Russian Jewish Leader Slams Ukraine Moguls in Flap Over World War II Nazi Ally
Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian nationalist accused of fighting alongside the Nazis, is at the center of a new feud on Facebook.
A former leader of Russian Jews said he would like to hang prominent Ukrainian Jews “until they stop breathing” as a feud deepens over their refusal to denounce a onetime Nazi ally during World War II.
Yevgeny Satanovsky, who served as a president of the Russian Jewish Congress in the years 2004 and 2005, made the assertion on March 9 about Joseph Zissels, leader of the Vaad Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine, and Igor Kolomoisky, a Jewish billionaire who is the governor of the district of Dnepropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine.
During a radio interview for the Govorit Moskva station, Satanovsky, who currently heads the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies in Moscow, said he would like to kill both men because he said they maintain that Stephan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who during World War II collaborated with the Nazis and later fought against them, is not responsible for the death of Jews murdered by men under his command.
“A significant number of Ukrainian officials, he said, “out of cowardice, stupidity, or from general meanness says that ‘Bandera didn’t kill any Jews.’ On this, allow me to reiterate: When and if there’s way to do this, then I will hang Kolomoisky and Joseph Zissels at least in Dnepropetrovsk in front of the Golden Rose Synagogue until they stop breathing.”
Both Zissels and Kolomoisky are pro-Ukrainian nationalists and harsh critics of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, where separatists backed by Moscow recently signed a ceasefire with Ukrainian troops at the end of a yearlong war that has claimed 6,000 lives.
That war and Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year has generated intense animosity between Russians and Ukrainians, and has also pitted Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian Jewish leaders against some of their Russian counterparts.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
