Edmontonian also in the podcast, has been vocal about the issue, and asked why an individual as Shukhevych “is placed figuratively and literally on a pedestal.” The journalist and activist has also been involved in a film project on the topic.

To add insult, there may be a trail of federal funding for the statue, Rudling explained in the podcast. As multiculturalism became entrenched in government policy beginning in the 1970s, “huge chunks of money” were allocated to ethnic community centers, including its monuments, and likely the case at the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex.

In terms of what we knew, and when, Rudling explained that during the 1970s and 1980s, comparatively little was widely known about most of the pogroms and massacres, especially at a time when people’s attention was diverted towards the Cold War.

“But I’m sure that while (today) you can do research, Ukrainians can now also do their own research,” he stated, in response to whether Ukrainians can plead ignorance. “There’s so much information out there. Archives have been opened, CIA documents have been opened, there’s a multitude of sources. It is established fact, that Shukhevych oversaw the murder of Jews.”

For their part, Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex sent a press release June 30 to City TV journalist Courtney Theriault, who had been pursuing her own story:

“We will continue to honour those who fought and sacrificed their lives to help achieve freedom and Independence for Ukraine, after centuries of foreign domination, primarily by Russia.”

Jeni Adler, the Intercultural Facilitator and Community Resource Specialist for Jewish Family Services, Edmonton, told TheJ.ca that there ought to be dialogue between local Ukrainians and Jews, and that it “should be mediated by someone with great sensitivity, insight and miraculous communication skills… There should be time in this session for a history lesson by both parties.”